Night had fallen by the time Gaius was done with assembling a dozen one-use artefacts. As a general rule of thumb, one-use artefacts were far more powerful than their reusable counterparts, because their construction was focused around power to the point that stability was compromised. Most of these artefacts were modified Straight Shots, designed to fire projectiles of energy that were capable of breaking the sound barrier, and then some.

Throughout the process, the boy had kept his mind of anything that was not related to his preparations for tomorrow. If someone had tried to check in on him, Gaius probably didn’t notice, but now that he was done, the boy couldn’t help but feel somewhat depressed at the fact that no one had opened the door.

It was illogical, given that the others definitely didn’t want to disturb his preparations on the eve of battle, but emotions were never really logical to begin with. He looked at his small stockpile of modified Straight Shots, which were now intricate, arm-length thin sticks, and began to fix a gemstone onto a slot at their stock.

Once done, pulling the trigger would extract every bit of energy from the gem at the back and transform it into a penetrating blast of ether. Shot for shot, this weapon would yield far more damage than that of the Moonshot, if all other variables were the same. Yet, with each gemstone going for more than five hundred gold under the current political climate, these little sticks were probably the amongst the most expensive weapons to grace the world.

Theoretically, anyway. Gaius picked up two modified Straight Shots and hung it on his lecturer’s cloak, which was no longer a pure white after some attempts at patching it up. After sparing a pensive glance at its tattered state, Gaius put the cloak on. Moonlight streamed into the darkened room as he flew out of it, into the night beyond.

There were two things he wanted to do for now. The first was to test out the new artefact; the second was to keep an eye out for any last-minute news regarding the meeting between Scorpio and the Plenum. His first goal was easy to meet, at least.

After creating some distance between himself and Mi-Zu’s capital, Gaius took out the first modified Straight Shot and took aim at a faraway rock a kilometre away. At first glance, the target he’d set his eyes on was a nice, huge rock, which had weathered untold years of rain and shine. Perhaps, one day, when the flames of war finally reached the hinterland of Mi-Zu, the rock might be broken down into smaller chunks, loaded onto a catapult and then used to crush the walls of the territory’s capital city.

But that was all just a possibility. One that Gaius didn’t really see the need to care about. His finger twitched.

The rock blew apart almost immediately, shattering into numerous tiny pieces that flew into the general direction of the boy’s shot. A rumbling crack echoed throughout the night, shattering the silence.

Gaius nodded to himself, satisfied. As for the Straight Shot, the entire structure had warped. Sharp wooden points were jutting out all over the ruined artefact — he had created these artefacts using wood for cost reasons — and the gem he’d fixed onto the rifle-like artefact’s stock was now dim and useless. That was five hundred gold down the drain, even if one discounted the fluctuating prices of gems from Heritage, the time used to make it and the wood that served as the medium.

After getting over the odd sense of loss, he took out the second modified Straight Shot. However, instead of taking aim immediately, the boy chose to draw a few sigils. He wasn’t planning on repeating what he did in Eo-Seu and Feng-Lang in its entirety — anyone with a weapon where tens of sigils were floating in front of it was not, by any definition, invisible. Any sufficiently suspicious person would notice it almost immediately, and Gaius had the feeling that Scorpio wasn’t just going to be suspicious.

The test went smoothly, and the west of Seireiden, which was still the stomping grounds of monsters too strong for normal adventurers, now had a mountain that looked like someone took a bite out of it. After disposing of the ruined Straight Shots, Gaius returned to Seireiden, where the usual nightly gathering for its elites was well underway.

No one noticed him as he moved around the floating billboards. Most of them were still advertising the same things and the same quests they had the last time Gaius was here. It was to be expected — anything that occupied its own space for more than a day was probably a task that was stupendously tough. Like the one about prospective dragon-slayers…although now that Nexus had enlightened him and Isabelle about the truth behind dragons, the boy felt some incongruity when he looked at the advertisement.

Slipping in and out into small groups of gossiping adventurers, Gaius soon noted that most discussion was centred around the Chanter of Innocents’ awakening. He soon confirmed one thing — no one knew who or what this god did, but everyone present agreed that Weiwu was definitely a great god.

It wasn’t too hard to sieve out that point, given that the aftermath of his appearance had drastically weakened the elemental gods’ influence on Orb itself. Gaius shook his head. Any further, and the sky could be used as a metric to gauge the strengths of the great gods.

No change, evidently. The ad is still looking for volunteers, who can register up until morning tomorrow. Isn’t this timing a bit too…tight? Or would these people be under the direct command of a few people in the know? The boy frowned. It didn’t help that he didn’t have a good understanding of how the people in the Plenum worked — they were too divorced from Mi-Zu that no one really talked about them.

After spending another hour or so trying to listen in — Gaius didn’t want to ask the Information Brokers about anything related to the Plenum, given that something might happen tomorrow — he gave up and returned to Sundown.

The moonlit room was silent, much like the rest of the house. The others had probably gone to bed ahead of him, which made sense, given that it was rather late. Hanging up his cloak, Gaius opened the door and paused.

A small tray, laden with a few covered bowls and plates, was set out in front of the door. To the side of the largest plate, a fork and a spoon were laid out neatly. Gaius regarded the setup thoughtfully. He carried it into his room, and sat on his bed, placing it on his lap.

Warm mist rose as he removed the covers, and the aroma of food entered his nose. He smiled, and began to eat.