Just as Kayn expected, the remaining three cores he had were far more potent that the original two he consumed. It took him roughly two weeks each in order to completely digest each core. The remaining two weeks of his two-month time frame were used to stabilize and adjust to his gains.
Again, as he expected, once he reached the 4th stage his progress became extremely slow. He also expelled impurities from his body after reaching the 4th stage, which he hadn't for the last two rank ups. He could only guess that it was due to the impure mana from eating the cores.
His goal for the 5th stage was two-fold. First, even though his core had improved by leaps and bounds on Earth, his body only changed with the few temples that affected it. In other words, once he reached a stage he hadn't before now, it should drastically improve. He was hoping that he would becoming strong enough to withstand 10th or 11th tier spells with just his body, which was unthinkable for most.
The second reason for the 5th stage being his goal was that his core should undergo another qualitative change if his guess was correct. As he hadn't reached the 5th stage before, his mana should become even more potent, thus increasing the power of all of his spells.
He wasn't sure if it would be enough for him to fight true peak 6th stage experts or not, but he would definitely be able to face multiple mid-stage 6th experts at the same time, and win unlike previously.
However, with him being back inside the 4th stage, he was confident in being able to hide the family as he escorted them out of the city before returning in order to assassinate a few targets for their cores.
Kayn had been wearing simple clothing during this whole time while allowing the Garments of the Shadow Phoenix to recover. Now that it was time to exit the dome of safety again, he pulled them out of the Void Loop and donned them.
Lastly, he pulled out the Deceiver's Mask, but he frowned at its appearance. The Deceiver's Mask didn't have a powerful enough self-repair feature to mitigate the damage it had taken. What was left in Kayn's hand was a little over half of the mask while the rest was gone and destroyed.
Unfortunately, it was basically useless at this point aside from still hiding half of his face, but wanting something useful rather than decorative, he put it back into the Void Loop and removed the hood he received from Charlotte all those years back.
Most of the group staying in the palace had not seen his full facial features yet, and he wanted to keep it that way. He pulled up the hood which activated the veil effect that was truly more of a portal straight to the void.
Kayn contacted Emperor Talaro at that point and exited the room to go meet him in the main war council area. When he arrived, he wasn't surprised to see more than just the emperor there waiting for him.
There were several individuals that Kayn didn't recognize inside of the room, and one that he did, not counting the emperor. There was a solemn atmosphere surrounding the group as some stared at him with wariness and others that looked resigned to their fate.
Once Kayn took a seat at the table, everyone there turned to look at the emperor. "As was decided two months ago, Mr Ashan here will be escorting the family of the former duke out of the city. On his return trip, he has offered to gather supplies. Does anyone else have any request or want to argue for changes to priority for the items on the list?"
Emperor Talaro started off and after asking his questions, and with no one saying anything, he took that as approval of the current list. He threw a rolled-up parchment across the table to Kayn who caught it and placed it into his Void Loop without even glancing at the items on the list.
"Now, onto what hasn't been fully decided on as it required Mr Ashan to agree to it first, and to know if he could actually do it second. Mr Ashan, how many people do you believe you could successfully smuggle out of the city without being detected?"
Kayn sat in silence for a minute or two while he thought about it. Adding a few more people shouldn't be a problem, but there were always unknown mishaps and if a situation outside of his expectations were to happen, he wasn't sure what the maximum number of people he could truly protect was.
If he was strictly basing it on the number of people he would need to conceal versus the estimated time it would take to successfully escort them far enough outside of the city that they would be safe on their own, he didn't want to try taking more than 15 people along with himself.
He planned to try and return within two weeks, or 20 days. Since he was in the middle of the city, and some of the people he would be taking were normal people and didn't have a core, he estimated that it would take at least half of that just to get out of the city. That would leave him less than a week to collect mana cores and whatever other supplies they were requesting.
The fewer the people, the faster he could work. If he really wanted to, he could add them to the Wanderer's Villa residency list, but he wasn't about to waste his valuable slots for people he would never interact with again, especially since he didn't know how to remove people unless they died.
As the council members were beginning to become impatient at Kayn's lack of answering, he spoke. "I can safely take 10 people with me, the maximum I would take is 15. Anything over that and we would move too slowly, nor do I have confidence in protecting everyone in the case that an unexpected situation arises."
Talaro nodded, "More importantly, are you willing to take more with you?"
"I am, but may I ask why?" Kayn responded as he wasn't sure why they would want to risk having people dropped off in the middle of nowhere when they could be teleported to safety in less than a year when the seal was taken care of.
"Some would rather have the opportunity for their families to be extracted beforehand just in case. Due to this, we would also be sending a few of our more powerful people with the group for both protection and leadership. There are less than 50 people residing in the palace currently, most of them being some manner of family of those at this table.
"And if I'm being honest with you, the escape teleport formation hasn't been used in so long that I'm not positive it will work as expected. It was created many thousands of years ago now with only minimal upkeep. I'm not proud of that fact as I never expected to need to use it, but here we are."
Kayn understood their worries, but including powerful people in his group was a double-edged sword. On one hand he could rely on them to help the group move faster, on the other hand he would need to work harder in order to mask their powerful presences.
"I think it's still doable, but who all do you want to send out?" Kayn asked as he needed to know the ratio of adults to children that would be coming along with him.
"We were actually hoping that you would be willing and able to take a total of 20 people with you. A mix of children between 10 and 16 as well as a few adults. In fact, it would be the entirety of our non-combatants plus four of our more powerful mages. Lastly, I would like for you to take Clara Whiteclaw."
While none could see it, Kayn raised an eyebrow as he turned his head to look at Clara with a questioning look. "If I have people who can help carry the younger ones, I think it might still be possible, but some precautions will need to be taken. As for Clara, you would let your one and only healer leave? Even with the knowledge of the teleport plan possibly not working?"
"All of the ones leaving are young and have not had enough time to experience life yet. Everyone else staying has spent enough time on Talgonoth to be willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to provide hope for the younger generations. As for Clara…she has already given enough, lost enough, in this war. I cannot ask more of her, and it has taken a lot of convincing to get her to leave." Emperor Talaro responded with sadness in his eyes.
He had also lost almost everything to this war, including his wife of the last few hundred-thousand years, but while he would be able to fight until his last, he could tell that Clara was nearing the end of her rope and would probably just give herself up to fate if it came down to it. Her best chance at starting a new life was to leave now.
Kayn continued to stare at Clara as her head hung low while she stared at the table in front of her eyes, seemingly lost in thought. "Alright, gather everyone who will be departing as soon as possible. Take your time to say your goodbyes if any of you are separating from family. We will be leaving at dusk."