Alright. With things finally calmed down, I went to work on the few things I had to do for our upcoming wedding. So mainly sending out the information packages about it.

The invitations already went out like two months ago, and we’ve gotten the answers from people. Now originally we didn’t get all that many guests, especially from nobility and so on, but that was because of the day. The Goddess’ day is a big day on this continent. You can’t just expect rulers of countries to ignore that just to attend the wedding of some ‘no name’ baron.

So we had to alter the plans. Instead of holding the ceremony on HomeBase, as originally planned, we are holding the starting part in the Factory instead. That way, anyone can attend without needing to travel. As long as they have a Factory VR station nearby.

And since the Factory has time dilation, and I can ramp that up to over 13 times the regular speed nowadays, we can hold a ceremony that will only last about 15 minutes of real world time, while giving it the importance it deserves.

But because of that, I needed to make sure everyone who attends has access to a convenient Factory VR station. So I made a few new ones, quickly visited the places where they would be needed, and did a quick install and a test.

And since these are only temporary ones, they have magic stones that pull power straight from HomeBase, unless the locations they were installed in already had mana flowers available.

I also planned on making more for HomeBase residents, as we didn’t have enough for everyone. But instead, Janina told me I should make a card that will take the people there and then back. And yeah, with the new abilities of the Fusion Techniques of Pack Opener, it was actually really easy. I could just detach everyone’s souls from their bodies, use a card to guide the souls into the Factory, and then when everything is over, use a card to bring them back and Fusion Techniques to bind the souls to the bodies again.

But because of the change of venue, I had to prepare a few things in the Factory. Luckily setting up a nice room didn’t take much time at all, and decorations were already designed in the Factory, so I could just copy and paste the designs.

I then made special seating for all of the special guests that are coming over. That included a few people I didn’t even think about inviting, as I never considered that they might show up. But they heard about our plans, and informed me that they’d be coming as long as I allowed it, so they also got some special seats.

Naturally the final design choices will be left for Alice and Cailie, as the two of them are the ones that did most of the designing work.

I did what I could and told the girls the place was ready for them. On the day of, I’ll move it to the ‘main room’ of the Factory. You know, the one that holds the Royal Magical Libraries and all of that. It is the biggest room and I want as many of my monsters to be able to be there as possible.

Moving the celebration to the Factory also had a different advantage, but that can be a reveal for the day of. It is a secret I’m keeping from the girls, but luckily it is something I can do without it ruining any of their plans. At least any plans I know.

Sure it means I had to apologize to King Ruiso, as a role he was supposed to play will be taken by someone else, but I’m sure he will understand when I tell him who is actually going to be doing it.

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Now to something that will ensure I don’t get a System mission on my wedding day. Well, I can’t fully ensure it, since fissures don’t follow rules, and neither do the immortals. Not that I’m expecting more of the immortals to show up.

Instead, I’m dealing … okay. I’m making sure the one variable I can control doesn’t cause problems. That variable is the United States. … Actually, what were they the united states of. I don’t think I ever heard it. I just always called them the United States, or just States.

Well, whatever.

Honestly, I planned on leaving them alone until they did something stupid again, but they’ve been too quiet for too long. And that can’t be a good thing.

Simply put, I don’t trust them anymore. Because with my luck, they’ll 100% start a war on my wedding day, and I can’t have that.

So I’m making sure they have no plans for that day. If they do, I’ll take anyone and everyone involved, turn them into cards and hold them in the cards until after my wedding. Because after that they can do whatever they want, and I’ll crush their attempts at … whatever they might try to do. And now with Appraisal, I can get info on people who seem important.

So, I turned on Invisibility and Intangibility with the Numeron Code and headed to the states.

I wasn’t fully sure where I should go, but luckily I could fly around really quickly. So I just searched for big cities and in them, I looked through large buildings that might be some sort of administrative offices or noble manors.

I found a few and since I could fly through walls, I entered them and looked over some of the papers I found in the offices. I did that by taking them into Storage, having Tahlia scan them, and then my monsters would look over them as I returned the papers and headed to the next place.

Sadly none of them had anything useful. Just tax info, produce info, people info. Basically normal stuff. The only thing I noticed was that the cities didn’t have any standing armies, or even security forces. Which is honestly strange, as I’d expect a nation that sometimes goes to war to have a strong military. And how do they hold back thieves and rioters if they don’t have an army or even a city guard? And what about strong monsters?

Eventually, I found what I think is the capital of the States. It had a parliament building. At least it looked like one on the inside, with about 200 tables and chairs all pointed towards a central, raised station that had seats for five.

And luckily for me, there was an ongoing session as I flew through the wall of the building, so I got to listen in.

Sadly there really was nothing special. There were some talks of monsters being active in some areas, to which a force known as 3-S was to be sent out. Sadly I don’t know how they rule out their forces.

While waiting for things to end, so that I could follow the leaders who were at the center of this, I began to appraise people. There was a small chance of being discovered, as you can ‘feel’ Appraisal being used on you, but I took the chance.

I guess before I talk about the results, I should briefly talk about Appraisal. As you may know, it is a leveless extra skill. So the results you get when you appraise someone or something don’t rely on the level.

Instead, they rely on basically four outside factors. First are two things about the target.

One, if your target is too high of level, as in just a person with a high overall level, a super strong monster or a weapon or tool with a lot of mana stored inside, it is more difficult to appraise.

Second, if your target has a hiding skill or hiding enchantment. These make Appraisal more difficult to use. And also if they have a System Support of Advanced or greater rank, they can hide their skills or even make a fake status.

So those are why the target matters. Now to what you need to do to improve your results.

First, you need to keep up solid eye contact with the target. Touch contact also works, but it doesn’t offer any advantages over eye contract. And since I’m trying to stay hidden, eye contact it is. The longer you keep watching at what you are trying to appraise, the better the results.

Second. You pick how much mana you want to use for the appraisal. The amount you need to use depends a lot on the target. For example, if I want to appraise someone with an overall level of 10, I can do that with about 40 mana and get all of their info. That is because I’m at such a high level that I ignore all of their defenses when I appraise them. They simply cannot resist my skill. That also allows the appraisal to happen basically instantly.

But if I do it to a level 150 person, I have to put in a lot more mana, and it will take a lot longer.

So now that you know how Appraisal works, at least on the basic level, let’s get to some results.

I began by appraising some of the ‘normies’. Aka. not people at the center of this parliament. I just felt like they’d be the best place to start. But to my surprise, they were actually decently high leveled so I had to put some mana into them, instead of getting away with 50 mana appraisals.

All of the people I appraised were between level 50 and 60. Which honestly was quite strange. Sure I only appraised a dozen people, but for all of them to fall in that range feels artificial. What made it even more suspicious was a title they all had. Well, it wasn’t the same title, but a similar one.

Power Structure 2-A-14

Power Structure 2-A-19

Power Structure 2-A-102

Power Structure 2-A-148

They all had a title called Power Structure, followed by 2-A- and then some number. I didn’t quite get it at first, but then I realized it must be the work of a unique skill. Someone in here has a unique skill called Power Structure and they can use it ... do something. Probably empower people. Maybe manipulate levels, considering the uniform levels of everyone.

And the 3-S I heard earlier must be for Power Structure 3-S.

Also, out of the 12 people I appraised that had the Power Structure 2-A title, seven had a unique skill. That is alarmingly many. Unique skills are rare, and while they were quite weak, having that many in a single place is not normal. That is honestly HomeBase levels of abnormal.

I was a little hesitant to appraise the central five people, but it might be better to do it now than later. So just to make sure I got results, I put about 10,000 mana into my first appraisal, and appraised the centermost man. Well, he seemed like an elf or a half-elf.

And a few seconds later, I got some info.

Firstly, I didn’t get his name. But that is of no big importance.

But his title and unique skill were.

Matter Manipulation and Power Structure 1.

So yeah. He has a skill to manipulate any and all matter. That’s not OP at all. It is touch based, so at least that is good, and the area he can affect is based on the skill level, which is currently 14. The level of the skill also seemed to affect the complexity of things he can manipulate. But at least I know that if we fight, all I have to do is stay away from him.

Second, he is number 1 in Power Structure. No additional anything. But he isn’t the holder of that skill. I don’t exactly know what that means, but it can’t be good.

Other than that, his race was ‘Magic Elf (artificial)’, so I’m guessing he turned himself into an elf with his unique skill or something. His level was 223. Really high, but can be dealt with. And he had a bunch of magic related skills, including all 6 attribute magics. I didn’t think that was possible, but maybe he could somehow get them all with his unique skill. On top of that, he had some sword and CQB based skills, but he was no match for me, let alone a dedicated swordsman. And he also had Appraisal.

As I appraised him, he visibly flinched, before looking around the room. Naturally he couldn’t see me and since I’m wearing Protection of Ami, the one weakness of my Invisibility and Intangibility combo is negated. I did mention that high level Soul Magic is the only way you can sense me while I use both, right? Well if I didn’t, now I have. And since Protection of Ami makes me immune to all Soul Magic, you can’t notice me with anything.

Well, maybe a unique skill.

But because the central guy noticed something, I decided to hold off on the other four until later.

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After the session was over, I followed the five central figures, hoping to get more information out of them. And as they walked somewhere, a few of them seemed to want to say something, but the Power Structure 1 elf stopped them.

He led them to a room that had a thick metal door, and after opening it with magic, the five entered and the door closed behind them.

The inside of the door had a detailed magic circle drawn on it, and as soon as the door closed, it lit up and activated. It didn’t take me too long to realize what it did, as it was Space Magic.

A Spatial Isolation Barrier. A near impenetrable barrier by anyone who doesn’t know Space Magic. It seals anything inside to the inside. I, in fact, used a lesser version in Amilie’s new prison.

Not that this barrier could stop me when I’m using the Numeron Code Intangibility. I can just walk through it no problem. But I better not accidentally turn off the skill inside here, as I might not be able to teleport out. Well I can with the Numeron Code or HomeBase, but regular Space Magic won’t get me out unless I break the barrier first.

The elf cast a few spells, seemingly scanning the room with every attribute, before he began to talk.

“Our assembly was spied on.” The number 1 elf said with cold indifference. “Someone attempted to use Appraisal or a similar skill on me, possibly some of the 2-As as well.”

The other four stayed quiet for a bit, before one of them, a dhampir based on smell, asked.

“Did they succeed?” He asked. The dhampir guy was probably in his early forties while the elf was maybe twenty something. Not that I know how elves age and with his skill, he might be much older.

“On myself, most likely not. They would need well over 10,000 mana or be level 400 for that.” The elf explained. “But the others, most likely.”

“Did you notice who or what was spying on us?” Another of the five, an older male dwarf, asked.

“It was no person, I can say that.” The elf said. “It had no noticeable mana signature.”

“So perhaps something that Goddess’ slave sent. He has those flying mechanical devices.” The sole female of the five, who was some sort of evolved lizard-folk, suggested. Based on her scales, tail and wings, she might be a dragon-folk or dragon-kin. Normally you couldn’t evolve into one without a Dragon Scale Blessing or Dragon Life Dedication, but maybe the elf got around that problem.

“From what we know, they are too large and we would have spotted them.” The final member, a male wolf-kin, reminded everyone. He had silvery fur and he honestly looked like he could be Lugh’s father. Luckily their scents were completely different, so there is basically no chance of that.

“He could have made new, smaller ones.” The dwarf said.

“It doesn’t matter if he did or not. The fact is, someone spied on us. That means that all of our meetings must be held here from now on, and we must proceed with absolute caution.” The elf said. “The device is finished and the test was successful. Once the power core is full, we can start our plan. And until then, we must ensure that the troublemaker doesn’t figure out our plan. Once it is on the way, he can no longer stop us.”

I was honestly tempted to undo my invisibility and say ‘Yes I can’, but I decided not to. Instead, I listened a little longer, but I didn’t hear anything useful.

They spoke a bit more about this ‘power core’, which sounded dangerous. With a quick System search, I found out that the ‘power core’ is usually a high density mana storing device, made by combining multiple magic stones. Or you could use Void Uranium instead. They would power large scale magic devices, such as city barriers and airships. Not that modern airships need anything that huge.

Oh right. These shitters stole that void uranium from Smorog. So they must be using it to power something. Hopefully not a nuke. Probably not considering ‘the device’, but you can never really be sure. The device could be an ICBM.1intercontinental ballistic missile

As the five moved to leave the room, I decided to give them a bit more of a scare. The elf clearly noticed me, so I think the others will as well. I just flew outside, and as soon as all five had left the room, I appraised the remaining four.

The dragon female was Power Structure 2. Her race was False Dragon-kin and she was level 217. She had a bunch of combat related skills and a unique skill called ‘Dragon’. It just turns her into a false dragon. Well probably not quite, as she won’t have a monster core, but basically a dragon transformation skill.

The dwarf was Power Structure 3. He was an Enchant Master Dwarf, with the unique-racial skill Enchant Master. He wasn’t actually the first to have that race or skill, but it was so rare it was classified as unique-racial skill. His level was 203.

Power Structure 4 was the wolf-kin. A silver alpha wolf-kin to be specific. He was level 199, seemingly stuck at the level cap. A bunch of his skills were level 20, but he couldn’t level them up more because his Limit Break was only level 1.

And Power Structure 5 was naturally the dhampir. He was a ‘Curse of Corruption Dhampir’. His unique skill was Curse of Corruption. It allowed him to share curses he has to others, while himself being immune to them. And he had a ton of them written in his titles. He had a strengthened version of the Blood Curse, as well as Mana Curse, HP drain curse, Strength lowering curse, Defense lowering curse, Magic lowering curse, Curse of blindness, Curse of deafness, etc. He was also the lowest level of the five, being only level 171.

All of them clearly noticed, and they quickly headed back into the room. And of course I followed them in.

What I wanted to do with that was get them to panic. To think that I can’t spy on them here, but as soon as they are outside, they are under my watch.

And it seemed to have succeeded as they doubled down on their previous talks. Sadly they didn’t reveal their timeline to me, so I still had to do a few more things.

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After the second meeting, the five split up and I followed the elf. Since he had Power Structure 1, while the others had 2, 3, 4 and 5, he was the most important.

He headed into a room that was seemingly his office, where he pulled out a device that he placed on his table. He activated it, and began recapping the day. So some sort of magical recorder.

Again, no new info for me. After that, he headed for a dining room, ate dinner and headed into another room within the parliament building. It was his bedroom, and after some nightly preparations, the elf went to sleep.

I kept snooping around a bit more, including raiding his office. But as I did, I realized something strange. The glowing device he had on his table was just a basic magic circle. It was no recorder, and definitely no communicator. So why would he speak to it?

I did find some info about dates and times, and luckily it seemed like filling the ‘power core’ would take at least another month. So while it might interrupt the adventuring tournament, it won’t be happening on the Goddess’ day, so my wedding is safe from interruptions.

I spent a bit of time just flying around the city, trying to find any sort of secret lab where the power core or the device. Sadly, despite me being able to pass through walls, I can’t see through walls. I need a few more Numbers to unlock that ability with the Numeron Code.

So while I found some interesting things, like an armory that seemed to have the weapons they stole from the Smotog sacred forge, I didn’t find anything that could be this ‘device’. And yes, I did snag back all the weapons that were stolen from Smorog. I confirmed the makers with Storage and then did a System search on them to find out if I could see where they live or lived. I can’t get the info on living people, but dead ones are fine.

Luckily most of the Smorog weapons also had maker's marks, so as long as I could identify those, picking the Smorog weapons was no problem.

I could have picked everything, but I didn’t want to be a thief. I might still be, as some of these weapons may have been legitimately purchased, but I’ll ask Claus and the others about it and return the ones that weren’t stolen.

Well, maybe after whatever this ‘plan’ of theirs is. They don’t need high quality or legendary weapons for that.

And if my little sabotage doesn’t stop them, I’ll deal with whatever these morons are planning after my wedding.