Aldred looked at the small old man. The old man was as tall as Aldred's knee. He was an ordinary man with no sign of magic at or life force at all, but he manage to create a robot that could almost harm him.
That was the power of technology.
"Since he isn't our man, we have no further business here."
"Wait," the old man said. "Why do you want to meet Victor?"
"Because I don't want him to fool the people anymore. All of us deserve to know the truth and not being manipulated by him."
"Does that involve me being free?" Barne asked.
"Y...yeah sure."
"Well then I am in. Tell me what kind of weapons you need and I will work on it."
"We don't need weapons," Aldred said. "What we need is something that can tell us his location. We have a divination spell but it's not that accurate which is why we found you instead of Victor."
"Hmmm, in that case, the young girl on your side should do a better job than me. Isn't that right Naley, The Ghost of Duria?"
"Why is she better?"
Barne smiled. "She's a master in information technology. The only person who could move around so freely in Duria is her because she managed to go anywhere undetected. People like me have to stay under the ground most of the time, but The Ghost of Duria could blend in anytime she wanted."
"I don't have the skills to track him," Naley said. "All I can do best is prevent him from tracking us."
"Victor didn't manage to track me and Stella though."
"That's because he did not use a more advanced mana detection tech. Now that he knew the existence of you two, he will surely use it."
"So he didn't activate this tech all the time to catch Diamond Ranks like me?"
"Usually, ordinary means are enough, but you are smart enough to blend in as someone who lives in Duria."
The first time Aldred and Stella came to Duria, they had stole someone's identities. Aldred put these two people in the Ceraisian Empire, and then he and Stella morphed into their appearance.
Aldred watched enough spy movies to think of this. Who would have thought that it was a genius move.
"So our usual disguise won't work?" Aldred asked.
"I activate my anti-tracking device all the time, so we are practically invisible."
"I see. That's convenient."
"So what do we do now?" Stella asked. "How can we track Victor?"
"Naley," Barne called. "I think if we work something together, we can creating something that can track Victor."
"Creating what?"
"A device that can track energy zone. Theoretically, this device should be able to detect a location's energy zone. If we can scour the nation with this device, we should be able to pin point his location."
"But everything requires energy. The cities are lit with energy," Naley said.
"Yes, but I believe Victor's lab requires far greater energy that all the city combined. Something like that would glow as bright as the sun amongst the tiny stars."
Naley looked at Barne with great interest. "That could work."
"Let's do it," Barne said.
Aldred and Stella looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders as Naley and Barne began to write their theories.
It took them a few weeks before they actually testing something. Few weeks more, and they drew a blueprint.
Aldred teleported inside the room. "Guys, I am back. I bring hamburgers, sweet baguette, and some donuts this time. I figure your brain would needs sugar in them."
"I love baguette." Stella grabbed one and took a bite.
"Hey, you two. You want some?" Aldred asked Naley and Barne.
"Just put them on the table," Naley said as she was busy working on something.
"They really can't take their eyes off of those," Aldred commented after he put the bag of food on the table.
"It's better that way. The device seems to be almost finished," Stella replied.
Aldred sighed. "I really hope we can catch Victor soon."
"What's the hurry?"
"Selia is getting more aggressive in their approach. It won't take them long for them to take the southern part of Yevileria and bordered directly with Ceraisian."
"Those Shardminds are known to be intelligent and persistence," Stella said. "It won't be easy fighting them, Aldred. They are arrogant, but they will never underestimate their foes. And especially not you."
"I won't underestimate my enemy either," Aldred replied. "Do you know anyone that can possibly match me in strength?"
"I think Edeline said his name once. I believe it was Zikaok Jalruhk. He got thick crystal on his forehead."
"You do mention that shardminds' power are proportionate to the size of their crystal."
"Yes, for the male, the bigger the better, but for the female, the smaller and narrower is better."
"And the size of their body is also affected by the crystal, right?"
"Most of the time, yes. Males have similar bodies according to the crystal. So men are preferred to be bulky, and big, but womens are preferred to be small and petite."
"And so who is this Zikaok guy?"
"He's supposed to be one of the nation's genius child."
Aldred sighed. During his journey he had met many so called geniuses from all kinds of powerful, influential, and wealthy family. All of them died when they crossed him.
That said, their families never try to hunt him down or anything. He wondered why was that the case.
What Aldred did not realized was that many people have sent assassin after him, but he killed them all with absolute strength. It was to the point that killing him wasn't worth the price.
Now that he was at Diamond Rank, barely anyone could harm him.
Aldred waited. Weeks turn into months.
Aldred hoped the waiting was worth it.
As Naley and Barne kept working on the device, Victor's robot scoured the nation for them as well. It was like hide and seek, except in this game, both sides were the seeker and also the hider.
The goal of the game was: who could find who first?
