While the others watched the jungle around them, he was occupied with a computer tablet in his hands. The tablet had magic engraving carved directly into the back, looking like an odd combination of magical diagram and simplified circuit board.
Each Network section had what they called a signaller, who, in Nigel’s team, was the laconic Green. The signaller had two primary tasks. One was to maintain communications gear—notoriously unreliable around heavy magic—while the other was to track the anchor entities that were the ultimate goal of the operation.
“I’m tracking three ADE readings,” Green said. “That might be three big ones or three clusters, moving in groups.”
“My guess would be small groups of stronger trolls or ogres,” Nigel said. “That’s a good thing. Multiple ADEs means we have to track them all down, but they’ll be individually weaker. When we’re dealing with category threes, we like them as weak as we can get. Increased numbers we can live with, since, as you can see, we have numbers of our own. We throw almost everything we have at category-three incursions.”
“What do you keep in reserve for other incursions if they happen?” Jason asked.
“We have four reserve sections on standby,” Nigel said. “They’ll be able to handle anything below a category-three incursion if one pops up.”
A ground base was assembled in startlingly little time. This time, Jason got to watch as Network members who could manipulate earth or even directly reshape it into simple buildings went to work. Koen did multiple comm checks with Jason’s power while this was going on and once the military took over for the Network teams maintaining the perimeter, Koen sent the sections out into the jungle. Before being sent out, each section was supplied with poison resist and antivenom potions.
“I’m good,” Jason said when they were offered to him. “Poison works like a recovery potion on me.”
Nigel’s team all turned to him.
“What?” he asked. “I told you that poison’s kind of my thing.”
“Is anything not kind of your thing?” Darce asked.
“Store-bought mayonnaise,” Jason said. “Make it yourself or don’t use it. Oh, and canned beans.”
“I like canned beans,” Cobbo said. It was the first time Jason had heard the flat-faced, taciturn man speak.
“I’ll make you some proper baked beans,” Jason promised. “It’ll change your life.”
“Make double-sure to keep Asano safe,” Koen said over voice chat as the Network teams made their way into the jungle. “He’s not just a VIP observer now; he’s our communication’s hub.”
Nigel’s team was not assigned to pursue any of the ADE targets. That was left to the four groups with silver-rankers, while Gladys’s team acted as a roving support unit. Nigel’s team was tasked with sweeping an extended perimeter of the camp, reducing the number of bronze-rank threats the military needed to deal with. The iron-rank bullets in the military’s guns would hurt a bronze-rank monster, but they would blow through an expensive stockpile of ammo for each one they dropped.
Nigel’s team carried bronze-rank carbine weapons, although most had them slung away. Nigel and Jonno both conjured their own guns, which would consume their mana for ammunition instead of expensive bronze-rank bullets. Higgy carried a conjured shield and no weapon at all.
“I don’t love being called Higgy,” he confided in Jason as he conjured his shield, “but at least they didn’t go with Captain America.”
Darce, Digit, and Cobbo also had conjured weapons: a whip, bow and spear, respectively. Only the scout team of Orange, Green, and Woolzy kept their guns in hand.
Darce had preternatural control over her segmented iron whip, which she quickly demonstrated as they made their way through the jungle. Lesser monsters emerged from the jungle every few minutes, their fearless berserker rage completely at odds with their lack of threat. The others left them to Darce and her dancing whip, which struck them down out of the air.
Jason was astounded at the sheer number of monsters in the proto-astral space, trumping not just the other world but even the magically saturated astral space in which he had spent months in constant battle. He had wondered how they managed to collect enough cores to field such a large force of bronze-rankers, but that quickly became clear. Jason’s ability to loot extended to the entire raid group, to the delight of Koen. He did have to revise procedures on the fly again as loot rained down on anyone who touched a kill.
Jason was reduced to a magic wi-fi hotspot as he withheld from joining the fights, even against powerful bronze-rank monsters like a hydra and a hulking bog ogre. His only active contribution was to drain poison from the team to save on their consumables.
Jason paid significant attention to the section’s teamwork as they took down monster after monster. His own team had refined their teamwork to the point of excellence, but in a very different way to the Network operatives.
Jason’s team was a collection of individuals who learned to dynamically reconfigure their approaches to build varying synergies that maximised their potential in any given circumstance. This approach made the most of each individual’s full suite of abilities, which both promoted versatility and helped advance those abilities to higher ranks.
The Network section’s teamwork, in contrast, had clear origins in military tactics, with the group forming a lean, effective unit able to act in perfect unison. Their coordination was all about coming down on any threat like a hammer, taking it out before it had any chance to respond. Each member only used a handful of powers, but each one was a force multiplier to the team’s effectiveness.
The scouts rarely used their guns with the expensive ammunition, instead baiting monsters into overlapping fields of fire from the other team members and their conjured weapons, throwing in some effects to hinder and control. Orange, as it turned out, was an affliction specialist like Jason. His abilities were more about inflicting debuffs than damage, though, setting up enemies for the team.
The team was highly offence-oriented, with three onslaught confluence essences amongst them. Jason knew that was a favourite amongst humans in the other world, due to its synergy with the human aptitude for special attacks.
Watching the team of core users work together, Jason started to realise that they were making the most of their nature as core users. He knew from his own training, where he had many discussions with Rufus, that core users often focused on subsets of their essence abilities. Without the need to use every essence ability in order to advance them, they could ignore whole sections of their power set.