“Anywho, release me so I can get to work locating the damn dongle. I don’t even get to enjoy the rewards until I finish my damn Evolution, so time is of the essence.” Gritting his teeth while keeping his body perfectly still, Cynrik angrily glared at Norik until he finally let him go.
“Get to it; the sooner, the better; I don’t have all day.” After dropping Cynrik and shooing him away, Norik set about scrolling through his control panel and examining the [Dynamic Lens] skill in its entirety.
‘This little bastard is going to pull off some crazy shit the more powerful he becomes; I can’t believe I am finding myself looking forward to it.’ Norik thought while hiding the faint smile creeping onto his lips with his hand.
Straightening the grey high-collared undershirt he wears under his blazer, Cynrik snorted and found himself back under the Aether Capsule.
‘Seriously, this guy is getting on my nerves. Can’t he just let me work in peace without the threats?’ Taking a deep breath, Cynrik brought his left hand up and covered both his eyes.
‘Now that I’ve got an actual skill, things are a bit different, [Dynamic Lens].’ Following the typical habit he had developed over time, Cynrik allowed Tobs the first activation of his new skill so that he could understand the proper Mana channeling necessary for the completed skill.
Although he had been the one to create it, Cynrik was aware that the CSH had made some alterations to regulate the skill or make it usable by anyone; thus, he needed Tobs to push through the skill in its perfected form.
‘I see, so they streamlined the process and finished the Idea I created. That is nifty, the version I made versus the completed version modified by the CSH may only have slight differences, but the modified version is significantly more optimized. I doubt I would even notice if I weren’t the creator.’ As he dropped his hand from his face, Cynrik’s vision underwent a slight change, as a thin film no thicker than a standard contact lens manifested over both his eyes.
From an outside perspective, if one looked into Cynrik’s eyes, one would see four different colors swirling around, replacing his eye color and sclera with a stain-glass effect.
‘Alright, I don’t see any changes to my eyesight, no predator vision, or strange electromagnetic coloring; it seems normal to me. Let’s see, all I have to do is add a bit of Mana and control the Lenses to move; let’s try 2x zoom.’ With that thought, Cynrik brought his left index and middle fingers to the corner of his left eye, just below his temple, and applied a minute amount of Quad-Affinity Mana to the lens.
The reaction was instant; his vision swirled like a camera; the lens shifted and spun slightly, zooming in his eyesight to 2x. Next, he tested 4x, bringing him to the point he was previously at before he almost hurt himself.
‘Cool, alright, activating the Shading Effect,’ with his fingers still pressed against the corner of his eye, Cynrik increased the amount of Dark Mana in the Lenses, and soon the world seemed to turn to night as the lenses became tinted.
‘And done, now for the last part,’ with a thought, Cynrik activated [Mana Sight], turning the black wires into a cacophony of multiple colors.
‘Tsk, the Mana drain is a little excessive when using both skills, but it is still manageable with my Mana Pool; now, to increase my vision to 6x zoom. It’s too quiet; hey Tobs, play Kiseki No Umi on loop; I need some working music.
-Now Playing “Kiseki No Umi,” By Maaya Sakamoto.-
Hearing the familiar theme from one of his favorite Classic anime based on a DnD campaign, Cynrik began sifting through the cabling carefully in quadrant two. Still, when he found nothing after the 5th pass, he increased his vision to 8x.
However, upon doing so, Cynrik noticed his Mana dropping even faster, making him frown slightly but not pick up his pace. Instead, he reached into his inventory and chugged down several Mana Potions before continuing his search.
Unlike the previous scans under 2x, 4x, and even 6x, using 8x gave Cynrik a bit of motion sickness, which he fought through and continued his radar-like scanning.
‘Fuck man, how god damn small is this damn thing? I’ve increased my eyesight by eight times and still haven’t found the dongle yet.’ Cynrik thought as he finished his 5th scan, which took him nearly 10 minutes to complete.
‘Tobs, change the song; I need something more hype; play the one-hour version of HyperDrive.’
-Now playing “Hyper Drive” by Francis Gallucio, Bruce Aronson, and Cass Dillon.-
‘Goin’ fast makes me feel Alive. My heart beats in HYPER DRIVE.’ Curbing his boredom, Cynrik began singing along in his head as he increased his [Dynamic Lens] to 10x, raising his MP drain. This time, however, his head spun for a second, and a wave of dizziness washed over him, but after closing his eyes for a few breaths and shaking his head a few times, Cynrik was good to go and continued singing the card game theme song.
The first and Second pass of quadrant two yielded nothing, but on the third, Cynrik’s hands froze as he zeroed in on a small inconspicuous glowing silver and brown box.
“There you are, you little fucker,” unable to contain himself, Cynrik yelled out, startling Norik, who was still processing the fact that a new and powerful Tier-3 Ocular skill existed.
“Christ CynBrat, do you have to fucking yell?” Norik grumbled as he got up from the recliner and crouched beside the Aether Capsule.
“Bah, stop being so cranky; you aren’t the one who had to burn nearly all his MP reserves trying to locate this fucking thing. It’s so tiny that I needed 10x zoom to find it; hell, I even missed it the first two times I went by; the damn thing is microscopic.”
“First problem has been solved, but we need to discuss what you want me to do from here.” Deactivating [Mana Sight] and [Dynamic Lens] after memorizing the dongle’s location, Cynrik popped his head out from under the Aether Capsule and met the contemplative gaze of Norik.
“I have a few ideas, but you clearly have your own, so let’s hear them.” Noticing the heated look Cynrik was giving him, even though the boy was virtually expressionless, Norik pushed the ball back to Cynrik.
“The way I see it, we can take a few different routes here.” Pulling himself out from under the Aether Capsule, Cynrik rested his back against it and sat cross-legged on the floor.
“I don’t plan on ripping it out of its position, as nothing good can come from doing that or instantly destroying it. There are just too many things that can go wrong, the worst case of which is destroying one, causing some kind of kill switches on the others potentially hiding in every Aether Capsule on campus to activate.”
“We must figure out our situation’s full scope first.” Thinking about something for a second, Cynrik dipped back under the Aether Capsule, activated both his ocular skills, and left a faint trace of Dark Mana right next to the dongle before extricating himself from under the capsule and stood up as he deactivated both Ocular Skills.
“I marked the dongle’s location with Dark Mana; I need you to take me to my brother’s room. If there is one dongle, there must be multiple, so we must make the rounds to every Aether Capsule in the Academy’s possession.” Cynrik stated while crossing his arms over his chest.
“Do you think I am some type of taxi service for you to flash around the school? You have no idea how much Mana I consumed getting into the Cachint rooms in the first place.” Gritting his teeth and leaking out a bit of Killing Intent on Cynrik, Norik vented his frustration before giving up after seeing the smug look on the boy’s face.
“Fuck, fine, but you better not throw up all over the rooms; they are expensive.” Giving up his argument, Norik not so gently grabbed Cynrik by the shoulder before activating one of his many teleportation skills.
Not even a fraction of a second later, Cynrik and Norik appeared in room C-01, causing Brance to flinch backward and summon his greatsword from his inventory.
“FUCKING HELL CYNRIK! Sorry for showing you such a sight Lord Ackworth.” But upon noticing it was his brother and Norik, Brance quickly stowed his weapon away and apologized to the Legendary Hero, but not until he had finished cursing his brother.
“No time to talk, CynBrat; get to work.” Glancing down at the unconscious Head Dean, who had passed out in the recliner, Norik grumbled and walked toward the wall closest to the Aether Capsule before leaning against it and watching the two brothers.
[The fuck is going on? Tobs stopped me just as I was about to get into the Vr Capsule.] Brance asked as Cynrik immediately dove under the Aether Capsule and pried open the components box.
[Long story short, someone sabotaged these things and placed a microscopic chip that spikes the failure rate of completing the Tribulation quest and following Evolution.] Cynrik explained as his hands expertly began untangling the cabling mess in the box.
[Huh? How the fuck did you even come to this conclusion?] After only receiving a brief synopsis from Tobs almost an hour ago, Brance was left in the dark. With Cynrik and Norik suddenly appearing, there was no way he wouldn’t start grilling his brother for info.
[Well, initially, it began with Tobs and me going back and forth about the difficulty of the Tier-3 Advancement, where she revealed the Evo had a 75% failure rate. But when I reached the halfway point and prepared to jump into the Aether Capsule, Professor Morningdale dropped a massive bombshell on me.]
[And that bomb shell wasss?] feeling irked at how Cynrik was continuously acting mysterious, Brance nearly ripped his brother out from under the capsule and gave him a beating.
[She told me that VSFA has a 92% failure rate for first-time Advancements to Tier-3.] Smirking to himself as his hands never stopped moving, Cynrik suddenly felt better, having teased his brother a bit.
‘Tobs, give me the quadrant I should be looking through.’ Having finished untangling and organizing the cabling in the components box, Cynrik had a sneaking suspicion that the location of the second dongle wouldn’t be the same as the first.
-This dongle is located in quadrant three.-
And he was right; it took Tobs less than a minute to locate the faint Mana signature of the dongle.
“Tsk, OI, Old Man Norik, this one is in a different spot, that increases my bad feeling by a SOLID 30%. If our opponent is smart enough not to hide the dongles in the same position, the planning for this sabotage is quite intricate, and the odds of everything going up in flames has increased.”
-This series is exclusively published on NovelFull if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https:///dcxKNJEMwg-