Chapter 1 Opening

Opening the vent's baffle, all that was visible was emptiness. The light within the duct was poor, making it difficult to see anything beyond a short distance.

Clearly, while Clapton was talking to the young officer, the person inside the duct had quietly crawled backward.

Had the explosion in the monitoring room not occurred, and had the young officer been skilled enough, he might have noticed disturbed dust on top of the storage locker as he climbed it. Alas, after the explosion, that was no longer the case.

Given Feng Bujue's cunning, he naturally wouldn't leave the broken Bluetooth device in the vent, so that lead was also nonexistent.

The officer crawled into the vent headfirst, supporting himself with his elbows, and began to move forward slowly. After Clapton's words, his confidence in finding the criminal had diminished considerably. He was now merely trying to verify his guess, deciding to take a spin inside the vent, observing the vents in each room from the inside, to see if he could find any traces.

Meanwhile, Feng Bujue had already found the vertical duct leading to the roof and was climbing toward the rooftop.

In fact... Feng Bujue's original plan wasn't like this at all.

His initial intention was to first deceive Clapton, claiming that he had already escaped, and implying that he was a superpowered criminal to shake the other man's resolve. Then, he would create an explosion to enrage him. Subsequently, while these people were hotheaded, he would release a summon to distract them. At that point, he would have a chance to escape.

But now, things were simpler. Feng Bujue had heard everything Clapton said over the intercom from inside the vent. Since the rooftop was unguarded, all he had to do was climb out.

Feng Bujue quickly arrived at the building's rooftop through the duct. There was supposed to be a sniper watching, but he wasn't constantly monitoring the area, and right now, there was no surveillance at all.

He somersaulted to the ground, crouched low, and without a word, darted toward the roof of the adjacent building.

A distance of three or four meters, and the height of a guardrail, was nothing to Feng Bujue now. Even without activating Ling Shi Jushen Shu (Spirit Consciousness Gathering Technique), he could easily jump across.

As mentioned earlier, players above level thirty, regardless of their specialization, could achieve the kind of acrobatic, lightning-fast physical abilities seen in The Matrix. Feng Bujue was currently level twenty-eight, and as a well-rounded player, all his abilities were above average, so he naturally possessed this kind of strength.

Of course, in terms of pure combat power, the other five players were like Agent Smith, while Feng Bujue was like a grunt in the resistance. A head-on fight would be suicide; he'd just be chased around the streets.

After several leaps, Feng Bujue arrived at the rooftop of a nearby residential building. He found the fire escape and glanced down into a small alleyway. There was no one there. In fact, there weren't many people on the nearby streets; everyone had gone to the streets near the bank to pick up money.

Feng Bujue leisurely walked down, and when he reached the second floor, he simply supported himself with his hands, flipped over the iron railing, and landed on the ground.

"Sigh... I get into a script and immediately run into this kind of mess," Feng Bujue muttered. "Fortunately, I got away without too much delay." As he said this, he looked around again and activated [Watch This].

A red, formation-like graphic, similar to an alchemic array, appeared on the ground in front of Feng Bujue. The light on the array gathered, and after fluctuating for a moment, the shadows materialized.

[Name: Summoning Art - Hammerhead Stork]

[Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, Permanently Learned]

[Skill Category: Summon]

[Effect: Summons a Hammerhead Stork to fight for you (Cooldown time 10 minutes, Duration 5 minutes, Maximum 1 Hammerhead Stork at a time)]

[Consumption: Stamina 50, Spirit Energy 10]

[Learning Requirement: Summoning Specialization F]

[Note: Can't fly because its head is too heavy.]

"Looks pretty bizarre..." Feng Bujue couldn't see the skill's description, but after the summon appeared, he could see a new survival value (also displayed as a percentage, without specific numbers) in the game menu, along with a "Dismiss" option.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Feng Bujue asked the summon.

The Hammerhead Stork didn't react...

"Um... go over there." Feng Bujue pointed to the ground on his left.

The Hammerhead Stork went over there.

"Jump." Feng Bujue said again.

The Hammerhead Stork jumped in place.

"Stay in place, jump in ten seconds." After Feng Bujue said that, he ran more than ten meters in another direction. He looked back and saw the Hammerhead Stork standing in place, not following, but also not jumping after ten seconds.

"I see..." Feng Bujue muttered, "Can't communicate with me, and can't accept overly complex commands." As he said this, he returned to the Hammerhead Stork and said, "Attack me."

The Hammerhead Stork didn't respond.

"Um..." Feng Bujue understood that this was an invalid command, and then he said, "Play dead."

No reaction...

"Stand on one leg."

The Hammerhead Stork did as it was told.

"Keep this posture and spin in a circle."

No reaction, but it maintained its one-legged stance.

"It ignores instructions that exceed its capabilities..." Feng Bujue reached out and grabbed the Hammerhead Stork's neck, wanting to pinch it to test it, but found that his intention couldn't be converted into action.

"Same as with teammates, huh..." Feng Bujue tried putting the Hammerhead Stork into his knapsack, and it actually worked.

"Okay... I roughly understand." Feng Bujue completed the test and dismissed the summon, after all, he couldn't let this thing follow him around on the street.

"I wonder if all summons are like this... In any case, I'll go get a newspaper first, and see what the situation is in Gotham City," Feng Bujue muttered as he walked out of the alley.

At the same time, in another part of the city.

On a park bench sat a man reading a newspaper. His clothes were very ordinary: a plaid shirt, jeans, and a jacket. His hairstyle was also a standard short cut.

He looked like an ordinary passerby, someone no one would pay attention to. If this were in a movie, he would be a human prop, part of the background, blurry and faceless.

But he was a player—Zhao Yingwang.

Suddenly, a tiny voice sounded, "Someone has used a summoning skill."

The voice was strange, seemingly coming from under the bench Zhao Yingwang was sitting on, but there was nothing there.

"The summon is?" Zhao Yingwang asked softly.

"Just trash, nothing to worry about, and it's already been dismissed," the voice replied.

"Can you pinpoint the location where it last appeared?" Zhao Yingwang asked again.

"Of course."

Zhao Yingwang folded the newspaper, slowly stood up, and muttered as if talking to himself, "Lead the way."