Chapter 184

  The fp fell bato pce, c the entrao the tent. Jake waited. He wasn’t worried that Johnny might betray him and give him away to Los Demonios. Johnny seemed genuine. He couldn’t have fabricated everythiold Jake on the spot and acted in accordah his story, pretending to be w about his girlfriend, and all. Besides, one of the upgrades for Enhanced Intelligence allowed Jake to analyze the behaviors of various living beings to predict their moves and to uand their iions, motivations, and potential reas in different situations. Thanks to this, Jake knew Johnny was sincere.

  So he waited. His enhanced hearing allowed him to easily pick up Johnny’s footsteps outside the tent. He could hear them fade into the distance as Johnny moved away. Theopped. The ammo-produg mae must be really close to the tent, just like Johnny had said. A few seds ter, the footsteps resumed, this time moving toward the tent. Jake listened as they grew louder until the fp c the entrance ulled aside and Johered.

  He immediately walked toward Jake, pulling a mana crystal from inside his jacket where he had hidden it. Johnny held it out to him, and Jake noticed it was signifitly dimmer than the usual mana crystals, which emitted a vibrant blue light. The reason the mana crystal Johnny had brought was dimmer became apparent when Jake summohe item’s description. It tained less than a thousand MP, a stark trast to the usual 5,000 MP that mana crystals typically held. The reason for this was obvious: the mana crystal must have been used by the ammo-produg mae for quite a while, which gradually sucked the magical energy from the crystal to e it.

  “Sorry I couldn’t bring you a crystal with more mana in it,” Johnny said apologetically. “The other maes are farther away and in more crowded areas of the base. I might’ve been noticed if I tried to get mana crystals from them.”

  That’s fine, Jake thought, nodding at Johnny. While the nine hundred mana points tained in the crystal weren’t much, it was enough for now. He wasn’t pnning to engage in fights in the several hours anyway. For simply activating Cloak and sneaking out of the base, the remaining amount of mana in the crystal would be more than suffit.

  Jake squeezed the mana crystal in his hand just hard enough to create a few small cracks, from which the magical energy immediately began to seep out. It drifted through the air toward his skin to be absorbed by his body. Johnny watched the process with fasation, and when the mana crystal was empty, he said, “ you hand it back? I’ll stash it in my chest with my other stuff. If I get caught, I’ll just say I stole the crystal for myself to keep you out of it. Right now, I have about a thousand MP inside of me. There’s no way to measure how much mana someone carries, so they wouldn’t know if I’m lying. They’d never be able to tell how much I had before and after.”

  Uhey decide to torture you brutally, Jake thought. He passed the y mana crystal to Johnny, who crossed the room to store it in the chest he had been croug behind when Jake ehe tent. There was no time to waste, so Jake immediately headed toward the exit.

  “Hold on,” Johnny called as he rushed to catch up with him.

  Jake paused to allow him to catch up.

  “I’ll pull the fp aside so you slip out without being seen,” Johnny suggested.

  Because Johnny hadn’t pulled the fp all the way wheuro the tent with the mana crystal, a small gap remained between the fp and the edge of the entrance, allowing Jake to slip through. However, Johnny’s suggestion could prove to be a better option, so Jake decided to wait.

  Johnny stopped at the entrand said, “I’ll pull it aside when you turn on your disguising ability.”

  Jake nodded and activated Cloak with a thought, almost immediately turning invisible.

  “Wow,” Johnny whispered in amazement. “That’s incredible!”

  Jake slipped around him and stopped he fp, waiting for Johnny to pull it aside. However, the man tio gaze at the empty space where Jake had just stood. Johended a hand, but all his fingers found was ay spot.

  “You’re not there anymore?” he muttered, puzzled. “I didn’t even see you move! Where are you now?”

  Jake tapped him on the shoulder from behind, causing the man to jump in surprise.

  “Oh geez,” he gasped. “You startled me.”

  Looks more like I scared the hell out of you, Jake thought.

  Chug nervously, Johnny turned around.

  “I ’t see you at all. Well, I’ll pull the fp aside now. When you’re through, tap me on the shoulder again to let me know, okay?”

  Johnny waited a moment as if for firmation. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to see Jake nod anyway, he stepped closer to the fp and discreetly pulled it aside, careful to make it look like he was doing it solely for himself. Jake quickly slipped through and immediately tapped Johnny on the shoulder. The man wasted no time in stepping out of the tent, letting go of the fp and allowing it to slide bato pce. To Jake’s eyes, it appeared pletely natural, as if Johnny were simply going about his business without letting ahrough at all.

  “Good luck,” Johnny said.

  Jake gave him o look before turning away. He quickly gathered his bearings and began to stealthily make his way across the base.

  “Give them hell,” Johnny muttered behind him. “I ’t wait to hear the news about you and Sam ripping their main base to shreds!”

  Jake moved as quickly as he could without causing distortions in the air that the turrets could detect. Out of the er of his eye, he spotted the dormant ammo-produg mae, from which Johnny must have extracted the mana crystal. So far, none of the guards seemed aware that it was out of order.

  There were several bandits standing at the gates that had not yet been repaired, so Jake decided to scale one of the perimeter walls instead. When he reached it, he g to the surface using Adhesive Secretion and began climbing up. In one of his hands, he still gripped the pieces of the broken on, but it didn’t hinder him much. A few mier, he was finally oher side of the wall, outside the base. He made his way across the street toward the high-rise building, the same one from which he had observed the base earlier.

  When he reached the building, he was finally out of the turrets’ range, so he allowed himself to pick up the pace. He kept his Cloak ehough. After discarding the broken on, he scaled the high-rise, climbing floor after floor until he finally arrived at the rooftop. Standing upright, he took o look at the base below. Things were quiet down there. Still, he khat chaos would erupt the moment the massacre at HQ he had caused was discovered.

  He was about to move away wheiced one guard speaking to the oo him, pointing at the dormant ammo-produg mae. They both stared at it for a moment before beginning to cross the base toward the mae to iigate what was wrong with it.

  Jake decided to stay on the roof a bit loo see how things would py out.