166 Illusion of One

Having established trust, Light began discussing the plans with One. He brought out a tablet full of information and handed it over to One.

"You will need to do this efficiently."

"I should be able to muster up the people in that time with this solid proof, but can you and your colleagues hold up on your side for that long?" asked One.

"No guarantees, so get done as soon as you can."

One asked, "What's the probability of success?"

Light tapped the table as he thought, "90%."

"Ok, I'll get going now then."

Light flashed his business smile again while saying, "Nice doing business with you" and walked out as well.

Their conversation had only lasted for 5 minutes but it was going to change the entire outlook of the base. Light first walked One out the exit, shielding him so that the many guards and attendants wouldn't notice One. Then he walked back into the bathroom and flushed the toilet, manipulating an illusion of One to walk back into the room.

The illusion of One was far from perfect. If they looked more closely, they would realize that One looked more like a floating ghost who didn't know how to use joints. Fortunately, all the attendants had kept a respectful distance from them so it only appeared as if One had a bad stomach ache which caused him to move oddly.

Light carefully maintained a good distance to make it appear as though they had just coincidentally walked back into the room together.

He casually sat down and manipulated One to do so as well. Lucifer and Ace looked towards Light subtly, and he responded with a slight nod of his own. In contrast, the twins immediately hopped over to sit besides Light jovially.

They were all secretly impressed by the realistic illusion of One that Light conjured. This man had eyes, nose, ears and a mouth all in the right spot of his face! Many of the previous illusions that Light created of humans looked like they came straight out of a horror movie. While all the human features were on the body, they were often disproportionate or were placed in the wrong location which would certainly be effective in scaring people but not for substituting a body. His illusions were only as good as a memory, so he had to have extraordinary memory to produce realistic features. Creating an illusion from imagination at this point was practically impossible.

In truth, Light spent the entire morning scrutinizing One's appearance and memorizing his every move and tick, so once One's illusion was seated at the table, it would appear fairly realistic. He had also been shielding everyone in the room from hypnotism from the start, so Zero couldn't use his psychic probe on One's consciousness to detect that it was merely an illusion.

The conversations continued to progress as everyone returned to the room. They had since shifted from the upcoming battle to compensation. Aida had allocated 400 gems to the team for use to buy out or compensate each of the base. She figured that since level 1 gems were no longer very useful for the team except Light, they may as well put it to good use by using it as compensation.

Lucifer cleverly concealed their wealth and began the compensation offer at a low 50 gems. The leaders in the room were all surprised to hear such a "large" compensation offer from a group of three men and two kids, but when they thought of how these people were able to break out of the jail cell, it made a little more sense.

For a typical base in the city, 50 gems would indeed be considered a low offer. However, because the base was located in a rather isolated location, their perception of the rarity of gems was also skewed. Orange Base didn't encounter as many Reapers as other bases did, which increased the demand and value of gems.

As the negotiations progressed, Light's face was becoming visibly pale. He had one hand in his bag to secretly absorb more gems while Yukio made subtle contact every once in a while to provide him with an extra boost of energy to sustain their mental protection and One's illusion. It was fortunate that none of the leaders aside from Zero were very vocal, so no one really paid much attention to One's silence.

Even though he tried to minimize his consumption, it was hard to sustain this amount of energy for such long periods. His experience as a businessman had taught him to conceal most of the thoughts and emotions from his face or actions. He still looked as handsome and elegant as ever, but there was clearly a touch of exhaustion written on his face.

The illusion of One would flicker ever so slightly every once in a while like a computer glitch. One's movements also seemed to look like a slow motion video at times. The twins and Ace watched on with awed eyes but knew not to stare for long to keep the others from realizing. Lucifer also helped cover up a lot of these mistakes by redirecting the conversation and drawing everyone's attention when necessary.

Soon, Light was at this limit. He couldn't hold onto the illusions for much longer. He tapped the table, which was his signal to Lucifer that they had to leave. Ace and the twins noticeably clenched their muscles and Rin was even standing in a low crouch in preparation for a potential fight if anyone noticed anything. Light inwardly shook his head at their reactions but was too tired to correct them. Lucifer was the only one who managed to maintain composure.

Zero and the other leaders naturally noticed this reaction as well and Zero took the lead to ask, "Is there a problem?"

Lucifer responded smoothly, "No problem at all, I think my friends and I are just tired. We would like to stop for the evening and pick it up tomorrow. Does that work for you?"

Zero's eyes narrowed as many thoughts passed through his head before responding, "Certainly. You are our VIPs. We will see you again tomorrow."