Much about this facility was foreign to Emery. Everything was so unfamiliar to his eyes. He knew that he couldn’t just depend on her strength nor his spell to sneak in, hence he decided to use one innate ability that he hadn’t used for a while.
[Shapeshifting]
As his blood stirred and the ability took effect, Emery’s figure gradually changed, transforming to the one he knew had access to the facility.
“What do you think? Is this close enough?” He asked Magus Conleth, having the appearance of the deceased magus of the Nexus faction, Magus Jorah. At the question, the burly magus observed him from top to bottom for a moment before nodding his head.
Seeing the positive response from his other two companions as well, Emery began to walk towards the South Outpost in a casual manner so as to not raise any suspicions. In the meantime, his two friends were watching from their hiding spot.
As soon as he arrived and walked towards the gate, Emery could see many devices turned their attention toward him. It seemed that they were verifying his identity as soon enough the closed gate was opened.
He then walked across a field with many turret towers, heading towards one particular warehouse which only had one door as its entry point. At glance, the place was merely an empty metal container.
However, when Emery entered he immediately felt the sensation as if he was being scanned. Before he could think of what it was, a tremor occurred and the container began to descend – all happened just as Magus Conleth had said.
When the door opened once more, Emery was greeted by the sight of dozens or so of mechanical soldiers. A sonorous synthetic voice could then be heard in the air, evidently coming from this group of mechanical soldiers.
[Welcome back, Magus Jorah]
He inwardly heaved a sigh of relief hearing that.
This greeting Emery received basically confirmed that his [Shapeshifting] innate ability was indeed capable of deceiving the mechanical soldiers. It should be one hundred percent certain as these machines rely heavily on their visual scanning, but there was still a chance of failure; hence the reason for his nervousness.
Emery continued to walk in nonchalantly and quickly made his way through the place. Now that he had already inside the facility, he found that his impaired Spirit Reading had recovered slightly, allowing him to assess his current location and his path based on where the people were.
To his surprise, Emery sensed a lot of people in a huge hall just a few doors ahead.
As he made his way through the hallway, walked through the doors one by one, and drew closer to where he sensed many people, Emery began to gradually feel a certain familiar signature. Moments later, he finally opened the last door and saw them.
Dark skin and elongated ears, they were the Dark Elves.
Quickly sweeping his gaze across the place, Emery saw that there were thirty of them, with one of them emitting the aura typical of a magus-level figure.
Of course, his attention quickly fixed on the sole elf magus of the group, who should have a similar power to the one he had fought on the Kurtulmak planet. This elf magus had a peculiar aura, different to the point that Emery couldn’t tell if the other party was a Crescent Moon or a Half Moon magus.
p With this uncertainty and the fact that elf magus were known to be one stage stronger than that of human magus, Emery wasn’t sure if he could defeat the other party if they ended up clashing.
Even the other elves were not to be underestimated. Although all twenty-nine of them were not magus, each one was stronger than any saint he had ever met.
Not wanting to waste his time and attract suspicion, Emery didn’t pause for long and quickly continued his move. He still maintained his casual demeanor as he carefully and closely observed what these people were doing in this place.
From their attire and gait, he concluded that most of these elves were indeed fighters. However, he still managed to spot a few who seemed to be scholars. These people in white were busy directing dozens of mechanical drones to do various jobs.
At the moment, they seemed to be building something that looked like a bizarre combination of technology and formation. The drones were flying around everywhere as they attached, filled, and fixed numerous small structures that filled the half-mile-sized space.
At just a glance, it was apparent that this was a huge project. Unfortunately, even after observing for a while, Emery still did not have a clue what exactly these elves were building.
After observing for another minute, Emery decided it was enough and began to search where the parts for this project were coming from. As he followed the drones who were flying in a certain direction, he finally found an item he recognized.
The Replicator machine.
Seeing the familiar ordinary-looking yet extraordinary machine, Emery couldn’t help but stop in his tracks and wonder, ‘Didn’t Nexus only have four of them? If so, why is there one in this place?”
In order to confirm that the machine standing in front of eyes was indeed what he thought it was, Emery walked up to it and began to inspect it. It didn’t take long for him to confirm that it was indeed extremely similar to the one he had found in the rebel underground base.
“This can prove that the Nexus faction indeed is helping the enemy…” He murmured to himself.
Emery couldn’t help but want to report his findings to the alliance. As he moved away from the machine, he noticed that someone was approaching him.
The elf magus he sensed earlier, gilded straight towards him. The moment their eyes met, Emery could see that the other party’s were filled with suspicion.
“What are you doing here?” the dark elf coldly inquired.
Emery felt a pang of panic at the question, but managed to not show the slightest bit of it on his face. There was no way he could avoid answering the question, therefore he quickly tried to keep his cover as best he could.
With Magus Jorah’s trademark calm look, he dryly said, “I was tasked to check for problems with the Replicator machine.”
The dark elf was silent for a while hearing his answer. Emery braced himself for a fight as every second passed, but in the end the other party’s scrutinizing expression loosened.
“Everything is fine. Now get lost.”
Emery responded with a subtle nod and was prepared to leave. However, before he could even take a step away, the dark elf stopped him with a doubtful voice.
“What is wrong with… your spirit core…?”
Emery felt his heart stop beating at those words. The elf definitely noticed that there were changes in his, or rather, Magus Jorah’s cultivation. Although Emery was not a magus, the quality of his spirit force was arguably similar to that of a magus. But even so, it couldn’t hide the peculiarity of his spirit cores, and this was the reason for the dark elf’s suspicion.
Knowing that things would turn south if nothing was done, Emery quickly said, “Ah, yes.. some trouble occurred outside and I got hurt in the process.”
This time, it was clear that the elf was skeptical about his words. However, as the two of them stared and observed each other, a dark elf suddenly approached the dark elf magus. Emery immediately perked his ears when he heard them speaking in their language.
The translator was able to pick up a few words; it was apparently something about a call from the Nexus space station.
At this, Emery couldn’t help but feel a foreshadowing.
He was about to be discovered.