Heaven's Greatest Professor

"The space has changed a lot, huh," Warden mumbled as they reached the high-energy concentrated zone. There weren't any hordes of monsters lying around anymore; instead, the area was filled with a clutter of military tents, wardstone barriers for protection, and stoic soldiers on guard duty.

This place wasn't as safe as the main camp, nor like the second fold base either. Skirmishes with demonic creatures were a regular occurrence after they had overthrown the order of demonic beasts that infested the area.

Marcus guided their team into their tent after the commanding officer who brought them over had finished his speech. The man had been a gold ranker, one of the reserved forces, not anyone related to the Walt Family. Hopefully, Warden would be able to maintain his autonomy until the end of his service.

Night came early, considering the distribution of the day and night ratio at the front lines. Warden completed the task he was recruited for in Marcus's team and slipped away on his own before anyone noticed his presence.

With his camouflage intact, he had no problem moving around in the temporary camp to find his way to Agnes. She was busy, as he thought, but instead of finding her giving orders, he found a regal-looking young man doing it instead.

"So, this is the prince, huh?" Warden mused, mopping his broom on the side of a wooden bridge that connected the two ridges in the shattered plains. Warden found a few other familiar faces from the 16th infantry, but none of them recognised him, not that anyone even bothered to look at his face when they passed him by.

He didn't blame them. It only proved that his camouflage was nearly perfect.

After half an hour or so, the woman finally was relieved of her duties. She crept her way out of the camp. She passed through the bridge, similarly not giving him any glance. Warden didn't know if she was doing it purposefully or hadn't noticed him.

She should be aware of his new persona as a janitor, but considering how stressed she looked, Warden wouldn't be surprised if that thought slipped her mind. After whistling for a few minutes, he followed her as they came to an isolated space up on a high ridge.

"You look troubled, Captain," Warden said from behind her.

Agnes turned her head and sighed, "You're still in this getup. Didn't I tell you to lose the attire and the brooms?"

Warden grinned at her. "Sadly, I invested too much in it. Can't go back before I get my investment's worth."

"Whatever," she said. "We'll be entering the subspace tomorrow morning, which is only about nine hours away. Are you prepared?"

"I wish I had my spear ready for this," Warden said. "But looks like I have to make do with my [Bane of the Calamity] for now."

"Please don't take it casually," Agnes said, her voice more emotional than he had ever heard.

"I'm not," Warden said, letting out a soft cough. "Well, I won't be, after we enter the space."

She met his gaze and nodded. "Go rest now; you reek of exhaustion."

"I can say the same about you, Captain."

They didn't spend too much time there. Agnes explained a few more things about the space to him repeatedly to make sure it got into his head before saying goodbye. Warden stayed outside for a while before going back to the tent. He really should rest now, but he still had some work left to do.

He needed to come up with the script formation that would let him absorb the gold-rank quintessence of light without making it too difficult for him. It was already a work in progress, but considering he would be entering the subspace and would be in no position to awaken his dormant celestial power, he left it as it was. For now.

He promised himself it would be the first thing he would make progress on after he came out of the subspace. He left the intermediate attribute-enhancing elixirs as well. Although the power boost would be welcome, Warden didn't want to stir anything inside him before he received his Boon of Spirit.

The system asked for a significant amount of essence power to power the process. Warden hoped the essence vein inside the subspace would solve the problem. Hopefully, it wouldn't be anything anticlimactic like before.

****

The task Twilight was hired for was complete. The team of six silver rankers proceeded through the treacherous lands of the front lines and managed to find what they were looking for.

Apparently, there were some signs of disturbance in the wall that separated one fold from another. Their study says if this continued there would be some drastic shift in the rift which nobody was prepared for.

Their first thought was that the empire was responsible for something on their end of the rift, but so far, they haven't found the source, even though they located the danger.

If she had time on her hands, Twilight would have stayed with the group to find out more. However, she was working under constraints; she couldn't waste time, even if she was a master of multitasking.

Without even collecting her rewards for the job well done, the assassin set her eyes towards the second fold base of the empire. Well, she could probably collect the reward on her way back, on her career, she never missed collecting her bounty even once. Twilight intended to keep the record straight for as long as she could.

But her main task precedence over that.

She needed to use their teleportation formation to make her way. Without that, it might take her months to navigate her way out. While the higher time dilation in the rift made it easier for her not to waste time, she was not in the mood to scour the barren land like a nomad.

No, it was time for her to use all her time to let loose a little and take a more drastic step.