Erik and June approached the outpost. It was much bigger and better defended than they thought.

That wasn’t the only surprising thing, though, because the outpost looked ancient but had modern technology mounted in various parts.

The place was basically a castle, and it had tall and old stone walls, with watchtowers all around. A barrier and many alloy parts covered the whole place and closed the breaches that had been made by the passage of time, or by the thaids that had used this place as home.

Erik said to himself, forgetting that he and June were connected.

The two kept walking through the forest, circling the fortress and studying it at the same time. The problem was that the area was not small by any means, was swarmed with people. Erik had two main concerns about the people guarding the place. First, he noticed that the patrol guards were much stronger than the average soldier. The system was never wrong about that.

The second was that they were loaded with brain crystal tools, weapons, and armor and, thanks to them, they had many brain crystal powers available for use.

They already had, on average, around 150 strength points, and some of them, albeit few, almost reached the 200 strength point mark.

It was something new. Humanity hardly reached this kind of power in the past. That could only mean one thing, and Erik was sure of it. The technique he taught to his men and women back in Etrium, when his guild was still standing, had been leaked to his enemies.

It was new, but not surprising; many people abandoned his guild when Erik got chased by the blackguards, and it was only logical for these people to sell the secret to them, or whoever paid the most.

Hin, and most likely the blackguards, must have had the technique for a while, and they used this time to power up their troops. The only question was, why didn’t they employ these soldiers on Frant’s battlefield? Or maybe they did, but Erik never stumbled upon them.

There was something else, though, something pertaining to the multiple brain crystal tools they had. By reading the patrols’ minds, he learned that each patrol had someone with a device that could spot lies and see through any disguise. They called it Veritas Lenses.

It was a brain crystal tool, a ring, which allowed the wearer to see through shapeshifters. Erik and June heavily relied on that kind of power, but with the brain crystal ring in the enemy’s possession, neither he nor June would be able to sneak their way into the outpost by taking someone’s place.

That meant not being able to ask questions, which would hinder his ability to get information out of his targets’ thoughts.

There were a lot of people with these special rings. Erik and June had seen hundreds of patrols, and each patrol had someone wearing one of these rings. If all the other outposts were like this, it made Erik wonder if Hin, Etrium, and the blackguards had hunted down all the thaids with this brain crystal power.

Erik’s mind-reading powers allowed him to find out this tool’s presence, but the Instability brain crystal power wasn’t perfect, nor that easy to use.

He couldn’t simply browse through the soldiers’ minds at will. It was more like listening to a radio broadcast, and he had to listen to it, regardless of what song he wanted to hear. The only way to get information was to talk to the target, if it was possible.

Erik thought,

The reply didn’t come late.

Erik’s brow furrowed.

the system said.

A spark of hope ignited in Erik’s mind.

the system said. That was a problem for June.

the system said.

Erik nodded.

Erik took a deep breath, processing all this information.

the system said. Erik paused.

Erik finished talking with the system and opened his eyes. He turned to look at June. Erik knew he had to do something difficult now-he needed to convince the clone to let him go into the outpost alone.