[MA] 160. Glaring Hole (Patreon)

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[A/N: 3/3 chapters this week. I owe you 1 chapter, which will probably be released with Tuesday's chapter.]

Shen entered the blue tent with Alicia by his side. Marzia stayed outside with her retinue.

The tent was more like a huge, quickly assemblable building than an actual tent. It had a small reception before a long corridor that led to multiple rooms. Non-flammable fabric and metallic wiring created a semblance of walls, Guardians defended key areas, and some rooms were soundproofed with a mix of acoustic foam and technologically generated white noise. That design wasn't perfect, of course, but whatever required more secrecy or protection than that should not be in that tent.

What impressed Shen the most about the military wasn't the big guns they had brought but the tents, furniture, and electronics. Tables, chairs, laptops, and tablets were everywhere. Their logistics were most excellent, and what it couldn't provide, magic did.

Even as he entered the room, he felt the pleasant coldness of magic-controlled temperature. It was a surprise; he could still not feel mana by himself despite all his improvements.

He immediately noticed the glaring hole in his capabilities and decided he had to remedy that.

"How much for a ring that will let me feel mana in a range about half as large as my aura?" he asked the system.

Shen didn't want it to be as large as his aura because he wanted to use the ring as a training aid. He was confident he might find a way to feel man by himself if he could compare what he felt using the ring to what he felt only with his aura. However, if he was buying something anyway, he might as well buy something that would be useful in battle. If mana got halfway into his aura to get to him, he wanted to be aware of it.

| Equipment (E): 1,800,000 AP

| Enchantments: Mana Sense (E) + 2 enchantments of your choice (E)

Although G-tier equipment could also hold enchantments, Shen guessed the Mana Sense enchantment was classified as E- at least, the same tier as the bracelet he had briefly owned. He didn't know how enchantments worked, so he would have to take the system's word on it.

He couldn't pay that much. He still had to buy a spear. Weapons were cheaper, but the best one he could buy with his little over 2 million AP, at the D- tier, also cost 1.8 million.

"How much for a Mana Sense with the shortest range possible?" he asked.

| Equipment (E-): 360,000 AP

| Enchantments: Mana Sense (E-) + 2 enchantments of your choice (E-)

He could afford that. The range of a dozen feet wouldn't be as good in battle, but it was better than nothing.

But he wouldn't buy either ring just yet.

Instead, Shen opened the marketplace-like APP they were using in the camp. The APP tracked the sales successfully completed through it—it didn't charge anything—and exhibited the current average SC-AP exchange rate for everyone to see. Almost everyone based their prices on that, though further negotiation and profit margins were involved.

Standard Coins were much less plentiful than AP on Earth and thus more valuable. Shen guessed the opposite happened in the rest of the Alliance because SC could be given to others while AP couldn't. Marzia's currency exchange program was already remedying that though.

The last time Shen had checked, 1 SC was the equivalent of 230 AP. Now, it was already at 1 to 207 and falling.

A D-rank received 28,500 SC as monthly wage. Shen had been too distracted by more pressing matters when he got paid, but he had checked his balance later.

He had received 79,800 SC.

The system had been vague about the specifics during the Pioneer Tutorial, but it had mentioned Achievements would affect one's wage. Fortunately, people had gotten a much better explanation in the standard tutorial, and Shen found it reproduced online.

Titles were received by accomplishing something uniquely remarkable and truly defined someone. The Dreamer who had ruled over the Pioneer Tutorial was such a being; everyone on Earth knew them by their Title, not their name. Titles were hard to get but had a lot of meaning, and thus it made Titled individuals much more valuable to the Alliance. If someone had a Title, their wage was multiplied by ten.

Unfortunately, racial Titles like Maiden and Rising Star weren't as notable. Shen's wage had only doubled to 57,000 for being a Human Rising Star.

After the base wage was boosted by a Title, the result was further increased by twenty percent for each Achievement the Guardian had gotten. Shen had received two, Pioneer and True Pioneer.

The Alliance didn't consider how much harder it was to achieve something compared to something else. His True Pioneer Achievement was unique to him on Earth, yetm for the wage system, it was only as valuable as the Pioneer Achievement he shared with 79 others.

He was still glad the almost useless True Pioneer Achievement at least gave him a monthly bonus.

So, Shen had almost 80,000 SC in his wallet and nothing to spend it on. He would try to buy the ring through someone on the APP before spending so much AP on it.

He didn't care much for the SC. Any cultivator knew one's strength was much more valuable than money. To cultivate oneself was to enter a Path seemingly without end, and money was just a means to an end.

When two different currencies were involved, the one further displaced from the means to achieve greater power was the one they used first. In this case, AP could be used to rank up, yet SC couldn't. Therefore, SC wasn't as important.

That said, there might come a situation where he needed to buy something that would make his SC more critical than his AP—like a ticket to get somewhere where he figured there might be an opportunity to grow stronger. But that wasn't important now.

Shen filled out the APP's form to let interested sellers know he was looking for a ring containing the Mana Sense enchantment, preferably at the E tier, but he might go for E- if he couldn't afford the better one. As for his choice of a ring over a bracelet, he considered the former more convenient, though he might go for a different piece of equipment if the price was worth it.

With that out of the way, he stepped closer to the young boy in military fatigues sitting behind the reception desk. The Guardian wasn't dealing well with Shen's aura even while using his mana cocoon; he looked about to pass out.

Shen suppressed a sigh and approached.

= - = - =

"Was Sergeant Ruben Roosevelt in on your scheme?" he asked the middle-aged nurse.

"No," she replied instantly.

"I know you're lying," he informed her.

He was surprised at how easy it was for him to detect lies with his aura. Mastering Combat and War made him even more proficient in social battles than before, even though his Concepts weren't geared towards that. It was basically a spilled bonus from his ability to control himself perfectly, understand his troops' status, and read his enemies during combat.

The slightest micro-movement was perceived and readily compared against everything he knew about people's reactions during battle and war. He also easily estimated new meanings with his own social experience and superior learning ability. Every biological reaction in a person was cataloged, analyzed, and categorized with uncanny ease.

Yet, he was even more surprised at how truthful people had been to him ever since his return from the rift.

He had doubted some of Marzia's statements earlier simply because he hadn't experienced people lying to him so well. Oh, many of his previous attackers had lied to his face, but they had been lousy liars. Now though, as he talked to the people in the tent, it became evident that no one could escape from his senses—at least no E-rank human.

He just knew so very well how people were and weren't supposed to react in a stressful situation that he caught even the slightest cues. He could tell both when people were pretending to be tranquil or nervous—he had found a psychopath that way. Lastly, he could also notice almost imperceptible aggressiveness toward him and extrapolate where that came from based on other signs.

Unless someone mastered a Concept related to control, like his own Combat, he doubted they could lie to him at all. Even then, he thought that his aura would give him an edge.

Therefore, almost everyone in the military camp except the people who had attacked him had been telling him nothing but the truth.

That was incredible.

Modern Earth seemed to almost run on lies. Politicians and lawyers were paid to lie. People lied daily about minor things like saying they were well when someone asked them how they were. Companies and salesmen lied to sell their products. Also, Shen had it on good authority that most militaries in the world had some level of corruption and, thus, lies. Lastly, the overly-political nature of most modern relationships and interactions made lying or hiding things almost fundamental to keep society running.

How could it be, then, that his generals and colonels had been so forthcoming with him?

The most obvious answer was fear, yet he didn't think so. Shen believed they were genuinely concerned people trying to help protect their homes. They might fear him, but that's not what had brought them there in the first place. They didn't lie because they had nothing to lie about; they were there to fight invaders, and that was it.

Those he was investigating were different, of course. They had sneaked into the camp's hierarchy and used it for their gains. Now, when confronted, they tried to lie to him.

"I'm not!" the woman said, pretending to be offended at the accusation. "I swear!" she insisted.

Yet, everything but her affronted face told Shen she was surprised at being caught and desperate for a way out. He didn't even need his aura to detect her desire to flee, considering how she looked around for an opening.

If she were calmer, she might have realized the walls of the small room with a table and two chairs were made of fabric. She was an F-rank Guardian, which gave her plenty of power to create an opening herself instead of using the closed curtain door behind him.

Or maybe she would've realized just taking a single step was impossible while she stood within his aura range.

Either way, she was defensive and had been caught. Shen didn't need verbal confirmation about any crimes when detecting a direct lie was just good. He only wanted to identify the right people before giving them to those who knew how to make culprits talk.

"We're done here," he said and used his aura to "touch" the shoulder of the Guardian standing guard outside. The man in plate armor came in. "Place her with the other mastermind and bring Sergeant Roosevelt," he ordered the Guardian.

"What?!" the nurse exclaimed. "No! You can't do that to me! I did nothing!" She stood up. "You... You fascist! You can't do that!" She started yelling. "I'm innocent! I have rights!"

"Silence," Shen said firmly and used his aura to put some pressure on her.

Her eyes almost popped out of her face, and she became quiet at once like a rabbit that caught sight of a snake.

"You agreed with this camp's military rules when you enlisted," he said. "They state you're free to leave at any time as long as you aren't officially suspected of acting against us—if you are, we have one week to make your crimes come to light, or we must release you, though you'll be expelled from the camp. Even if we do find you guilty of something, your offenses will only be punished with anything serious like imprisonment if they directly harmed someone. So, unless you did something much worse than getting paid to put people where they shouldn't be, you're just being laid off. Stop making a scene and get out of my sight."

The camp's punishments were too light, but Shen and his generals agreed they didn't have the manpower to waste on minor offenses. That certainly made those offenses more common, but it was an unfortunate price to pay for greater efficiency during a crisis. The alternative would be heavy-handed punishments for every minor slight, but Shen had reserved those for specific, more threatening situations.

The nurse made as if she would attack, but in the end, she just said, "Things won't stay this way," and followed the Guardian outside. Soon, a thin male in military fatigues replaced her.

"Did you accept payment to go against the camp's rules in any way?" Shen asked.

= - = - =

When Shen left the tent exactly twenty-four minutes after entering it, he had dismissed thirty-nine people from their posts. They now awaited investigators to arrive to talk to them.

Four Guardians had admitted to their wrongdoings, and Shen was pleased enough with everything they revealed that he would allow them to stay in the camp, albeit as foot troops with no real authority—Earth needed fighters still.

They had given him almost three hundred names of commoners working where they weren't supposed to, and those would soon be visited. Shen had sent word to his generals, who would send people to dismiss the commoners from their current positions. Most commoners would be allowed to go to the underground city if they wanted, though the ones who had bribed or threatened the officers would be expelled.

At least all the corrupt or permissive Guardians had graciously accepted their fate instead of attacking him when they got caught. People were starting to understand the gap between him and everyone else.

With that done, only one unpleasant task remained before he returned to what mattered.

Shen turned to the place Madam Pihu had been sent to and started walking at a leisurely pace to give Sai extra six minutes to talk to his mother, which Shen had promised him.

Marzia was still right outside the tent, talking with Yui Hina. The Japanese girl had a tablet displaying colors and drawings. Russo and Schneider were missing, the former supposedly to do whatever Marzia had asked of him, and the latter into the tent. Shen had felt him talk to people while Shen was rooting corruption out of that place.

Alicia had said she would return to her job around five minutes after Shen entered the tent and was nowhere to be seen.

"I heard you just made my job harder," Marzia said playfully when Shen passed by her.

"I did," Shen replied dryly. He wasn't in a joking mood. He didn't anticipate his talk with Sai's mother. "Stay close so I can protect you," he ordered and kept walking.

[A/N: I didn't expect to write a chapter like this, but it seemed necessary for a perspective on things.

We'll get back to the actual war preparations next chapter.]

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