Preparation (2)

Ervin's plan was to get the higher-order blood of some noble, go near the spot with the Crystal Ice Gorillas, and continually lure one out on the day that Chen Xun goes out for her own patrol. 

The simplest solution to start his plan would be to sneak into some Noble Family house and steal the blood of one of their genius children. 

But when these noble children weren't out in the streets, they were greatly protected in their own homes. 

Numerous kinds of defensive magical arrays would automatically activate once someone tries to sneak into their homes. Even One-star families have these special defensive magical arrays. 

Ervin can phase through the arrays, but the innate flow of Mana used to create these magical arrays will heavily drain his Mana once he tries to phase through them. And these defensive magical arrays were created to stop powerful Adept Mages and even Advanced Mages from coming in. 

Ervin doesn't have that Mana reserves to phase through the arrays without losing everything. 

There was also the possibility of seeking out a noble child on their own and quickly killing them. But nowadays, noble children are more securely protected after the deaths of Robert and Caryla. 

No Noble Family wanted another dead child to turn up without even knowing who had killed them. 

Additionally, Ervin can't wait too long to find some sort of opening. He has zero clue about how long Chen Xun and her grandfather would be staying in the city. 

Thus, the quickest option was one Ervin was the most familiar with. To go out on a nightly hunt for a Noble patrol team! 

Naturally, there are various Noble Families willing to send out their noble children for patrols to either temper themselves, gain more resources, or for whatever other reason they have to benefit the family. 

Ervin knew this was the best option to go for. But he wasn't going to take this like a normal hunt. 

The power of a Noble patrol team is several if not dozens of times greater than the average patrol team. 

These Nobles have a unique variety of powerful items, weapons, armor, and magical arts at their disposal. Some even had powerful Innate Abilities that could make Ervin's life a living nightmare. 

To avoid all of that, Ervin was simply going to start stealing powerful magical items to contend against these Nobles. 

With all of his advancement so far plus the Demon Orb fusion, Ervin was now confident enough to go into the backroom of the average magical store to steal their supplies. 

These stores simply don't have the resources like Noble Families to afford powerful defensive magical arrays. 

But before doing any of that, Ervin knows he has to first find just where the hell a Noble patrol team is since they are assigned more special missions because of their extreme prowess. It was the perfect time to sneak into the Mage Enforcer estate's main building. 

For Mage Enforcers, anyone can enter the main building at any time of the day. There's only restricted access to Non-Mages and Mages not affiliated with Mage Enforcer. 

Even though the defensive spirit arrays were just as powerful as Noble Families, Ervin knows as long as he gets to a spot where nobody else is around, he can disable his invisibility and causally walk out without anyone questioning him. 

When his Mana runs out, he doesn't need to worry about being seen by anyone, and the places he wants to go to don't have any patrolling guards within. 

The plan was settled. 

Ervin quickly left his apartment and made a direct beeline toward the Mage Enforcer estate. 

With his superior speeds and greater stamina, Ervin simply walked over to the estate, avoiding most other eyes on his walk just to make sure nothing troublesome could potentially happen. 

It could be called a case of paranoia to believe that every waking moment of Ervin's life is being watched. But with what Ervin's doing with his life, he knows it would be more than foolish to not take precautions at every single second.

He made it to the Mage Enforce main building relatively quickly. 

Only a few stragglers Mage Enforcers were around, either just getting off from their patrol work or going inside the main building for an entirely different reason. 

Ervin timed his walk to be casually right behind one of the late-night patrol team going into the building. 

Nobody really acknowledges Ervin besides the rare brief glance at him. Ervin truly doesn't do anything to stand out more than he should, the most the patrol teams around could say that he's simply reliable in combat more than other Novice Mages. 

Naturally, nobody else could possibly know of his higher Magical base because of the aura-suppressing pills. 

Once Ervin made it into the main lobby, he swiftly strolled right towards the library section. 

He didn't need to know, but Ervin studied the layout of the main building's interior, including knowing exactly where the blind spots were on the security camera infused with Mana. 

Even though the use of Magic made many aspects of technology and science completely outdated, they still had some uses to make even Mage's life easier. However, Mana is once again used to make sure the security camera can tank a tremendous amount of damage and have immensely high battery life. 

Ervin got to a blind spot on the cameras, searching around to see that there was nobody else but him in this vicinity. Additionally, this spot also had plenty of books to look through so Ervin could feign the look of simply taking his time to find the right text. 

Ervin then surged his Complete Invisibility state. Invisibility Mana instantly flowed through his body, causing him to vanish from sight. 

Unable to be seen or sensed, Ervin surged his Physical Mage Arts with the slight power of his Demon Orb and swiftly dashed straight towards the superior Mage Enforcers area. 

The area where the veteran Mage Enforcers and generals used, contained a variety of items such as powerful magical weapons, terrifying magical arts, and what Ervin wanted, confidential records of missions. 

Ervin's swift speed brought him exactly to the door he wanted in only a matter of a couple of seconds. 

The first steps he took into the locked door, Ervin could detect an intense pulsation of Mana blast straight through his invisible state, howling like a chaotic storm that has the power to utterly shred apart large cities into nothing more than rubble. 

The Mana power gave Ervin's soul a slight fright. He likes to stay confident and calm, but there are cases where the disparity of Mana power made him truly feel that's he less than an ant, simply a grain in the dirt beneath a superior force. 

This was such a case where whoever set up this magical defensive array were Mages that seemingly had powers akin to divine people, perhaps that of a Light God. 

The sensation was both terrifying and enlightening to Ervin. He would be killed in less than a second in any other situation, but this was also a power one day in the future he would surely grasp, using it to further go down the endless path of Magic. 

There's no issue to worry about life span when knowing that the higher the Magic realm, the greater one life span becomes through the source of magical essence continually evolving the body, soul, and mind. 

Phasing through this horrifying Mana power rapidly ate away at Ervin's Mana reserves. When he finally stepped out on the other side, there was only 15% left in his Mana reserves. 

Sighing and shaking his head, Ervin was glad to choose this route, or he truly would be helpless trying to sneak into some Noble house to gain a sample of powerful bloodline. 

He took his mind off those distracting thoughts to comb through the record room. 

Mage Enforcers do everything efficiently, thus finding the active records of Nobles on special missions was more than easy for Ervin. 

He took his time to search through the shelf. The patrol team could not be too far away from the city where other Demonic Beasts were roaming about. Nor could it be too close to the city where other Mage Enforcers will be patrolling. 

The time to find that specific middle ground took a little bit, but with his calm patience, Ervin found the document he needed. 

This document read that a Noble Patrol team was dozens of miles deep into the Outer area, arriving at a place where there were very few Demoninc Beasts or even other patrol teams. 

Their reason for coming here was to scout out if there were any foreign invaders from some place called Black City. 

There have been several reports recently detailing that invaders from Black City have been at odds with them, either taking away their beast's kill or directly going into combat with patrol teams for a variety of reasons.