Chapter :-116 [The Hidden Sage] of [Hliðskjálf] (Part-1)

(A/N:-The overall numbers of Strategic-class magicians have been increased in my novel due to the fact that the four-great clans have been in power for more than 5-centuries and produce extremely magically gifted individuals. Thus, the overall number of unregistered Strategic class magicians within Japan is much more than 1 but less than 6.)

(A/N:-The ranking system of the magicians is as follows:-

1. Combat-class Magician [Low/Intermidiate/High]

2. Tactical-class Magician [Low/Intermidiate/High] [Assualt/Non-Assualt]

3. Strategic-class Magician [Low/Intermidiate/High] [Assualt/Non-Assualt]

4. God-class Magician [Low/Intermidiate/High] [Assualt Only]

[Tatsuya and Minoru are on Low God Level] [For reader's info only]

[The Mikaelson Family, The 4-Great Clan Heads and Indian Mages are on Intermediate God Level] [Not Known]

[Only Henrik and Khan are on High God Level] [Official])

(A/N:- Assualt/Non-Assualt refers to if the magic has raw power or non-destructive capability.)

(A/N:-Tatsuya and Minoru barely enter the Low God-level purely due to their magic, this world is different from the Original World, Gods are still alive and kicking, even though Tatsuya's magic can destroy the planet, Gaia and the other Gods wouldn't allow that to happen, even Henrik or Khan can't destroy the world even though they possess the power to do so, due to the presence of Gods. The ranking is not only based on power, destructive capabilities or even efficiency but also physical powers, experience, IQ, effectiveness, etc.)

(A/N:-Read the whole chapter even though the major part is world-building.)

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*Poof*

A loud 'poof' could be heard as the ventilation switches from an outside system to one inside the aircraft. The lights don't even flicker a bit as they transition to the Jet system, known as the APU, or auxiliary power unit.

*Whir*

The Jet takes off with a whirring sound and starts flying in the direction of USNA, the Jet looked absolutely beautiful and sleek in design, the glaring letter 'M' painted in gold over its body gave off an intimidating feeling. Inside the Jet sat Elijah Mikaelson, Henrik's older brother; wearing a black suit and matching pants along with a black waistcoat. The Purple pendant could be seen wrapped around his left-hand wrist as he felt more comfortable with wearing it over his wrist.

Currently, he was going to USNA to attend a private party organized by Edward Clark.

Edward Clark was a Scholar that belonged to the [National Science Agency] in USNA.

He was not a magician, and was viewed as a civilian who was extremely accomplished in creating new technology and was known to be the only individual who had collaborated with the [Umbrella Industries], the biggest giant in science and technology development, in both armed and non-armed categories. The company was off-course owned by the Mikaelson family.

Edward's son, Raymond Clark was born a year ago and this was his first birthday party, the Mikaelson family acknowledged Edward and sent Elijah to attend the party organized by him and use this chance to know about the different leaders of the USNA and represent the Mikaelson family in the party.

But…..it wasn't as simple as it all seemed to be, Elijah had a mission from Henrik who requested him to finish a task since he was busy with some work and him leaving the country wasn't possible at the moment due to all the things ongoing within the country.

It has been 15-years since the incident with the Yotsuba clan who had stopped interacting with the other 10-masters clan. According to Henrik, a major shit-storm was taking place within the country and he himself had to fix everything back to normal.

"*Sigh*....Henrik surely has connections everywhere within the world, massive control over Darknet and extremely confidential data." Elijah relaxed his back against the soft chair within the Mikaelson Family Jet and looked at the file within his hands.

Edward was an expert at working with large-scale information systems and was the designer of the latest version of the eavesdropping communication system, which was operated by the [National Security Agency] that happened to also be called [Echelon III], though the communications used by the Mikaelson family were all extremely privatized and uneavesdroppable.

In short, Echelon III was an information interception network developed by the USNA — that can gather information from all over the world.

It's known that Edward is the designer of Echelon III, which no one disputes that he is the central figure in the overall improvement of the Echelon system. Although information about the assembly of Echelon III is treated as confidential information and the number of people that know of this achievement is extremely limited, nothing can escape Henrik's eyes.

Looking at the detailed content of the file within his hands, Elijah speaks to himself.

"Edward understands that confidential information about Echelon III can't be leaked. He accepts the situation in which no one can know. Clark shares this secret with only a limited number of people, however, he also admits that he wants to share secrets with others, including not being limited to just Americans."

"He has no intention of betraying the USNA. It can be said that he's a passionate patriot whose loyalty isn't to the government, but to the nation. He's convinced that its information that is able to control the world. He's also convinced that only his homeland and its faithful ally are qualified to take over the world. In order to guide the world to what he wants, he collects information, selects it, and analyzes it."

Elijah smiles as he continued to read the details.

"So to achieve his goal, Edward created [Hliðskjálf], a backdoor entrance of the system called [Echelon III]. There are only seven people who can access [Hliðskjálf], referred to as [The Seven Sages]."

"[The Seven Sages] is considered to be a mysterious organization shrouded in secrecy. The USNA government was the one to coin its name. As its name suggests, it is comprised of seven members, all of whom remain unnamed to the world, although the USNA assumes that the organization heralds from within the country."

"The members of this group all have been granted access to the backdoor of the global monitoring system [Echelon III] developed by the USNA, known as [Hliðskjálf]. As such they are able to access any information they want from anywhere in the world, effectively making them "omniscient"."

"Unfortunately, Membership is not chosen but seems to be drawn at random. Members are determined by the system itself, and the only known requirement is that the members must have the wealth of at least a middle-class citizen."

"While the program gives vast knowledge, the users have disadvantages: the data gathered cannot be stored internally to keep the data transmission from being discovered, and there are measures taken to prevent the data from being stored externally. In addition, the search history is stored 'publicly', allowing the other Sages to see what one of them looked for."

"As the administrator and creator of [Hliðskjálf], he can revoke access to the Seven Sages at any time."

"[Hliðskjálf] contains vast amounts of data, and holds much highly confidential information that is extremely hard to obtain in any other way."

"Henrik wants me to compel Edward into creating an additional [Sage], a hidden observer who doesn't experience the drawbacks of the program, is invisible to other [Seven Sages] and even to the administrator, who history is private and can't be revoked by the admin. [The Hidden Sage] within the program created by USNA."

Elijah really wondered about the full capabilities of his little brother, not only is his brother extremely strong but his 250-300 IQ LEVEL (Limited to me) made him truly unmatched in the world.

"Henrik even managed to find the identities of 3 of the [The Seven Sages]….!" Elijah had a surprised Pikachu face as he digested the information he just gained.

-Seven Sages

1. Yotsuba Maya

2. Raymond Clark

3. Jiedo Heigu (also known as Gu Jie)

"Hmmm…..Yotsuba Maya? Retsu's student has really dominated the battlefield, she has even gained the title of the Strongest Magician in the world if we don't include the main-family members of the 4-Great clans, few of the Gerard family elders, Indian Mages (Read *Broken*), Kudou Retsu himself and her own father, Yotsuba Genzou."

Elijah was actually impressed by the growth shown by the young Yotsuba, especially after 'the' incident.

"Raymond Clark? He isn't even 2 years old yet and Edward has already saved a spot for his son....Jiedo Heigu (Gu Jie), the leader of [No Head Dragon], Henrik once said to me that he was interested in Gu Jie's use of ancient magic though I find it disturbing that my brother is interested into something as vulgar as Gu Jie's magic."

Elijah had a distasteful expression over his face after seeing Gu Jie's name on the list, he hated his vulgar experiments which he conducted on humans.

"How [Hliðskjálf] works?...."

"Rays of light became characters as the search conditions were being specified. The terminal of [Hliðskjálf] was operated by the user's brain waves and gestures in a VR (Virtual Reality) like environment made possible by the HMD (Head-mounted Display). The camera caught the movement of their fingertips; rays of light were projected in the virtual environment. The operator inputs the search criteria with characters of light, determining the settings with the assistance of their brain waves."

Elijah could understand the reason behind Henrik's fascination with the program, it truly seemed interesting and immersive.

*Ding*

"We are about to enter USNA territory, requesting permission to land….." The voice of the captain could be heard through the speaker installed within the luxury Mikaelson family private Jet. Elijah had reached his destination, USNA and was ready to finish the task his brother asked him to perform.

The USNA (United States of North American Continent) was one of the new nations in the world created following World War III.

In 2054, the aggregation of the territories of the United States of America, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba along with the Latin American countries spanning down to Panama formed to become the nation of USNA.

What was known as Mexico is now drawn up and annexed by the USNA. Old Mexico was split into three: Northern Mexico, which encompasses the northern territories from the tropic of cancer, including the Baja California peninsula, Southern Mexico which is centred around Mexico City, and Eastern Mexico, which consists of the territories from the Yucatán Peninsula to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The Commanding Officer of STARS is one of the, if not the only Magician who is allowed to meet with the President of the USNA face to face.

The USNA has an embassy in Tokyo, Japan.

The most elite military division of Magicians within the USNA was called [STARS], which was considered to be the 2nd strongest magical combat force in the world after [Akatsuki], codenamed [Red-Cross] which consisted of The only God-level Magician, 7-registered [Assault] [High-level] [Strategic-class] magicians and 10-registered [Assualt] [High-level] [Tactical-class] magicians. The [Akatsuki] was the exclusive forces which answered only to the 4-Great clans.

USNA had many departments....

1. Department of Defense

2. USNA Military Joint Chiefs of Staff

3. STARS

4. Stardust

5. Illegal Mystic Assassin Platoon

6. USNA Navy

7. Enterprise

8. Independence

9. National Guard

10. Wizard Guard

They also developed some cool technology.

Cast Jammer - It is a device which has the appearance of a flashlight whose muzzle looked like a trumpet. It produces "psion noise" which will leads to the misbehaviour of victims CAD. Even though the victims magic will not completely stop, their activation speed will be heavily affected and they need to pour excess psion in CAD in order to activate or maintain their magic.

Low Orbit Psion Signature Tracker - USNA developed a technology where the unique psion wave pattern of a magician is analyzed and recorded, later by using that psion signature, location of that respective magician is tracked by low-orbit satellite.

The USNA is one of the four great military powers of the world, along with the Indo-Persian Federation, the New Soviet Union, and the Great Asian Union; who are all independently setting their own military policies.

The USNA and the Indo-Persia Union have an alliance, but it is only a superficial relationship as there is no longer any strong alliance between the two like there was before the World War.

If one of the great military powers tried to expand their territory, the other three would not remain silent, but there wouldn't be any threat of interference to their internal affairs.

The USNA intelligence network was the North American Intelligence Agency (NAIA).

Apart from Japan's recently established [101 Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion] and [Akatsuki], the USNA uses the most advanced magical weaponry in the world. They also utilize the most cutting edge magic techniques.

They possessed three of the [Thirteen Apostles], William Sirius, Eliot Miller and Roland Bart. Although William Sirius is considered to be the strongest in terms of raw power. (Angelina Kudou's predecessor)

The hatch of the Jet slid opens, revealing many USNA personnel standing outside with straightened backs and tightened body, to welcome one of the members of the most powerful family in the world, Elijah Mikaelson.