Supreme Magus

"Good gods, one mistake and we might blow up?" Her survival instinct took the wheel and her Forgemaster wand appeared in her hand.

"Maybe. I'm paranoid, but the Odi were crazy, so it's not so unlikely that..."

"You're not paranoid. I mean, not this time." Phloria cut him short.

"Once a safety protocol is breached, the defense readiness condition is raised. Unless the Commander promptly resets the system, two things are bound to happen. The first is the call for reinforcements, which probably failed, being the Odi dead.

"The second is triggering the failsafe mechanism protecting a base' secrets. It usually implies self-destruction so to kill the invaders and prevent state secrets from falling into the wrong hands."

"Can you reset it?" Lith asked.

"Maybe. So far the Odi protocols are not so different from those of the Griffon Kingdom."

'If she manages to do it, we might have enough energy for the tower!' Solus thought.

"Let me guess, that's where we're headed." Phloria pointed at a room that was double the size of those they had encountered so far.

It had ample glass windows which allowed them to look inside and there was a small antechamber in front of it, with a desk for the secretary and seats for the guests.

"Five arrays, three mana cables, twelve purple crystals. This is going to be tricky."

During his stay in Kulah, Lith used Invigoration so many times to scan for dangers that he had discovered new ways to use it. He placed his hands on the walls nearby rather than directly on the arrays.

He made his mana travel from a safe distance, closing it in to the magical formation to make sure that he could study them without triggering their defense mechanisms.

"Or not." Said Phloria, while walking to the secretary's desk. "Secretaries are usually the real second in command. They know everything about their boss and organize their workday, so they have access to pretty much everything."

Lith had already cleared the area, so she could cast some of the spells Orion had taught her. Silvery strands of energy came out from her wand, highlighting several secret compartments where Life Vision showed nothing.

"Wait, what?" Lith asked both Solus and Phloria.

'Beats me. To my mana sense, it's just a normal desk.' Solus said.

"Paranoia." Phloria quoted the book of Lith, chapter 1, verse 1. "The spell I just used specifically reveals cloaked spells. Dad developed it right after studying how such spells work."

"I'm really tempted to ask you what the heck that wand is." No matter how much Lith looked at it, it appeared as a conducting baton made of silver to him.

"You'll have to keep your curiosity to yourself so that my father can keep his head." She replied as several silvery runes appeared over the desk.

For the first time, Lith was interested in Royal Forgemasters' spell, looking at Phloria's actions in the detail. The magic words she used were mostly unknown and the few he recognized derived from Forgemaster spells.

She formed hand and wand signs, using both to draw energy runes in the air. After a few seconds, all the compartments opened at once. One was full of paperwork that Phloria stored for the Professors, one was for office supplies, and the last contained a small keyboard.

"Gods, even the Odi suffered from a bad case of stationery thefts if they used secret compartments for them."

"Paranoia should tell you they are enchanted." Lith replied with his eyes ablaze with Life Vision.

"My bad. My spells can take me only this far and the buttons all look the same. What do you make of them?" She asked.

Lith placed his hand on the desk and performed a thorough scan, hoping that Orion's spell had missed something.

'Apparently, it's as good as Invigoration and it doesn't require contact. Yondra's apprenticeship offer is becoming more interesting by the second.' Lith thought.

Once he focused on the buttons, he could follow their enchantments as if they were power lines and discover what they were connected to.

"One button is for the door, one is for the arrays, and the other two go too far for me to follow them." Lith said.

"They must be the one to call for the security and another to raise the alarm." Phloria suggested.

"Do we really want to bet everything on a button?" Lith asked. The array was a minefield but facing it head-on felt safer to him.

"Do you really expect a secretary to be a Master Warden that every day has to defuse and reactivate that kind of array?" Phloria's reasoning made a lot of sense.

After Lith nodded to her, she pushed it and the arrays disappeared. Another click and the door opened.

Once inside, they ignored the papers and scanned the room for secret compartments. Lith noticed with Life Vision that almost everything in the office was enchanted, especially the desk.

It was filled with mana crystals, resembling a huge wooden communication amulet. Invigoration allowed him to peek inside its drawers, but there was nothing worth mentioning.

"More paperwork and enchanted stationery. What about you?" Lith asked.

"I can feel something enchanted behind this library, but I can't find a magical switch to open it." Phloria replied.

Much to Lith dismay, the library behind the commander's desk was completely ordinary, so Life Vision, mana sense, and Invigoration showed nothing.

'Okay, it's my time to shine.' Solus slipped off Lith's finger and inside the shelves in her liquid form, exploring every nook and cranny, until she found the hidden mechanism. Then she backtracked its workings until she found its trigger.

'Oh my! It seems that the Odi had developed something similar to C-4.' She said. 'I've stored everything for research purposes, but before opening the library I'm going to check for more surprises.'

It was the first time since he was reborn on Mogar that Lith heard about explosives, so he asked Phloria about them.

"It's ancient stuff, no one uses it anymore. Spells are much more powerful and more easily controlled. Also, if someone wears decent protection, you can't kill anyone with explosives unless you make the ceiling collapse on their heads. Why do you ask?"

"Because it's the only thing I could think about to activate the underlying arrays if we just ripped the library off the wall." Lith said.

"That would be an incredibly crude but ingenious way to fool a Forgemaster. Good thinking." Phloria nodded.

'Thanks.' Solus replied in Lith's mind while Phloria and he looked for some kind of switch. Luckily for them, there was only one switch and no traps. After removing the locks, the library easily moved on its hinges, revealing a safe and a block of explosive that Solus had left to prove Lith's theory.

The safe was a small rectangular door, covered by several overlapping arrays, each one fueled by several purple crystals. Above them floated a small holographic display.

"Dammit, the magic crystals powering the safe are the same that fuel the arrays. I can't deactivate them without triggering the safe defense mechanism." Lith said.

"Unless we know the password." Phloria pointed at the holographic display, showing only numbers. She used another of her father's spells and the numbers lit up, revealing that each one of them was connected to two different relays.

One was linked to the safe and the other to the arrays.

"Great! The password contains all the numbers, so they can all be right or wrong depending on their sequence and repetition. I don't think even the Professors can crack it this time." Lith said.