Chapter 221: A Man’s Secret
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Congratulations! Sword Genius has defeated keeper Yu Moli on the sixth floor of the arena and won 90 battles consecutively!”
The announcement of the results turned the arena chaotic, especially on the sixth floor. Many of them checked Sword Genius’ scoreboard and found it unbelievable that he currently ranks No.3 on the leaderboard with 20308 points; they found it unbelievable.
“He is the uncrowned king even though he’s only at No.3!”
“Sword Genius is too powerful! He even defeated Yu Moli!”
“I’ve told you that Yu Moli hasn’t got a chance in defeating the Sword Genius, it came true!”
“Sigh, I thought Yu Moli would win this time, I didn’t know that Sword Genius is that powerful…”
…
It was not only the sixth floor, but everybody else on the other floors were also discussing about Sword Genius. He was now a legend as he managed to go from a 60 to an 80-win streak within a day. Now that he had achieved a 90-win streak, he was the third person who had managed to come this far since the establishment of Division7. The last time a player got a 90-win streak in Division7 was 186 years ago. Many of the transcendents who were playing from the ninth floor and above started to talk about Sword Genius as well. The 12 senior executive officers were silent when they read the news.
After leaving the arena, Lin Huang was sent back to the main hall. He was not wearing a mask so nobody could tell who he was. He looked at his scoreboard before signing out.
“Nickname: Sword Genius”
“Combat Strength: Silver-Level Rank-3”
“Battle Count: 90”
“Accumulated Points: 20308”
“Winning Percentage: 100%”
“Honor: 90-win streak!”
Lin Huang then signed out from the game. Upon regaining his consciousness, he saw that the top news on the main page of the Hunter Arena had changed but most of the news was still about him.
“The Uncrowned King, Sword Genius Has Completed A 90-Win Streak!”
“I wonder how Yu Moli’s doing now… I’ve only wiped away a portion of the monster’s consciousness; will he able to clear the remaining monster consciousness that was left in his body? Hopefully, his body won’t be taken over by the monster…” Yu Moli was a genius, Lin Huang did not want him to become the puppet of a monster.
In the arena, the system would usually be able to detect the difference in consciousness but what happened to Yu Moli was rare. As part of his consciousness was absorbed into the game, the system must have mistaken the monster’s consciousness for his, which caused the monster to take over his body during the battle. If Lin Huang did not kill the monster, Yu Moli’s consciousness would not be able to return to his body as he had lost control of it during battle. Instead, the remaining monster’s consciousness would have taken over his body. That was the reason why Yu Moli thanked Lin Huang before he left the game.
After getting rid of Yu Moli from his mind, Lin Huang checked the time. From the 81st to 90th battle, it took him less than half an hour. It was not even 9:30 in the morning, Lin Huang watched all the videos that were recorded during the battles. He watched the one of him and Yu Moli fighting repeatedly while he took notes. After that, he sent all the videos to Mr. Fu with a short message ‘Master, I’ve completed the mission!’.
Soon, Mr. Fu replied his message, “I’ve received your message, I’ll get back to you after I’ve watched the videos.”
It was past 11 in the morning when he was done. Lin Huang then made grilled meat for Lin Xuan before heading out to buy some ingredients for lunch. He cooked in the kitchen while Lin Xin and Lin Xuan enjoyed the meal. Later on, Lin Huang started a conversation with the both of them while he did the dishes.
“How’s your gun training?”
“I hardly lose in the regular arena anymore. I’ve been watching the videos that were recorded by Xiao Xuan and have learned a lot from there. Xiao Xuan is even more powerful now, he’s fighting with some Gold Hunters in the Hunter’s Exclusive zone. Initially, he would’ve been defeated but not anymore. He was given a nickname by some of the other players, The Game Terminator…” Lin Xin complimented Lin Xuan’s skill.
“Really?” Lin Huang raised his eyebrow. He knew Lin Xuan was a fast learner but he did not expect him to be able to fight with gold-level gunmasters when he was only at silver-level. Those gunmasters had powerful gunfighting techniques.
“Xiao Xuan has knowledge of gunfighting techniques as well?” Lin Huang asked.
Lin Xuan nodded.
“How many of them do you know?”
“126 types.” Lin Xuan’s answer left Lin Huang speechless. His learning speed was simply terrifying.
“Brother, I know some too. Xiao Xuan taught me three types and I’ve mastered two of them. Too bad I don’t have any Life Seed to unleash its power…” Lin Xin said.
“You know some too?!” Lin Huang did not expect Lin Xin to have surpassed him in terms of gun skill by now. After hesitating for a while, Lin Huang said to Lin Xuan, “Xiao Xuan, could you teach me some gunfighting techniques in the coming days?”
Lin Xuan stared at him with a puzzled expression. He seemed to be wondering if Lin Huang really did not know of any gunfighting techniques.
Lin Xin’s eyes were wide opened, “Brother, aren’t you skilled with guns?”
“I haven’t got the time to learn gunfighting techniques…” Lin Huang blushed as he spoke the truth.
“I’ll teach you then!” Lin Xin was excited. She treated Lin Huang as her lab rat to experiment with her teaching methods.
“I’ll get Xiao Xuan to teach me instead since you’ve only mastered two techniques.” Lin Huang smiled and shook his head. He did not think that Lin Xin could teach him anything when it came to gunfighting techniques.
Lin Xin went to the living room to watch the news. She then asked, “Brother, since you’ve playing in the arena these couple of days, have you heard of this person called Sword Genius?”
“Yes, I have. What’s the matter?” Lin Huang smiled and asked. He did not have the time to watch the news but news of him achieving a 90-win streak must have spread like wildfire.
“This person is so powerful. He had a 90-win streak…” Lin Xin said as she watched the battle video between Lin Huang and Yu Moli.
Lin Xuan recognized that this person who was called Sword Genius in the mask was Lin Huang.
He said, “Brother…”
Lin Xin was surprised, “Do you mean Sword Genius is our brother?”
Lin Xuan nodded.
Lin Xin looked at Lin Huang in disbelief and asked, “Brother, are you really Sword Genius?”
“What do you think?” Lin Huang did not want to give an answer straight away; he did not want to lie but at the same time, he could not admit the truth.
“I don’t think so… Although you’re powerful, this bloke is crazy…” Lin Xin shook her head.
Lin Xuan tried to speak but he was stopped by Lin Huang, “Xiao Xuan, come here. I need to talk to you.”
Lin Xuan walked to Lin Huang immediately. Lin Huang whispered into his ear, “Don’t tell anyone that I’m Sword Genius. You can’t even tell your sister. This is a secret between us, okay!”
Lin Xuan nodded immediately, “A man’s secret!”
“Come, give me a brofist!” Lin Huang pointed his fist at Lin Xuan.
Lin Xuan made a fist in confusion, Lin Huang then bumped his fist with his and smiled, “Since we’ve bumped our fists, this means you must keep the secret.”
“Okay!” Lin Xuan nodded hard. Lin Huang then rubbed Lin Xuan’s head, “Let’s play Gun Master together and you can teach me some gunfighting techniques…”
“Me too!” Lin Xin heard and joined in the conversation, “I want to see how you learn gunfighting techniques from him!”
“Sure, come with us.” Lin Huang did not mind Lin Xin being there.
Chapter 222: Gun Fighting Technique
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In training ground No.02879 of Gun Master, Lin Huang prepared himself with a SilverPhoenix16. In the game, most of the guns were complimentary; only rare and modified guns required credit points to purchase. Lin Huang was only there for training so purchasing a gun would be unnecessary. A modified SilverPhoenix16 and an ordinary SilverPhoenix16 had an insignificant difference. Lin Xuan was using a SilverPhoenix16 too; since he was silver-level rank-3 like Lin Huang, using a SilverPhoenix16 would be appropriate.
Lin Xin who was watching from the side was envious of the both of them. Since she was not even at iron-level so she could not even use an iron-level gun, let alone the silver-level SilverPhoenix16. She could only watch.
“Which ones do you want to learn first?” Lin Xuan asked Lin Huang when he saw that he was ready.
“Let’s start with the easiest one since I don’t have the basics down yet.” Lin Huang was not ambitious. Since he does not have the basics, he wanted to learn from the bottom up so that he would not be discouraged.
“I can teach you!” Lin Xin raised her hand. Lin Huang did not want to reject her after seeing her enthusiasm. He waved at her, “Alright then, come here and show me.”
Lin Xin ran towards Lin Huang and smirked. She took out both of her GrayEagle17’s, turned them around and held them in the right position. Facing the 36 moving targets, Lin Xin opened fire without looking at them. Her hands would move a little from the recoil after every shot. Although she seemed clumsy, she managed to shoot the moving targets. Within seconds, she shot all the 36 targets on the floor. Lin Huang was shocked with her skill as he thought Lin Xin only knew the basics but it seemed like she had mastered the first basic gun technique. It was amazing that she managed to do that considering that she was not even at iron-level.
Lin Huang kept silent and gave her a thumbs up and Lin Xin blushed.
“I’ve checked on the network, the easiest gunfighting technique is called Potshot. The thing about Potshot is to not to try and overpower the recoil but using it to our advantage to save our strength as well as time to adjust our aim. Although it might look clumsy in reality, the aim of the muzzle will always be within our control…”
Lin Xin explained to Lin Huang confidently. Lin Xuan did not say a word. Lin Huang patted him on his shoulder, “Xiao Xuan, why don’t you show me.”
Lin Xuan nodded and stood before the red line with one of his SilverPhoenix16’s. He pulled the trigger, sending bullets filled with Life Power speeding towards the targets at a terrifyingly rapid speed. Within a second, all 36 moving targets fell onto the ground.
Lin Huang’s jaws almost dropped as he watched Lin Xuan’s speed; it was even faster than Explosive Female Demon. It was a terrifying mastery of the gun. Meanwhile, Lin Xin watched unhappily as she had finally had the chance to perform in front of her brother and was complimented but the limelight was stolen by Lin Xuan once again.
“Xiao Xuan, do it again.” Lin Huang was unable to capture the full image earlier as Boundless Vision was deactivated.
Lin Xuan nodded and opened fire with his SilverPhoenix16 again and before long, all 36 targets were shot down within a second. With Boundless Vision and Third Eye, Lin Huang managed to capture the entire thing.
“Brother, you can get Xiao Xuan to slow down so that you can see all the details.” Lin Xin reminded.
It’s alright, I can see it crystal clear now.” Lin Huang shook his head and walked to the red line.
“Let me try.”
Facing the 36 moving targets, Lin Huang opened fire continuously and shot all of them down within three seconds. He frowned as he was not satisfied with the result. Lin Xuan and Lin Xin did not say a word as they watched. Lin Xin could see that Lin Huang did not take advantage of the recoil. Instead, he was affected by the recoil. To be able to control his shots, he habitually tried to control the recoil. Although he managed to shoot down all the targets, it was not the true essence of the gunfighting technique, Potshot .
“I’m not used to such a shooting technique, I shall practice more then…” Lin Huang shook his head as he proceeded to practice. After three to four attempts, Lin Xin was concerned and Lin Xuan finally spoke.
“Brother… You have to forget about the target…”
Upon hearing that, Lin Huang finally realized his problem. He was worried about missing the targets so much that he focused on them and controlled the recoil to try and hit them accurately.
“That’s right, I focused too much on hitting the targets. It’s okay not to hit the targets in a practice, I shouldn’t use the shooting style that I’m used to as well. I should consider myself as a beginner and start from square one!”
After realizing his mistake, Lin Huang lets go of his concerns and shot randomly. This time, he only managed to shoot two targets, however, he received a notification.
“Congratulations, you have received a gunfighting technique skill card piece x1 – Potshot ”
The notification assured him that he was in the right direction. However, he did not expect to receive skill card pieces during practices in the game.
He was improving fast, his accuracy increased with every shot. After 30 practices, he finally shot down all 36 targets. A notification came from Xiao Hei.
” Potshot skill card pieces x30 has been detected. Combine the cards to receive a gunfighting technique – Potshot . Would you like to combine them?”
“Yes!” Lin Huang decided to combine the skill card pieces without hesitation.
Soon, a skill card appeared in his hand.
“Skill Card”
“Skill Card Name: Potshot”
“Rarity: Normal”
“Type of Skill: Gunfighting Technique”
“Skill Level: Iron-level Gun Technique”
“Status: Available”
“Remarks: No level limit”
“Card Remarks: Useless”
After taking the skill into his body, Lin Huang held up the gun and shot randomly. All the 36 targets fell to the ground, it took him less than two seconds. Lin Xin was clapping her hands while Lin Xuan was indifferent as he thought it was normal for Lin Huang to manage that.
“Now that I have mastered the first technique, you can teach me the second one now. Teach me from the basics, I’m planning to put the fun, and my combat habits aside so that I could start from zero.” Lin Huang said to Lin Xuan.
“Okay!” Lin Xuan nodded and started using the second gunfighting technique…
Chapter 223: Gold-Level Life Seed Monster
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang had learned 28 introductory-level gunfighting techniques from Lin Xuan after spending more than 10 hours in the afternoon. The introduction to gunfighting was also called iron-level gunfighting technique. This technique did not require Life Power so that iron-level hunters and above would be able to use it. However, it was rather difficult to learn.
At Lin Xin’s level, she would need two to three days to master one technique and the reason Lin Huang managed to learn them so fast was because he only needed 30 skill card pieces to obtain one skill card. If he learned at the speed of regular people, he would not learn the skills any faster than Lin Xin. However, Lin Xin had always thought that her brother was talented so it was normal for him to learn much faster. On the other hand, Lin Xuan was not surprised as he learned all the techniques by looking at them once. He did not think that Lin Huang was talented. If outsiders knew that Lin Huang managed to learn 28 techniques in 10 hours, they would find it impressive even though it was an introductory-level skill.
It was 10:30 p.m. when they logged out of the game. To reward the both of them, Lin Huang made supper. The three of them then went to bed after taking a shower and Lin Huang received a video call from Mr. Fu when he was having his breakfast the next morning.
“Boy, are you having breakfast right now?” Mr. Fu saw something that looked like oats in the bowl in front of Lin Huang.
“Yes. Have you had your breakfast, master?” Lin Huang smiled as he asked politely.
“It has been years since I last had breakfast…” Mr. Fu shook his head. He seemed distracted as he thought of his past.
“Have you finished watching the videos that I sent you?” Lin Huang put down his spoon.
“Yes, I have. Don’t worry, please carry on with your breakfast.” Mr. Fu waved his hand.
Lin Huang did not pick up his spoon, “Please, master.”
“Alright then…” Mr. Fu saw that Lin Huang did not plan to continue eating and he continued to speak.
“I’ve watched all the videos from the beginning until the end. You’ve surprised me!”
“I have always thought that you’re a powerful Imperial Censor. You may have a great potential but your combat strength isn’t strong enough. I’ve assigned you a mission that required you to get into the top 10 without using any summoning monsters; simply as a target but I didn’t expect you to achieve it. I wanted to see how you’d perform in the arena and observe your true ability as well as how you’d fare during practice battles.”
“The only way to complete the mission within two months was through winning. I estimated that you could achieve a 50-win streak at most and you would lose to the keeper of the 60th battle and that you’d achieve 50-win streaks repeatedly until you manage to collect the targeted points. As the battle continues; you’d be paired with stronger opponents and I didn’t think you were capable of winning.”
“However, you managed to defeat all the keepers and achieved a 90-win streak. That was totally out of my expectation…”
Lin Huang felt embarrassed as Mr. Fu complimented him. He had never thought that failing the mission was an option. He wanted to give his best to the mission that was assigned by Mr. Fu.
“I’m curious. Your performance was not that outstanding from the 1st to 50th battles. There were many flaws but within a month’s time, you looked like a totally changed man from the 51st battle. You’ve never failed to surprise me since then. What did you do in that one month ?” Mr. Fu asked.
“I downloaded all the videos of the top 10 players and studied them one by one. I even made notes and practiced them in my room… Anyways, I just studied each and every one of the combat styles to see if there was anything that I could learn and adapt into a style of my own so that I can use them in the battles.” Lin Huang explained.
“You sure are outstanding.” Mr. Fu smiled and nodded.
“I’ve watched all of the videos. Although I can find some flaws, I don’t see the need to for you to change. I’ll only advice you.”
“Yes please, master” Lin Huang sat right up and listened carefully.
“As a whole, the most outstanding part about you would be your sword skill. You have mastered a great sword skill so I won’t be teaching you other sword skills at the moment. You have a great physique as well, the only flaw that you have would be your speed. Although your speed is slightly faster than a normal silver-level rank-3, you were much weaker when you encountered those who had the advantage in speed. You can overcome that with your movement skills but the two movement skills that you possess are not that special. I’ll make a video of a movement skill for you to train on later.”
“Sure!” Lin Huang was over the moon; since Mr. Fu was going to teach him a movement skill, it had to be at least epic-level.
“However, to be able to strengthen yourself to gold-level and fight a holy fire transcendent, relying solely on movement skills aren’t enough. You’d have to improve on your speed as well. Therefore, I’ll suggest you choose a speed type Life Seed when you level-up to gold-level…”
“Master, it doesn’t make sense to improve my speed and physique before I become transcendent, does it?” Lin Huang voiced his doubts; he was taking his the condition he would be in when he leveled-up to holy fire-level into consideration.
“That’s true. You’ll experience a flesh transformation when you reach the holy fire-level. This is why people are called transcendents when they achieve the holy fire-level. The body of a transcendent is much stronger than those below that stage.” Mr. Fu nodded.
“However, the speed type Life Seed that I suggested isn’t an ordinary speed type Life Seed, but one that would be able to transform into a secret skill that’ll enable you to move in a flash.”
Lin Huang was excited upon hearing this.
“This Life Seed monster is called a Starlight Beast. It’s very rare and hard to catch. I’ll send you more details and videos about this monster, take your time to learn about it and see if it suits you.” Mr. Fu said.
“If you’ve chosen your gold-level Life Seed, please share it with me.”
“I’ve been busy for the past few days so I didn’t have the time to look at it yet. However, the Starlight Beast that you mentioned sounds interesting.” Although Lin Huang had read the Monster Encyclopedia, it was the first time he heard about the Starlight Beast. He planned to decide only after he finds out what it was exactly.
“I’ll send you the details later so you can decide for yourself.” Mr. Fu added, “Is there anything else that you’d like to ask pertaining to your training?”
“Not at the moment. I’m focusing on stabilizing my Life Power before upgrading to gold-level.” Lin Huang shook his head.
“However, since you know that I’m an Imperial Censor, I have a question regarding summoning the monster.” Lin Huang added.
“Please do ask. Although I’m not an Imperial Censor, I have many Imperial Censor friends. If I can’t answer your question, I could always ask my friends.” Mr. Fu nodded.
“I have obtained a parasitic summoning monster earlier but it comes with several parasitic skills. I’m not sure how I’m going to train this summoning monster and what kind of skills it would get.” Lin Huang had been wanting to ask someone who was expert in monster training regarding his Demonic Dandelion Vine.
“I have killed many parasites before and aside from some other parasitic skills, there aren’t many other attack skills it can obtain. They basically rely on defensive skills, regeneration skills and camouflaging skills to increase their chance of survival. Some can even master learning type of skill.”
“The best way to train monsters would be by looking at their nature. Since you’re an Imperial Censor who can control more than one summoning monster, there’s no need for you to train all of your summoning monsters to their peak. I suggest you follow its nature and look for skills that of a defensive, regenerative or camouflage nature. If it is a double mutated monster with a higher intelligence, you can look for learning-type skills.”
“I understand now,” Lin Huang replied after Mr. Fu gave Lin Huang a clear direction.
“Do you have any other questions?” Mr. Fu raised an eyebrow.
“Not at the moment. Thank you, master!” Lin Huang said.
“I shall not interrupt your breakfast then.” Mr. Fu ended the call.
Lin Huang hung up the phone and continued with breakfast.
“Who were you talking to?” Lin Xin and Lin Xuan just got downstairs after a shower.
“My teacher.” Lin Huang smiled.
“Your teacher… He must be powerful?” Lin Xin found it odd.
“I think so, I’ll introduce you to him in the future.” Lin Huang waved at the both of them.
“Come here and eat your breakfast!”
The two of them went to the dining table. Soon, he received a couple of messages from Mr. Fu. He browsed through them, one of them was about a movement skill called Thunder Steps, the other was a complete set of details on the Starlight Beast while the final message was some information regarding parasites. He did not read them but sent Mr. Fu a thank you message. He switched off his phone and carried on with breakfast. Later on, he checked the messages again.
Chapter 224: Starlight Beast
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Starlight Beast was an extremely rare monster that could only be found in the Meteorite Desert. It looked like a robot, walked on two legs, and most of its body parts were orange in color which produced unique metal-like reflection when it came in contact with light. It has a turquoise face that looked like it was wearing a mask. Besides that, there was nothing else on its face. It had four antenna-like hands that were in blue and green colors and beneath its neck was a purple crystal that was the size of a fist.
The purple crystal was a meteor piece that could absorb energy at night. It was the only energy source of the Starlight Beast. Due to their characteristic, this monster was a star spirit type. The Starlight Beast had three major skills. The first one would enable it to transform its antennas into weapons which were similar to a vampire’s Blood Power. Second, would be its explosive movement and attack speed while the last one would be flicker which allowed it to teleport within a small area.
Its last two skills made it hard to kill the monster. Besides, it had a high intelligence which made it easy for it to avoid humans. Unlike many other monsters, they would not wander out of their territory as they waited to be killed by a human. The Starlight Beast would usually avoid conflicts with humans by hiding. The hunter who kills a Starlight Beast would obtain a speed type Life Seed which will give the user a powerful movement and attack speed skill. As one leveled up to transcendent, the gift would be upgraded to a secret skill called Flash which would allow the user to use the short-distance teleportation.
“This Life Seed monster seems great. Its talent would cancel out my only flaw, giving me speed that’s quite frankly, over the top. After I hit transcendent, this speed type secret skill seems powerful too. Since master recommended this to me, he must’ve considered the effects of the secret skill after I become a transcendent. It seems like this is the best Life Seed that I can get for a gold-level.” After reading the documents on the Starlight Beast, Lin Huang decided on the Life Seed monster that he wanted. He logged onto the network immediately and searched for the monster’s whereabouts.
“Meteorite Desert…”
A map was projected before him, Lin Huang frowned as he looked at the location of Meteorite Desert that was marked in yellow. It was located in the far to the northwest of Division7 from Winter City where Lin Huang was located. He would have to cross half of Division7 to reach the desert. It was more than 50% further than his trip from the Purple Crow training camp to Wulin Town.
“That’s extremely far!” The distance was out of his expectations.
He would need to book the ticket to the long-distance dimensional portal at least a month in advance. With the transfers in between, it would take up at least three months for the return trip. Lin Huang was upset as he thought about the travels. This world was too big, without a dimensional vehicle, traveling was inconvenient.
“It would be great if master could send me there on some dimensional transfer equipment. Although I might have to think about I’d make it back, at least I’ll be able to save more than a month of time.” Lin Huang planned to ask Mr. Fu if he had some relic like the Dimensional Portal before he headed out.
After deciding on the Life Seed monster than he wanted, Lin Huang started reading the other two messages. The documents on parasites that Mr. Fu sent was much more complete than the Monster Encyclopedia that Lin Huang read in the past. It did not only have a wider the variety of monsters but the descriptions that came with it were also more detailed. It was obvious that the documents were higher ranked than the ones that he got from Yi Zheng.
He spent his entire morning reading it and he even picked some parasites that possessed survival skills and other unique skills but he was only halfway through. He ordered takeaway for lunch before making grilled meat for Lin Xuan. Later on, he returned to the living room to look through the documents again. When the takeaway arrived, Lin Xin and Lin Xuan had just logged out of the Gun Master game. Lin Huang’s performance in the Gun Master the day before had triggered Lin Xin to improve her skills. After breakfast, she asked Lin Xuan to join her in the game to train her in gunfighting techniques until noon.
“Brother, are you practicing your gun skills this afternoon?” Lin Xin asked after putting a spoonful of rice into her mouth.
“Not today, I have something else that I need to do.” Lin Huang shook his head. He planned to read all the documents by today to find three suitable skills for his Demonic Dandelion Vine.
“You guys go ahead and do your own stuff, don’t worry about me.”
“Oh.” Lin Xin was secretly happy that Lin Huang stopped practicing his gun skills. It meant that she might just be able to catch up with him.
After lunch, Lin Xin urged Lin Xuan to return to the game as she did not want to waste a single minute. Lin Huang knew what she was up to when he saw her rushing upstairs. He smiled and shook his head. After cleaning the dining table, he returned to the living room and continued reading the documents on the couch.
Under normal circumstances, a monster would need to kill another monster of the same type to inherit its monster skill. Therefore, a parasite could only kill a parasite, it was impossible for a parasite to kill other types of monsters for their skills. It would be decided by the Life Seed in the monster’s body; there were rare exceptions of course. For instance, a monster called the Takeru Hunter could obtain most monster’s skills and even kill humans to obtain their skills… However, it was rare.
Lin Huang considered the Demonic Dandelion Vine as a common monster, he would need to find another parasite monster.
” Skin Hardening could strengthen its defense, but it’s too common…”
” Enhanced Regeneration isn’t bad, plus its suitable with Demonic Dandelion Vine’s characteristic since its a plant…”
” Plant Camouflage allows it to disguise into any other plants. That seems suitable too…”
…
Lin Huang looked through all the documents thoroughly. When it was four in the afternoon, he finally found a skill that impressed him.
” Enhanced Intelligence … This skill is very brilliant…” What Lin Huang saw was a parasite called Brain Eater. As the parasite entered the host, it would devour the host’s brain and take over the brain to control the host’s body. The nutrients in the body will be sufficient for the growth of the parasite; its intelligence would grow with Enhanced Intelligence and learn everything from the host.
The skill allowed the parasite to learn at a speed of a human genius where it could learn a gold-level combat skill within a couple of days. Such a speed was comparable with Lin Huang’s Goldfinger. However, this parasite had one flaw – it had to consume a fresh brain once a month. If it did not eat on time; it will die of exhaustion within 48 hours.
“I have no idea where to find this parasite. If it has Enhanced Intelligence no one would be able to find out that it’s controlling a person.” Lin Huang recalled the people that were affected in Xiaoxia City. He noticed that the hosts would lose their minds. If the Demonic Dandelion Vine had a higher intelligence than that, the incident in Xiaoxia City would not happen.
After choosing Enhanced Intelligence as the skill that he desired, Lin Huang picked another two skills which were Enhanced Regeneration and Plant Camouflage . He did not find any skill with a good defense so he decided on a disguise skill. It was 10 p.m. when he was done. Lin Xin and Lin Xuan ordered takeaway for dinner at six in the evening. They left his food in the oven and he finished his late dinner by 11 before he went upstairs and urged the two kids to go to bed before going to bed himself…
Chapter 225: Thunder Steps
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The next morning, Lin Huang woke up at seven to prepare breakfast. Lin Xin woke up at 7:10 a.m. on her own and woke Lin Xuan up as well.
“Brother, are you not practicing your gun skills today?” Lin Xin asked at the dining table while talking into the milk bottle.
“Not today, I’ll have to practice the movement skill that my master sent. We’ll see.” Lin Huang nodded and smirked.
“Have you learned the third gunfighting technique yet?”
“I have learned that last night, I’ll be learning the fourth one today.” Lin Xin nodded. She does not seem interested to discuss further with him. After gulping down the milk, she went upstairs and brought Lin Xuan with her.
Meanwhile, Lin Huang took his time to finish his breakfast. After cleaning the kitchen, he went into the living room and started studying the movement skill that Mr. Fu sent him on the couch. It was a video that Mr. Fu recorded himself. In the beginning of the video, Mr. Fu introduced the movement skill
“This movement skill is called Thunder Steps . Just like its name, its speed is as fast as thunder. Another origin of its name is the thunder-like noise that it makes…” As Mr. Fu spoke, he moved at lightning speed; followed by a loud thud.
Lin Huang was stunned. He thought something exploded but he soon realized that the thud came from the movement skill itself. Soon, another thud was heard. Mr. Fu returned to his initial position.
“Did you see that? That’s the effect of the movement skill. The sound could be heard even before you arrived at the second point from your initial position! A powerful person should be able to make his entrance …”
“Can I get a quiet movement skill instead…” Lin Huang was speechless as he felt that the movement skill was attention seeking.
Since the video was pre-recorded, Mr. Fu could not hear what Lin Huang was saying; he proceeded to explain the movement skill. The video was one and a half hour long. Since Mr. Fu put in a great amount effort to explain and demonstrate the movement skill, Lin Huang felt bad for requesting another movement skill. He continued to watch the video anyway.
The tutorial was very detailed as Mr. Fu had answered all the questions and doubts that Lin Huang had in detail; nothing was left out. Lin Huang continued watching the video until the end even though he realized that there were two to three minutes left before the video ended.
Mr. Fu demonstrated Thunder Steps on the deck of his spaceship several times before returning to speak to Lin Huang in the video recording.
“Oh right, there’s something that I must say. The thud that came with the movement skill was initially a flaw when it was invented. Nobody could find a solution to it for hundreds of years. This movement skill relies on Life Power to create such a speed so it’s normal to have the explosive noise. However, a genius modified the release of Life Power for this movement skill, creating a silent version. Now, I’m going to teach you how to do that…”
Lin Huang only realized that the last two minutes of the video was crucial after finishing the video. If he was to ignore the last two minutes, he would have practiced the version with the noisy thud.
“I almost got tricked by him…” Lin Huang did not expect Mr. Fu to be so playful. He turned off the video and went to the courtyard. To prevent himself from destroying his shoes from the lack of Life Power control, he removed them.
As long as he could master the force of Life Power under his feet, he would have mastered 80% of Thunder Steps . The remaining parts would be the mastery of smaller details. However, controlling Life Power was not an easy task. He lost control and dove head first into the trashcan at the entrance on his first attempt.
“It seems like I need a bigger space for this…”
Lin Huang showered, got changed and bid farewell to Lin Xin and Lin Xuan. He rode on the Alexandrian Eagle and headed to a wild zone outside the foothold.
Upon landing in an empty wild zone, Lin Huang recalled the Alexandrian Eagle and started practicing Thunder Steps . His mastery of Life Power was much stronger than a common silver-level rank-3 as he had mastered level-8 ofArmy Attack Tactics which gave him a 96% increment in the rotational speed of his Life Power. It was four in the afternoon; after seven to eight hours of practice, he had finally stopped tripping over the ground.
However, he was far from mastering the skill as he had only obtained slightly more than 10 skill card pieces of Thunder Steps . Since it was almost dinner time, Lin Huang summoned the Alexandrian Eagle and rode it home. When he got home, he saw Lin Xin pouring herself a cup of water in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Lin Xin was puzzled as she looked at Lin Huang’s messy clothes. She wondered if he was beaten up as he looked like he had been rolling on the ground.
“Nothing, I fell down when I was practicing the movement skill… I’ll go shower now.” Lin Huang waved his hand and went straight to the bathroom on the second floor.
In the shower, the water washed away the black soot that covered his body. It took him some time to clean up. Later, he threw the dirty clothes away after he changed.
“Brother, what kind of movement skill are you practicing now?” Lin Xin was curious but she did not have the opportunity to ask Lin Huang since he went straight into the shower after he got home.
“That’s the movement skill that my master sent me. You can’t learn it now; it requires Life Power and a high mastery of it I’ve been training since morning and I’m finally not tripping over anymore.” Lin Huang explained.
“Oh…” Lin Xin was relieved that he was not beaten up.
Lin Huang was not in the mood to cook so he ordered takeaway instead while he looked for ways to better control his Life Power by watching the video. After dinner, Lin Huang joined Lin Xin and Lin Xuan in Gun Master instead. He was thinking of learning gunfighting techniques to relax. In four hours, Lin Huang managed to learn another nine introductory-level gunfighting techniques. He had finally learned all of the introductory-level techniques.
It was 10 at night, he went to bed exhausted…
Chapter 226: School Transfer
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
For the next 10 days, Lin Huang practiced Thunder Steps in the morning while he learned gunfighting techniques from Lin Xuan at night. He was beginning to master Thunder Steps as he had been obtaining more and more skill card pieces every day. Within two weeks, he had accumulated more than 30 card pieces. During that same period of time, he had also managed to learn all 29 of the beginner-level gunfighting techniques.
It was finally the day for Lin Xin’s enrolment to her new school. There were four hunter colleges in Winter City in the four zones. Since Lin Huang stayed on the east side, they were less than two kilometers away from the college. Lin Huang rode on the Viridian Wolf with Lin Xin and Lin Xuan to the college. When they arrived, there was a crowd at the entrance with at least 10,000 people.
Lin Huang managed to locate the information counter and got directions to the admission office and brought the both of them in with him. The school was much nicer than the one in Wulin Town. It was not only bigger but had an astonishing building architecture as well. The lush greenery reminded Lin Huang of the university that he went to on Earth. Lin Xin was excited, the school was much more majestic than the one in Wulin Town. As they stepped into the admission office on the eighth floor, there were five to six people queuing up. Soon, it was Lin Xin’s turn.
Lin Huang got Lin Xuan to wait at the door while he brought Lin Xin in.
“Have a seat.”
The teacher responsible for school transfer did not bother to make small talk with them and got the both of them to sit down before asking all the necessary questions.
“Your name.”
“Ling Xue.”
“Age.”
“14.”
…
Lin Xin had memorized her new identity, she managed to answer all the questions. The teacher scanned Lin Xin’s identity, school transfer application, and Lin Huang’s residential token before giving her the school ID.
“You will be going to the second graduating class which commences three days later. Report to the form teacher before 8:30 a.m..” The teacher briefed.
“If you have any special skills, do let your form teacher know so that you would be arranged to attend special courses. If you passed the course, you would have to go through an additional assessment before graduation, which is good for your school application.” The teacher added.
“Understood. Thank you, teacher!” Lin Xin smile and nodded. They left the admission office.
When they stepped out, both of them saw Lin Xuan was looking at the students in combat class. He was envious.
“Brother, why not enroll Lin Xuan as well?” Lin Xin suggested. Lin Xuan looked at Lin Huang in anticipation.
“His condition is special; If he were to learn like the rest, his superb learning speed would be revealed which may cause trouble. Many would want to experiment with him, even the Hunter Association.” Lin Huang turned down the suggestion.
“Xiao Xuan, if you’d like to learn, I could find some other ways to help. You really can’t be learning at a school.” Lin Huang patted his head.
“I understand.” Lin Xuan nodded.
As they were heading home, Lin Huang noticed that Lin Xuan was upset.
“Come here, Xiao Xuan. If you would like to learn combat skills, I’ll teach you a Life Skill.” Lin Huang got Lin Xuan to come to him.
“This Life Skill is called Army Attack Tactics , practice this for a few days and see where you stand.”
Lin Huang passed the Army Attack Tactics crystal to Lin Xuan. His eyes lit up and he immediately returned to his room with the crystals.
After settling Lin Xuan while Lin Xin was playing Gun Master in her room, Lin Huang headed straight into the wild zone. When he returned in the afternoon, Lin Xuan was sitting in the living room looking upset.
“What’s wrong? Is there any problem with your training?” Lin Huang asked.
“I’m stuck…” Lin Xuan said.
“Stuck?” Lin Huang thought it was strange as he managed to get to level 1 within a couple of hours and he did not encounter any issue when he was training level 2.
“Show me.”
Lin Xuan nodded and performed the skill rotation. Lin Huang’s jaw almost dropped; he finally understood what Lin Xuan meant. He was stuck on level 6 instead of level 2. Within eight hours, he managed to train from level 1 to level 5. It was always an obstacle when one arrived at level 6 as it requires one to transform their Life Power. Since Lin Xuan took such a short time to master up to level 5, his body had yet to adapt to the Life Power rotation which prevented him from moving up to level 6.
“You need to practice a couple more times and you’ll reach level6 soon.” Lin Huang explained, Lin Xuan understood what was the problem. After dinner, Lin Huang got Lin Xuan to teach him gunfighting techniques. Three days had passed and finally, it was the first day of school for Lin Xin. Within three days, Lin Xuan managed to train Army Attack Tactics up to level-8, which was the same as Lin Huang.
Seeing that Lin Xuan had already mastered Army Attack Tactics , Lin Huang downloaded a selection of battle videos from the first to the ninth floor of the Hunter Arena for Lin Xuan to watch. There were more than 30,000 videos with the longest one was half an hour while the shortest one was only a couple of seconds. Those videos would keep Lin Xuan occupied for a while. Meanwhile, Lin Huang focused on mastering Thunder Steps . He wanted to master that before leaving to hunt for the Life Seed monster.
He bought two more barbecue machines and he would prepare three sets of grilled meat for Lin Xuan and order dinner for Lin Xuan every morning before leaving. All he had to himself were snacks. Every day, he would train from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Apart from the time he spent to eat for lunch and dinner, which was only 20 minutes, he spent 14 hours training.
As he slowly mastered Thunder Steps , the number of skill card pieces he obtained increased as the day pass. Finally, on the 28th day since Lin Xin started school, he had obtained 3,000 card pieces. He received a notification from Xiao Hei.
“3,000 Thunder Steps card pieces detected. Combine the cards for an Epic Movement Skill Card – Thunder Steps . Would you like to combine your card?”
“Yes!” Lin Huang replied without hesitation.
“Combining 3,000 skill card pieces…”
“Congratulations! You have obtained an epic movement skill card, Thunder Steps .”
Lin Huang checked the card immediately.
“Skill Card”
“Skill Card Name: Thunder Steps”
“Rarity: Epic”
“Type of Skill: Movement skill”
“Skill Level: Unknown”
“Status: Available”
“Card Remarks: Not bad”
“Finally!” Lin Huang let out a long breath. It was dark, Lin Huang just realized that it was 10 p.m. He did not want to stay in the wild zone any longer. He then summoned the Alexandrian Eagle and flew back home…
Chapter 227: Brain Eater
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After Lin Huang mastered Thunder Steps , he started preparing for his trip to hunt for the Life Seed monster. He prepared breakfast early in the morning, Lin Xin and Lin Xuan were coming down the stairs. Since Lin Xin started school, she woke up at the same time as Lin Huang and she was also responsible to wake Lin Xuan up daily. The three of them sat at the dining table and had their breakfast.
“You’ve been in school for a month now. How do you find it so far?” Lin Huang asked as he ate his oats.
“It has been good. I’ve signed up for the gunmaster course. There will be a test two days time but I believe I’ll pass with flying colors.” Lin Xin was confident. Even though she was even at iron-level, her performance was outstanding as she had mastered eight introductory-level gunfighting techniques by now. She might even pass the beginner level of the gunmaster assessment.
“With your capability at hand, you should be able to pass gun-related assessments in military schools.” Lin Huang smiled and nodded as he was aware of Lin Xin’s progress.
“How about the rest? Is there anything that you can’t adapt to?”
“The courses are similar to those in Wulin Town, they are not as difficult as before so there’s nothing that I have yet to adapt. However, there are more top students now but competition isn’t a bad thing. I could use it as an encouragement to improve.” Lin Xin was not afraid of challenges. She was the top student back in Wulin Town, competing with the rest of the students in her new school was a form of encouragement to her.
Lin Huang felt relieved when he found out that she was doing well in school.
“Brother, when do you plan to leave?” Lin Xin knew Lin Huang was hunting for a Life Seed monster.
“Within a couple of days. I haven’t decided on the time yet, I will inform you when it’s confirmed.” Lin Huang had some preparation to do.
After breakfast, Lin Xin headed to school while Lin Xuan watched the battle videos upstairs. Lin Huang returned to the living room and called Mr. Fu after he had finished cleaning up the kitchen. Before he was able to make the call he received a notification from the Hunter’s Association; it read – Suspected Brain Eater in Foothold No.7C193 . Since he read about the skills that he wanted for the Demonic Dandelion Vine, Lin Huang had selected Brain Eater and parasite as the keywords in the Hunter Association’s news. Whenever there was news related to those keywords, Lin Huang would be notified.
He looked at the message. It was an article with pictures. The sewage in a small area in foothold No.7C193 was clogged this morning. When maintenance was carried out the staff found a few corpses in the sewage. Post-mortem results showed that the four bodies belong to young men who had their brains removed. Preliminary check showed that it could be the work of a Brain Eater
Finally, there was something about the Brain Eater, Lin Huang did not want to miss a thing. He started to look for articles about foothold No.7C193. Also known as Luoxi City, it was a normal grade-C foothold. Its economy was not as good as Baqi City but it was ranked far behind among other grade-C footholds. It was not a tourist destination since it was secluded on the northeast side of Division7.
Lin Huang’s eyes lit up when he saw the foothold’s coordinate on the map.
“This foothold is so close to Meteorite Desert!”
He checked the distance between the foothold and Meteorite Desert, it was less than 2,000 kilometers apart.
“It’s just along the way. I shall kill that Brain Eater as I take the time to stabilize my Life Power before leveling up to gold-level.” Lin Huang made up his mind.
After closing the page and the map, Lin Huang called Mr. Fu. Mr. Fu picked up immediately.
“Whats wrong? Have you stabilized your Life Power and are you ready to hunt for the gold-level Life Seed?” Mr. Fu laughed.
“Not yet, but I’m almost there.” Lin Huang had not been using his Life Skill in the past two months. However, it was still rotating automatically. The Life Power in his body should have stabilized soon since it had been two months.
“I’m calling to ask if you have any dimensional transfer equipment as I’m too far away from the Meteorite Desert. If you have, I would like to borrow it since it could save me a lot of time on the road.”
“Sure, I should have one that is set to go to that place. When are you departing?” Mr. Fu agreed to help Lin Huang immediately.
“Within the next few days, I’d like to go to Luoxi City.” Lin Huang did not hide his intention.
“Why Luoxi City? The city that is closest to Meteorite Desert would be Meteorite City.” Mr. Fu thought Lin Huang had made a mistake.
“I heard there’s a Brain Eater in Luoxi City, I want to try my luck to catch it to train my parasite.” Lin Huang answered honestly.
“You want to obtain Supreme Intelligence for your parasite?” Mr. Fu understood immediately.
“That’s a great idea. If it’s a mutated parasite, it would be easier to mutate it the second time when you become a transcendent if you manage to get Supreme Intelligence .”
“Yes.” Lin Huang nodded without saying much. Although Mr. Fu was his master, there were still things that he needed to keep to himself.
“Sure, I will send you to Luoxi City then. Is it okay if you depart the day after tomorrow?” Mr. Fu asked.
“No problem.” Lin Huang nodded.
“Send me your address later, I’ll come to you early in the morning in two days.” Mr. Fu hung up the phone.
Lin Huang sent his address in Winter City immediately. He was relieved that Mr. Fu agreed to help him as it would save him at least a month and a half of time.
“Now how do I find that Brain Eater?” Lin Huang thought. The Brain Eater had a high intelligence. Since it had invaded into a human foothold, it would definitely go into hiding. There were at least millions of people in a grade-C foothold, looking for the Brain Eater that was disguised as a human was like finding a needle in a haystack.
“The only way is to look is to start at the location where the incident happened. Since it discarded all the corpses at the same place, it would mean that it had been residing in the area for quite some time. Perhaps I could find some clues on the corpses. To see the corpses and retrieve the post-mortem reports, I’d have to get to the Hunter’s Association division. That could be a problem…”
Lin Huang realized that looking for the Brain Eater was not a simple task at all. He put his concerns aside and started reading up on previous cases where the Hunter’s Association handled a Brain Eater…
Chapter 228: Mr. Fu’s Visit
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A scrumptious dinner was served on the dining table, Lin Xin and Lin Xuan drooled over the food.
“Brother, what’s the occasion?” Lin Xin asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” Lin Huang smiled.
Half an hour later, Lin Xin slumped into the chair with a food coma.
“I’m too full, I can’t eat anymore…”
Lin Huang was speechless.
“Can you tell me now?” Lin Xin did not forget about the question that she asked him.
“I’ll be leaving in two days.” Lin Huang told her the truth.
Lin Xuan stopped eating and looked at Lin Huang.
“So soon?” Lin Xin had her eyes wide open as she looked at Lin Huang. She knew that Lin Huang was leaving but she did not expect him to leave so soon.
“I didn’t plan to leave that soon but something came up. It’s something that’s along the way so I thought I might as well leave earlier.” Lin Huang explained.
“How long… would you be gone for?” Lin Xin hesitated but asked anyway.
“It’ll take at least two months.” Lin Huang factored in the time he needed to hunt the Brain Eater which would be impossible to accomplish in a matter of two days.
“Oh…” Lin Xin stared blankly at the table.
“Xiao Xuan, protect your sister while I’m gone, alright?” Lin Huang smiled at Lin Xuan.
“Okay!” Lin Xuan nodded hard.
“Xin Er, prepare two portions of grilled meat in the morning before you go to school. One is for breakfast while another one is kept warm for Lin Xuan’s lunch.” Lin Huang told Lin Xin.
“Actually… Xiao Xuan knows how to use the barbecue machine.” Lin Xin stuck her tongue out. She taught Lin Xuan to use the barbecue machine because she was lazy to cook for him.
“You silly girl…” Lin Huang shook his head.
“Alright then, Xiao Xuan, you can cook for yourself whenever you are hungry. I still have many monster carcasses with me, I will transfer them to you later.” Lin Huang added.
“Okay.” Lin Xuan nodded.
After giving it some thought, Lin Huang decided to give his modified SilverPhoenix16 to Lin Xin.
“Pass this gun to Lin Xuan if you encounter any trouble.”
Although they had moved to a different home and changed their names, Lin Huang was worried that the Purple Crow would come for them. Prevention was always better than cure.
Two days passed in just a blink of an eye, someone knocked on the door when Lin Huang was preparing breakfast. Mr. Fu stood at the door in a green attire, surprising Lin Huang since it was only a little past seven in the morning.
“Good morning, I hope I’m not bothering you.” Mr. Fu seemed to have trimmed his white beard, it looked much neater now. His smile was warm as always.
“No, you are not bothering me. Please, come in. I’m just preparing breakfast.” Lin Huang smiled as he shook his head.
“Sure.”
Mr. Fu looked around as he entered Lin Huang’s house.
“Nice house. Moderate size, it’s homely. It doesn’t look like the style that you’d like…”
“You are right, master. My sister chose this house.” Lin Huang smiled and got a cup of tea for Mr. Fu.
“Please take a seat, I’ll continue making breakfast.”
Mr. Fu then sat on the couch in the living room and sipped the tea.
Lin Xin and Lin Xuan followed the smell of the food downstairs.
“Brother, do we have a guest?” Lin Xin heard Lin Huang talking to someone when she was upstairs.
“My master is here.” Lin Huang walked out from the kitchen and introduced the both of them to Mr. Fu.
“These are my brother and sister.”
“Brother and sister?” Mr. Fu raised his eyebrow. He looked at Lin Xin and smiled. He was stunned when he looked at Lin Xuan.
“What’s wrong, master?” Lin Huang noticed the odd expression on Mr. Fu’s.
“Oh nothing, I was just thinking what should I give them since we’re meeting for the first time.”Mr. Fu smiled and explained.
“Let me see what do I have in my storage space.”
Soon, Mr. Fu took out a some food and toys. He seemed to have a storage ring exclusively for gifts for kids.
“Take whatever you like.” Mr. Fu smiled at the both of them.
Lin Xin and Lin Xuan looked at Lin Huang.
“Pick whatever you like. Master isn’t a stranger.” Lin Huang nodded and smiled.
The both of them went forward to picked out the things that they liked. Mr. Fu picked a lollipop that was the size of a head and gave it to Lin Xuan.
“A lollipop for you.”
However, Lin Xuan did not take it.
“Xiao Xuan doesn’t like candy, he only eats meat.” Lin Xin explained immediately.
“Oh, is that so…” Mr. Fu was surprised. He kept the lollipop and looked at Lin Xuan again.
As they picked out their gifts, Lin Huang was done preparing breakfast.
“Let’s have breakfast together!”
The both of them kept the gifts in their storage space and ran to the dining table.
“Master, please eat with us.” Lin Huang walked into the living room and smiled at Mr. Fu.
“I haven’t had breakfast in a long time, perhaps I shall taste your cooking.” Mr. Fu nodded and walked to the dining table.
The breakfast Lin Huang prepared was simple. Besides Lin Xuan, everyone else got a piece of toast, grilled sausage, two fried eggs, some fruits and a glass of milk. Meanwhile, there were only grilled sausages, fried eggs and big pieces of grilled meat on Lin Xuan’s plate. Lin Huang was not a great chef when it comes to cooking. However, such a simple breakfast would not require any skill. Mr. Fu was happy with his breakfast. He finished the food but not the milk. Instead, he drank alcohol from his flask.
Lin Xin went to school after breakfast while Lin Huang cleaned the kitchen.
Lin Huang then called Lin Xuan over, “You are the only man in the house when I’m away, take care of your sister.” Lin Huang held up his fist.
“I will.” Lin Xuan nodded and fist bumped Lin Huang.
“Call me if you need anything. Let me know once you are done watching all the videos. When it’s raining, close all the windows if your sister is not around, don’t let the water flow in…” Lin Huang added while Lin Xuan nodded.
Mr. Fu summoned a black dimensional door, Lin Huang stepped into the door with him and disappeared from their location…
Chapter 229: Luoxi City
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Stepping into the black dimensional relic, Lin Huang arrived at a hotel room with Mr. Fu following behind him. A lady in a pink bathrobe was walking out of the bathroom as they appeared and she started screaming, “Help! There are perverts in my room!”
Mr. Fu giggled while he kept the black dimensional relic and pulled Lin Huang out of the window together with him.
The lady was so shocked that the supposed perverts had jumped out of the window.
“But this is the 99th floor…”
She ran to the balcony and looked down towards the direction the duo had dived but they were nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, the both of them landed in an alley opposite the hotel.
“Hehe, I’m sorry. That was the old location that I set the last time. I didn’t know that there’s someone staying in there now,” Mr. Fu patted Lin Huang’s collar that he had pulled earlier.
“Is this Luoxi City?” Lin Huang was more concerned about that.
“Of course, it is. I wanted to send you straight to Meteorite City, but I thought you were hunting for the Brain Eater in Luoxi City?” Mr. Fu knew where Lin Huang’s doubts were coming from.
“That’s great. Thank you, Master, for saving much of my time.” Lin Huang was embarrassed that Mr. Fu had brought him here personally.
“I’m your Master and you’re my apprentice, there’s no need for such formalities.” Mr Fu waved his hand nonchalantly while reaching for the black dimensional relic.
“I have never gotten you anything since you became my apprentice, so here, this is yours.”
Mr. Fu then disabled the authorization of the relic and a black token the size of a palm fell into his hand. He gave the token to Lin Huang.
“Master, I can’t be using this. Maybe you should give me something else.” A relic alone costed a bomb, what more a dimensional relic whereby its price was 10 times more than a normal relic! The dimensional relic that Mr. Fu was giving him could travel across Division 7 to Luoxi City; there was little doubt that this was a unique relic.
“Take it, Black Ink is a four-star dimensional relic which is used for long-distance dimensional travel. Not only can it be activated using Life Power, you can also use Life Crystal to activate it. It will make it convenient for you to travel. I have many dimensional equipment, so this is nothing,” Mr. Fu insisted.
“Moreover, I would never take back what I give away. If you don’t want it, I’ll throw it away.”
Since Mr. Fu insisted, Lin Huang accepted the Black Ink and kept it in his storage space.
“Let me know when you have levelled up to Gold Level. I will arrange a training session for you.” Mr. Fu patted Lin Huang’s shoulder confidently.
“Sure,” Lin Huang assured his Master as he wanted to level up as soon as possible.
Mr. Fu proceeded to summon a gold dimensional relic. Before he left, he seemed to recall something. He turned around to Lin Huang. “Oh, I suppose your brother is not your real brother. Am I right?”
“No, he isn’t. What’s wrong?” Lin Huang did not deny the truth.
“Nothing, just asking.” Mr. Fu did not say much, just waving his hand and stepping into the relic.
After sending Mr. Fu off, Lin Huang looked at the map and realized that he was not far away from the location where the dead bodies had been found, which was less than two kilometers away. He changed his features to the face that he had on Earth and checked into a hotel nearby using Ye Xiu’s identity. The reason why he did not want to stay at the luxury hotel next to the alley was just in case he bumped into the lady in bathrobe that they had seen earlier. How awkward would that be?! Although he had a new face now, it was best that that did not happen at all.
The hotel that Lin Huang booked was even closer to the location where the dead bodies had been found. He reserved a room for three days online. After he checked into his room, he started reading the local news but there was nothing about the dead bodies found in the sewer. He proceeded to scroll to the online news a few days ago but there was nothing about the case at all.
“It seems like the news has been sealed off by the Union Government. I’m not sure if the Brain Eater knows that its identity has been revealed…”
Lin Huang looked at the Hunter Info Network and read a piece of news about the Brain Eater that was available for those ranked Silver Hunter and above. He had confirmed that the news was real. However, there was a mission at the bottom of the news.
“Mission: Who is the culprit responsible for the dead bodies in the sewer of Luoxi City?’
“Condition: Find, capture or kill the culprit.”
“Reward: 3000 Life Crystals”
“Mission Due: 1 week”
“There will not be any punishment if the mission is not accomplished.”
“Mission Eligibility: Only for Silver and Gold Hunters.”
“Oh, there’s an investigation mission available!” Just as Lin Huang was about to accept the mission, he recalled that he was in the city using Ye Xiu’s identity.
“I can only accept this mission as Ye Xiu but Ye Xiu doesn’t have a Hunter license…”
After some thought, Lin Huang called Yang Ling. It took Yang Ling almost one minute for pick up the call. He looked the same as usual with his dark eye circles and exhausted face.
“It’s not even 8:30 in the morning, can’t you just let me sleep?”
“I think you should really take a shower, I can smell your sweaty body from the screen.” Seeing his messy appearance, Lin Huang could not help but to tease him.
Yang Ling lifted his hands and sniffed his armpits. He frowned and mumbled to himself, “When was the last time I took a shower again…?”
“Why did you call? Quick, I need to get back to sleep.” Yang Ling soon forgot about Lin Huang’s teasing.
“Can you upgrade the authorization of an Emperor’s Heart Ring that was made?” Lin Huang asked.
“Sure, would you like an identity with the Hunter Association or something else?” Yang Ling asked while yawning.
“I want a Gold Hunter’s identity,” Lin Huang answered without hesitation.
“Which one would you like to upgrade?” Yang Ling asked.
“Ye Xiu.”
“Sure, it would usually cost 1500 Life Crystals but since you did your identity with me, 1400 will do.” Yang Ling agreed to do it for Lin Huang immediately.
“Is there anything else?”
“No, just upgrade it to a Gold Hunter authorization.” Lin Huang shook his head.
“I’ll send you a message once it’s done. It will take two minutes at most. If that’s all, we’re done here.” Yang Ling hung up the call straight away.
In less than a minute, Lin Huang received a message from the Hunter Association.
“Congratulations, Mr. Ye Xiu. You are now a Gold Hunter of the Hunter Association.”
Once he received the message, Lin Huang logged on to the exclusive site of the Hunter Info Network using Ye Xiu’s identity and found out that he had really been upgraded to a Gold Hunter. He took a look at the post titled ‘Brain Eater Suspected in Foothold No.7C193’ immediately and accepted the mission at the bottom.
Chapter 230: Investigation
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Since he had accepted the mission under Ye Xiu’s identity, Lin Huang applied with the local government to look at the dead bodies and the post-mortem reports as well as the contact details of the forensic scientist and the workers who had discovered the dead bodies. Before he even got any reply from the Union Government, he left the hotel and headed to the sewer. The hotel that Lin Huang who staying at was almost 1.5 kilometers from the location where the dead bodies had been discovered. On the way to the sewer, he observed the area and the hotels around.
When he arrived at the manhole cover that was shown in the document, he noticed that it was now covered properly. Without attempting to open it, Lin Huang looked around.
“There are three small inns and a hotel within a one-kilometer radius…It’s very likely that the Brain Eater stayed around here. Since four of the dead bodies were all tossed under the cover, it shows that this must be the most convenient location for it to get rid of the dead bodies…”
Lin Huang noticed that there were no surveillance cameras around which could be the main reason why the Brain Eater chose to get rid of the dead bodies there. It could have kept the dead bodies in its storage space ring as it made its way there but the dead bodies had to be taken out when it wanted to dispose of them. With surveillance cameras, it could be easily noticed.
“There are many people walking around during the day, so it must have done that in the middle of the night. Although there are no surveillance cameras here, there must be some of them around the streets. The night life in Luoxi City isn’t busy and not many people would be walking around in the middle of the night. I could take a look at the surveillance cameras…”
Just when Lin Huang was done with his preliminary analysis, a message came from his Emperor’s Heart Ring. It was an investigation ID assigned by the local government. There was a message that came with it: “Hi, Mr. Ye Xiu, to prevent the information from documents from leaking out, we are not able to send you the post-mortem report. Kindly visit the forensic scientist.”
Lin Huang was fine with that. After reading the message, he headed to a sundry shop nearby. It was located facing the direction where the manhole cover was located. The shop owner was a middle-aged man with a buzz cut. He was plump and he looked honest. Lin Huang started chatting with the shop owner as he purchased a bottle of water and some snacks.
“Boss, it’s a small area next to your shop, I bet your business is good.”
“It’s alright, I guess, enough to get by.” The shop owner smiled and shook his head.
“Is it safe to run business here since I don’t see any surveillance cameras around?” Lin Huang asked.
The shop owner laughed at Lin Huang’s question. “Young man, you must be a foreigner.”
“The economy is bad in Luoxi City and there’s nothing much to see here. However, our people are honest, so there’s not much crime here, let alone thieves. Therefore, there’s no need for surveillance cameras. Look, there are no cameras in my shop as well. It’s not just me, most of the shops don’t have that as it’s not necessary.”
The shop owner’s answer was out of Lin Huang’s expectations; he did not expect that the residents in this foothold had such faith in their safety.
“Boss, I passed by two days back and noticed that the sewer was blocked, so I walked the other way. Does that happen often? If it does, it must be inconvenient then.” Lin Huang attempted to get the shop owner to talk.
“That doesn’t happen often. I have been here for almost 10 years and it was the first time it happened a few days back. It was just your luck. Young man, although Luoxi City is small, not everything here is not as good as those large foothold,” the shop owner explained.
“Is that so? But why was it blocked though? Did the workers explain?” Lin Huang asked.
“They did, they said the pipes underground were old. They built a shed above it and took many hours to fix it,” he elaborated.
“Oh, really…?” Lin Huang just confirmed that the Union Government managed to cover the truth up.
He was relieved since the shop owners around did not know about the dead bodies in the sewer, let alone the residents. Sewage maintenance was a small matter which was not worth the publicity, therefore, the Brain Eater might not realize that what it did had been discovered.
Since he had confirmed that part, Lin Huang did not plan to waste any more time there. After bidding farewell to the shop owner, Lin Huang took a look at the address of the sewer workers that the Union Government had sent earlier. The workers who discovered the dead bodies were resting at home temporarily. The Union Government paid them a high compensation sum which amounted to years of their salary. The reason for the compensation was to avoid them from revealing the truth as well as to cooperate with the investigation of the Union Government.
Following the address, Lin Huang found the first person on the list. Brother Zhao was a tanned, skinny man. When Lin Huang arrived at his house, he was playing cards with his friends. Hearing that it was someone from the Hunter Association, Brother Zhao’s wife whispered into his ear. Brother Zhao then got his friends to leave. After they left, Brother Zhao asked Lin Huang to come into his room while his wife hid herself in the kitchen.
“Hi Brother Zhao, my name is Ye Xiu. I am the investigator that was sent by the Hunter Association on the case,” Lin Huang said while projecting his investigation ID.
Brother Zhao nodded immediately. “The Union Government asked me to be cooperative. Just ask whatever you have to, I will not hide anything.”
“Alright, let’s start then.” Lin Huang nodded and got into finding out the details.
“What time was it when you guys discovered the dead bodies?”
“Early in the morning two days ago, it was about 8:30 a.m…It was our first task of the day. We received complaints from the residents once we arrived at work, saying that the sewer was blocked. Water was leaking and the stench was unbearable. We headed there right after we changed into our uniforms…”
“Could you elaborate more about how you guys discovered the dead bodies?” Lin Huang asked.
“We removed the manhole covered when we arrived. After clearing all the water, we went underground to investigate. We noticed that the silt was thick, so we went down to clean it. To our surprise, just when we started to dig, we were shocked to find a human hand. Our colleague, Little Wang, was young and brave. He pulled the entire body out of the silt. We reported it to the Union Government immediately…”
“Did you see how they die?” Lin Huang asked.
“No, it was dark down there. Moreover, the dead bodies were covered in silt. Had the Union Government not ask us to stay there till their staff came, we would’ve ran away immediately. We didn’t dare to look.”
“So, you guys only discovered one body while the rest were dug out by the staff from the Union Government?” Lin Huang proceeded to ask.
“That’s right. When we called, they asked us to stay there and stop digging so that the crime scene would not be ruined. We stayed there until the staff arrived, then they proceeded to dig out the rest of the body. As we were recording our confessions while they dug, only did we realize that there was more than one dead body…”
Lin Huang nodded and asked a couple more questions until he got the answers he wanted.
“Thank you for your cooperation, we will investigate this as soon as we can.” Lin Huang stood up and shook his hand after he was done with his questions.
“Mr. Ye, there were a man and a woman who came to investigate this case as well. They were not as friendly as you,” Brother Zhao laughed.
“The mission was published on the Hunter Info Network by your government, so any Silver Hunter and Gold Hunter could be on it. Perhaps it’s natural for some hunters to be unfriendly, please forgive us,” Lin Huang explained with a smile.
“I understand that, I will do whatever I can to help. I hope you guys can catch the culprit soon.” Brother Zhao nodded.
“I shall talk to your colleagues then, I’ll get going.”
“Do you want me to bring you there? I have nothing to do anyway,” Brother Zhao offered enthusiastically.
“It’s alright, I have their address here. You enjoy your holiday.” Lin Huang patted his shoulder.
After leaving his house, Lin Huang took a look at the map. After confirming the address, Lin Huang summoned Viridian Wolf and headed to the address of the second person.
Chapter 231: Forensic Lady
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang spent the entire morning visiting the four sewer workers and got the same answers from all of them. They did not know much as the sewer was dark, hence they could not identify the genders of the deceased, let alone see the dead bodies clearly. The only thing they knew was that the first body was that of a man. They knew nothing about the rest. However, Lin Huang was glad that the four of them kept the secret pretty well, not even spilling a word to their wives, so it was unlikely that the news would leak to the public.
It was almost 12 noon when Lin Huang left Little Wang’s house. He was the last sewer worker that he visited. After lunch at a random store, Lin Huang summoned the Viridian Wolf and headed to the Union Government division. He was brought to the forensic department after the staff checked his license and investigation ID. When the door opened, there was a lady in black-framed glasses watching videos while eating snacks at her desk. The lady seemed young, about 17 or 18 years of age. Her face was small with sharp features. However, the glasses, which occupied half of her face, covered most of her features. She was indulging in a battle video that seemed like the Hunter Arena. As she watched, she was grabbing a box of food that was covered in red chili oil with her gloves.
Lin Huang knocked on the door. The lady looked at him uninterestedly. “You’re at the wrong place, this is the forensic department.”
“I’m looking for the forensic department.” Lin Huang smiled and walked over to the lady’s desk.
“Hi, my name is Ye Xiu. I’m an investigator sent by the Hunter Association.”
“Give me a second, let me finish this video.” The lady waved her hand at him.
As the background of her video was set to be semi-transparent, as he walked closer, Lin Huang could clearly see that it was the battle of himself defeating Yu Moli. It was his 90th battle. Lin Huang frowned as he watched the screenplay. Since the battle was ending soon, Lin Huang pulled a chair and sat across the lady while waiting for her to finish the video. Two to three minutes later, a golden glow flashed across the video. Soon, the arena announced Sword Genius’s victory.
“My prince charming is the best!” the lady screamed and paused the scene where Sword Genius was disappearing. She then kissed the screen with her oily lips. Lin Huang could not bear to see her disturbing actions. After turning off the video, the lady looked at Lin Huang who sat across her. “You’re from the Hunter Association? Show me your ID.”
Lin Huang projected his hunter license and the investigation ID from the Union Government.
“Following the protocol, I should check your work ID as well.”
“Go ahead then.” The lady projected her work ID from her left hand in an apathetic manner.
Her name was Liang Yin and she was 17. It showed that she graduated from the advanced medical school of the Union Government majoring in forensic science. She was not wearing glasses on her working ID and she looked much prettier in her picture.
“Alright.” Lin Huang nodded after checking thoroughly.
Liang Yin then turned off the projected and said while eating, “Just ask whatever questions you have. If you’d like to see the dead bodies, we can do that after I finish eating this bowl of red chili lung slices.”
“What’s the investigation result of the four bodies? Was it done by Brain Eater?” Lin Huang asked directly.
“99% was done by the Brain Eater,” Liang Yin replied while eating.
“How about the remaining 1%?” Lin Huang asked.
“The remaining 1% would probably be a lunatic who mimics brain eating cases. If that’s so, the person must have drilled a hole on top of the head and sucked the brain out using a straw.” Liang Yin proceeded to eat while she explained, her appetite not at all affected by the gruesomeness of what she was saying.
“Were all of the victims men? Besides that, are there any similarities among them?” Lin Huang asked.
“All of them were strong men and there were a couple of similarities. First of all, all of them were naked when they were found. Secondly, all of them were…having…intense sex before they died. Thirdly, all of them were well trained. Two of them were at bronze Level while another two were at silver level. The Hunter Association has confirmed that the four of them held Regular Hunter licenses.” Liang Yin was checking out Lin Huang as she spoke. As she was also a silver level, she could sense that Lin Huang was on the same level too.
From the sewer workers, Lin Huang already knew that they were all naked and Liang Yin had just confirmed it. After listening to her explanation, Lin Huang could confirm that the flesh of the Brain Eater was at least a silver level.
“Is it possible to determine which rank both the silver level victims were?” Lin Huang asked.
“One was silver level rank-1. while another was rank-2. We could tell that they did not struggle before they were killed. They should have been attacked when they were having sex,” Liang Yin explained.
“Since it could pierce through a silver level rank-2’s skull, the Brain Eater should at least be a silver level rank-3 or even higher,” Liang Yin added.
What she said at the end implied that Lin Huang would not be able to fight such a monster.
“Were there any wounds on the bodies?” Lin Huang ignored her insinuation and continued to ask.
“There were light wounds including scratches and whipping. Those should have been caused by the sex since they were just light surface injuries which were not fatal.” Liang Yin explained with her eyebrow raised.
“The only fatal injury was the hit on the head which pierced through the skull into the brain.”
“What was the time of death?” Lin Huang asked.
“The earliest one was four months ago while the latest one was a month ago. That’s about one body per month. Looking at the Brain Eater’s hunting habit, it would be doing it again within these couple of days.” Liang Yin answered.
Lin Huang noticed that she had finished her food so he said, “I guess you could bring me to the dead bodies now.”
“Sure, give me a second.” Liang Yin then threw the box filled with red chili oil into the trash can together with her gloves.
Lin Huang thought she was ready to go. However, she walked to the refrigerator and took out a few boxes. After a pause, she decided on one and kept the rest in the refrigerator again. With the box in hand, she then waved to Lin Huang. “Let’s go!”
“That’s food, isn’t it?” Lin Huang was speechless.
“It’s intestine gravy, would you like some? It’s delicious, you may try, but you can only have a piece,” Liang Yin said.
“It’s okay, thanks,” Lin Huang rejected her right away.
Chapter 232: My Prince Charming Is The Hottest!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang followed Liang Yin to the morgue and she pulled out the cold chambers containing the four bodies for him before she opened the cover of the bowl of intestine gravy on an empty bed.
“You can take a look for yourself. Let me know if you have any questions.” Putting on a surgical glove, Liang Yin used her fingers to pick up a slice of intestine into her mouth. She was humming happily with her legs swinging.
Ignoring her, Lin Huang took a look at the first body. It was the body of a young man. Since he was soaked in the silt for a long time, his body was well preserved; it looked as it did when he was alive.
The body was clean, just like what Liang Yin said earlier, and completely naked. He was a good-looking man in his early 20s. He was about 1.8 meters tall with a nice, muscular body. He was not the bulky type, a closet hunk.
“I think this man has the best body among the four of them. Although he’s not the tallest, but he has a nice body. Just look at his legs. He has the perfect ratio with a girthy penis. I bet the girls must have gone crazy for him when he was alive,” Liang Yin commented casually as she ate.
Lin Huang did not say a word. It was odd for a 17 year old to talk about a man’s penis with another man that she had just met. Lin Huang could not imagine what kind of things she would say if they became friends.
However, Lin Huang could tell that the disturbing comment had nothing to do with sex but was simply a biological observation. He thought that it was inappropriate to carry on with the topic anyway. After some observation, Lin Huang noticed that there really were not many wounds on the man’s body. There were light scratches on his chest and back that seemed like the work of fingernails. The only fatal injury was the hole the size of a thumb on top of his head. Though the hole, Lin Huang could even see the structure of the hollow skull. There was no brain left.
“I bet you guys cleaned the inside of the head as well?” Lin Huang asked.
“Of course we did, or else how are we supposed to see what happened in there?” Liang Yin replied.
“I have kept the silt inside their skulls and did an extraction. There was no brain tissue left at all.”
“How about their internal organs?” Lin Huang noticed that the chests and the abdomens of the bodies had been cut opened and stitched back.
“Nothing odd. We have extracted the residue inside their stomachs, it was just normal food.” Liang Yin shrugged while putting another piece of intestine into her mouth. Such a topic did not seem to affect her appetite at all.
“How about their blood? Is there any trace of poisoning?” Lin Huang asked.
“We have done that too, but they were not poisoned. Can you stop doubting our professionalism? Do you think I wouldn’t think of the possibility of poisoning? I’m much more experienced than you. Whatever you can think of, I have already covered that.” Liang Yin was unhappy with Lin Huan’s probing.
“I managed to graduate from the advanced medical school with Honors. I have also been authorized to work in the forensic field even before I graduated. This must be done by Brain Eater, I have no doubt about that.”
“I’m not suspecting you, I just wanted to confirm with you all the possibilities.” Lin Huang did not mean to judge her. He was merely voicing out all the likelihoods that he had in his head.
Liang Yin did not say a word. She thought about it and realized that Lin Huang was just asking questions like a normal person would and that he did not have a suspicious tone. She was being too sensitive.
“I have checked the organs, blood, and even the spinal cord. There’s no residue of poison that we know of, neither is there any trail of Ecstasy,” Liang Yin added after giving it some thought.
“Hmm, there seems to be nothing wrong with this body. Let me take a look at the rest.” Lin Huang walked towards the second body.
It was a hunk of 1.9 meters with tanned skin and he looked like he was 27 or 28. As Lin Huang was observing, Liang Yin spoke up, “This man was the oldest among all of them and he has the highest rank. Although his Life Wheel was broken, we could detect from the remaining force wave that he was a silver level rank-2. He was the tallest and the strongest one with the largest penis. From the color of his penis, we could tell that he had the most sex among all of them…”
Once again, Lin Huang was speechless by her casual comment about the man’s penis. He decided to focus on the body instead. Soon, he noticed that there were many scars on the back of this body.
“What’s with the scars on his back?”
“Nothing, those are scars of whipping. If you look closely, he has quite a lot of similar scars all over his body. Most of them were healed, but those that we saw were new. Looking at the severity of the marks, they don’t look like punishment, they seem more like a fetish,” Liang Yin explained. Although she was young, she seemed to know a lot about the non-vanilla aspects of the bedroom.
Lin Huang did not ask further after hearing her explanation as it was just skin surface, which was unrelated to how this man died. Just like the previous man, there was a hole in his head.
“Was this man of silver level rank-2 killed in one hit as well? How could you tell that he did not fight back?” Lin Huang asked.
“You can tell from his facial expression. If he struggled or fought back before he died, his facial expression would be ferocious. After the body stiffened, the facial expression would stay. Look at him, he looked happy. This means he was killed without knowing that it was coming since he was relaxed,” Liang Yin said while putting another slice of intestine into her mouth and chewing it hard.
“You know what I meant when I said he was relaxed…”
After keeping the second body, Lin Huang proceeded to check the remaining two bodies. Liang Yin answered all his questions. They then left the morgue and headed to Liang Yin’s office.
“Do you have any more questions?” Liang Yin finished the bowl of intestine gravy as they arrived at her office. She then threw it away and looked at Lin Huang with her eyes eagerly wide.
“I would like to look at the complete post-mortem report,” Lin Huang requested.
Liang Yin then projected the post-mortem report to him. After flipping on the screen, she showed it to Lin Huang. “You can take a look at it yourself.”
Lin Huang then spent more than 40 minutes to finish the report and he had no suspicion on the cause of death anymore. Turning off the report page, Lin Huang looked at Liang Yin. “What do you think about this case?”
“I’m just a forensic scientist, what kind of thoughts am I supposed to have?” Liang Yin had her arms wide open.
“From my professional observation, it was done by a Brain Eater monster or a Brain Eater that was disguised as a woman.”
“How much do you know about a Brain Eater?” Lin Huang asked.
“I studied forensic science, not monsters or monster biology,” Liang Yin replied curtly.
“Alright then. No matter what, thanks for your help.” Lin Huang left.
Just when Lin Huang arrived at the entrance, he was stopped by Liang Yin.
“Wait, I thought of a senior who is a monster expert. I could give you his contact details. However, whether he would be willing to help you is a different matter.”
“Sure, give me his number. I will try contacting him.” Lin Huang nodded.
After adding him as a friend and forwarding him the contact details, Lin Huang left while Liang Yin proceeded to watch other Sword Genius battle videos in her office.
As she watched, she mumbled, “No matter what, my Prince Charming is the hottest. No man can compare to him…”
Although she could not see Lin Huang’s face under the silver mask, that did not stop her from idolizing him…
Chapter 233: Awkward Encounter
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was past four in the afternoon when Lin Huang left the Union Government building. He did not expect time to past so fast as he was focused on investigating the dead bodies. He rode the Viridian Wolf back to the hotel. As he entered the hotel, he ran towards the elevator which was closing and held the doors open using his hand. Lin Huang was stunned when he saw the couple in the elevator. The lady was one in the pink bathrobe in the room of the other hotel where he and Mr. Fu were transported to that morning.
Now that they were standing closer to each other, Lin Huang was surprised to find that the lady was a gold level rank-3. The tall man beside him was of the same level too. After hesitating for a heartbeat, Lin Huang decided to enter the elevator anyway. He realized that the lady did not recognize him as he had changed his features earlier. There were three of them in the elevator and coincidentally, they were going to the same floor, level 76.
Lin Huang thought it was awkward but fortunately, his back was facing them so he could not see their facial expressions. Soon they arrived at level 76. As Lin Huang walked out, the couple followed too. Lin Huang was staying in Room 28 while the duo was in Room 26 and Room 27 respectively, just next to him. Lin Huang figured that the lady had probably transferred to this hotel instead due to the morning’s incident.
Although it was awkward, Lin Huang did not plan to change his stay in this hotel as it was unnecessary. Since the lady did not recognize him anyway, he could just pretend that it never happened. He then called Liang Yin’s senior to whom she had given the contact details earlier. Within two rings, the phone was picked up.
“Hello, who are you looking for?” It was the voice of a young man.
“Hi, are you Liang Yin’s senior, Han Ji?”
“Who are you?” the man asked guardedly.
“My name is Ye Xiu, I am an investigator from the Hunter Association. I have been investigating on a case that involves the Brain Eater and I got your contact details from Liang Yin. She told me that you are a major in monsters, a professional in this field,” Lin Huang explained.
The man was silent for a moment before he started speaking, “I am Han Ji, is Xiao Yin…alright?”
Hearing his tone of voice, Lin Huang could tell that there was something between them.
“Erm…from the way she ate her snacks, she seemed great. We’re not close, it was our first time meeting this afternoon.” Lin Huang did not know how to answer that question, so he answered honestly.
“She must still be a huge fan of heavy food, am I right?” Han Ji asked.
“I suppose red chili lung slices and intestine gravy are considered heavy.” Lin Huang nodded in certainty.
“Oh, I see that she has been eating much lighter food compared to two years ago…” Han Ji chuckled to himself.
What he said puzzled Lin Huang. “If this is considered light, what kind of food did she use to eat?!”
“I still remember she used to love raw heart slices. I enjoyed watching her eating until her face was all bloody. She looked cute like that…” Han Ji indulged himself in the ‘beautiful’ memory of Liang Yin.
“Raw heart slices…Bloody face…Which part of that is cute?! Can you guys eat something normal and have some normal judgment of beauty!?” Lin Huang screamed in his heart.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted. I hope I didn’t scare you,” Han Ji said softly.
“It’s alright, let’s talk business.” Lin Huang attempted to get Han Ji back on track.
“You want documents about Brain Eater, am I right? I will send you a copy of my research document later. However, it’s confidential. If not for Xiao Yin, I would not send it to you. Therefore, please do not forward it to anyone else. After you are done with it, delete it right away, don’t keep it anywhere,” Han Ji warned Lin Huang.
“I understand. I’m only using it for the case and I will destroy it after using it. Don’t worry,” Lin Huang promised.
“Oh yeah, would you know what is Xiao Yin’s current favorite thing?” Han Ji deviated from the topic again.
“I’m not sure, how would I know that? I just met her this afternoon…” Lin Huang said and then he recalled something.
“Wait, I think she likes Sword Genius. I saw her watching videos of him when I entered her office.”
“What is this Sword Genius?” Han Ji was puzzled.
“He’s a participant in the Hunter Arena.” Lin Huang understood that researchers like Han Ji did not keep himself updated with the Hunter Arena.
“Alright then, I’ll look into it on the network later.” Han Ji seemed to be satisfied with the answer Lin Huang gave.
“If you have any doubts, you can always ask me. As long as I’m not working in the lab, I will try my best to answer you.”
“Thanks in advance then. I shall contact you if I have any questions then.” Lin Huang did not expect that naming a random hobby of Liang Yin’s would earn Han Ji’s promise easily.
After they hung up, Han Ji sent the documents over almost immediately. Lin Huang looked at it right away…
The documents were detailed whereby most of the experiments came with many photos and complete lab videos. Lin Huang thought Han Ji was kidding when he said the documents were confidential and that he would only send some ordinary research documents. After flipping through the documents, he was shocked to find that it was indeed some confidential information from the Union Government which was not to revealed to the public. As there were many experiments that included human testing, such experiments were prohibited for the Union Government on the surface as it was inhumane. If the documents were exposed, the Union Government’s name would be affected and it might irk the public.
It was past six in the evening after Lin Huang was done with his preliminary read. He turned his screen off and got ready for dinner downstairs. Just when he opened the door, the lady staying next door came out of the room as well. Lin Huang pretended not to see her and headed straight to the elevator. The lady knocked on the door of Room 26 and called out, “I’m ready, let’s go.”
The door of Room 26 opened and the tall man walked out of the room. After closing the door, the duo headed to the elevator.
Lin Huang had been waiting for the elevator to come and before it did, the duo was standing behind him. As they entered the elevator, the couple ignored him completely while starting to talk to each other.
“What did you from your end?” the lady asked.
“The association has gotten the location of the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings when they disappeared as well as their whereabouts during the last few days. They will send it to me soon. How about you?” the man asked.
“I have gotten the history of the phones from the association, but I didn’t find anything odd.” The lady shook her head helplessly.
From their conversation, Lin Huang could tell that they were investigating the same case as he was. Unfortunately, the elevator soon arrived on level one and the duo walked out of the elevator. Lin Huang hesitated and decided not to follow them in the end.
“I shall have dinner first. After that, I’ll get the Hunter Association to get me information about the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings and see if there are any clues,” He thought to himself. It seemed like there was only one Brain Eater in this city. If the duo managed to kill it, Lin Huang would have to find another way to obtain the Supreme Intelligence skill for his Demonic Dandelion Vine. Now that there were competitors, Lin Huang could no longer stay calm.
Chapter 234: Chilly Night
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After dinner, the first thing Lin Huang did when he got back to the hotel room was to look at the Hunter Association’s official website. He then submitted the app to look at the locations of the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings as well as the history and the messages on their phones. Later on, he started reading the documents of Brain Eater that Han Ji had sent him earlier.
The documents about the Brain Eater were detailed. In fact, they were even more detailed than the monster encyclopedia that Mr. Fu had sent him. The difference between them was a Ph.D. holder’s thesis and a primary school kid’s homework. The information alone was 1,000 times more complete than the monster encyclopedia. Before Lin Huang had the chance to look at the video of the first experiment, he received a couple of messages from the Hunter Association.
“Location request app for Emperor’s Heart Rings has been approved, please see attachment for details.”
“Phone history app has been approved, please see attachment for details.”
“Message request app for Emperor’s Heart Rings has been approved, please see attachment for details.”
He turned off the Brain Eater’s documents and started reading the attachments in the messages. The first attachment was the images of the four men’s last seen location before they died. As Lin Huang opened the images, he opened Luoxi City’s map as well to compare the locations.
“They were all in underground hotels…” Lin Huang frowned.
The last location that appeared on the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Rings were in four different underground hotels. An underground hotel was not really beneath the ground or a filthy motel; it was a special hotel that exclusively catered to one night stands. Such hotels were usually well-decorated with ample equipment and the rack rate was expensive too. Many were willing to pay for such hotels as there would be no surveillance cameras around. There was no registration needed either, as all they had to do was to transfer credit points onto a trading chip and get a room that they wanted. There was a back door in each room so people could leave from the back anytime they wanted.
Such hotels were usually occupied before 11 and at night, business was booming. The owner of such hotels usually had a powerful background. If something bad happened, it was hard to get them to speak. That was why Lin Huang frowned when he saw that the four men had last appeared in underground hotels.
“This is tough…” Lin Huang was in a pickle as he knew that the hotel owners would not assist him in the investigation. Even if they did, there were no records of clues that he could investigate further.
Glancing at the whereabouts on the day that they were killed in fast forward mode, Lin Huang could not find any similarities. The only similarity was that the locations of the four of them were close to this area. Two of them had been staying in the same hotel before they died, which was the hotel where Mr. Fu had brought Lin Huang to earlier. Meanwhile, the other one stayed at the hotel that Lin Huang was currently in while the last one stayed in a luxurious hotel nearby.
Without a clue, Lin Huang opened the second attachment. It was the records of their calls and messages. All of the messages looked normal without anything about any one-night stands. No lusty messages could be found and this puzzled Lin Huang.
“How did they contact the murderer then? Could the four of them have had a different Emperor’s Heart Ring?”
Putting that thought aside, Lin Huang opened the last attachment. It was the browsing history of their Emperor’s Heart Ring including the time of whichever network they logged onto when they did any credit points transfer and the number of times the app was opened. However, there was no concrete information. All he could see was the main page of the network that they logged onto and he could not see what kind of information they were looking at. As for the credit points transfer, he could only see the transaction time but not the amount transferred. Meanwhile, for the app, he could only see the name of the app but not any other details including the amount of time spent on the particular app or the activities.
However, Lin Huang noticed that all of them had used the same app before they died.
“What is this Chilly Night? There’s this same app on all their Emperor’s Heart Rings and two hours before their death, the app was either opened all the time or sporadically…” Lin Huang then looked at the app.
“So, it’s an app for one-night stands…” After reading the description of the app, Lin Huang finally understand what it was for.
“That means the murderer must have used this app to lure all of them. No wonder there’s nothing on their phones as they never contacted each other using their phones.”
Lin Huang was in yet another predicament as the attachment provided by the Hunter Association did not include the conversation on the app, so he could not find out who was talking to them. Helpless, Lin Huang replied to the Hunter Association, “Is it possible to provide more details on the app utilization?”
This time, he received a reply in a blink of an eye.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ye. We are unable to go further into the user’s privacy to provide you with more details.”
Although he had seen it coming, Lin Huang felt helpless when he saw the reply. After closing the attachments, Lin Huang gathered his thoughts.
“The messages on the phone were not helpful. Although I have identified their locations of death, the chances of obtaining information about the murderer from the underground hotels are slim. The only way to identify the murderer’s identity is by looking at the conversation history on the Chilly Night app…”
Lin Huang thought that Yang Ling was the only person he knew who might be able to provide him with that information, so he called Yang Ling straight away. After two rings, his phone was picked up. For the first time, Yang Ling did not look tired. He looked like he was full of energy this time and he was even dressed in new clothes with neat hair.
“Good evening, my regular customer.” Yang Ling seemed to be in a good mood as he waved at Lin Huang with a smile.
“You look great today.” Lin Huang smiled back at him.
“That’s because you always call me in the morning. I’m a night owl, I’m usually energized after eight at night.” Yang Ling rolled his eyes.
Lin Huang then looked at the time, it was almost 8:30 p.m.
“Are you making a fake identity for your friend again?” Yang Ling knew that Lin Huang would not call for anything but business.
“It’s something else this time, I need your help.” Lin Huang was aware of Yang Ling’s response as he spoke and he was worried that Yang Ling might reject him.
“What’s that?” To his joy, Yang Ling did not reject him straightaway.
“I’m sure you know about the app called Chilly Night,” Lin Huang started.
“Of course, I do, I’m always using it. Do you use it too? Do you need me to recommend some chicks for you?” Hearing the name of the app, Yang Ling smirked at Lin Huang.
“I need you to get me a conversation history from the app.” Lin Huang ignored Yang Ling and told his purpose of the call.
“You have such a fetish of looking at others’ conversation on the one-night stand app? Tsk tsk…” Yang Ling smirked again.
“I’m investigating a case whereby the four victims were on this app before they died. I’m suspecting that the murderer was the lady who asked them out,” Lin Huang told the truth.
“Oh…I know which case that is! It’s the one in Luoxi City. Are you really that far away?” Yang Ling knew what was happening; it was clear that he read the news on the Hunter Info Network.
“Could you help me?” Lin Huang asked.
“Sure, I can, but my assistance isn’t free…I want half of the 3,000 Life Crystals reward!” Yang Ling demanded greedily.
“Sure. However, I have a condition. From the beginning to the end of the case, you are not allowed to reject my request, you are not allowed to add any conditions or ask for more Life Crystals,” Lin Huang stated.
“You’ve got my word!” Yang Ling agreed immediately.
Chapter 235: Asexual Reproduction
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After he hung up, Lin Huang sent the codes of the four men’s Emperor’s Heart Ring to Yang Ling. Within minutes, Yang Ling sent him the images of the four men’s conversations. However, the four of them were talking with four different accounts. All of them were females without profile pictures. The conversations were explicit with the exchanging of images. However, the images that were sent by the ladies were deleted, so Lin Huang could not tell who they were.
Just when Lin Huang was planning to call Yang Ling to ask about the deleted photos, Yang Ling called.
“I have investigated the four female accounts and although their addresses were all in Luoxi City, they were in different locations. However, all of the accounts were temporary ones whereby they would stop using the account after two to three days. Besides the first account, the other three accounts were created 25 to 26 days after the first account was created. Therefore, it was normal that the locations were different. It’s highly likely that the four accounts belong to the same person.” Yang Ling started talking since Lin Huang picked up his call.
“Is it possible to retrieve the deleted photos?” Although Lin Huang knew it was not possible, he wanted to try his luck anyway.
“That’s not possible as the application’s programming is very simple. It’s good that it can keep the messages but it’s impossible to retrieve deleted photos. Moreover, the creator of the application made it for fun without the intention to make the application big, so it’s not connected to the cloud network of the Emperor’s Heart Ring. There’s no backup of messages in the application,” Yang Ling said with his arms open.
“Are you the creator?” Lin Huang had the assumption when he heard Yang Ling said that the application had been created just for fun.
“Oh…You got me.” Yang Ling shrugged his shoulders.
“Is there nothing that you can do?” Lin Huang asked.
“There’s really nothing that I can do as the programming itself is flawed. I never wanted it to be perfect. All I wanted was a smooth conversation in the application, so I didn’t put in many functions on the application. I used less than two hours to create it and launched it right away…” Yang Ling explained.
“Send me all the four addressed of the ladies then.” Lin Huang thought the only clue that he might get was from the addresses.
Yang Ling sent the addresses immediately. Lin Huang projected the map and located the coordinates of the four underground hotels. He then connected all the coordinates to the manhole where the dead bodies were found.
“Please check for me all the surveillance cameras on the route to the manhole on the same night when the four men died. See if there’s anyone who appeared repetitively. If that person appeared several times when the bodies were getting rid of, the person could be the murderer that we are looking for,” Lin Huang said to Yang Ling.
“I’ll do that. Besides on the day itself, I will also look at the days after the incident happened.”
“If there’s anything else that you need my help with, tell me now. I have things to do after 10 at night, you know,” Yang Ling added.
“Not at the moment, I’ll let you know tomorrow. Is it possible to send me the surveillance footages by today?” Lin Huang asked.
“I need time for that, I’ll send them to you before 10.” Yang Ling hung up the phone right away.
It was almost nine o’clock when the conversation ended. Lin Huang proceeded to read about the Brain Eater. However, the more he read, the more difficult he realized it was for him to handle the monster. The Brain Eater was a monster who relied on asexual reproduction. They usually lived up to 300 years and then would they start reproducing when they knew they were almost at their end. Their reproductive method was unique as a ball-shaped baby Brain Eater would grow on its head. The baby would absorb all the nutrients that it needed from its mother and grow. Once the mother was dead, it would detach from its mother.
Within 48 hours of detachment, it needed to find a host or else it would die. A Brain Eater that was just detached from its mother was only a size of a thumb, so it was hard to discover. It would usually go into another creature’s body and head to the brain. Once it arrived at the brain, it would attach its bottom on the host’s brain and release a massive amount of neurotoxins. The brain would lose its nerve function without feeling any pain. The Brain Eater would then devour the brain as the host was in deep sleep and take over the host’s body.
Han Ji had done many experiments on dead criminals by getting the Brain Eater to take over the dead criminal’s body to see what would happen. According to the research, the Brain Eater would most probably inherit the host’s character on its first attempt. For instance, if the host loved smoking, he would still be smoking after his body was taken over. The same applied to those who loved drinking and eating spicy food. Such inheritance proved that the Brain Eater would take over most of the memory of the host.
The Brain Eater would not have its own consciousness during its first attempt of inhabiting a host’s body just to survive. Therefore, the first attempt would affect its own consciousness as it would mostly be affected by the host’s memories. Its consciousness was basically built on the host’s memories. For the following infections, the Brain Eater would acquire the memories of the following hosts as well especially after it has experienced the memory from its first host. However, the memories of the following hosts would do little to affect the Brain Eater.
Once the first takeover was done, the Brain Eater considered as an adult. It could absorb all the information from the memories that it wanted and learn from them to adapt to the environment as soon as possible. If the Brain Eater took over a human body, its learning speed would be terrifying because it could learn to use most of the tools within a couple of days. The most it needed was two to three days to perform exactly the same as the host without exposing itself to others.
Although the reproduction ability of a Brain Eater was weak, it was the most difficult one to handle among many parasites. As Lin Huang was indulged in the documents of Brain Eater that Han Ji sent, a message snapped him out of his focus. It was a short, single-sentence message from Yang Ling.
“I’ve found the culprit but I can’t see the face…”
Chapter 236: The Cautious Brain Eater
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“I’ve found the culprit but I couldn’t see the face…”
There were four attachments in the message that Yang Ling sent and they were all videos. Lin Huang downloaded the attachments immediately. Once they were downloaded, he looked at the first video that was less than 20 seconds long. It was an empty crossroad and on the top right of the screen, the timestamp showed that it was taken at 1:28 a.m. Although it was late, under the lights along the street, the crossroad was brightly lit.
The crossroad remained empty for five to six seconds, then suddenly, a person in black robes appeared on the screen. The black robes were oversized and it was hard to ascertain the person’s gender, let alone the person’s face. Lin Huang could tell that it was a lady from the black heels that occasionally flashed from under the robe. The person’s strides were short but fast, and within seconds, the person walked out of the area monitored by the surveillance camera.
Lin Huang proceeded to look at the second video. It was also around 20 seconds but this time, it was at a T-junction. The same thing happened. A person in black robes walked by quickly. Although the person was covered in the robes, judging from the gait and the speed of the steps, it was the same person who had appeared in the first video. Lin Huang proceeded to look at the third and fourth videos, all of them featuring the same person in black robes. The date stamp shown on the video showed that it was on the second day that the fourth man died. All of them had happened between 1:30 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Lin Huang could confirm that all of them were the same person, that that was the Brain Eater that he was looking for. However, without being able to recognize the face, Lin Huang was clueless. It was past 10 o’clock at night when Lin Huang checked the videos and he did not want to bother Yang Ling, so he continued to read about the Brain Eater. He finished all the documents until it was past 7 a.m. He did not sleep at all. He took a cold shower and had breakfast downstairs with a cup of coffee.
Later on, he sent Yang Ling a message: “Please get me the surveillance camera footages from around the four underground hotels to see if we can find the person who was with the four victims on the night that they were killed. Also, take a look at the camera footage of the four users of the Chilly Night app who appeared on that night. The Brain Eater should’ve headed home after it got rid of the dead bodies around 1:30 a.m. If she headed home without her black robes, we can see her face on the camera.”
After sending Yang Ling the two messages, Lin Huang left the hotel and headed to the first registered address of the first Chilly Night user’s account on the Viridian Wolf. It was an old, small area without any surveillance cameras around. Yang Ling managed to find the room, which was Room 401 in Block 4. Using a Specific Transformation Card, Lin Huang transformed himself into Spectre and went into the room.
It was a unit with two bedrooms and a living room. It was around 60 square meters large with a kitchen and a bathroom. There was nobody but it was clear that someone was living in there as it was clean. The master bedroom was neat with the bed made and the blanket folded. There were two pillows on the bed and there was a photo frame near the bed head, facing the corner. It was a photo of a young couple. It was obvious that the new occupiers were a young couple.
Lin Huang looked around the room but he found nothing. Although there must be clues that the Brain Eater had left a couple months ago before it left, now that there were new people moving in, those clues must have been wiped clean. Lin Huang had expected to not find any clues here. He then left the room, transformed back to himself and walked to the security office downstairs.
The security guard was an uncle in his 50’s. Seeing that he was the only one in the office, Lin Huang had a silver glow in his eyes as he spoke to the man.
“Uncle, are there no surveillance cameras in the security office as well?”
“No, Luoxi City has always been safe so there’s no need for that. Moreover, I am here. We don’t need surveillance cameras.” The man patted his own chest confidently.
“I would like to ask, was there a beautiful lady staying in Room 401 of Block 4 four months ago?” Lin Huang asked.
“Yes, she’s really pretty with a banging body too.” The man nodded immediately.
“What does she really look like? Do you have any photos or videos of her?” Lin Huang asked.
“Of course not, why would I have any of that?” The man waved his hands.
“You can only get a photo of her from herself, even the house owner does not have it. She signed her unit contract with me. There were some issues with her Emperor’s Heart Ring that day, so she could not retrieve any of her personal details. She stayed here for only a month, so the house owner did not even register the house rental with her.”
Lin Huang realized that it was a tactic of the Brain Eater so that her face would not be exposed. She figured that if any hunters were to come for her, it’s likely that the places that she stayed at would be exposed. After obtaining the information, Lin Huang left the security office. After he left, the illusion that he cast on the man disappeared.
“Eh, I thought I was talking to Aunty Zhang? Where did she go?” The man looked around trying to find where Aunty Zhang went.
As Lin Huang walked out of the area, he bumped into the two hunters who were staying next to him in the hotel. They must have followed the clue that they got from the Chilly Night app. Noticing Lin Huang, they finally figured that he was in the same case as they were. They both glanced at Lin Huang without saying a word and passed by him. It was normal for different hunters to be on the same mission. Clearly, the duo was calm as it was not the first time they had encountered something like this.
After the duo entered the area, Lin Huang summoned the Viridian Wolf and headed to the second address. It was 11 in the morning when Lin Huang managed to visit the third house. The three houses were all located in an old, small area without any surveillance cameras and had new tenants. All traces of the Brain Eaters were all gone. Lin Huang did not find anything the entire morning.
Helpless, he summoned the Viridian Wolf and headed to the fourth address. It was the address of the account user who had registered more than 20 days ago. It was also an old, remote area without any surveillance cameras. As Lin Huang arrived at the entrance of Room 502 in Block 3, he realized that he had used all of his Specific Transformation Cards. He then redeemed a couple of Spectre Transformation Cards using his card pieces and entered the room after transforming himself into the Spectre…
Chapter 237: A Fingerprint
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The fourth house was a small apartment with a bedroom and a living room. It was about 50 square meters large. The floor and the coffee table in the living room were covered with a thin layer of dust. It was obvious that it had been vacant for a while. After looking around the living room, Lin Huang headed to the bedroom.
The bedroom was simple with a bed and a cabinet behind the bed. Across the bed was a walk-in wardrobe with a one-meter wide space in the middle. There were neither bedsheets nor blankets on the bed; it was just an empty wooden bed frame with a mattress that was 20 meters thick. Besides an empty facial cream container, there was only dust on the cabinet with three drawers behind the bed.
There was half a packet of tissue paper and an opened packet of half-eaten candy in the drawer. After packing both of the items for analysis, Lin Huang proceeded to open the second and third drawers but realized that they were both empty. Under the bed was a thick layer of dust. After looking around and confirming that he did not miss anything, Lin Huang turned around and headed for the wardrobe.
It was a big wardrobe with sliding doors. He opened the left side of the wardrobe, which was empty, save a couple of hangers. However, Lin Huang smirked as there was an unmistakable clue in the wardrobe. As he opened the wardrobe, a perfume scent wafted out of it. The scent was different from the facial cream that he had smelt earlier. Neither was it any scent nor detergent; it was definitely perfume.
Lin Huang recalled a female colleague back on Earth. The colleague did not like the detergent scent on her clothes, so she would do something luxurious after she hung her clothes in the wardrobe. She would spritz perfume into the wardrobe. The perfume that she used was not cheap. A small bottle costs a couple thousand of dollars. Because of that, she would spend more than $10,000 per year on perfume alone. Whenever he visited her house, he could smell perfume, which came from the wardrobe, as he stepped into her room.
Clearly, the Brain Eater had the same habit which might have been inherited from the host. The perfume in this world cost even more than on Earth, so the host of this Brain Eater was clearly a silver level or even higher. To a silver or gold level person, spending 100 million credit points on perfume alone per year was nothing. Lin Huang shook his head to clear his mind from the fog of perfume. After looking around in the room, he did not find anything else.
He walked out of the area after transforming himself back. It was past 12 noon. He was not sure if Yang Ling was still sleeping or some other reason because he had yet to reply Lin Huang’s messages. He then found a random restaurant and had a bowl of ramen. After lunch, he summoned the Viridian Wolf and headed to the Union Government. As he arrived, Liang Yin was having lunch in her office.
Lin Huang knocked on her door and asked, “What’re you eating?”
“Intestine cup rice!” Liang Yin looked at Lin Huang.
“Why are you here again?”
“I brought clues this time.” Lin Huang took out the items that he had obtained from the Brain Eater’s house.
“What’s this?” Liang Yin blabbered while eating.
“I found the last house that the Brain Eater was staying at and these are the items that she left behind before she moved away. Please see if you could retrieve anything such as fingerprints.” Lin Huang dangled the plastic bags in front of her.
“Put them on my desk, I’ll do it for you after I am done eating,” Liang Yin said with her mouth full.
Lin Huang placed the three plastic bags on her desk and sat on the chair behind while waiting for her to finish her lunch.
About five to six minutes later, Liang Yin finished her food and wiped her mouth with tissue paper, then she walked to the test station with the three plastic bags.
“How did you find the Brain Eater’s house?” Liang Yin chatted with Lin Huang while testing the items.
Lin Huang smiled as he explained, “As I was investigating their similarities, I found out that they were using the same app on their Emperor’s Heart Ring to talk to the culprit. I got a friend to find the coordinates of the account user.”
“You have such a friend?” Liang Yin looked at Lin Huang in wonder.
“Then, could you ask your friend to get me Sword Genius’s identity and contact details?!”
“No, that would be violating the privacy of others,” Lin Huang rejected without even thinking.
“Aren’t you violating the privacy of others right now?” Liang Yin argued, clearly upset.
“I’m doing it for the case, there’s nothing else that I can do. Moreover, I’m investigating a Brain Eater. She’s a monster that is not eligible for the primary of a Union Government citizen.
“Hmph, I give up then!” Liang Yin did not speak anymore.
Around 10 minutes later, Liang Yin started eating the candy that Lin Huang had brought from the Brain Eater’s house.
“Hey, that’s evidence…” Lin Huang was speechless by her behavior. “Moreover, have you considered if that’s even edible?”
“It is, I have checked. It’s just a piece of normal candy,” Liang Yin said while shaking the packet of candy at Lin Huang.
Lin Huang rejected her ‘kind’ offer, “I don’t want any, you can have it.”
“When will I get the results of the test?” Seeing her relaxed, Lin Huang could not help but ask.
“It’s out,” Liang Yin declared while shaking a semi-transparent film the size of her palm in front of Lin Huang. There was a clear, black fingerprint on it.
Lin Huang got closer and took the film.
“I’m not responsible for the matching of fingerprints, so you will have to go to the information department,” Liang Yin said.
“If she’s a Luoxi City’s resident, it will take less than 30 minutes to find out her identity. If she’s a foreigner, it will take longer, perhaps two to three days,” Liang Yin added.
“I understand, thanks!” Lin Huang took the film and left.
Instead of heading to the information department, Lin Huang took a picture of the film and sent it to Yang Ling. After the image was sent, he called Yang Ling, who picked up almost instantly.
“What did you send me?” Yang Ling seemed like he had just woken up. He was wearing a red sleeping robe. He was puzzled by what Lin Huang sent him.
“Did you get the stuff that I asked for this morning?” Lin Huang asked.
“I overslept, I just saw your messages half an hour ago. I’m still on it, I need a while.” Yang Ling admitted, embarrassed.
“Alright then, help me check whose fingerprint does this belong to. I have just gotten this from the forensic department. If I’m not mistaken, this fingerprint belongs to the host of the Brain Eater,” Lin Huang explained.
“Sure, I will do the identification. I will start with Luoxi City. If the person is a resident there, I will get the result soon.” Yang Ling nodded and hung up as he had work to do.
As Lin Huang walked out of the Union Government, he received a message from Yang Ling.
“It’s a lady’s fingerprint.”
Lin Huang was excited as he opened the attachment…
Chapter 238: Wild Beauty
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang frowned when he saw the image that Yang Ling had sent him. He did not think that the lady in the photo was the murderer that he was looking for. It was a middle-aged woman who looked like she was at least 47 years old. She was fat, and although it was a photo of her upper body, Lin Huang could tell that she was not tall. She did not look like she had any combat strength. No matter what, Lin Huang thought her body was too different from the lady in black robes that he saw in the surveillance camera footages. Although her body had been covered by the big robes, Lin Huang could see the shapeliness of her body. If this middle-aged woman was to put on the same robes, she would look completely different.
Moreover, among the four hunters that had died, the oldest one would be in his 30’s while the youngest one was not even 20. If they were really met the woman in the photo, they would have probably run away instead of following her to an underground hotel. Besides, Lin Huang had asked the security guards in the apartments that the Brain Eater used to stay in with the help of illusion, and all of them had said that the lady was beautiful with a nice body.
Perhaps the victims and the security guards like this type of women. Just as Lin Huang was puzzled over this, Yang Ling called.
Lin Huang picked up immediately.
“Is that a mistake? Are you messing with me?”
“No, it’s not a mistake. The fingerprint belongs to this aunty,” Yang Ling said.
“However, she’s not the culprit, but the owner of the house. She must have touched the stuff that you retrieved after the Brain Eater left. I was shocked when I found the identity of the woman and realized that she’s not the one that we’re looking for after I checked the registration of her Emperor’s Heart Ring,” Yang Ling explained.
Lin Huang was relieved after he heard Yang Ling’s explanation. It would be hard to accept if the culprit was that aunty.
“I’m still looking for the information that you asked for this morning. I will contact you again once it’s done.”
After hanging up the phone, Lin Huang summoned the Viridian Wolf and headed to the hotel. Awhile after he got into the hotel room, Yang Ling called again. He picked up immediately.
“I have looked at all the surveillance cameras. All the four victims went to the underground hotel alone on the day they died without any companion. Also, I have also looked at the surveillance cameras around the area the culprit was staying in the day the bodies were dumped. Until past five in the morning, nobody appeared. It seems like the culprit never returned home after she got rid of the bodies,” Yang Ling told Lin Huang the result of his investigation in all seriousness.
“That means that before the Brain Eater carried out the murder, it was ready to move away…” Lin Huang frowned as the investigation came to a dead end again.
“However…I followed the way you think and investigated the four underground hotels. I found something…” Yang Ling smirked.
“What did you find out?” Lin Huang asked.
“I found out that the hotel owner of one of the underground hotels had surveillance cameras secretly installed in every room. The stuff that I saw was interesting. Even a professional like me learned a couple of new positions.” Yang Ling smirked again.
“You saw the face of the murderer?!” Lin Huang’s eyes flew wide open.
“Hehe, not only her face, I saw the entire process of the murder. Unfortunately, a great porn video turned into a horror movie abruptly. I couldn’t take it.” Yang Ling patted his chest as a gesture of fear.
“Send it over right now!”
“Look at you…Would you want videos of other rooms as well? They are all high-definition, it’s complimentary for you.” Yang Ling winked at Lin Huang.
“I’ll tell you what, if I were to upload all these videos to the network and make them available for download for 10 credit points, I would make big money from that…”
Lin Huang stared at him without saying a word.
“Alright then, it’s no fun to talk to you! I will send it over now.” Seeing Lin Huang ignored him, Yang Ling stopped his nonsense.
A moment later, Yang Ling sent a couple of photos, a video and some personal details to Lin Huang.
“The Brain Eater went to the black market a few months back and got her location system on her Emperor’s Heart Ring removed. Even if we got her identity and her Emperor’s Heart Ring’s code, as long as she doesn’t launch the Chilly Night app, we can’t locate her at all.
“However, I’m trying to get into Luoxi City’s surveillance system to look at the areas that she had appeared in before. Hopefully, I can get the location of her current accommodation. I’ll contact you once there’s news.”
After they hung up, Lin Huang looked at the photos immediately. In the first photo, a naked lady was walking out of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and she seemed to have just showered. There was a naked man on the bed. He was the fourth victim who had died more than 20 days ago. He was the one with the nicest body according to Liang Yin. In the second photo was a naked lady closing the curtain at the window. As she was very close to the camera, Lin Huang could even see the pores on her face. He finally understood why Yang Ling said that the videos were of high-definition. From the quality of the photo, the owner of the hotel had spent big money on the surveillance equipment.
The lady had long, dark brown hair that reached her waist and she was pretty but she was not the type with sharp features. Her eyes were big and she had a high nose bridge. Although her lips were not small, after she put on red lipstick, she seemed extra sexy. She had a healthy tan on her body with long, toned legs. The killer feature on her body were her boobs; perhaps 99% of the ladies in Luoxi City would have low self-esteem when they saw her boobs. She exuded a wild kind of beauty, and even Lin Huang was drooling when he looked at the photo.
After looking at the photos, Lin Huang started watching the videos. In the video, the lady got out of the shower. She used a hairband to tie up her hair and got onto the bed to kiss the man…
Their bodies got closer together and the man was breathing heavily as he indulged in the lady’s multiple kisses.
Suddenly, the lady opened her eyes. There was a silver antenna-like thing the size of a thumb extending from the top of her head and it made its way to the back of the man’s head. After staying mid-air for a moment, the antenna plunged and pierced into the man’s head. The man experienced a sudden death before he could even react. As the antenna pierced into the man’s head, it was like a snake slithering deeper into his head. There was no blood coming out of the wound.
Around 10 seconds later, the silver antenna came out of the man’s head. In the video, Lin Huang could clearly see that the antenna was slick with blood and brain juice. After the antenna returned to her head, the lady let go of the man softly, let down her hair and showered in the bathroom. Later on, she slowly cleaned up the scene in her naked body. She kept the man’s body in her storage space while looking around to see if there were any blood stains. After cleaning the room and keeping the man’s shoes and socks in her storage space, she put on her clothes. She then put on a big, black robe and looked into the mirror. Confirming that nobody could see her face, she left via the hotel back door…
After finishing the complete video that was 20 minutes long, Lin Huang opened the last document that Yang Ling sent. It was the lady’s identity…
Chapter 239: The Disappearance of Zheng Yihan
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Name: Zheng Yihan
Age: 20
Combat Strength: Silver level rank-3
Hunter Association Authorization: Silver Hunter
Remarks: Expert in hidden weapons and close-quarter combat
…
After looking at Brain Eater host’s basic information, Lin Huang felt relieved that it had confirmed the identity of the murderer. Finally, after two days of no sleep there was a breakthrough in the development of the case, but knowing the identity wouldn’t be enough on its own as nobody knew where she was right now or if she was even in Luoxi City.
Zheng Yihan was a silver level rank-3, with authorization to log into the Hunter Info Network. Using this she must have found out that the Hunter Association was after her but with Brain Eater’s intelligence how would she react? would she choose to mess around with the hunters who were after her, would she change to another host so that she could stay in Luoxi City or would she escape the city? Those were all unknown.
Lin Huang did not plan to do anything before obtaining more information. Since he had not slept for a night, he took a nap while waiting for any news from Yang Ling. Finally, after two hours of napping, Yang Ling called. Lin Huang was only resting and wasn’t in a deep sleep. As his Emperor’s Heart Ring beeped, he sat right up immediately and picked up the call.
“So what? Did you see her appear anywhere?” Lin Huang asked.
Yang Ling opened his arms wide in the video call.
“I didn’t see her anywhere. After she got rid of the bodies, she seems to have disappeared completely from Luoxi City. I watched all of the 8,000 surveillance cameras around the city three times since the day she got rid of the body, I haven’t seen her face once.”
“Do you mean she has left Luoxi City?” Lin Huang frowned.
“Maybe she has left, maybe she’s hiding or maybe she has a new face. Those are all possible.” Yang Ling gave three different answers.
“If she’s hiding, isn’t it impossible that she doesn’t appear anywhere on the surveillance cameras for more than 20 days?” Lin Huang figured since the Hunter Association had launched the mission many days before; the host, Zheng Yihan might have been disposed of.
Yang Ling disagreed with Lin Huang. “That’s not impossible, I could do that.”
“There are not that many surveillance cameras in Luoxi City. If she chose to stay in an old, small area without any surveillance, she could wander around without getting captured as long as she does not enter any areas with surveillance.”
“I have been watching her Emperor’s Heart Ring and looked at the user record. It has been more than 20 days since she last used the ‘Chilly Night’ application. Judging by her behavior, it’s not possible that she had found her new target for face-changing.” Yang Ling suspected.
Lin Huang agreed and nodded. “That’s right. She’s now in the body of a silver level rank-3 with outstanding combat strength and an attractive appearance. Such a host is like a beautiful flower exuding an amazing scent that attracts bees around her, providing her with good food. Without finding a better host, it’s not possible that she’d give up on the current host.”
Yang Ling thought and voiced his suspicion. “It’s not possible that she’d leave Luoxi City unless she’s forced to. Although I have no idea how she’s managed to get into the city, looking at the Union Government’s security system it’s hard for her to pass through the other footholds.”
“Do you mean among the three possibilities, the possibility that she’s hiding is the highest?” Lin Huang asked.
“This is what I thought. However, my analysis is just for reference. Exactly what happens depends on what this Brain Eater is up to.” Yang Ling shrugged his shoulders with the attitude that Lin Huang was on his own now.
“Alright then… The Brain Eater would need to eat at least once a month. It has been 25 days since she’d last eaten. If she’s still in the city, she’d be eating again within these next few days. I think she’ll use the Chilly Night app again, watch it for me.” Lin Huang planned to wait for another few days. If the Brain Eater had left the foothold, he’d have to abort the mission and think of other ways to get the skill for the Demonic Dandelion Vine as he didn’t want to spend too much time here.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do that. I’ll receive a notification as soon as she logs into the app.” Yang Ling was confident.
It was five in the evening after he’d hung up the phone. Lin Huang had dinner downstairs and returned to his hotel room. It seemed like all he could do now was wait for Brain Eater to log into the app. It had been 25 days since the Brain Eater had last eaten. If she was still in Luoxi City, she would definitely kill someone again within two to three days as she’d die if she didn’t eat for more than a month.
It was past six in the evening. After reading the news for a while, Lin Huang started playing Gun Master in the living room. Since he had nothing to do, he wanted to get Lin Xuan to train with him. Before entering the game, he connected the game with his Emperor’s Heart Ring’s notification so that he could be notified even when he was playing the game.
As he entered the game, he realized that Lin Xin and Lin Xuan were online too. He pulled the both of them into the virtual training ground that he’d built inside the game. Although they’re in different game consoles, as long as the virtual training grounds number was the same, they’d be on the same battle map. Seeing Lin Huang in the game, Lin Xin ran towards him.
“Have you guys had dinner?” Lin Huang patted her head.
“Yes, we have. Brother, why are you so free today?” Lin Xin smiled and asked.
“My task here is stuck at the moment. I‘m waiting for news from a friend and since I have nothing to do, I thought I’d train here.” Lin Huang explained.
“How long will you stay there?” Lin Xin asked.
“I would be in Luoxi City for four to five days at most. If it can’t be done, I will abort my mission. I don’t have time to waste here, I have more important things to do.”
Lin Huang had not been training his Life Skill recently as his Life Power was being stabilized. It would take less than a week for it to completely stabilize naturally. If he didn’t manage to kill Brain Eater this time, he could always train his Demonic Dandelion Vine once he became a Gold Hunter. It was unnecessary for him to waste too much time in Luoxi City. After a quick chat, Lin Huang started training his gunfighting techniques with Lin Xuan…
Chapter 240: The Professional Got C*ckblocked!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
For the following two days, Lin Huang spent most of his time inside the Gun Master game. After two days he’d only managed to learn three intermediate gunfighting techniques. He was training past 10 at night when his phone started ringing. Seeing that it was Yang Ling, Lin Huang exited the game and picked up the call.
“Is there any news?!” Lin Huang was worried.
“The lady has just logged into the Chilly Night app…”
“What’s her location, send it to me right now and I’ll go over!” Lin Huang asked for the address before Yang Ling could finish talking.
“Erm… This is the reason why I called. I can’t locate her…” Yang Ling looked embarrassed.
“Didn’t you tell me you could locate her as long as she uses the application?” Lin Huang was suspicious.
“That’s because I thought she only had the programming removed from the location service and it wouldn’t affect the location of the app. I didn’t know that she got the entire location receiver in her Emperor’s Heart Ring removed.”
Yang Ling said helplessly, “To crack the ring open and work on the chip isn’t easy. I don’t think anyone in Luoxi City would be able to do it, that’s why I thought she had only gotten the code for the location system removed. Now that the location receiver has been destroyed, even my personal code for the location services couldn’t locate where she is…”
He was embarrassed as he had told Lin Huang that he could do it.
“Can’t locate her…” Lin Huang frowned as he listened. He had faith in Yang Ling to get it done, he did not expect to hear this.
After thinking for a while Lin Huang thought of an idea.
“I’m thinking to download the app myself and register an account. Since we can’t locate her, I’ll ask her out.
“That’s a great idea!” Yang Ling agreed with Lin Huang but not completely.
“However, it’s too suspicious to register a new account now; as she could see the date and time of registration. She knows that she’s being hunted down by the Hunter Association, so she will be wary of accounts that are new. Let me give you the testing account that I used, it was registered three years ago. Upload a picture of yourself and key in your own profile. She won’t suspect a thing. Don’t expose yourself when you talk to her… Never mind, I’ll help you with the talking. You’re such a serious guy that she’d never fall for you. I’ll be monitoring your conversation with her, you can copy whatever I send you and send it to her.”
“Sure!”
Lin Huang agreed immediately. Although he’d used a similar phone application when he was on earth, he couldn’t bring himself to flirt with a stranger. Using Yang Ling’s method, he was just being a middleman where Yang Ling was the one actually talking to the lady. All he had to do was forward the messages. Immediately after the phone hung up, Yang Ling sent the password to his account. Lin Huang logged into the application after he’d downloaded it using the username Super Hunk, Lin Huang was tempted to change the username, but he couldn’t find the settings button.
He then started to amend his profile. Now that he looked like himself on earth, he was sure of his own body and in less than a minute, the new profile was done. He changed into something more casual and took some photos from different angles, uploading the photos to his own page.
“I didn’t expect you be so skilled with selfies. Are you sure that you’ve never used any one-nights stand apps?” Yang Ling teased him.
“Thanks for the compliment. Now, how do I change the username?” Lin Huang ignored Yang Ling
“You can’t change that. I created the username on purpose, why would you want to change it?” Yang Ling replied.
“Alright then, send her account to me.” Lin Huang did not want to waste his time on small talk and got straight into business.
Yang Ling sent a voice message this time, “Her new account username is Waist Length Hair. Don’t talk to her first, just look at her profile. Although there’s nothing much to see, she’ll see that you’ve visited her profile. If she’s not talking to anyone else, she’d probably look at your profile. Since you have photos and clear biography, if she’s interested, she’ll definitely talk to you. If she doesn’t talk to you, but she looks at your profile several times then she’s letting you know that she’s interested in you and by then, you should be halfway there.”
Lin Huang didn’t know that there were so many rules on a one-night stand app.
“Alright then, I’ll do as you say.” Soon, Lin Huang found Waist Length Hair’s account. He looked at her profile carefully. It was simple – only listing her weight and height; she didn’t even fill in her age. There was only one picture on her profile and it was a picture of her upper back. Her hair touched her waist and her back was naked all the way to her bum cheeks. Anyone could see that she wasn’t wearing anything in the picture.
The picture of her back wasn’t enough, Lin Huang couldn’t tell if it was Zheng Yihan herself. The hair color didn’t look like hers. However, the body and skin color were similar. Realizing that there was nothing useful, Lin Huang left her profile. A moment later, Lin Huang realized that she was looking at his profile and within a minute, she sent him a message.
“Hi, handsome.”
Just when Lin Huang was ready to reply ‘Hi’, Yang Ling sent him a message.
“Hey, beautiful.” There was a smiley face at the back of the message. Lin Huang smiled as he thought he was too innocent. He copied Yang Ling’s reply and sent it back.
Waist Length Hair replied in an instant. “How do you know that I’m beautiful? What if I only have a beautiful back?”
As Lin Huang was thinking how to reply the message, Yang Ling sent him the reply. “My instinct told me.” Lin Huang forwarded the message.
“Instinct? Tell me, what other things are your instincts telling you.” She replied immediately.
“Hehe, she’s hooked.” Yang Ling sent a disturbing voice message. Soon, Yang Ling sent his reply.
“My instinct told me that not only you’re a beauty but you have a nice body too.”
Lin Huang forwarded the message again.
“What if I told you that this is not my photo, would you still think the same?” She replied again.
“Of course. It’s my instinct, it has nothing to do with the photo that you have.” Yang Ling replied.
“If your instinct is on point, can you sense what kind of person that I am?” She replied.
“My instinct is telling me that you’re a dangerous woman.” Seeing that reply, Lin Huang thought it was not right and sent Yang Ling a voice message.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate, she might have her guard up.”
“Don’t worry just forward that. I know what to do.” Yang Ling replied.
Helpless, Lin Huang forwarded the message anyway. This time Waist Length Hair was silent. She hadn’t replied 10 seconds later either.
“This is bad…” Lin Huang frowned.
Just as Lin Huang had mumbled to himself, he received another message.
“Please tell me, how am I dangerous?” It was still Waist Length Hair.
“Hehe, what did I tell you…” Yang Ling sent another voice message.
“My mother once told me that the more beautiful a woman is, the more dangerous she is. My instinct doesn’t tell me what kind of danger you are; all it’s telling me is that you’re more dangerous than 99% of the women in this city.” There was a smirk emoji at the end of the sentence.
Lin Huang secretly complimented Yang Ling in his mind, he had to admit that Yang Ling was really good at flirting.
“Such a sweet talker, I’ll take that compliment then.” She replied immediately.
As they chatted, the conversation became more and more explicit. Although Lin Huang did not want to forward the messages but for the sake of hunting down Brain Eater, he did it anyway.
After chatting for 10 minutes, Lin Huang could not take it anymore.
“Stop messing around, ask her out now.” Lin Huang sent Yang Ling a voice message.
“What’s the rush, can’t you see that I’m waiting for the perfect timing?” Yang Ling seemed to be indulging in the conversation
However, two to three minutes later Waist Length Hair sent a message abruptly.
“Let’s talk next time. It’s late and I’m going to sleep.”
She went offline right after she sent the message.
“What happened?” Lin Huang was stunned. He did not expect her to go offline suddenly before he could even ask her out.
Soon, Yang Ling called.
“I thought it was going well, why’d she go offline?” Lin Huang was puzzled.
“She set me up! F*ck!” Yang Ling cursed.
“Somebody else got her?” Lin Huang finally understood what was happening.
“Do you think she really went to bed?” Yang Ling rolled his eyes.
“I knew she’s talking to other guys as she was talking to me. I was too indulged in the conversation; I didn’t see what they were talking about.”
Yang Ling uploaded the chat history of the man who managed to ask Waist Length Hair out.
“Although we didn’t get to ask her out, at least we could locate the man who had managed to and find out where they are meeting.” Yang Ling was pissed but he did not forget about what was important.
“Wait, do you have a picture of this man? Why does he look so familiar…?