The flap fell back into place, covering the entrance to the tent. Jake waited. He wasn’t worried that Johnny might betray him and give him away to Los Demonios. Johnny seemed genuine. He couldn’t have fabricated everything he told Jake on the spot and acted in accordance with his story, pretending to be worrying about his girlfriend, and all. Besides, one of the upgrades for Enhanced Intelligence allowed Jake to analyze the behaviors of various living beings to predict their next moves and to understand their intentions, motivations, and potential reactions in different situations. Thanks to this, Jake knew Johnny was sincere.
So he waited. His enhanced hearing allowed him to easily pick up Johnny’s footsteps outside the tent. He could hear them fade into the distance as Johnny moved away. Then they stopped. The ammo-producing machine must be really close to the tent, just like Johnny had said. A few seconds later, the footsteps resumed, this time moving toward the tent. Jake listened as they grew louder until the flap covering the entrance was pulled aside and Johnny entered.
He immediately walked toward Jake, pulling a mana crystal from inside his jacket where he had hidden it. Johnny held it out to him, and Jake noticed it was significantly dimmer than the usual mana crystals, which emitted a vibrant blue light. The reason the mana crystal Johnny had brought was dimmer became apparent when Jake summoned the item’s description. It contained less than a thousand MP, a stark contrast to the usual 5,000 MP that mana crystals typically held. The reason for this was obvious: the mana crystal must have been used by the ammo-producing machine for quite a while, which gradually sucked the magical energy from the crystal to consume it.
“Sorry I couldn’t bring you a crystal with more mana in it,” Johnny said apologetically. “The other machines are farther away and in more crowded areas of the base. I might’ve been noticed if I tried to get mana crystals from them.”
That’s fine, Jake thought, nodding at Johnny. While the nine hundred mana points contained in the crystal weren’t much, it was enough for now. He wasn’t planning to engage in fights in the next several hours anyway. For simply activating Cloak and sneaking out of the base, the remaining amount of mana in the crystal would be more than sufficient.
Jake squeezed the mana crystal in his hand just hard enough to create a few small cracks, from which the magical energy immediately began to seep out. It drifted through the air toward his skin to be absorbed by his body. Johnny watched the process with fascination, and when the mana crystal was empty, he said, “Can you hand it back? I’ll stash it in my chest with my other stuff. If I get caught, I’ll just say I stole the crystal for myself to keep you out of it. Right now, I have about a thousand MP inside of me. There’s no way to measure how much mana someone carries, so they wouldn’t know if I’m lying. They’d never be able to tell how much I had before and after.”
Unless they decide to torture you brutally, Jake thought. He passed the now-empty mana crystal to Johnny, who crossed the room to store it in the chest he had been crouching behind when Jake entered the tent. There was no time to waste, so Jake immediately headed toward the exit.
“Hold on,” Johnny called as he rushed to catch up with him.
Jake paused to allow him to catch up.
“I’ll pull the flap aside so you can slip out without being seen,” Johnny suggested.
Because Johnny hadn’t pulled the flap all the way when he returned to the tent with the mana crystal, a small gap remained between the flap and the edge of the entrance, allowing Jake to slip through. However, Johnny’s suggestion could prove to be a better option, so Jake decided to wait.
Johnny stopped at the entrance and said, “I’ll pull it aside when you turn on your disguising ability.”
Jake nodded and activated Cloak with a thought, almost immediately turning invisible.
“Wow,” Johnny whispered in amazement. “That’s incredible!”
Jake slipped around him and stopped near the flap, waiting for Johnny to pull it aside. However, the man continued to gaze at the empty space where Jake had just stood. Johnny extended a hand, but all his fingers found was an empty spot.
“You’re not there anymore?” he muttered, puzzled. “I didn’t even see you move! Where are you now?”
Jake tapped him on the shoulder from behind, causing the man to jump in surprise.
“Oh geez,” he gasped. “You startled me.”
Looks more like I scared the hell out of you, Jake thought.
Chuckling nervously, Johnny turned around.
“I can’t see you at all. Well, I’ll pull the flap aside now. When you’re through, tap me on the shoulder again to let me know, okay?”
Johnny waited a moment as if for confirmation. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to see Jake nod anyway, he stepped closer to the flap and discreetly pulled it aside, careful to make it look like he was doing it solely for himself. Jake quickly slipped through and immediately tapped Johnny on the shoulder. The man wasted no time in stepping out of the tent, letting go of the flap and allowing it to slide back into place. To Jake’s eyes, it appeared completely natural, as if Johnny were simply going about his business without letting anyone through at all.
“Good luck,” Johnny said.
Jake gave him one last look before turning away. He quickly gathered his bearings and began to stealthily make his way across the base.
“Give them hell,” Johnny muttered behind him. “I can’t wait to hear the news about you and Sam ripping their main base to shreds!”
Jake moved as quickly as he could without causing distortions in the air that the turrets could detect. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the dormant ammo-producing machine, from which Johnny must have extracted the mana crystal. So far, none of the guards seemed aware that it was out of order.
There were several bandits standing at the gates that had not yet been repaired, so Jake decided to scale one of the perimeter walls instead. When he reached it, he clung to the surface using Adhesive Secretion and began climbing up. In one of his hands, he still gripped the pieces of the broken weapon, but it didn’t hinder him much. A few minutes later, he was finally on the other side of the wall, outside the base. He made his way across the street toward the high-rise building, the same one from which he had observed the base earlier.
When he reached the building, he was finally out of the turrets’ range, so he allowed himself to pick up the pace. He kept his Cloak engaged, though. After discarding the broken weapon, he scaled the high-rise, climbing floor after floor until he finally arrived at the rooftop. Standing upright, he took one last look at the base below. Things were quiet down there. Still, he knew that chaos would erupt the moment the massacre at HQ he had caused was discovered.
He was about to move away when he noticed one guard speaking to the one next to him, pointing at the dormant ammo-producing machine. They both stared at it for a moment before beginning to cross the base toward the machine to investigate what was wrong with it.
Jake decided to stay on the roof a bit longer to see how things would play out.