Infinite Potential System

A man with medium length black hair and dark brown eyes walked in hastily, standing at attention as if he was a soldier and not a thief. "I\'m here, Boss!"

"Calm down with the stiffness, be smoother. Come when called, but don\'t make a fuss." Barnabus said with a relaxed voice, having just drank some soothing Spirit Tea that was supposed to suppress his anger.

Yuriel nodded, "Yes, boss."

"What\'s the situation at the Fire Mine? Are Supreme Left\'s dogs still there?" Barnabus asked, referring to the Pillars of Justice, who served as Supreme Left\'s most powerful underlings now that Retribution had betrayed the Yu Royal Family.

He had previously assumed that Supreme Left had sent the Pillars of Justice to take control of the mine, but never outright said it. Over time, however, it became the only explanation for his Thieves\' Guild\'s defeat at the hands of just two people.

Only the higher-ups of the Pillars of Justice and Retribution could manage such a feat, but Retribution had recently offered to ally with the Thieves\' Guild in secret. Why would they launch an attack on their prospective comrades?

"Our last report came in about a day ago, and they say that there are still two presences inside. Their auras are hazy because of how deep they are, but we are confident that one of them is only in the Foundation Establishment Realm." Yuriel replied quickly, hoping to give the Boss both bad and good news.

"A day ago?!?" Barnabus\' eye twitched as he picked up a second cup full of tea and took a swig. "Why are there not hourly reports? We have twelve people in the Golden Core that specialize in detection Spells, are you telling me that twelve people aren\'t enough to send timely reports?"

"B-Boss," Yuriel stammered. "They were supposed to send reports every few hours...but they haven\'t in a while. The Soul Artifacts they left behind are still intact, so they\'re not dead. Maybe they\'re sleeping?"

"SLEEPING?" Barnabus crushed the teacup in his hand, then called Water Mana to form around Yuriel and trap him in a giant bubble. "They better not be f*cking sleeping!"

Yuriel held his breath from inside the bubble and watched his Boss walk to the door with pleading eyes, but to no avail. Barnabus exited the room, but the bubble remained, slowly drowning Yuriel to death.

As Barnabus crossed a few hallways, another thief walked up, "Boss Barnabus, is everything alright? Is there a problem with the tea that Mr. Yelori made today? Where are you going?"

Barnabus looked at the person in front, who was known as Jeffrey, and served as his secondary assistant whenever something happened. He liked this man, since he always did exactly as he was told, but wasn\'t very smart.

Even better, Jeffrey was always given the simplest tasks, so he had survived over twenty-five years in his current position.

"The tea didn\'t work, and I\'m going to need a portal opened to the Fire Mine. I want to check something out." Barnabus said simply, with no signs of the anger from his previous outburst.

"I see. I\'ll have someone open a portal for you right away, Boss Barnabus. Is there anything else you need?" the man asked before pressing a button on a nearby communicator, calling a Space Mage to prepare a portal for Barnabus.

"No... actually, yes. I\'m going to need a new assistant. The last one... slipped somehow. Into a ball of water...

that someone made somehow."

"Oh no! That\'s too bad!" Jeffrey replied with an anxious face. If someone was running around creating balls of water to slip in, wouldn\'t he be at risk too?

Barnabus stepped through the portal at that moment, appearing just a few meters away from the cave entrance. The heat instantly assaulted Barnabus, being roughly 52 degrees Celsius. As a Cultivator in the sixth and final stage of the Soul Formation Realm, though, he was more surprised than affected.

Compared to a Summer Day in the desert, the temperature was only slightly above average, but he had just come from a cool underground complex that maintained the temperature at 18 degrees, and he wasn\'t exactly in a desert.

His short white hair gleamed in the sunlight, while the blue eyepatch stood out like a sore thumb amidst the rocky environment. It was the only blue thing other than the sky that one would see for dozens of kilometers.

Barnabus looked around, no sign of his subordinates that were supposed to be watching the area. He cast a quick detection Spell to find them all grouped up in one place, lying on the ground fast asleep.

"F*ck! I knew those idiots were unreliable!" Barnabus entered the cave to examine the situation, planning to deal with his useless subordinates later.

He melded into a shadow, using the Darkness Element to descend with even greater skill and precision than William could manage. His figure squirmed in between piles of rubble from the cave collapse, bypassing the obstacles through pinhole-sized cracks.

It only took Barnabus a few hours to reach the fifty-kilometer mark, but it was hardly recognizable from the time when he had first entered the cave a few years prior. Rather than thousands of Greater Fire Shards dotting the walls and ceiling, Barnabus saw nothing.

The entire section was completely cleaned out, and the Greater Fire Shards were nowhere to be seen. Only when he delved another kilometer downward did Barnabus see the Greater Fire Shards again, which made him wonder if he had misjudged the depth.

He inspected the area for traces of the foreign Cultivators, but his enemy seemed to cover their tracks quite well. There were traces of Illusion Magic throughout the entire cave, so Barnabus had trouble identifying their unique Auras.

Other than confirming that at least one of the Cultivators was in the Foundation Establishment Realm, Barnabus had nothing. He couldn\'t even identify which direction they went.

Barnabus was one of only a few people with a sensitivity to the Illusion Element, having lost his left eye while exploring an Ancient Ruin that housed an Illusion Vein. He spent years trying to find his way out of that Ruin after the initial entry, and the immense exposure allowed him to identify the Element at a glance.

To have access to the Illusion Element, though. There aren\'t many that can reach a high level with that Affinity...

Barnabus scanned his memories for individuals with the Illusion Element that might have a grudge with his Thieves\' Guild, but he couldn\'t come up with anything. His guess still suggested that the Pillars of Justice were responsible, but he couldn\'t prove it.

He delved deeper, reaching the very bottom of the cave at the 260-kilometer mark in just half a day. He had skipped over investigating the Flamerium veins, since they appeared untouched and the Illusion Mana was very thin in that area.

Instead, what had attracted his attention was a thick aura of residual Fire Mana and Illusion Mana combined. As he approached the largest mass of residual Mana, Barnabus spotted the crack that used to hold the Greater Fire Vein.

Emphasis on "used to", because at the current moment, Barnabus could only see an empty hole.

"They took it! I\'ll kill them!" Barnabus\' eyes turned red as he punched a deep impression in the wall next to him. The cave shook as some loose rocks fell, but Barnabus had already left the area in a hurry.