Chương 16: Into The Vault
"Lukas, have you got his Iris access?" asked Dylan, referring to the mage's Iris. He was hoping that Lukas had somehow managed to tap into it right before the guy died. That way, he was able to ensure that none of those who kept tabs on the mage's Iris could detect that the owner had been rendered braindead. Well, and everything-dead.
Sadly, Lukas' answer shattered the lightning mage's hope.
[None of you has had the chance to make contact with it, so no, I have not. But I can give you a heads up when the guards are finally notified about it.]
Dylan sighed. With Maya currently treating his wound, Dylan shouted to Max. "How long do you think you'll need to open it?"
Max was distracted from his observation on the locks when Dylan's transcription appeared on his Iris. He took his time considering his chances before answering. [Twenty minutes, give or take.]
It wasn't the answer Dylan had been expecting. 'That's obviously too long,' he internalized. But at the same time, he didn't want to add more pressure to the newly Awakened, as that could affect his state of mind and mess everything up. "Just do your best. But try to finish it faster than twenty minutes."
Max absent-mindedly nodded, but he wasn't confident he could deliver the guy's wish. Twenty minutes were already fast for his standard, considering all the lock mechanisms in place.
There were three types of them. First was obviously the time-locks; the easiest ones to disable, since all he had to do was screw up the mana waves coming from the electric mana conductors attached to them.
The second type was the same electronic mechanism employed in many common locks, like the ones at Daryl's Magic Barrel and at the door into the vault room he'd had to pick earlier. However, there were two of them on the vault's door, each corresponding to the final type of lock.
And that was the classic combination mechanism typically found on safes. This method was still widely used even in today's era, but with an additional reinforcement in the form of the electronic locks.
The electronic lock's purpose was to safeguard the 'claw' that held the combination lock's drive cam in place. And once Max unlocked the electronic lock, the claw would be retracted, allowing him to finally turn the combination lock's dial.
Now this final type was the trickiest to crack. His current record was ten minutes and fifty-two seconds, and that was to open only one combination lock, consisting of three combinations. Normally, people would need hours to do this, but with his ability to see and manipulate soundwaves, he was able to cheat his way to a faster completion.
Max took a deep breath and activated his gloves. He stood just a few centimeters away from the door, and switched on the mana viewing mode. Immediately, his eyes homed in on the waves converging around a rectangular form hidden behind the door. This was the device housing the three time-locks.
Without hesitating, Max grabbed the mana waves connected to the device and yanked them back as if they were dogs' leashes. That movement caused the mana waves coming from the device's mana conductor to go haywire, effectively shutting down the device.
Now that the first lock was out of the way, he moved on to the electronic locks.
He bent down and was about to inspect the mana conductor before a lock of long brown hair fell and covered his eyes. Annoyed, Max tore off his wig and tossed it away.
Nami was startled to have been abruptly and violently removed from his head. 'Hey!' she protested.
'Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting you're on my head,' Max apologized.
Maxine had officially shed her disguise.
The electronic lock on this vault door bore practically no difference than the regular ones Max usually encountered. In addition, he could tell that only a couple of people had access to opening it, since the slots on the mana signature were super easy to figure out. It took him about twelve seconds to unlock it and retract the claw from the combination lock it was responsible for.
He quickly moved on to the second electronic lock. This time, he only needed nine seconds, as the slots were completely identical to the ones on the first lock. All he had to do was replicate the shape of the mana key that would fit them.
Now that both electronic locks had been opened, the combination locks were next.
He turned on his soundwave viewing mode and observed the purple sound strings currently 'asleep' around the lock. He touched the dial and turned it counter-clockwise. A few seconds later, a few sound strings flared to life; this should be the 'clicks' produced by the contact points between the lever and the driver cam within the lock mechanism.
He then activated his left glove and positioned his left hand close to those strings, and turned the dial clockwise several times before turning it counter-clockwise again. This time, the reverberating sound strings that represented the 'clicks' were immediately caught by his left fingers. He applied kinetic mana to 'expand' these strings so that they grew to be about twice as big. This basically equated to him amplifying the volume of the clicking sounds.
Sound mages could also perform a similar technique. Well, they probably used a different approach. Obviously, they weren't able to see soundwaves. But their specific Talent meant they had a sharper sense when it came to applying and converting mana to soundwaves, much like how lightning mages could get a feel of when mana made contacts with electricity in the air.
With the clicking sounds amplified, he would be able to observe the minute differences between each click that was caused by the fence dropping a mere millimeter down a disc notch. It was difficult for other people to rely on their hearing to discern these subtle differences, but Max could literally see them very clearly with his eyes. So that was a little bit of a cheat.
Two minutes later, after a repeated process of turning the discs and disengaging them several times, he was able to deduce that the lock had four discs, which meant he had to figure out a total of four combinations.
That would be tough. Not to mention, since he had both his hands full, he would have to rely on his memory alone to memorize the clicks that were close enough to form an actual combination. So he took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself.
He began turning the dial again, with his left hand maintaining the sound amplification. He endeavored for the next three minutes, before he finally smirked. One disc notch had just aligned with the fence; he had found the first combination. Which didn't mean it was the actual first combination. He would still have to figure out the sequence of combinations later.
He took mental note of that combination before resetting the discs and trying to find the next combination. It took him four whole minutes to achieve this.
A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he focused on finding the third combination. And three minutes later, another disc notch made way for the lever to drop by a hair. And finally, after another three minutes, he got the last combination. In total, he had spent fourteen minutes trying to figure out the number of discs as well as the right combinations. Next, he had to test out these four combinations that he got to find the correct sequence.
It was a process which lasted almost three minutes before finally, the sound strings indicated that the fence had dropped a significant height, and all he had to do was make a final turn, fitting the lever in the driver cam. And so he did just that.
The first lock had been successfully cracked. Now, on to the next one.
However, watching that happening, Dylan could only feel a slight relief. In truth, Max hadn't kept track of the time, for he was fully concentrated on his job. It had been Dylan who was counting every minute that passed. And seeing that Max had needed almost twenty minutes—the amount of time the boy had estimated to open the vault—just to crack one lock was a bit worrying for Dylan.
"Lukas, any sign of the guards approaching our position?" he asked via his Iris.
By now, Maya had moved to the small room connecting the vault room and the hallway. Her task was to warn Dylan if anyone were to enter the room as well as to act as a fake guard to distract any intruder. The woman was also able to manipulate the lights around her body so that she appeared taller and bulkier, roughly matching the appearance of the now-dead guard—the one who had actually been guarding the door to the vault before they came in.
[Nope. You're still in the clear.]
That sounded good and bad at the same time. Good because, well, that meant they were not in danger at the moment. Bad because it took that long for whoever had access to the mage's Iris to notice anything. Which could mean that they had indeed taken notice, but decided to bid their time. Although this was mostly Dylan's paranoia speaking.
He glanced at the newly Awakened mage who was still working on the second lock. He didn't know this, but at that point, Max was actually already figuring out the last combination. The boy didn't need to figure out the number of the discs, after all, since he had already done that on the first lock.
Six minutes later, there was a broad grin blooming on Max's lipsticked mouth. He stretched his sore back before grabbing the handle and pulling the heavy metal door open. [Guys, I did it!]
With Maya standing watch in the adjacent small room, Dylan immediately moved to the vault, fishing out the folded bags from his pockets. He and Max each carried three.
As the vault door fully swung open, a brilliant sight was revealed before the two guys. Piles of tens of thousands of mana stones of all colors and sizes were neatly arranged within the room.
They were mainly categorized by the four qualities—low, medium, high, and crystal. These qualities were based upon the amount of potential mana stored within; the higher it was, the clearer the stone's texture became. The highest quality, namely the crystal quality, looked so clear one could see glowing fibers suspected to be potential mana inside the stones.
The vault even contained a decent number of matter mana stones, which were the rarest kind out of all mana stones.
"Grab all you can!" Dylan told Max. "Make it quick, because we don't have much time!"
As if coming to a silent agreement, the two instantly moved toward the piles of crystal quality mana stones. Why would they settle on the lesser ones if they could obtain the highest quality?
Max flapped open one of the bags and immediately raked in an armful of white mana stones. He filled half the bag with these stones before moving on to the pile of red stones. After collecting enough to fill up the upper half, Max tied the top of the bag. He put the white-and-red bag to the side before moving on to fill a new bag with dark blue mana stones.
His second bag was then colored blue and yellow, representing electric and light mana stones, respectively. Lastly, he opened the third bag and poured in a bunch of violet mana stones, which contained potential mana compatible with sound energy.
There was still half of the bag available, which initially he had planned to fill with matter mana stones. But seeing Dylan filling up one whole bag with these stones, Max gave up on the idea.
He might have only discovered the existence of mages that day, but he figured matter mages were also as rare as their raw resources. He instead needed to consider the needs of people possessing the most common out of all magic Talents. So he walked back toward the piles of white mana stones to finish up the third bag.
"Alright, let's get out of here!" Dylan said as he picked up two bags, each held in one hand. Next, he bent down, opened his mouth, and bit down on the tied knot at the top of the third bag, lifting up the whole thing as he straightened his back.
Max's mouth went agape. He glanced at his own three huge bags. Was he expected to carry all of them?! Each must have weighed more than thirty kilograms! He might be able to barely carry two, but he was pretty sure all his teeth would fall off should he attempt to pick up the third one the same way Dylan did!
He hadn't considered his scrawny body to give him this much disadvantage.
Dylan didn't wait for Max as he exited the vault. Max was about to type in 'help' on his Iris before someone else entered the room. It was Maya. She took his third bag and calmly said, "Let's go."
Max sighed in relief. But then he frowned after seeing how easily Maya lifted up the bag. It had also been the same case with Dylan. Were all mages this strong?
Whatever. It didn't matter for now. He had to exit this building as fast as possible!
But of course, their escape couldn't be so smooth. As if fate wanted them to suffer a little bit more, as soon as Maya opened the door to the hallway, a message from Lukas came in.
[All the guards on that floor suddenly moved out of their positions! And they're all coming toward you!]
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