Even though the Colossi had been able to use their Orb of Worlds to locate the small world, Eva seemed to unable to replicate it no matter how hard she tried. However, she had expected this, as system-defined items were not so liberal.
If it wasn't listed under the effects of the item, then it was likely not part of the item's abilities. However, there were always exceptions to a rule, and the right people with certain affinities and traits might be able to work something else out of it, yet she was not one of them. Eva could only assume that the Colossi had someone like that among their ranks, or that their replica of the Orb of Worlds had a different set of effects.
Since her will failed to achieve the results she wanted, she tried her Control. If anything could trigger a sensory response from the orb, it would be the Void of Perfection. As she channeled the ability, she was happy to notice that it had a reaction... but not in the way she had expected.
The Orb of Worlds received her connection, but could not expand it over a distance. She wanted to sense any pocket realms within a certain distance, not sense everything inside the entire Area Zone. The more she focused on this kind of connection, the more she felt attuned to the flows of space around her.
A Voidmancer would kill for the opportunity to have the kind of experience she was having. It might not help them right now, but when players began to focus on techniques, they would need a strong grasp over their element to cast without using spellbooks.
While Eva was in this strange state, she felt like the entire world had become a sea of purple waves that was moving slowly and gently. She understood that these waves were the flows of space, which was never static as people seemed to believe, neither was it one big picture.
Eva marveled at this sight for a bit before noticing that there were spots in the area where the waves were unable to flow into. It was like there were blank spots where the purple 'water' should flow over, which led Eva to believe that there were either hidden spaces or holes in the void there.
In order to check out what it was, she told Luxia to head to one of the blank spots in the far distance. When the Light Phoenix appeared there, Eva noticed that it was a spot in the middle of the sky, and it looked as normal as any other. However, she was certain that she had seen a blank spot there, so she narrowed her eyes and plunged her hand through.
To her pleasure, the part of her arm that she pushed through the spot disappeared. This meant that there was indeed a pocket space there of some sorts, most likely a natural one. Eva had no interest in exploring it as she had much more important things to do, so she pulled her hand back and just sent the co-ordinates to the Guild Text Chat for the members to send a team for exploration.
After gaining insight into her ability, Eva smiled, but then frowned. She had basically ascertained that she could now sense pocket spaces with their replica Orb of Worlds, but the problem was that every pocket space looked the same. If the Merchant Guild had more than one on location, how was she supposed to tell the difference?
Eva sighed and rubbed her forehead. The more means she discovered, the more walls she ran into. Raiding any of the top powers was easy - for her - if she just aimed at their normal treasuries, the same ones that they use to fool the Demons every millennium. However, raiding their true treasury proved to be quite the impossible task that required a cut above perfection.
Still, she had no choice but to go through with this. As such, she pushed away her frustration and made Luxia take her to the Rank 7 Shop. Here, she browsed through most of the shops, buying or simply claiming certain items that would help. Of course, she didn't make her purchases in a way that would make it obvious that she was trying to rob someone.
More than 99% of the many items she got were random stuff that were generally useful for battle or exploration, while the true items she wanted were hidden among the masses. Eva repeated this process in almost every shop, buying what she needed piece by piece and never all at once.
Many powers and people took note of Eva's buying spree, but quickly lost interest when they saw what she was buying. She was probably prepping those Immortal Adventurers of hers for some big quest, hence her plentiful purchases. None of them were interested in finding out more about this, as they had their own tasks.
Of course, Eva had lowered her hood, transforming into Riveting Night while she was shopping. She radiated an unfriendly aura to make sure that no one disturbed her as she made her preparations, otherwise they would get a knife to the throat.
After completing her shopping spree, Eva left the Rank 7 Shop in Cario City and returned to Vita City-State. There, she tossed the items she bought to Sublime Notion and said: "Organize a huge raiding party to clear a Legendary Dungeon. I shall provide the means to access it, but make sure everyone is ready before then. Just make sure to use these items for the raid if necessary."
Sublime received the stuff and raised an eyebrow. One gaze at Eva and she smiled wickedly. "Planning a robbery, eh? Using us to have a solid alibi as usual? I'll make the basic arrangements. Everything should work out perfectly, Big Miss."
Eva snorted and left in a huff, Sublime snickering all the way. Despite that, she quickly went to round up the various advanced and expert members of the guild available, leaving out the core and basic members to do other tasks. Once they had been briefed, that was one of Eva's problems sorted.
She next went to Zaine and shared her plan with the succubus. Zaine simply smiled and nodded, pledging to help Eva succeed in every way possible. She even made suggestions and Eva was all too happy to receive her modifications to the plan.
The intelligence of the succubus, while not world-renowned, was something she had been known for in certain circles. As such, help from her was more of a boon than a hindrance. One could only pity Mephisto that his daughter had been too lazy to make good use of her talent while she was still at his side.
The best part was that Eva didn't need to tell her what to do about the negotiation. Putting aside Zaine's charm and ability to sense emotions that would make her the perfect negotiator, she was also socially adept and intelligent.
She could easily string the top echelon of the Merchant Guild along, keeping their l.u.s.t flared and their greed spiked for the duration of time Eva needed.
Now, it was time for Eva to add the finishing touches. She traveled over to the Merchant Guild's area and sat atop Luxia, who flapped her wings slowly. To any onlooker, it looked like the fabled Eva was just passing through, but she was actually trying to locate all pocket realms in the vicinity and narrow them down.
She discovered four of them, with two being tiny spots of darkness in the shape of bags. Eva concluded that these had to be Bags of Holding. The two pocket realms were located in the gardens and in the main treasury respectively, whereas the two Bags of Holding were located in the armory and the bedroom of the Guildmaster.
Try as she might, Eva could not sense anything more from there. As such, she switched off the ability and frowned thoughtfully. She assumed that the Bag of Holding with the Merchant Guild's Guildmaster was his personal property, used to store his goods.
The one in the armory might be used to store exotic weapons or items for quick withdrawal assuming a client wanted to purchase something from the guild. For the pocket realms, the one in the treasury looked most likely to be her target, while the one in the gardens seemed to be either for training or for growing exotic plants?
Eva knew that this was too reliant on guesswork. She would have loved to capture a core member of the guild for interrogation, but her Rank was too low to glean anything from them, much less capture them.
This significantly raised the difficulty of the heist, but Eva knew that she could not give up. She had to see this through if she wanted to achieve her goals in the short term, so it only came down to her skill, her preparations, and a healthy smattering of luck.
After scouting out the location, she silently returned to Vita City-State and shared her findings with Zaine. The succubus was intelligent but not clairvoyant. She could only make some controversial assumptions, but not glean the truth easily.
Fortunately, they had someone who had the ability required. Eva called over Jada and asked the pettanko to check her chances of success for the heist in multiple ways. The results surprised Eva, as she was unaware that Jada's clairvoyance had become much more… formal.
Before, she could only sense the probabilities of events and actions, but it had since evolved allowing her to do that while also seeing some bits about the future. As such, her evaluation was the following:
"You have an 80% chance of success in finding the right location of the treasury, a 70% chance of successfully locating the money you need in the right quantity, and a 90% chance to complete the heist unscathed. However, there is a 50% chance that the Merchant Guild will tie the robbery to us, bringing the onset of a horrible war."
Eva was first happy with the results, then became solemn at the end. It was nice to know that her chances of success were so high for such a dangerous heist, but the possibility of fallout was quite steep.
Even if she did everything perfectly like a ninja, there was still a 50-50 chance that the Merchant Guild would find out that it was her and launch retribution. Eva was not surprised about this, since Boundless was a world of magic.
Heck, they could even call a Grandmaster Diviner and have the fellow check who the thief was. Eva had prepared for that by purchasing an Epic Anti-Scrying scroll, but whether it would hold up was up in the air.
There was a great risk in this endeavor, just as there was a great reward. Eva was not particularly scared of the Merchant Guild, as they would be crushed by Umbra in due time, but that was the issue: it could only be achieved in time.
Right now, Umbra was nowhere near ready to take on such a behemoth, and fighting them would stunt their progress while other guilds would catch up or foolishly join the bandwagon.
However, the time for hesitation was over.
A week later, after making sure that everything was in place, Eva moved out. The members who formed the raiding party were on their way to quest in the Legendary Dungeon while being led by Eva and Sublime Notion.
She took them to a branch of the Adventurer's Guild and flashed her Divine Herald's Badge, using the authority to grant her group access. Once this was logged, Eva led them to the entrance of the Legendary Dungeon.
As she entered, she activated a certain scroll that split her into two copies, one continuing into the dungeon with Sublime and co right behind her while the other went incognito and left the area.
The actual Eva used a return scroll to head to Vita City-State and from there, used Luxia to carry herself and Zaine to the location of the Merchant Guild. When the Light Phoenix arrived on the premises, the members of the Merchant Guild hurriedly came to meet the visiting party.
However, they only happened to see one person on the Light Phoenix's back, which made no waves to them as this was what they expected from the message they had received.