His apartment was immediately overhauled the moment he arrived.

Surveillance cameras were installed in and outside of his unit while his bedroom, which will be his surveillance and control center, was emptied and eventually filled with the raw materials he collected. The computer and the weapons & gears he will build will be kept here.

“Now, we will begin the operation,” Nichol announced when all the materials were brought in. “Shambles!”

*Tang…Clang…Clang...Clang!

The materials flew around and attached to one another, constructing the screens, drives, and the keyboards then assembling them based on the arrangement reflected in Nichol’s mind. When it was done, his room was completely transformed into a main control room with state of the art equipment.

“Power it up,” Nichol instructed and when Sen connected and roused to the nodes, *swoong* the computers roared to life. “What are our coverage by the way?”

-With what OreTech can provide, we can cover Oregon and the two nearest States. (Sentinel)

That’s an impressive coverage. However, Nichol has another idea. “How about if we take over the nearest observation satellites?”

-We can only cover Oregon. (Sentinel)

“Let’s go with that.”

-Affirmative. (Sentinel)

=======================

-Loading…

-[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]

-[TOTAL ACCESS ACHIEVED]

-Receiving Feeds…

-Assimilating Data…

=======================

Sen commenced his gathering of feeds from the surveillance cameras, phone calls, emails, and other activity logs and transactions of every single individual living in Oregon while at the same time, *Tap tap tap!* Nichol fulfil his part to manually filter, segregate, and sort these feeds then extract the results which can supply a huge sum of money in a short period of time.

*Bzzt bzzt bzzt!

The static sounds produced due to the actions reflected on the screens synched with the tapping of the keyboard and echoed endlessly for hours. Then, once the process was completed, he highlighted those that are with high endowment, low in risk, can be accomplished in a matter of hours, and are easily accessible from his residence.

It reflected 10 results including the go-bags of two notoriously profiled international thieves. “Those two alone can already buy me 2 High Grade Elixirs.”

Elixirs.

The five types being Power, Mind, Focus, Life, and Magic, are rare consumable stones found inside the Mazes which grants its consumer an immediate and permanent increase in Stats. Power, Mind, Focus, and Life types increases Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Vitality Stats respectively while Magic increases the maximum Mana. However, in the consumption of Elixirs, there are two issues a Ranger needed to be mindful of.

Elixir Grade and the consumer’s resistance.

Elixir Grade is divided into three: Low, Mid, and High. Low increases from fractions to a one, Mid-Grade gave a minimum of 1 but never reaching 3, while lastly, the High Grade gave a 3 and upward depending on the potency of the Elixir to the Ranger’s body. For the record, the highest Stat increase ever recorded was from a Life type and the increase was 7.

Then, there’s the consumer’s resistance. This is not absolute to all Rangers but the consistent average consumption limit of Elixirs per type before the body developed a complete resistance is three times and this is regardless which grade the Ranger consumed. Once three times is spent, further consumptions will procure no result. Hence, in consuming Elixirs, Rangers often preferred the Mid-Grade at the very least.

As for the price, the Elixirs for the four main Stats has the retail price of $10,000 for the Low, Mid-Grade is $50,000, and the High Grade is $100,000. Meanwhile, the prices for the Low, Mid, and High Grade of the Magic type Elixirs are $200,000, $500,000, and a million respectively.

Purchasing three High Grade each, save for the Mind Elixir, of the main Stats Elixirs is Nichol’s main intervention to satisfy the One Above All’s demand. If all goes well and the needed Elixirs are secured, Nichol will only be 11 Stat points short. However, $900,000 is a lot to accumulate. Above that, it’s also not just about money. Even if Nichol secured that amount, the availability of the High-Grade Elixirs will also be an issue. High Grades does not come by that often. The competition per piece is fierce so if Nichol does not wish to queue or compete, he has to pay more and the Black Market minimally demands double.

When the 10 results were assessed and outlined with a solution, Nichol immediately went to work and the first thing he did was head to the pharmacy and the grocery to buy some chemicals and brewed a concoction back in his apartment.

Three days later, it’s finally time to grab the go-bags.

The first of the two targets is named Jonathan Reeves. It’s an alias, one of several, but that’s no concern to Nichol. His target is simply the money in his go-bag and to somehow null this act of theft, he’ll gift Reeves to the authorities as an act of amelioration especially that he’d just stolen an antique jewel from the Portland Museum a couple of nights ago.

Reeves is a Ranger with an Innate related to disguises. He can always adapt a new identity and hence, he was never caught and even framed some people for his crimes.

However, those traits of his are what also makes him an easy target for Nichol. Due to his ability to completely change his appearance, he’s free from the paranoia that the others in the same business either suffered or practiced to evade the law. Hence, he’s calm, outgoing, and easy to approach. He’d also just ordered pizza from his apartment which serves as Nichol’s entry point.

Nichol intercepted the call and disguised as the pizza delivery guy. “Your pizza’s here!” Nichol said after knocking his door.

“Coming!” He replied excitedly and didn’t even bothered to check through the peekhole first before opening the door. “How mu…?”

*Pssst!

Before he could finish his words, Nichol sprayed a fume directly to his face which knocked him unconscious in an instant. Afterwards, Nichol located and cracked his safe, taking the $110,000 he was keeping. Aside from the money, the jewel he’d stole, his passports and papers, a gun, and his other valuables were also there but Nichol let them be. The cash won’t procure any issue but these other stuffs will. Fortunately, it won’t be towards him.

Once the money was taken, Nichol scattered the jewel and the other valuables in Reeves’ safe around his unconscious frame and called the emergency hotline. “Hello, I’d like to report a robbery,” he said and gave them the address and the unit number. Nichol even fired two shots *Bang! Bang!* from Reeve’s gun before leaving to boost the sense of urgency.

Through the feeds from the surveillance camera on the hallway, Nichol watched as the cops arrived and cuffed Reeves 20 minutes later. He was supposed to be a robbery victim but due to the incriminating evidences found in his place, he was instead arrested. He may or may not serve his sentence given his ability and how shrouded his identity is but that’s no concern of Nichol anymore as he head to his next task.

Unlike Reeves, the other thief, Neil Mooring, an alias again of course, given that he doesn’t have the ability that Reeves enjoyed and he isn’t a Ranger either, had adapted the nature of paranoia, making him a harder target to strike. However, the reason why Nichol waited for two days before attacking them is because today is the day of the month where Mooring is meeting with his fence, leaving his residence unoccupied.

Mooring has lesser bills compared to Reeves, only $80,000. However, Mooring also has the pouch of the unmarked diamonds he’d acquired during his last mission. These could fetch at least a hundred thousand once sold.

“I’ll take these too,” Nichol decided. It’s unlike the jewel that Reeves stole which had an obvious target mark due to its uniqueness and artistic value. These diamonds are valuable but they’re just among the many. They fetched a high price but they don’t stand out.

Unfortunately, the nature of the circumstances made it impossible to incarcerate Mooring in the same manner that Nichol did to Reeves.

It is only through the intel Nichol and Sen accumulated from the feeds that they managed to identify Mooring as a notorious thief. However, his documents and properties are powerless to incriminate him. Even if Nichol had left the stolen diamonds and called the cops, it won’t be enough to accomplish that. Mooring was smart enough to keep his residence void of the traces of his double life as much as possible. Hence, Nichol had no other choice but to let him on the loose.

“Including the diamonds, there’s around $365,000 in there.” Nichol declared after counting the amount they collected.

-A third already. Not bad for a two days’ work. (Sentinel)

“I’ll give $5,000 to Denzel for Uncle Dalton’s treatment. I would have want to give them more but I won’t be able to explain where I got it. At least with the five thousand I can say that it’s all my savings.”

-We can give more once you have your license. Also, we can ask for the Association’s assistance regarding his condition. (Sentinel)

They probed Uncle Dalton’s condition through his medical records and his activity history over the past 10 years and the result was what they expected. Uncle Dalton is suffering from Mana Poisoning. A rare condition where a non-Ranger possessed Mana.

There are two ways to cure Mana Poisoning. First is to turn the patient into a Ranger and second is to undergo a treatment to extract the Mana. Both in which are extremely costly.

-The Heart-type Skillbook which can turn ordinary people into Rangers each cost at least $10,000,000. The treatment on the other hand because it involves a Magic Herb that can only be found inside Rank 4 Mazes and above is just as expensive. (Sentinel)

“There’s always another way.” If there’s an absolute fact that Nichol learned when he still had his Answer Sense is that the known solutions are just a percent of the totality of the applicable. “Anyhow, look for a High Grade for sale especially for a Life-type.”

-On it already. (Sentinel)