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Chapter 732: Isolation

This continued for two more days, the three of them having only managed to dig down to a depth of thirty meters in that time. During that period, they were attacked by the invisible swordfish numerous times, but they had learned how to deal with them at this point. It did not seem that there were any other creatures within this region that could pose a serious threat to them.

When it was late into the third day, Thea was trudging through the soil, slowly pushing it out of the way while being careful not to create a murky cloud in front of her. The three of them had not yet had a proper break during these days, aside from when they briefly ascended to recharge, and her nerves were beginning to fray. Thea was tempted to simply sweep through the floor in a violent manner, and see what she found.

However, Chel had repeatedly advised her against doing this. The relics themselves were very durable, but it was hard to know if she would even notice the black crystal amidst the thick clouds of mud. If it was swept away and caught by the current, it could take them weeks to locate it again.

Thus, she restrained herself, doing her best to be as careful as she could to do the job right. When she felt something hard brushing against her hand, she assumed it was simply another piece of coral, and was prepared to dispose of it. However, a glance down revealed a trace of rough crystal. Only after she shined her light on it did she realize that this was the very thing that they were looking for.

Thea grabbed the crystal, hugging it to her chest as she jumped to her feet. Her fingers fiddled with the flashlight enthusiastically, quickly altering between various colors as she tried to find the right setting. When she found the switch to shine the light green, she began waving it in the direction of the other two.

Thankfully, the two had noticed her flickering light. When it first went red, and then yellow, they had their suspicions. But for it to change to green and settle there as she waved it around? Smiles grew on their faces as they kicked off the ocean floor, rapidly swimming upwards.

None of them cared to observe the scenery as they ascended, wanting nothing more than to be done with this planet and get back on their comfortable spaceship. When they breached the water’s surface, they didn’t do anything more than laugh as they continued to fly higher. Clearly, they were happy to be out of the black depths of the ocean.

“Traveler, bring us back!” Chel called out with a wide grin, but was surprised to find that there was no response to her message. After a few moments, she blinked in realization, glancing towards Thea. “Well, that’ll cause a complication.”

Thea quickly realized the nature of their problem, eyes going wide. “Our mana transmissions can’t reach him as long as we are within the range of this effect… and we can’t leave that range without leaving this behind.” She glanced at the large crystal hugged against her chest.

Chel nodded, before simply shrugging her shoulders. “We’ll just have to fly up there manually. Once I lock it in the containment chamber, the effect should be negated.”

Nora thought about that for a moment, seeming curious. “If the energy from these objects were to be entirely contained, would the star map send us to a new location, having lost the trace on this one?”

Chel furrowed her brow, before shaking her head. “Unlikely. I haven’t had the chance to study the spell behind the star map yet, but I feel like it should be extremely high level. I can’t guarantee that my containment field nullifies every trace of the energy, and that small trace may be all that it needs. It would be worth a shot, but I would not get my hopes up.”

As they spoke, they increased their speed, flying higher and higher into the air. Although the relic they were carrying prevented them from leaving their energy outside of their bodies, it was still possible for them to manipulate the energy within themselves to achieve the effect of flight.

After roughly five minutes had passed, they were finally leaving the planet’s atmosphere, searching around to try and visibly spot the Traveler. Unfortunately… space is very vast. It was hard for them to make out anything within the dark sky, even if the Traveler remained in a relatively nearby orbit. Without the proper knowledge of the ship’s coordinates, it was a waste of time to aimlessly fly about to look for it.

As Chel was preparing to fly out of the relic’s range to message Traveler, they saw a golden speck approaching from the horizon, drawing closer to their general location. Their eyes went wide as smiles tugged on the faces of the three girls. Clearly, Traveler had done something to know when they were ascending.

The golden ship flew in front of them, the side door silently opening to allow them aboard. Once the cabin was depressurized, and they were able to speak once again, Chel let out a light laugh. “You were tracking the range you couldn’t detect.” She said towards the ceiling, knowing that that was the most likely way for the Traveler to have found them.

“That is correct, Chelsea.” The Traveler responded in a proud tone. “I can tell that your search has been fruitful. Your containment chamber is ready, and I have prepared clean towels in each of your rooms. Additionally, each of your rooms have been supplied with a spare uniform to wear while you have your current clothes cleaned.”

“Traveler… you are the best.” Nora said with a happy smile, immediately running in the direction of the bedroom that had been assigned to her. Her clothes were wet and sticky from all the salt water, and she wanted nothing more than to get changed and dried off.

Chel chuckled, walking over to Thea. “You go get cleaned up, too. I’ll take care of the containment procedures.” Thea nodded, passing over the relic before rushing to her own room.

“What domain did you acquire this time?” Traveler asked curiously, clearly not able to discern such things himself. However, Chel simply shrugged, unsure of the answer.

“Don’t know. In order to check, I need to send a small amount of divinity into my eyes, which radiates it outwards along my line of sight to scan people or objects in my field of view. However, with this relic, that energy would be canceled out before it completed its task. Once I have it locked up in containment, I should be able to scan it and find out, though

As she said that, she walked down the halls of the Traveler, making her way towards the vault where they had established containment. Inside the vault was another polycarbonate case, as well as six small devices placed around the perimeter. These six devices suppressed the energy of the two relics, preventing their energies from interacting with one another.

However, before Chel took the relic into the containment field, she looked towards Traveler. “Go ahead and bring us into the Travel Domain. Once I seal this up, the local monsters might start acting up.”

Traveler accepted her order, and a moment later they were moving. Only then did Chel feel comfortable setting the crystal within the container that she had helped to produce. Looking at the two items with a smile, she allowed her eyes to glow as she scanned the newest acquisition.

“Isolation. Well, I suppose that’s fitting.” Chel shook her head, turning to walk towards her own quarters. The powers of stealth created by this relic were merely the act of isolating their user from their surroundings. Additionally, the energy that was sent away from the body was lost because the body itself had been isolated from outside energies, and vice versa.

Blank sat at his desk, going over various files that passed through his office. He had been given a task by Chel before she left, though it was one that only he himself was privy to. He was to make a mental note of any online material that appeared in the coming days which referenced the lab in which James and Chel worked.

Naturally, this was no easy task, even for an advanced intelligence like himself. The internet was simply too large of a place, with tens of thousands of entries going live every single minute of the day. Had he been asked to comb every entry in detail to look for references to the lab, it would have been impossible even with the help of all of his assistants.

Yet oddly, Chel did not tell him to be that thorough. Instead, he was specifically told to only monitor specific sites, or at least specific types of sites. Those on the ‘dark web’, where people would share secret information anonymously, often through the use of virtual avatars.

Such files still came and went fast enough that he could barely track them, but this was at least manageable by himself. And with the majority of the files having no reference to the lab, they were quickly passed over. That is, until he saw a particular message appearing.

That was all there was to the message, no follow up explanation saying how they knew this, but Blank still had his ideas. At least, in regards to detecting James himself. The researcher would easily be able to tell when someone was directly scrying on him, and cut it off at its source. Instead, for people such as James with monstrous levels of energy, a technique had been created to allow for discrete observation.

This technique was known as ‘Shadow Sensing’. Instead of directly trying to detect the energy of the target, they would instead look for the impact their energy left on the atmospheric energy around them. In the same way that you can locate a light by finding the shadows it casts, this method allows people to determine the presence and general location of individuals with excessive energy.

As for how they came to the conclusion that the rest of the team was absent, Blank did not know. In fact, he did not know if the entire team truly was absent, as that had not been in the details Chel had given him. All she said was that she would be leaving for a while, and she asked him to watch for messages like these.

That was roughly a week ago, and the first message had appeared. After it did, there was roughly another hour before more flagged messages began showing up on Blank’s radar. These did not appear to be from the same source, but rather a number of underground networks discussing the vulnerability of the lab.

Some wished to sneak in while their defenses were down, just to look at their research data. Others had specific projects that they wanted to try to steal. Still more rebuked that to steal from the Researcher was suicide, as his power was not something normal people could contend with.

This led to a heated discussion of how one would be able to sneak in and out under these supposed ‘minimal security’ conditions without leaving any traces to be discovered. Blank was rather intrigued by what he was reading, as the methods they discussed were ones that he had not considered. Some even mentioned infiltrating through the internet itself, converting their bodies into a form similar to that of an artificial intelligence, and using the innate power of such beings to hop across network lines.

Blank made extra notes of these situations, knowing that he would have to find safeguards against similar methods in the future. Cyber Security was something of a side business for him, after all.