The Map Heist

One month was spent observing Master Battlemage Torben. For an entire month, Theodore learned of the master's routine, habits, the apprentices he loathed, the apprentices he favored, the apprentices he 'favored' a little too much, and of course, where he hid the maps.

Once he knew where the maps were hidden, a plan was soon put together. All that remained was for Torben to leave the house unattended.

That night eventually came sooner rather than later. Upon an undead crow airdropping an undead mouse into Kalman's workshop to deliver news of Torben leaving his house, Theodore immediately set out.

Making use of the sewers, Theodore made his way near Torben's dwelling before ascending to the surface through a manhole in an alleyway. From there, he crept across the streets, sticking to the shadows before making it to the walls of Torben's property.

Enhancing the muscles in his legs, Theodore leaped right over one of the walls and landed squarely in the garden. Using his undeads, Theodore had inspected the security measures of the grounds and knew very well that the walls were as they seem. Just walls. Of course, there might have been measures that were too well hidden for him to discover, but there was no point worrying over the maybes and what-ifs.

While a majority of masters reside within the tower, a master with a high enough prestige could own property within the city. Torben was one such master. Despite coming from a relatively small magic clan, Torben worked his way up the ladder through hard work, dedication, a great myriad of schemes and plots against his rivals, and a whole lot of bootlicking towards his superiors. He was a mage not above using the most underhanded of tricks to achieve his ambitions.

The size of Torben's property was roughly the size of Kalman's, however, while Kalman's workshop allocated much more space towards the garden, Torben prioritized having a much larger house, building a mansion that roused the envy of many in the eastern district. Many young battlemage apprentices would gaze upon the immaculate building and dream of living in one someday.

Within the mansion, there were over twenty rooms, big and small. Of these rooms, nine had some kind of alarm system with only two of them containing anything of importance. The other seven were decoys. Having tested it with a slime modified by Theodore himself, it appeared that the alarm would trigger whenever something or someone that was not Torben entered the room. While Theodore would have liked to do further testing to confirm his theory, repeated incidents would likely rouse Torben's suspicion and risk increasing the security of the building.

Of course, of these rooms, one was where the maps were hidden, meaning that Theodore had to find a way in without being detected, leading to the creation of the 'Jammer' behavioral matrix.

The 'Jammer' was a behavioral matrix with a diffusive type Aether-form. In a sense, it works similarly to 'Stealth', disrupting the information carried by Aether to prevent detection via Aether-sense with some modifications specifically to counter alarm systems.

Due to a person's myriad of senses, certain things in the background, things considered to be of little value, would be ignored by the brain. By adding these 'noises' into the information carried by Aether, a mage could be tricked into ignoring certain things picked up by their Aether-sense. However, an alarm is simple, built for one specific purpose. As such, it would react to even the slightest 'noise' it picks up.

As such, the 'Jammer' was designed to prevent the transfer of information altogether, breaking down any body of Aether down to mere particles within its vicinity and overwriting what information they carried with 'junk' information that could not even be registered as 'noises.' In other words, it was designed to be similar to an area-wide magic resistance field generator. It would render all Aether-sense worthless within its range and if Theodore were to ever find himself up against the likes of Salome, this would be his ultimate trump card.

That being said, the 'Jammer' behavioral matrix was not without weaknesses, the most obvious one being the extremely high rate of Aether dispersal, quickly exhausting the Aether within the crystals used. The other weakness was that the sudden increase of Aether density would be easily detected by a mage within the jamming field's range, so unless the range was extremely wide, stealth would be impossible while 'Jammer' is active. Lastly, the 'Jammer' would also disrupt the Aether of the user, making it difficult to use magic techniques.

All of these factors made the 'Jammer' extremely difficult to use, which was why it was so important for Theodore to take action the moment his undeads inform him that the house would be empty. It had to be if Theodore wished to do this without being detected.

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End of Chapter 109

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