Chương 42: Departure

Inside the Blues Stimulant Bar, the fluorescent blue liquid swayed gently in the glass. Rowan sat quietly in the shadow at the edge of the booth. Under the cover of his hood, the high-grade AR retina in his right eye was rapidly projecting streams of text as he read through the encrypted attachment Hermit had just sent. He skipped over Hermit's opening pleasantries and his obvious eagerness to continue their cooperation. Right now, Rowan cared more about the mana channeling technique.

As for the family history, he decided to read it after the mission. After turning past two and a half pages, he finally reached the core content he had been looking for. [Lancer Mana Channeling Art]. A secret technique passed down within the family, with an upper limit reaching D3-grade. Below it was a note from Hermit: (This appears to be a relic from the Third Era. It is quite rare. The book claims to have been granted by an earl from a certain Red Sand Alliance state, but I was unable to find any records related to this Red Sand Alliance. Considering how much time has passed, I hope you can provide more materials!) The deciphered file clearly outlined the operating logic of this technique. On the basis of sensing the mana-pressure differential, the user condensed "mana vortices" around the Source Crystal Core with Mental Power.

Each additional vortex increased the speed of drawing in external mana. If all four vortices were opened, the overall absorption efficiency could be forced up by twenty percent.

"If I master this channeling art, it will speed up the expansion of my mana pool. I'm still only at six-tenths of single-phase. If I want to reach the top of single-phase before the Military's practical combat assessment..." Rowan calculated the time.

"I'll need to buy some cultivation supplements." After reading this section, Rowan compared it with Terra's [Basic Mana Channeling v2. 2] and quickly noticed the difference. Terra's mana environment was like a dried-up sponge. Although [Basic Mana Channeling v2. 2] was only the official public version, it was still the product of countless rounds of optimization through processing power. It was not fast, but it excelled at creating mana-pressure differentials, allowing cultivation even in low-mana environments.

[Lancer Mana Channeling Art], by contrast, clearly cared more about cultivation speed. Its creator had never considered the possibility of insufficient mana. If expanding a mana pool was compared to drawing water, then [Basic Mana Channeling v2. 2] increased water pressure, while [Lancer Mana Channeling Art] added four small pipes to increase flow. Practicing [Lancer Mana Channeling Art] on Terra would most likely draw in very little mana. The efficiency would be poor.

"Adapt to the environment. This channeling art can wait until I return to the other world." However, a secret technique attached to the end of the ancient text made Rowan's attention sharpen. [Lancer · Instant Shadow]. This was a burst technique designed to assist footwork. By overloading and burning a portion of one's Mental Power and mana in an instant, it could force [Wellspring Step] to erupt with several times its normal speed for five short seconds. Solly was explaining details to Syringe, Adams, and Logan.

The mages did not need too many task arrangements. After all, they were the main combat force. Specific tactics would have to be adjusted on the spot once they entered the ruin. Rowan calmly took a sip of the blue stimulant drink. Five seconds was not long, but it was not short either. In battle, even one second could change the outcome.

"Let's move." After finishing the final details, Solly set down his glass, a hint of excitement in his expression. Everyone got up and followed Solly through the streets. Half an hour later, the team arrived at the outermost edge of the Seventh Abyssal Hive. Rowan rarely came to the edge of the Abyssal Hive. The sight before him made it hard not to feel the weight of human engineering. From the outside, the Abyssal Hive looked like a ring-shaped city enclosed by high walls.

But now, Rowan was seeing a small part of the Terra Republic's true structure. It was a vast fortress hub filled with heavy industry and magitech arrays, standing at the junction where two massive walls stretched toward the horizon. The walls were hundreds of meters tall, and the fortress sat between them like a giant beacon tower built into the wall itself. From a high-altitude view, the two walls cut across the land to the left and right.

Their surfaces were engraved with dense defensive arrays flowing with dark red light. The so-called Seventh Abyssal Hive was a "node" where these two wall segments met.

"Stop staring, rookie. Don't fall behind. Keep moving." Carl shoved Rowan roughly. The group followed Solly through the security checkpoint and entered the industrial transport zone at the edge, boarding a giant industrial lift that led downward. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Because the Abyssal Hive was built on a wall hub, what they had to do now was descend to the base of the wall before they could enter the true Sector 5.

The lift was enormous, like a small plaza, large enough to carry several thousand tons. At the moment, it was crowded with all kinds of people. On the left stood an official cleanup squad wearing gray standard-issue exoskeletons. They held large-caliber magitech rifles, their eyes as cold as machines.

"Official cleanup support team," Solly said in a low voice.

"We'll follow them for the first part of the route and borrow some free security." On the right was a group of array maintenance workers wearing sealed magitech hazmat suits. They gathered together, making a final check of their engraving machines, detection prisms, and other tools. Farther back was a Consortium research team surrounded by layers of security. With a harsh grinding of gears and a moment of weightlessness, the thousand-ton lift rumbled downward, sinking toward the bottomless smog below.

In the center of the lift, several mercenaries in flashy armor had gathered around a floating livestream orb. One of them wore a streamlined white exoskeleton with folded metal wings on its back. He shouted loudly at the camera.

"Listen up, everyone! Take a good look! This is Blackwater Heavy Industries' [Flying Bird Type-III] exoskeleton magitech armor! See these jet wings? It can sustain short flight for two minutes. If you get surrounded by aberrant beasts in Sector 5, this is your only lifeline!"

"And beside me is the [Fire Hog-3] heavy cannon. The firepower is absolutely fierce!" The man shouted until his voice was hoarse.

"I argued with those stingy bastards in Blackwater's marketing department for ages before I got this exclusive twenty-percent discount! Limited to the first five units! Oh, four are already sold! Last one! Place your order now!" The streamer roared with excitement, while his companions cooperated by striking the nearby [Fire Hog-3] heavy magitech cannon, producing a hard metallic clang. Rowan's AR window automatically identified the equipment. It was high-end gear.

It could indeed sustain short flight and came with a small Tainted Energy shielding field. Price: [37, 000 Terra Credits (TC)]. Rowan watched the familiar scene. A few seconds later, the streamer shouted in surprise,"Sold out! Ah, wait! The merchant saw how enthusiastic everyone was, so the system just restocked three more units! Last three! Really the last three!" This was most likely a Consortium-sponsored mercenary squad. They got better equipment, but in exchange, they also had to handle advertising and sales.

Not far away, several unaffiliated mercenaries were loudly cursing, which caught Rowan's attention.

"Those idiot programmers at the Aether Consortium should have their brains scraped out and smeared on a wall!" A scalper-mercenary with a fleshy face was ranting along with his teammates.

"They actually marked me as a credit defaulter! Locked me out for five whole hours!"

"Enough, Barnes," his companion said, trying to calm him down.

"Didn't the Consortium's pharmaceutical division say an intern misunderstood the notice and made a mistake? It was only five hours."

"Mistake, my ass!" Barnes was so angry he nearly jumped in place.

"They made an announcement, then dragged out some nameless nobody to take the blame. Who are they trying to fool? Children?"

"I happened to have a big customer with an urgent order for Ice-Marrow Fluid. High-end coolant like that isn't easy to find. I finally managed to reserve a batch in advance, and because of those few hours of 'mistake,' my order was frozen. The customer went straight to Old Li next door! I lost a full eight thousand Terra Credits!" Standing in the shadows, Rowan smiled faintly. An intern's mistake? Could Julian not come up with a more believable excuse next time? He immediately matched the timeline.

This was no mistake. This was clearly the aftershock from the day of the Military's preliminary screening exam, when Julian had used his privilege to block the entire lower-level coolant trading network in order to stop Rowan from buying coolant. This man had simply been caught in the fallout. Boom! A heavy impact interrupted Rowan's thoughts. The lift slammed down onto the base beneath the wall. The thick airlock doors slowly opened amid hissing white mist.

The moment Rowan stepped out of the passage, a strange suffocating sensation pressed against him. Under the gray sky stretched land with almost no life. The few plants that remained looked twisted, their bodies clawing outward like cursed things, giving off a faint and unsettling glow. At almost the same time, Rowan felt the mana pool inside his body begin to leak. Because of the low external mana pressure, mana was slowly and uncontrollably seeping out through his pores.

"Inject," Solly said beside him. Everyone quickly took out their [Source-Energy Neutralizing Solution] and injected it into their veins. As the medicine entered their bodies, a faint blue glow appeared beneath their skin, finally stopping the mana loss. Rowan saw that the other teams nearby were also preparing their own protection. Once their defenses were ready, Rowan's group quickly arrived at the temporary wartime garage at the base of the wall. Solly brought out their vehicle for this mission.

It was an all-terrain tracked armored vehicle with a rough, brutal design. Its body was covered in rivets and anti-collision spikes. In Sector 4, faster magitech hovercars engraved with magical arrays could be seen everywhere. But outside, that kind of high-end vehicle was just scrap metal. The Tainted Energy in Sector 5 would quickly corrode precision magical arrays, unless one was willing to pay an absurd price to coat the entire vehicle in a Tainted Energy shielding layer.

That was why a tracked armored vehicle like this was the most economical and durable choice for mercenaries. It used mana-crystals as crude combustion fuel, relied mostly on mechanical transmission, and only needed shielding around the core engine and mana-crystal energy tank. Carl climbed into the driver's cabin with practiced ease. The heavy machine gun was loaded.

With a burst of black smoke from the exhaust pipe, the tracked armored vehicle crushed the dead aberrant plants beneath it and followed the official convoy, racing toward the wilderness thirty kilometers away. Rowan looked back. Beneath the towering wall, humans were as small as dust. The defensive arrays flowing with dark red light across the wall were enormous. Even a single submodule of one array was larger than a heavy truck. Dull mana pulses roared through the pipelines inside the wall.

With each vibration, dust shook loose from the ground beneath Rowan's feet. The scenery of the wasteland was monotonous and oppressive. Along the way, bulky, slow-moving low-tier aberrant beasts appeared outside the window from time to time. The official squad displayed brutal firepower. The array beneath the heavy magitech cannon on the roof flashed again and again. Each flash sent a compressed mana shell roaring from the muzzle, plowing a scorched trench half a meter deep through the wasteland.

Those low-tier aberrant beasts, which could easily tear mortals apart, did not even get the chance to scream before they were vaporized by high-temperature mana into purple-black blood mist and charred remains. Carl kept his foot on the accelerator, carefully driving the tracked vehicle along the edge of the "safe path" carved open by the official convoy. Smelling the charred flesh in the air, Rowan deeply felt the exaggerated equipment gap between lower-class mercenaries and the official regular army.

Through the observation port, he saw that many other teams had also gathered around the official convoy, refusing to waste even a single bullet. The cabin shook violently. When the armored vehicle had gone about ten kilometers in, it finally split away from the official cleanup squad. After another five kilometers, it left the coverage range of the heavy magitech cannons mounted on the wall behind them. A few minutes later, the real danger arrived.

"Captain!" Syringe, who had been staring at the mana scanner radar, suddenly turned pale and shouted in a sharp voice.

"High-speed heat source approaching from the right! Extremely fast! The tracked vehicle can't shake it off!" Before he finished speaking, a dull bang came from the steel plate on the right side of the armored vehicle. Then came the teeth-grinding sound of metal being torn apart. Rowan looked through the observation window. Several monsters with narrow, streamlined bodies had latched onto the outer armor of the vehicle.

Degenerated fleshy wings grew from their backs, and their forelimbs were coated in a sickly green corrosive liquid.

"Wind-Raider Aberrant Wolves!" Solly's expression darkened. He yanked open the top hatch.

"These bastards are too fast. If we keep driving, their corrosive fluid will jam the treads! Stop the vehicle! Kill them!" Carl slammed the brakes. The heavy rear hatch of the armored vehicle crashed down. Cold wind poured into the cabin like knives.