Universal Power System

"Wait... wait... just hear me out," Mako quickly said to calm his teammates down.

"Look, the cards are stacked heavily against us so I say we don't play according to their rules. If they have someone with a high-security clearance, it means we will quickly be discovered if we try to sneak around or break in to gather information, and I am not so sure the commander would be able to get us out of that pickle if we get caught." Mako began explaining.

"So instead of compromising the mission on the slight chance of gathering very minuscule information, I say we let them expose themselves to us instead," Mako added.

"But how? They were able to juke the commander, how will they expose themselves to us?" Leon asked, still unsure of Mako's plan.

"They will do it because we know of their end goal which is..." Mako began to reply.

"The Pyronite." Bill finished Mako's sentence.

"Exactly," Mako stated. "If these guys want to steal that Pyronite and I assume still maintain their cover, they would have planned accordingly to steal it discreetly."

"All we have to do is map out and keep watch over everything so that nothing can be tampered with or sabotaged to allow them to steal the Pyronite. This isn't an infiltration mission, this is a covert escort mission. We just have to make sure the pyronite is successfully transported and installed into the teleporter," Mako explained his plan.

"And if it doesn't? They will not just sit idly by if their plan somehow fails. They are bound to have backups and if it comes down to it, they will attack and try to steal it by force." Nathan stated.

"Sure, they might have backup plans but I doubt they will be able to execute them as discreetly as they would like because we would be an unknown variable that wouldn't have calculated for, and if they decide to attack, all we have to do is make some noise. There are plenty of strong teachers in the school, I doubt they can run or fight when the whole school staff is after them," Mako replied.

Nathan remained quiet this time as he thought over Mako's plan in his head. There were still many unknowns and things that could go wrong, but they were all things that were out of their control and he couldn't think of a better solution either.

In the end, Nathan nodded as he agreed with Mako's plan; however, Bill still had something to say.

"If we are going to go through with this plan, then I can say without a doubt that there is going to be a big confrontation, and this time we are going to be ready to face them," Bill said with his fists clenched tightly.

"He's right, we have to make proper use of our time here before anything happens and get as strong as possible. We won't face that kind of humiliation again and we will prove ourselves to the commander and everyone else, just how capable we are," Mako added, matching Bill's energy as he was too frustrated without a doubt.

"This is our chance at redemption and we are going to see this thing through to the end!"

The whole group felt the same way as they never wanted to go through that kind of humiliation again.

'Iris, I promise you this, I will find every single one of those bastards that were responsible for your death, and I am going to avenge you by making every last one of them pay!' Mako said in his thoughts as he finished finalizing details with the group.

They decided that it was best if they didn't communicate on the military network using their cards which could be monitored and read by any high authority figure, but there weren't any other alternative as all other communication devices were banned.

Mako came up with a solution to that problem.

He once read about an old encryption technique back when he would spend most of his days burried in books in the public library that was used to relay messages. It was a combination of Hexadecimal numerals and symbols.

Hexadecimals were a number system designed to store data easier by grouping individual bits in a group of 4. It only contained 16 characters and was easy to understand, learn, and convert.

The encryption technique however, took it a step further by incorporating ancient runes as the symbols to replace the existing 16 characters making a brand new language that was extremely hard to decipher if one didn't know which symbol represented which character of the hexadecimal.

In addition to that, the people using this encryption had full control over which symbol was to represent which character making it quite unique because it meant that the encryption didn't have just one key that would decipher it but rather it had almost infinite with their encryption only being able to be deciphered with their specific key.

The group was quite amazed to learn of such a method and were equally confused by its complexity. Unlike Mako, the rest of the group weren't as interested in studying and gaining knowledge and so it was a bit difficult for them to wrap their head around.

Mako helped them out by simplifying the conversion method so that they could easily understand how to read and translate the symbols. He then created identical encryption keys for each of them using 16 ancient symbols from the 64 he learned to assign each character.

He specifically chose those ancient symbols which could be created from joining different text symbols so that they were able type them in the card chat.

This way Mako and his friends could still communicate using the military card but their conversations would remain secure.

"Remember, you can't lose this key no matter what. If the enemy gets a hold of this, all of our conversations could be compromised. Try to learn it as fast as you can so that you can dispose this physical copy and leave no lose ends." Mako instructed all of his friends.

*Ding!*

[New encryption language identified]

[Processing...]

[Process Complete]

[New encryption language has added to the codex]

[User can now directly understand text written in this encryption language without the need of translation]

A system notification appeared right in front of Mako just as he was about to finish writing the last identical encryption key for Erin.

Mako was a bit confused as he had never heard the system mention anything about a codex, but he was quite amazed by the fact that the system was able to pick and memorize the encryption so quickly.

He still had no idea what it meant by him being able to understand the encrypted language without translation because without translation using the key, it was just a bunch of jumbled up symbols, but he was sure that he would find out about it soon enough.

"Mako? what happened?" Erin asked as she watched Mako just suddenly stare into empty space for a few moments.

Erin words quickly brought Mako back to reality, "I'm sorry, I was just reconfirming all the symbols in my head"

Erin didn't mind Mako's behaviour and quickly accepted his apology, but Bill on the other hand knew that this was a normal occurrence for Mako. He had seen him stare off into space many times during the time they were living together and although he had no clue as to why Mako did such a thing, he knew that it was something that Mako was aware of and was actively trying to hide it.

Mako had quickly paused the notifications and planned to read them later when he was alone.

'I have to remember to not open the system while I am around other people,' Mako made a mental note for himself as it could become quite the problem if people found out that he had a system implanted in his brain.

After distributing all of the encryption keys, the group began to discuss other topics such as which after school courses they were going to take.

The mood of the conversation was quickly shifted as they actually began to converse with each other like normal friends.

Mako was still unsure about which course he was going to take and of course he could take multiple but he didn't want to over crowd his plate so he just said that he would look around for a while before deciding.

Erin stated that she was going to extra combat classes as her fighting skills were still subpar and she couldn't only rely on her abilities to carry her through.

Nathan and Leon both wanted to better their abilities and increase their level so they opted to take extra ability classes.

Lastly, Bill said that his uncle was a great blacksmith within the military and it was very useful for one to know how to forge weapons, especially power weapons and so he wanted to started learning the basics of how power armor and weapons were made.

The group had a great time as they shared their plans and goals in the coming weeks and months .

Erin smiled, her confidence in Mako's plan shining through. "Alright, then. Let's get to work. But first, let's eat. We can't catch these guys on an empty stomach."

They all chuckled, the tension momentarily lifted as they dug into their meals, knowing that they had a daunting task ahead of them, but also knowing that together, they could overcome anything.