The men on the ground begin foaming at the mouth, while the two Royal Guards freeze in place as my wave of buff-enhanced legendary Intimidation hits them.

They don't move a muscle as I run forward with my sword trailing black flames.

Given a few more fractions of a second, I would have turned on my Red Hydra's Buff and sliced the two guards clean in two, but a familiar voice echoes through the white-walled room, causing me to stop my attack.

"Enough, enough. You always do seem to keep things lively wherever you go, don't you?"

As a third door at the back of the room opens up from a flat wall, the tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed hunter walks toward me, the corner of his mouth turned upward.

Clear wisps of magic flow from his fingertips in the form of miniature tornadoes, lightly bringing both the men on the floor to their feet.

In the same gusts of air, green potions float over and tilt into the men's mouths before they both begin coughing and open their eyes back to reality.

At the sight, I turn my high mana consumption buffs down and intimidation skill off, but keep my sword pointed straight ahead and eyes locked on the frozen Royal Guards at the back of the room.

"What do you expect? I come in here and get attacked seconds after being invited..."

Lith's curved lip breaks into a smile before he replies.

"Well, you knocked out my lobby men, so of course my Royal Guards came in to see what the issue was."

He looks left and right over his shoulders at both of them, the guards still trembling from the wave of magic that just shocked their systems.

While this goes down, I attempt to do a status scan on all of them, but the readings I get back are exactly the same as the last time I tried.

_________________________

[Lv. 824]

Active Items:

[??? Access Denied]

Active Skills:

[??? Access Denied]

Buffs:

[??? Access Denied]

_________________________

The two Guards show levels of 605 and 606. Their items, skills, and buffs have 'access denied' written all over them too.

He replies after confirming his guards aren't permanently harmed.

"It seems you weren't in any real danger if you can freeze two of my guards with a mental attack in mere seconds."

He looks at me curiously, then continues to speak.

"If you were that combative from just the sight of a few Royal Guards, it appears you know more than I thought already. The Origin worshipers didn't make me look too bad, did they?"

He takes a step forward as I raise an eyebrow at his remark.

"Origin worshipers? You mean...? How do you know I went in-"

Lith brings his hand up in the air again, and the tall walls around us change color to dark black with hints of white light. It looks as if the night sky is all around us.

Seconds later, the view shifts, and moving images of the city in a fast-paced slideshow begin to zoom in and out of all angles of the city. It looks like a video recording of the entire town, just like the arena.

A few lonely souls roam the streets, and some are still at some of the bars drinking in the golden district. I whisper under my breath.

"Real-time surveillance... but how? I couldn't sense a thing..."

The images cease, and a massive circular map of the city shows up on the ceiling for us all to look up at. Hundreds of tiny red dots cover it. Each of them has an ID number and a credit balance next to it.

Lith zooms in and out at each one.

"It's not exactly video surveillance. The system is a bit more unique than that... You see, each wristband tracks the user's ID, and money usage, but there's no way to physically see or hear what you're saying just from the wristbands."

My eyebrows scrunch in as the 2D map of the city rotates into a 3D model, and a visual re-creation of sonar-like waves are being sent from the walls, lamplights, and storefronts. The ripples of energy overlap on each other, bouncing off the structures and people between each wall.

The sonar beams are eventually caught by a transparent mana-imbued overarching dome above the city.

Lith speaks again.

"The only picture we ever take of you is when you enter from outside the walls. Our advanced pattern recognition security system uses that image to accurately recreate exact images of individuals based on where their wristband is located in the city at all times. The only way out of the eyes of the surveillance is behind strong walls of mana."

He points to the walls around us.

"Or a place where mana can't be found."

The holographic picture on the wall shifts to show the black pyramid-shaped structure in the platinum district, with an image of Monk and me walking in and disappearing into thin air the moment we touched the inside wall.

Then it shifts again to show Maria and me walking into the suite just a few hours ago. We disappeared into an indistinguishable white box the moment the mana shielded door closed behind us.

Lith continues.

"I'm not the only one with access to the surveillance system, so just try to be a bit more careful within these walls."

He lets out a sigh.

"Anyway, how about you come upstairs and we have a talk. I assume you have a mountain of questions for me."

My eyes are still open wide at the tech Lith just showed me.

The fact that I couldn't sense any advanced surveillance systems, but felt like there were always a light set of eyes on me makes much more sense now... but it's even less settling to think about now that this is the fact.

"Yes, I have quite a few."

The same door Lith walked in from opens in the back of the lobby area, and he turns around motioning for me to follow.

I turn to Maria.

"You come too, whatever is discussed, I'd like everyone to be in on it as a team."

She nods and follows with a smile, and we walk through a door into a smaller white rectangle that rises quickly the moment all of us are inside.

No more than 2 seconds pass, before it feels like we've risen hundreds of meters in the air.

I get a slight head rush, and my stomach drops, but I keep my composure as the door opens and Lith walks out into an impressive-looking office. There's art on the side walls, fancy-looking furniture, and racks of armor and magic items all surpassing B-Grade rating.

The back wall of the office is a blank white wall with a large desk and a few comfortable couches facing it.

As we walk over, Lith snaps his finger and the wall behind his desk projects a hologram of what an incredible view looking down on Valor City would look like from a tall building in the center of the inner wall.

Three curved layers of platinum, gold, then silver-tinted walls and establishments look tiny from up here.

I'm almost lost in the beauty of human architecture before finally sitting down on a comfortable white couch next to Maria while Lith sits at his desk facing us.

I cross my arms, and Lith picks up a silver colored, thin tablet device from a drawer in his desk.

He speaks.

"Jay. Nice to finally meet you face to face for a real chat. Let's get down to business."