Chapter 804: Last Day Observation
Chapter 804: Last Day Observation
The following day was the final day Liam had to observe his Tactical Espionage target before turning in the report in class, and by then, he had already gathered more information than the assignment reasonably required.Through Nyxie’s observation and the strange depth of Shadow Memory, Marren Voss had become more than a name attached to an academic aide. Liam knew the routes she took before morning classes began, the corridors she preferred when moving between faculty rooms, the staff members she spoke to most often, the aides she avoided, and the small habits she repeated when handling sealed documents.
The problem was not a lack of information.
The problem was that he had too much of it.
Nyxie had given him details no ordinary student should have been able to gather without taking absurd risks. Some were useful, some were pointless, and some were private enough that Liam had no intention of allowing them anywhere near the report.
Even the useful information had to be handled carefully. Seraphina was not the kind of instructor who would read a report and only judge whether the details were accurate. She would ask how those details had been obtained. Kaine would likely care less about elegance and more about whether the method revealed weakness, arrogance, or stupidity.
Because of that, Liam decided to observe Marren personally for this final day.
Not because he needed more material. He needed less.
The purpose was to understand how much information a normal student could realistically gather without Nyxie’s help. If he knew that, he could adjust the report properly. He could trim away the details that came too easily through Shadow Memory, keep the ones that could be explained through ordinary observation, and shape the entire thing into something believable enough that Seraphina and Kaine could not tear apart every line for being too precise.
Seraphina would probably notice anyway.
That was almost inevitable.
But there was a difference between noticing and proving.
Liam started after his first lesson of the day, Fire Magic. The class itself had been more tolerable mostly because Asher’s presence had absorbed part of Professor Vale’s attention. Asher had spent half the class trying to refine the control of his blue flames during compression drills, and Professor Vale had been more interested in correcting the intensity of his output than isolating Liam for every minor adjustment.
When the bell rang, Liam left with the others and did not immediately head toward Knight Combat.
He gave himself just enough reason to remain near the Fire Magic wing. Students moved in clusters through the corridor, talking about the upcoming theory exams, complaining about Professor Vale’s standards, or trying to decide whether lunch would be worth eating today. Liam stayed near the edge of that movement, carrying his books beneath one arm as if he were only reviewing the schedule before moving on.
Marren appeared less than four minutes later.
She came from one of the side corridors near the faculty preparation rooms, carrying a narrow tray of glass-capped containers and a bundle of folded documents beneath her arm. Her aide uniform was as plain as ever, dark and neat, with a small brass badge pinned near the collar. She moved quickly, but not with the haste of someone panicking. Her pace belonged to routine, a person who had done similar errands enough times to know how long each step should take. Most students did not look at her for more than a second, if they looked at all.