Kent stood outside the walls of the second district. Looking at his quest timer. He was cutting it awfully close. Though not as close as his original plan had called for.

Two days were technically plenty for the quest itself. Thus, not close at all. Yet choosing today wouldn’t give him time to try again. The later he tried the stronger he’d be, but the earlier he tried, the greater the chance that he could try again should he fail to comply with the quest's objective.

His reasoning for trying today were many-fold. Firstly, there was the Estes situation – the older man had begun asking around about him. Then there was the healer situation which had devolved into an entirely different realm of escalation. Kent’s destruction of the door had somehow alerted the city guard. Not only was he presumed to have been kidnapped, but all healers were now in the first district – the castle – under the protection of several high leveled people.

Furthermore, as a result thereof patrols had increased and Farburg was in a state of agitation and expecting to be invaded any day – actively looking for saboteurs. Those were things Kent had noticed going and, but there were almost certainly other things going on as well. The only star giving him hope was the institute had begun sending patrols out into the second district. Effectively reducing the protection the institute's possessions were under.

So waiting had – in hindsight – been the right action. He had several things he needed to take care of before attempting his robbery. Increasing in level had been the most minor, though the associated skill point had been nice and was potentially essential for getting away. Properly figuring out how long he was able to last under the effects of his cloak was even more important.

Working on his weaponry and storing foodstuff, water, and several other survival goods outside the city had been of critical importance as well. Kent would have preferred if he’d been able to acquire most of those through more legal means, but he had to work with the hand that was dealt to him.

Now, equipped with proper weapons and sufficient ammunition he felt like he had a chance in the wilderness. For the very same purpose he had broken into Estes' place and liberated the remaining throwing knives and daggers he had stored there. He had brought the sack outside the city and stored it several dozen leagues outside the city.

In the process, he had potentially made the next best progress of the entire last two weeks.

Speedster – Reach a speed at which impacting something weighing a stone would kill you. Increases Agility, Strength, and Magic by 10%. Unlocks the Locomotion skill tree

Fledgling Flight – Stay off of the ground for over ten seconds through your own power. Increases Vitality, Toughness, Magic, and Regeneration by 20%

Intrinsic Coupling – apply a skill that is supposed to not affect yourself to affect yourself without losses. Repeated application can increase one’s Affinity understanding and progress to shapeless casting. Willpower and Magic are 20% more effective.

Adept Accelerator – Accelerate with ten times the gravitational effect you were born in for over a second. Increases Magic, Willpower, and Regeneration by 20%.

Advanced Flight – You’ve stayed in the air for upwards of five minutes in a manner you intended. Vitality, Toughness, Magic, and Willpower are 25% more effective. You may unlock the Aerealism Tree upon your next class up.

The locomotion tree had been a large disappointment. Kent liked some of the skills particular to the set of skills, but none really fit his build. Scaling on Endurance, Strength, or Agility was fine by itself, and it would be a great class for anyone more invested in those stats, but he couldn’t really see himself building up running speeds over several days of running or tiring less from moving towards a certain direction.

Though the values inherent to those skills were rather impressive.

Why would he run anywhere though, if he could just fly with his harness?

Fledgling Flight had been really interesting, and Kent felt light it was a title he could get higher ranks of. And he seemingly had gained that version of the title too and a corresponding skill tree in the future.

The second to last new title, called Intrinsic Coupling, was a bit of an enigma. As in that Kent didn’t really know how he had gained it and what it meant to tell him. Affinity casting was a domain of magic even the twice-evolved people he knew had barely any experience in, so Kent had no clue how he’d achieved such a feat.

He was glad that he was moving at such a fast beat. Given that it felt like the title was one, that would be awarded if someone did affinity casting, he might be moving at a good pace.

The most likely perpetrator was Accelerate Metal and his harness accelerating him, but even that was a stretch in his definition of affecting him.

Having gone over all his abilities one last time and reminding himself to use the cloak’s embrace instead of preemptively attacking people multiple times he readied himself.

He looked around the empty alley one last time and confirmed that no one else had sight of him. With the help of Accelerate Metal, he dashed up the wall.

Stripped of his own weight, finding handholds and pulling himself up proved to be a breeze. His fingertips and bare feet found the joints in between the stone easily. Most times they slotted almost perfectly into the cool stone and when they didn’t, he only needed to exert minor amounts of force to drift further up.

He expected it to be the easiest part. Not the least dangerous though.

There were greater defensive enchantments built into the second district's gates but if they were that good, there wouldn’t have to be any guards stationed there. Their presence all throughout the wall placated Kent’s worries.

The very weak cast of Accelerate Metal – which he had tirelessly trained during the day – had brought him to the battlements in a few short breaths. Clinging to the cold stone. There he waited for a tense while until he heard a guard pass up top.

Luckily the battlements of the inner wall weren’t patrolled as heavily as they could be. Instead the local noble had decided to focus on the outer walls. Something that Kent approved of twice over. Not only because it made his mission easier.

With the guard passed he activated his cloaks enchantment – just the be safe and vaulted through the battlements and floated down on the other side. The most pleasant surprise had been that he could use Accelerate Metal on his harness during the night’s embrace. Using this combination, he drifted downwards at an almost leisurely pace.

As he touched down, he sprinted into a cul-de-sac to take a brief respite and see if the city guard was onto him.

Taking a rather long break without the city or guard erupting into chaos told him that he most likely hadn’t activated any triggers or alarms. Whether that had been due to the mantle’s enchantment or pure luck he wasn’t sure.

The heavy tension in his chest slowly dissipated during that time and as his mana was almost back to full he readied himself to continue.

Thanks to choosing his location well beforehand he wasn’t far off from the institute and moved there quickly after recharging his used-up mana.

He wove through as many back alleys and less traversed roads as he could but wasn’t always able to evade other people. Luckily most didn’t seem to really care about a decently dressed young man rushing through the streets at what seemed to be an almost leisurely speed. Mostly they just threw odd glances at him or even ignored Kent outright.

None of that really mattered to Kent. He had seen other people behave similarly and nothing had ever come of it, so he didn’t fear any repercussions himself. He only slowed down when he was one street over from the institute. With a single corner separating them, he considered his next steps one last time.

The two options he had boiled it down to were entering under the umbrella of his cloak’s embrace or trying to seek an audience with his former teacher Tehana. All the other options he had considered would most likely end up resulting in him getting discovered or worse.

The issue with the second option was that Kent was fairly certain that Tehana was already asleep and if she wasn’t, there was no way she’d receive him. From what he had gathered she was an early riser. And by announcing himself only to be left empty-handed with the guard knowing of his proximity during a break-in felt like a poor trade.

There was one other accessory action he could make use of. During his lessons, he had basically touched and attuned every piece of metal that he had gotten close to.

It might work or drastically backfire. He’d considered this route of action several times, and never come to one conclusion. But now, having spied two guards flanking the gate he was sure that his nerves wouldn’t allow him to casually stalk through the portal even under the embrace of his cloak.

And while the distances between him and the institute were nothing to scoff at, it wasn’t that far away. He skirted around the institute for a while until he found a place that could be reached with Metallic Presence.

He groaned softly as he activated the skill. The impressions of so many distinct signals dragged him firmly into the headache territory. As it always did when he used the ability in Farburg. Thankfully the pain would abide after a few breaths.

On of the rooms with a window – the kitchens right next to the spell core analysis chamber – had an above-average amount of metal to which Kent was attuned. That made the rest of his plan easy and hopefully safer.

With an application of Accelerate Metal and Temporal Fitting, he chose a vector directly out of the window. He still had to move metal at least with half the acceleration way or toward him, but the rest he could distribute freely.

It took him a moment to set up all the correct angles and only thanks to his allocation into the mind attribute was he able to juggle these many differing objects all at once.

With a crash the metallic bearings tore out of the frame and brought the window flying away with ever-increasing speed, immediately followed by dozen of metal pieces that all flew throughout the room.

For the briefest of moments, there was no sound. As though telling Kent that he’d made a grave mistake. Warning him of the silence he’d feel beyond the veil upon his discovery.

Then the cacophony started.

I should have considered this better. Kent moved back several alleys and after a brief bout of contemplation engaged his cloak. The cloak began completely embracing him upon his prompting, vanishing his silhouette against the background of the early night.

His time of worrying about other things was over now, he had to act decisively and firmly now.

Not even slightly out of breath he reached the plaza outside the institute and kept sprinting further towards it.

One guard had left their positions at the door, the other was still present but obviously not really focused on what was going on around them. Looking ready to bolt and help their fellows at arms inside.

Kent dashed towards the building, inspecting the remaining guard.

They were roughly halfway towards the second class – the class name clearly physical in nature –, so there wouldn’t be a huge issue when it came to being spotted through his cloak unless there was magical equipment evolved.

His slightly enhanced strength and agility helped him reach the building within a few breaths. After taking the steps up to the gate four at a time he vaulted inside.