No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

Back at their dorm's common room, the group reconvened. The lights were dim, a single projection screen hovering over the coffee table with a city schematic glowing faintly.

Ji Chen leaned forward in his chair, rubbing his temples. Jiang Xiao Yu looked exhausted. Damien stood at the window, silent as always. And Fatty was feeding Elly and Squi-Squi peanut cookies on the couch like it was a picnic.

Ji Chen was the first to speak. "I scanned the convergence point near Sector 9 manually, looking for hidden devices. Nothing. It's either already been moved, or too well-hidden for my current access level to detect."

Jiang Xiao Yu added, "Same. My convergence point was underneath a water treatment station. The only thing I found was a suspicious smell and three cats in a trench coat trying to steal fish."

Fatty looked up. "Wait, like actual cats? Or…"

"Don't ask," she said, massaging her brow.

Elly, cheeks puffed with snacks, perked up. "I found something!"

"You what?" Ji Chen blinked.

"Look!" She dumped the contents of her bag onto the table with glee. A half-dismantled mana siphoning device clattered into view, sparking softly.

Ji Chen sat up so fast his chair nearly fell over. "That's military-grade! It's using Type-7 converters and core dampeners, you can't buy this stuff outside of secure military supply chains!"

Jiang Xiao Yu's eyes narrowed. "Can you trace it?"

Ji Chen's fingers flew across the tablet, filtering through access permissions, equipment requisition logs, and convergence point service records. A few tense minutes later, he pulled up the final shortlist.

"Three divisions match our criteria. All have access to the exact component signatures found in the siphoning device. All three were present or had rotating personnel in the areas where mana drainage occurred."

The holographic interface shifted, revealing three glowing labels:

Division 03: Ghost Kite Recon Division

Commander: General Cao Jin – Stealth operative, inventor of the Ghost Kite drone line.

Function: Discreet recon ops and long-term data surveillance.

Challenge Level: Extreme. Their presence is often invisible until the mission is done. Operatives are compartmentalized, use decentralized routing, and even internal reports are scrubbed and anonymized.

Division 11: Citywide Infrastructure Support Command

Commander: General Yao Mei – AI-mana integration expert.

Function: Urban mana grid, convergence node management, public defense energy channels.

Challenge Level: Medium-High. While more public-facing, their mana-routing AI systems are so complex and interwoven that tampering would be incredibly subtle. It's like detecting a fake heartbeat in a living organism.

Division 17: Mobile Pulse Logistics Unit

Commander: General Du Heng – Pulseblade exosuit specialist, known for lightning-fast strike logistics.

Function: Rapid-response supply movement and mecha enhancement delivery.

Challenge Level: High. Constantly on the move. Their pulseblade-equipped transport units move mana containers between cities with high clearance and encrypted routes.

Damien leaned forward, studying the profiles. "We need to narrow this down."

"Scratch off Division 17," Jiang Xiao Yu said with unflinching certainty.

Damien raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because they're the ones who helped reinforce Pearl's defensive shield array last month," she said. "If they wanted to break Beijing's mana infrastructure, they'd know exactly how to do it cleanly and permanently. Not with clumsy siphon devices wired into old junction nodes."

Ji Chen nodded slowly. "She's right. It's like giving a master thief the vault key and watching them break in through a window instead."

Damien tapped his finger on the screen. "Then that leaves us with Division 03 and Division 11."

"Division 03's got General Cao Jin," Ji Chen said grimly. "He's legendary in tech stealth ops. Half his team operates without even knowing who their squadmates are. His Ghost Kite network lets him run eyes and ears through the city without ever showing up in person."

"Which means if he's involved, we might never catch him red-handed," Jiang muttered. "We'd need bait. Or a reason to force his team to move where we can see them."

Damien's gaze moved to the last name. "General Yao Mei. Division 11."

"Her systems are everywhere," Ji Chen confirmed. "She's a genius—integrated AI spell-weaving into public mana control before anyone else. You'd never find her tampering the old-fashioned way. If she's involved, the siphons could be built directly into her routing algorithms."

Damien nodded slowly. "Then we start with her. Division 11 is fixed. Easier to monitor. If she's innocent, we know who we're chasing next."

"And if she's guilty?" Fatty asked.

Damien's eyes narrowed. "Then we make her wish she wasn't."

Ji Chen nodded. "I can pull assignment rotations, but I'll need time to crack the encryption on personnel logs."

"Do it," Damien said.

Jiang Xiao Yu tapped her finger on the map. "If 11's clean, then we look at 03. We'll need something dirtier for them… Bait, maybe. Something they can't resist tampering with."

Elly, sitting cross-legged and feeding a sugar biscuit to Squi-Squi, raised her hand proudly. "I have a new squirrel. His name is Squi-Squi. He would make the perfect bait."

Ji Chen blinked. "You want to use the squirrel… as bait?"

Elly nodded solemnly, placing a dainty hand on Squi-Squi's tiny, muscular head. "He's strong. Brave. His excessive mana consumption made him super smart! And strong! And super sensitive to mana!"

Squi-Squi flexed, his little biceps rippling, and gave each of the human beings in the room a cunning look.

Jiang Xiao Yu looked like she was experiencing mild cardiac arrest. "Please tell me we're not actually using a hyper-buffed squirrel as our anti-espionage plan."

Damien, somehow completely serious, nodded. "Actually… it's not the worst idea. If Squi-Squi can detect energy fluctuations, we could wire a micro-sensor array into a convergence junction and monitor for interference. If someone tries to mess with it, Squi-Squi can alert us."

Ji Chen's eye twitched. "This is going to be the first government black ops mission in history featuring a squirrel."

"Correction," Elly said sweetly, holding up a tiny, custom-made tactical vest. "A tactical squirrel."

Squi-Squi squeaked, donned the vest, and immediately saluted.

Fatty wiped a tear. "My god… he's ready for war."

Jiang Xiao Yu groaned, palming her face. "We are the dumbest brilliant team I've ever met."

Damien shrugged. "You said bait. This squirrel will serve perfectly, and it can't be traced back to us."

Ji Chen held up his tablet. "Okay, I'll prep a stealth node with low-tier mana tech. Something tempting enough for any hidden agents to poke at."

"Perfect," Damien said. Then he pointed at Squi-Squi. "Deploy the squirrel."

Elly saluted. "Squi-Squi, go!"

Squi-Squi squeaked once, leapt off the couch, executed a flawless triple flip midair, and launched himself out the window like a tiny, fuzzy missile of justice.

The room fell utterly silent for three long seconds.

Then Fatty whispered reverently. "...I've never been prouder to be Chinese."

Jiang Xiao Yu stared blankly at the window, her expression somewhere between spiritual collapse and emotional betrayal.

"This is my team, she thought. I trained for years. Top of my class. National honors. And now… I'm working with a tactical squirrel in a vest."

She didn't speak. She didn't cry.

But deep inside, a quiet, dignified sob echoed through the ruins of her strategic dreams.

"What happened to my ambition of leading a disciplined, elite strike team…?"

And yet, despite everything, despite Elly feeding biscuits to their rodent commando, despite Fatty saluting the window like they'd just launched a satellite, she couldn't bring herself to stop them.

Because, somehow, it was working.