Versatile System Online

Walking around the infirmary, Noah checked out for points in which he could place arrays and formations for surveillance. This was the task given to him by Ray and right now, Noah preferred to do it alone.

With his mind fully concentrated, Noah noted down three locations in the corridor he was walking through. Thinking for some time, he made his decision and chanted,

[Pseudo-Formation:- Base],

This allowed him to put down the base for his formation. By doing so, Noah had laid down fifteen such bases and then connected them to one another as a whole network was formed.

As for the formation, it was a work for later as he had some time on his hands. Therefore, he planned to perfect the existing surveillance formation into a better and upgraded version.

While Noah continued to put the formations, his shadow wriggled. An eerie smiled formed within it as something had merged with his shadow.

"Noah!" Someone called out from behind.

Turning around, Noah saw Sirius at the other end of the corridor.

"Oh, hey Sirius. You scared me there for a second," Noah smiled and waved his hand as Sirius came up to him and asked,

"All done here? I found something,"

"Yes, I am done here. What did you find though?" Noah asked back.

"Lets go. I will tell you when we reach there," Sirius said and then looked back at Noah's shadow. His eyes squinted as a reddish light shone in them.

"Okay, let's go but I don't see why you are being so mysterious," Noah showed his displeasure as he went on with Sirius. After all, being a good friend to Sirius, Noah didn't get why he wasn't told what was happening.

"Noah, don't scream. Just keep on with the act, someone is following you," Sirius's voice sounded in his mind as Noah's pupils constricted.

"Following? And that too I?" He asked himself in shock as he went on with the act and walked out of the corridor.

All this while, the person inside his shadow had lost his smile. Instead, there was a nervous expression on his face as the man looked for ways to get out of Noah's shadow.

Previously, Adrian thought that being a master in the domain of shadows, he would be able to follow Noah easily as he was the weakest one amongst the bunch. However, he didn't know how and why Sirius appeared there. Not to mention the menacing eyes that he saw when the man hugged Noah.

Adrian almost lost his cover from fear but thankfully, he held on or else he would have been caught and he knew; that if something like that happened; being cast away from the place was the last thing to happen.

Reaching the common area, Noah and Sirius saw dozens of students lying around the whole place. Some had a few bandages over their bodies while some were even missing a limb or two.

Right now, the atmosphere was pretty calm as they still had faith in the Academy management and what was going on in their minds was that they would be saved sooner or later and that this nightmare would be over soon.

Some even thought that this was a test from the academy and if something too dangerous happened, they would be called out immediately.

Alas, those students hadn't seen a thing about life. They hadn't seen their friends and teammates get eaten alive or be crushed under the feet of countless trolls. However, that wasn't the worst of it; some students here had seen their friends be killed by other students.

Those were those who had seen the harsh reality of mankind and right now, they either shut themselves from life or had taken lessons from this and shed off their naivetés.

"Is it gone?" Noah asked, a bit nervous over the fact that someone had followed him the whole time he set up the base for surveillance arrays.

"Not yet, lets keep on going," Sirius replied through the mental transference technique.

"Okay," Noah nodded and then went on with Sirius.

While they walked, they did so leisurely as if they were walking through their backyard. The others looked at them walking and felt rather gratified. Many knew that these two played a big role in rescuing everyone and setting up the order in the infirmary. Therefore, her we're very thankful of both of them.

That was also a reason why Sirius was rather calm. His job was to overlook everything and make sure that no one caused a problem in the infirmary until the team were finalized.

Within minutes, Sirius and Noah reached Ray's room.

"knock…knock,"

Within the room,

Ray sat in a meditating pose as he accumulated more and more mana into his mana core. He was trying to purify his mana core and upgrade it's level.

Right now, according to what Aurora had told him; his mana core albeit of a very higher grade was in it's initial level and for him to make it level up, he had to accumulate mana within it and fuse the mana with his mana core. 𝗳𝘳𝒆𝘦𝑤𝐞𝚋𝗻𝚘𝘷𝘦𝙡.𝑐𝐨𝘮

This way, the impurities would be pushed out of the mana core and it would be able to hold more magic and would also work more efficiently.

Although Ray had known about if for long, he wasn't able to focus on it until now. After all, the problems never ended and kept on coming.

"Huh," He opened his eyes as the door was knocked. Standing up, he walked to the door as he used his perception to sense the ones on the other side.

There, he sensed three presences. Of the three, two were very familiar while one wasn't much familiar.

"But I can see only two figures," He thought to himself as he felt something fishy going on.

"Well, lets see what we could," He muttered and opened the door.

"Heyy Ray," Sirius called out cheerfully and leaned in and gave him a bear hug.

"Uhm… you all good?" Ray asked, confused over Sirius's strange behavior. He felt as if this was someone other than Sirius who had taken Sirius's form.

"Ray, I detest this as much as I could. It's just that there is a shadow following Noah and it has merged with his shadow. Noah knows very little about it and only feels that something is attached there but you know what it means and getting rid of it could cause some commotion. That's why I came here to see if you could help," Sirius told the whole situation to Ray through the mental transference technique.

Hearing Sirius's cold voice in his mind, Ray finally sighed in relief. It was his friend, just that some problem caused him to change his attitude for a bit.

"Hey Noah," Ray broke away from the hug as he waved his hand rather awkwardly. Sirius's hug had really took him by surprise.

"Hey Ray," Noah waved back.

"So, what brings you both here?" Ray asked as he started putting up the act.

Then, the three of them sat down and started talking about nonsensical plans and made up various strategies to fool the person hidden in Noah's shadow.

It was Ray's strategy to make the enemy think that it was their win but the enemy didn't know that all the information they were getting was false and they were being misled.

After a whole ten minutes of making up wrong plans, Sirius and Noah bid farewell as they led the shadow out.

Walking to one dark corner, they purposefully slowed down and let the shadow detach from Noah as after confirming the shadow was gone, Sirius motioned Noah as they both hurried out the corner.

"hehe, to think that such fortune would await me for my troubles," Adrian thought and giggled eerily.

He then blurred from one place to another as the shadows flickered throughout the corridor.

Appearing in front a normal looking room, he knocked thrice in a rhythm as a voice sounded from the other side.

"How many years are to be developed if the dean remains,"

"F*ck that detestable bastard. Nothing would come from if he remains being the dean," Adrian answered in spite.

"Hey, Adrian," The voice on the other side greeted as the door opened.

Entering the room, there were fitted sofas and luxurious items laying around everywhere. Rather than being a room within the infirmary, it looked more like a luxurious guest house of a noble.

Adrian leisurely walked to the sofa and sat down. Pouring some water into the glass, he took a sip and said, "We have got some plans. The dean's puppet really is a fool. To think that he discussed everything right in front of me. Well, what could I say, it's my greatness that I found everything," That was when Adrian showed his real side.

Although he acted all sweet and nice in front of others, in truth; he was shrewd and maniacal man who didn't leave anyone a chance to gain any benefits. Heck! His narcissistic nature wasn't even known to most as he was said by some to be a narcissistic bastard as well.

"Well, if you are so great then what did you find," A voice chuckled as the hologram of a woman appeared in front of him.