If he wanted to rack up some merits, it was probably best to undertake a mission that would allow him to accrue as much of a contribution so that he could train with the Martial Seniors for longer and perhaps received greater tutelage from them.
He hadn't yet entirely figured out what the ultimate trigger for the Senior Realm truly was, unfortunately, he was working with too much speculation, unfortunately, to make reliable deductions.
That was why he tossed aside more mundane missions like the ones Kane and his new-found acquaintances had chosen. The merits that they would get from such a mission were little.
('Then again, the Floating Sect does not have an objective system of merits,') Rui mused. ('It doesn't even have an internal currency despite being so isolated from the rest of the world economically.')
The island was remarkably self-sufficient, however, it wasn't complex enough to warrant its own currency. After all, although Ajanta Island was a small city in and of itself, it didn't always feel that way because of how low the population was.
The chambers were huge structures hundreds of meters in length and breadth.
They needed to be, in order to accommodate Martial Squires of all ranges, and fit in the training environments and machines for all kinds of Martial Paths and Art.
If there were just a handful or several of them, it actually would not be a big deal. But there were one thousand and three such structures, and the amount of area that went towards them was huge. The actual number of people residing on the island was disproportionately lower than what you would expect from a place of the size of the island.
Furthermore, with no open market of any sort, it was possible to manage without something as troublesome as a currency.
However, even without an official credit or merit system, contributions would definitely be recognized and rewarded with how ruthlessly meritocratic the Floating Sect was. If they did not do that, then Martial Squires would not be incentivized to contribute extra work to the sect.
ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm [Deterrence operation: Conduct an attack on a patrolling guard of the Kaddar Region
Operation summary: Kill, maim, or capture a patrol guard of the Kaddar Region meant to deter initiates from entering the island. Any number of guardians may take on this operation taking on any number of patrols. Credit will be judged based on contributions based on the discretion of Senior Xanarn.]
A simple enough operation, given that the guardians were not Martial Artists necessarily personally familiar with each other, their coordination was most certainly sub-par, it was meaningless to assign highly sophisticated missions.
Missions like these were most optimal for the Floating Sect. All he would need to was kill a Martial Squire that was deployed by one of the Kaddar Regions to deter foreign Martial Squires from trying to join the Floating Sect.
('Meh,') Rui dismissed it.
It was grunt work. Just a mission that was meant to keep the Kaddar Martial Squires from getting too comfortable while they performed that duty, it was worthless. Even if he killed multiple Martial Squires, its impact wasn't too noticeable.
He came across several more missions like that, it was clear that most missions were like that, and Rui was able to instantly analyze the value of a mission just through a brief skim. Most of them were defense-oriented or offense-oriented missions.
"Tsk,"
He shook his head as he kept on reading through before he stumbled onto something interesting.
[Espionage operation: The Graheria Kingdom has completed a transaction with Frigga Industries, a major arms and military technology supplier, receiving a large shipment from the corporate supplier. The objective of this operation is to gain as much intelligence on the transaction and the purchased goods as possible.]
"Hm," Rui's eyebrow lit up in interest.
He knew of Frigga Industries, of course. They were one of the largest clients of Esosale Suppliers from across the continent. This meant that they had purchased tons of esoteric ore supplies from Rui, according to the sales data that he received from Guildmaster Bradt. As one of the largest suppliers of military technology, they had naturally fostered a deep relationship with Bradt Distribution Services to supply their goods across large expanses of the continent.
"Interesting," Rui murmured. "This would be good to do with Kane but..."
He didn't want to pull him away after he told Kane there was no problem with him hanging out with more like-minded Martial Artists.
"Ah, well... it's fine I guess," Rui shrugged. Although Kane's Void Step would undoubtedly be of great use here, it wasn't as though he was helpless without it.
Rui possessed extremely powerful senses which made him quite good at espionage, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
And while he couldn't become invisible like Kane could. He most certainly was capable of disguising his nature as a Martial Artist with a powerful Mind Mask.
He quickly skimmed through the details that existed. Unlike the Martial Union which had a strict need-to-know basis of information disclosure and dissemination for the sake of client privacy, the Floating Sect freely shared all the information with the Martial Squires.
('Unsophisticated compared to the Martial Union but understandable.')
The information provided featured a map of the Graheria Kingdom and the various locations where the package was spotted, and the latest known position believed to be the current location of the package.
The location was in a military complex guarded by Martial Squires and Apprentices, highly fenced and armed to the tooth with long-range artillery weapons for all of those that attempted to try and raid the military complex.
('Hm, just based on the information provided here, infiltrating the through force is definitely impossible,') Rui concluded. ('I'd be swarmed with Martial Squires, and Squire-grade artillery weapons. And reinforcements would definitely be on their way. That's hopeless.')
Furthermore, he couldn't brute force stealth his way through either. It was dangerous even with Kane, this wasn't the Shionel Dungeon where senses were deeply hampered and there was no chance of anyone sensing Void Step.
