After looking around the list of quests that were still up on the board, Gaius left the Guild. He had left the house in order to look for any information that might be related to the meeting between Scorpio and the Plenum of the Eastern Territories that were two days from now, on this coming Friday, and now that he’d found a hint, the next thing he had to do was to act on it.

Tekkadan had multiple pagodas all over Seireiden — in fact, it had the most pagodas in the capital city — but the one that the bulletin was referring to was rather…unique. Other than being the largest pagoda in the city, it was also the central hub for which all long-range communications within the East took place. From this alone, the Tekkadan zaibatsu was able to earn a lot of money from collecting fees…and was an indirect measure of how politically influential the mega-corporation was.

More importantly, the sheer importance of that venue meant that it would be heavily guarded. Gaius didn’t have a reason to visit the Central Pagoda before, but with the upcoming exchange, even the most basic of preparations dictated that he should at least take a look at the place.

Picking up a bunch of chicken skewers on the way, Gaius walked towards his destination. It wasn’t hard to find — it dwarfed the other pagodas that were within eyeshot, and more importantly, men and women were flying towards and away from it every few minutes. From their speed, however, these people were most likely Squires, but ever since the Dynamo grew more popular, the skies had been grown more and more crowded.

New legislation was well underway to regulate movement in the skies, from what Isabelle told him. He wasn’t too sure where she found news of such a nature, since there was nothing about that in the Adventurers’ Guild, but everyone had their own secrets.

Chewing on a particularly tender bit of chicken meat, Gaius continued to make his way to Tekkadan Central Pagoda. Even at such a distance, he could sense an incredible amount of energy underneath it — it was most likely ether, judging from the sheer quality — and he smiled wryly. Tekkadan wasn’t concealing the fact that Orb’s closest equivalent to a nuclear bomb he’d sensed thus far were directly underneath the pagoda. Anyone with a Knight’s cultivation and beyond could probably feel the dormant threat underneath their soles.

It was a very good deterrent, if nothing else.

The streets grew more and more crowded as he approached, and he was finally forced to stop a street away from the looming pagoda. A long, winding queue dominated the place, at least a thousand people long, and the boy shook his head.

He didn’t know that Tekkadan Central Pagoda saw that much traffic. To their credit, however, the queue was not long because of inefficiency — rather, people were continuing to stream in as he watched. The queue was moving rapidly, and someone who’d joined the queue three minutes ago was already halfway through the street.

The boy shook his head. He wasn’t here to see how fast the queue was, but rather, to stake out the area. He stepped into an alleyway, and after making sure that no one was paying attention to him, activated his Active Camouflage ability.

He stepped out of the alleyway a while later, now completely out of sight. Propelling himself upwards, he could see the queue continue into the next street, all the way into the pagoda itself.

One, two, three…Gaius narrowed his eyes. After increasing his elevation, he could now spot over twelve strongpoints scattered all around Tekkadan Central Pagoda. Without Nexus around, the boy had little way to gauge the strength of the people sent on guard there, but the fact that these strongholds were above ground level meant that they had to be minimally Knights, or Squires with Dynamos.

Even if he took the surface count, and the minimum manpower for guards, there were at least twenty-four flight-capable cultivators around the pagoda. It was a formidable force — each of these individuals could stake a claim over small cities — but to gather them here under a single banner…

He shook his head. If the meeting with Scorpio really took place here, these strongpoints would probably be staffed with even Lords. Gaius didn’t know about the combat ability of these Constellations, but he didn’t really fancy the chances of a single Constellation making it out of such an encirclement alive, if the Plenum sent out Paragons.

In fact, his chances of survival could be linked to the willingness of the Plenum in bearing collateral damage. If they went all-out and attacked without restraint…

A slight chill ran down his back, and Gaius discarded that callous thought. That discussion he had with Nexus, regarding the levels of pragmaticism the people of Orb exhibited once in a while, however, continued to echo in his head silently. Shaking his head, the boy memorised the layout of the areas around Tekkadan Central Pagoda, before landing back down onto the ground.

The long queue of people continued to weigh on his mind heavily as the boy headed towards his next destination — an ice-cream shop. Nakama and Isabelle had tasked him to get them some rather expensive treats, a request that the boy was happy to fulfil, given that he had essentially grounded his little sister.

The doors of Dai-Yukimono jingled cheerfully as he pushed them open. Most of the tables were occupied by what looked like couples, and a few heads turned when Gaius strode in without any hesitation.

“Welcome to Dai-Yukimono, sir!” A waiter walked up, his black coattail flapping in the wind. “Table for…?”

“One,” Gaius replied. He looked around, somewhat mystified by the absence of the chill he associated with ice-cream shops, and then realised that he’d activated the Climate Control ability. As he followed the waiter to the last empty table, a luxurious cold descended onto his skin — he’d deactivated Climate Control.

“What will you have, sir?”

Gaius looked at the menu. “Dark chocolate. With sugar sprinkles.”

“Coming right up, sir!” The waiter clicked his heels, and executed a swift about-turn that made the boy briefly think that Dai-Yukimono had a private army or something. Smiling to himself, Gaius reclined on his chair and closed his eyes, enjoying the chill he’d missed after months of not stepping inside the Intersection or Heritage.

The bell jingled again, but Gaius paid no heed to it.

“Welcome to Dai-Yukimono, miss! Table for…?”

“One.”

The voice was rather familiar, but the boy didn’t pay much attention to it until he felt the chair opposite him move. He opened his right eye, just in time to see the waiter pull out the chair. “My apologies, sir, but you’ll have to share a table with another customer.”

Gaius grunted, and closed his right eye.

“Thank you. As for you, miss, your order…?”

“Dark chocolate. Sugar sprinkles on top, please.”

The boy twitched and opened his eyes. The words sounded familiar, and it wasn’t because the order was the same. It was her voice. As the waiter clicked his heels together, the two locked eyes and said the same words.

“It’s you!”