49: Chapter 49 Picking Bones in the Storm

"The greatest skill you have in this life is letting others fight for you, and then collecting their corpses."

This self-assessment was verified by facts forty-eight hours later.

May 21st, 2:00 AM.

Yan Zheng lay on the bed, eyes closed, as the pulses of Material Perception spread outward at a frequency of once every fifteen seconds.

The thermal map within a two-hundred-meter radius unfolded in his consciousness; compared to the previous two days, the changes were obvious.

There were fewer light spots representing living people.

There were more gray light spots.

"There are more."

Yan Zheng: (ꉺ ᗜ ꉺ)

"One at one hundred and twenty meters to the northeast."

"Two at ninety meters due south, stacked together; they must have died in the same place."

He called up the Material collection records of the past forty-eight hours in his consciousness.

Night of May 19th, one body. Gangster, died of knife wounds, ordinary bone material.

Early morning of May 20th, two bodies. One gangster, one unidentified, died of gunshot and blunt force wounds, ordinary bone material plus ordinary muscle material.

Night of May 20th, one body. Low-level The Hand ninja, died of gunshot wounds, lightweight reinforced bone material.

"Four bodies in forty-eight hours."

"Plus the three new gray light spots tonight, if all are successfully collected, that makes seven."

Yan Zheng sat up in bed and issued commands in his consciousness.

"Skeleton Soldier No. 1, one hundred and twenty meters to the northeast, take the third drainage pipe branch."

"No. 3 Skeleton Soldier, ninety meters due south, take the south section of the main pipeline, go up through access port C."

The two Skeleton Soldiers activated in the darkness of the Underground Room, their skeletons making faint clicking sounds as they set off along their respective pipe routes.

Yan Zheng lay back down, but did not close his eyes.

His attention turned to another matter completed during the day.

"The hard drive data was fully imported into the system panel this afternoon."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ˘ ͈ ꒳ ˘ ͈)

In the afternoon, he connected the mobile hard drive to the old laptop in the Underground Room; the system panel automatically recognized the external data interface and took about forty minutes to complete the full read.

Four Mutant gene files, including blood sample analysis reports, microscopic images of tissue sections, X-Gene sequence fragments, and observation logs of superpower trigger conditions.

The amount of data was not large, but the precision was extremely high.

"The precision is so high that it doesn't look like something a rogue Doctor from an Underground Fighting Ring could produce."

Yan Zheng switched the system panel to the data analysis page in his consciousness and stared at those few lines of golden prompts for a long time.

[External data parsing complete.]

[Data format recognition result: Standardized laboratory-grade gene data template, coding specifications meet the standards of advanced biological research institutions.]

[Original source tag has been manually deleted. System has performed fragment recovery.]

[Recovery result (partial): Data creator tag fragment — E.S.S.]

"E.S.S."

Yan Zheng muttered these three letters twice.

"It's not HYDRA's coding specification; HYDRA's internal files use a German abbreviation system."

"It's not S.H.I.E.L.D.'s format. I haven't encountered S.H.I.E.L.D.'s biological database, but given Mr. Burns's character, their stuff wouldn't end up in an Underground Fighting Ring."

"A professional biological laboratory independent of HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Specializing in Mutant gene research."

"Purchasing living samples and data on the black market through middlemen like Kingpin."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ⌓ ꐦ)

"E.S.S., what is the abbreviation for?"

He flipped through the fragments of intelligence obtained from various channels in his mind, but found no matches.

"Temporarily suspicious, marked as 'High Priority Unknown Faction'."

"However, one thing is certain."

Yan Zheng turned over and pulled the quilt over his shoulders.

"This Mutant trafficking chain is much deeper than I imagined."

"Kingpin is the middleman, E.S.S. is the buyer, and Liu Kun's fighting ring is just one of the supply points."

"If this chain were a tree, what I cut off was just a twig at the very end."

"The trunk is still there, the roots are still there."

A new prompt popped up on the system panel.

[Skeleton Soldier No. 1 collection complete. Ordinary bone material × 1, added to inventory.]

Thirty seconds later, the second one.

[No. 3 Skeleton Soldier collection complete. Ordinary bone material × 2, added to inventory.]

"Three bodies, secured."

Yan Zheng closed his eyes and updated the Material library list in his mind.

"Alright, the hard drive data has been saved to the system panel, and the physical hard drive was smashed by a Brute this afternoon and soaked in an acid bucket; now even the copper wires on the circuit board have dissolved completely."

"Even if Kingpin's people search the entire Hells Kitchen, they won't find any trace of that hard drive."

"As for the communication records, the fake procurement contracts are ready, and Liu Kun has already been briefed on the cover story."

He closed the Material list and opened the force panel.

"Next, it's time to think about how to spend these Materials."

An icon on the system panel kept flashing.

It wasn't gold, but a dark silver color he had never seen before, with a faint blue fluorescent edge.

Yan Zheng: (✧ ω ✧)

He clicked on that icon.

A brand-new blueprint unfolded in his consciousness, with four words written in dark silver font as the title.

[Undead Knight]

"When was this blueprint unlocked?"

He flipped through the system logs.

[Blueprint unlock conditions met: Cumulative reinforced bone material ≥ 8 units, Mutant gene types ≥ 3, Occult material ≥ 1 unit. Unlock time: May 21st, 14:27:33.]

"When I imported the hard drive data this afternoon, the Mutant gene types jumped from two to five, directly triggering the unlock conditions."

Yan Zheng stared at that blueprint, his breathing unconsciously slowing by half a beat.

"Undead Knight, Rare-tier creation."

"One full tier higher than the Stitched Brute."

"If the Brute is a pickup truck with iron plates, then the Undead Knight is a proper armored vehicle."

He took another look at the small dark red text below the blueprint.

[Assembly cost: 80% Mental Power. Assembly time: approximately 4 hours. During assembly, the caster cannot control any other Undead Creation.]

"Four hours, completely defenseless."

"At a time when Kingpin and The Hand could start fighting at my doorstep at any moment."

Yan Zheng let out a slow breath, closed the blueprint, and turned over to face the wall.

"Can't rush this; first, I need to calculate the material ratios clearly."

"There's only one chance; there's only one unit of Photon gene material, if I fail, it's gone."

"Sleep."

He closed his eyes, but that dark silver blueprint in his mind was branded on the inside of his eyelids like a red-hot branding iron, unable to fade away.

"Yan Zheng, your current state of mind is about the same as doing the last set of practice papers the night before the college entrance exam."

"The difference is, if you fail the college entrance exam, at most you repeat a year."

"If you fail this test, you lose Universe-grade Rare materials."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ˘ ꈊ ˘)

"So, the first thing tomorrow morning is to calculate the compatibility."

"Calculate to two decimal places."

"Not a single percentage point can be off."