Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"That man... Is dangerous," Jacob muttered under his nose as he scanned through the many reports his subordinates provided him with. Confined in one of the most run-down rooms of the most run-down Inn in the entire area, he locked himself away from the world. 

Jacob would act like that only when he would be fully set on tackling a problematic case. And from the looks of things, this problematic situation could actually be more than he could handle. 

"Recruitment posts, logistical preparations, hidden correspondence... Just by looking at those things alone, I can see how formidable he will be as an opponent..." Jacob muttered, voicing his thoughts out to have a better shot at analyzing them. 

Even though he spent the last few days trying to crack the intentions of this man, Jacob continued to struggle with the task. While just the things reported were enough to turn this matter into a massive headache, there was still the time of their encounter to think about. 

"If he is capable of defeating my illusions so easily, why does he bother to look for some small fries?" Jacob asked himself, unable to find the answer to this seemingly simple question. 

'Does he need manpower? But what for? An army? Or maybe for some odd jobs? Or could it be...' A sudden thought almost paralyzed the man. Even though he was already sitting at the desk with all the papers on it, he still couldn't stop himself from rushing to look for a single detail that could confirm his guess.

Several pieces of precious paper thrown around the room later; Jacob froze in place while staring at a simple line of text. 

A line of text that he ignored earlier. A line he ignored because it would be insane to draw such overarching conclusions from a single written sentence. 

"He is actually trying to conquer the desert?" Jacob muttered softly before falling heavily down on his chair. In the desolate Inn, he was staying at, this seat was the only luxury he couldn't stop himself from organizing. 

Then, a knocking sound forced Jacob out of his nearly comatose state. 

"Come in!" he shouted towards the doors, even if they appeared to be fragile enough for a mere whisper to break them apart. But that was only another illusion of his, one that didn't require all that much effort or energy to maintain. 

"Sir! They finally made their move!" Giern reported as soon as he rushed inside the room. "I already have Severn watching them, but it doesn't seem like they will remain in the city for long!" he concluded his report, finally allowing himself to catch a breath. 

"I see..." For a moment, Jacob remained motionless. His eyes were glued to this very single sentence that slightly alerted him previously and confirmed his guess a moment later. 

"Okay, we are moving out," Jacob said, standing up from his desk. His expression was already dark, as there was no time for it to darken. 

"Sir? Are we in trouble?" Giern asked, startled by the unfamiliar expression on his boss' face. 

'We are dealing with all sorts of people and monsters, but this is the first time for me to see Jacob so shaken!' he thought, forcibly stopping the trembling of his body. A trembling not caused by his boss' mental state, but anything that was capable of forcing the man into it. 

"I need you to go to the magistrate. We will need every the camp can spare," Jacob ordered as he marched towards the doors. 

The entryway to the room would normally consist of several planks pieces together and holding on a verbal promise. But those doors were taken out and burned, only to be replaced by a state-of-the-art gate. One that derived its strenght not only from the precious materials used to create it but mostly from its ability to circulate its owner's mana. 

Outside of its natural defenses, there was one more reason why Jacob splurged on this expensive piece of furniture. 

"Shrink," he said as soon as he placed his hand on the doors. 

And the doors followed the call, instantly turning into an object that easily fit into Jacob's palm. 

Neither of the two men lingered in the place to stand awed by the marvelous sight. Even though magical items like that were rare to come by, Giern has served under Jacob for long enough to already get used to this peculiarity of his. 

"Boss, what's going on?" Giern asked. His face was tense, but given his lack of knowledge about the current state of affairs in the city, it has yet to reach the white color of someone struck by a terror.

"Do you remember what provision packets are?" Jacob asked a question on his own instead of replying in a straightforward manner. 

"Ah, those!" Giern shouted, instantly putting a smug smile on his face. "It's a rough classification of the variety of resources necessary to complete different kinds of tasks," he recited the formula that everyone in their line of the job was bound to remember.

Along with hundreds upon hundreds of other rules, regulations, and formulas. 

This mental demand for storing an enormous amount of wisdom and information was the real burden of the job. The main reason why not even a single cultivator of a rank below high-grade two-stars could even dream of entering the ranks of interrogators. 

"When I saw it in the reports, I dismissed it," Jacob admitted as he continued to hurry along the road. "I didn't expect that this might be actually true," Jacob continued to scold himself up, forgetting about the very first rule in their line of work, the rule that he was the first to enforce in his group. 

"Reports? Provision packets? Impossible?" Giern muttered under his nose, trying to piece the clues together. Then, his eyes widened as his body trembled slightly. "Sir, is he going to..." this time, Giern didn't even need to have his head scolded by Jacob to shut the hell up. 

Even though the chances of someone eavesdropping on them was abysmal, it wasn't something he was willing to discount. 

Not when such an enormous price was at stake. 

"This is where we part ways," Jacob said when he reached a crossroads. To one side, the military district of the war camp stood. But rather than going there to request immediate assistance, Jacob turned his eyes towards the opposite direction. 

On normal days, there would be nothing of interest there. Just a small plaza decorated with an ordinary water fountain. And to be honest, even now, this place was exactly the same as always. 

That is, as long as one were to discount a massive crowd of people packed into every nook and cranny of that open area. 

'Shit, they already started,' Jacob thought, not even wasting time to see his subordinate off. 'I need to stall for now,' he thought calmly. 

As the chief interrogator, he had to be even better than all the other aces that filled the ranks of this elite formation. And the ability to keep his head cool even in the direst situations was one of the few prerequisites one would be required to fulfill before applying for the promotion. 

'Now that I think about it, reaching the three-star rank is nothing when compared to all the other shit we are bound to be capable of,' Jacob thought as he reached the outskirts of the plaza. 

"Everyone! We will be departing now!" Markus's voice vibrated through the air of the entire plaza. Even with how crowded it was, there was no doubt that everyone could hear him clearly. 

But what was happening in the square didn't matter much. It was what was currently taking place right outside of it that made Jacob's blood coil. 

The crowd blocked his view. Thankfully, for a three-star cultivator like him, it wasn't any inhibition. With just his energy-sense alone, he could feel a disaster, something that shouldn't exist. 

He took a few steps forward, pushing through the people as if they were flies only waiting to be swatted away. And in just a single moment, he saw it. 

A thing that wasn't supposed to exist. A thing that solely belonged to the domain of the old gods. 

A thing that confirmed Jacob's earlier guess. 

It was a dark, spherical mass of blackness. Or rather than the color itself, the disaster simply consumed all the light, making everyone perceive it as a piece of perfect black. 

And as if it was nothing to be amazed at, scores of people continued to walk out of the black sphere, reinforcing the already massive crowd in the plaza. 

'They made a fucking portal!' Jacob screamed in his mind, losing his mind for the first time since he passed the promotion exam. 

But before he could do anything or even come back to his senses, something changed. 

Impossibility

"Okay!," Markus who was standing atop the fountain that decorated the middle of the plaza, smiled gently. "Now that everyone is here, let's not waste any time and go!" he said and waved his hand. 

And as if it never existed in the first place, the impossibility, the black portal, disappeared just like that.