About an hour later...
Xia Li passed through the pipes and entered Upper City's sewage treatment station.
Jumping from the sewage pool to the edge of the wall.
Xia Li used a Cleansing Art to remove the sewage and Spirit-Waste gas clinging to his body, then jumped down from the wall and directly activated perspective mode.
Left eye X-ray, right eye thermal imaging.
Enhanced retinas could provide functions no weaker than electronic eyes.
Heaven Chip meanwhile used Divine Sense Intrusion to emit special spiritual energy waves, detecting mechanical and electronic constructs within range.
This technique was called Electromagnetic Sensing.
With Electromagnetic Sensing's help, Xia Li successfully avoided various monitoring devices and sensors. Those he could evade, he evaded. Those he couldn't, he directly hacked, generating convincingly fake footage to replace traces of his passage.
About ten minutes later...
Xia Li encountered a sewage treatment station employee. After quietly approaching to within a certain distance...
Divine Sense Intrusion!
He directly breached the defensive functions of the opponent's third-generation Heaven Chip, commanding it to discharge abnormally and instantly knock the person unconscious.
This was how Hidden Wing's Heaven Chip attacked the poor—technical advantage was different from combat advantage. Being one generation behind in technology meant genuine, complete suppression.
Two generations behind?
You'd die without knowing how.
Walking to the unconscious employee, Xia Li dragged the body and stowed it in a narrow crevice inside the underground operations room.
Then...
Enhanced retinas scanned the target's facial data while Heaven Chip began forcibly accessing their identity information.
Heaven Chip's protection of personal information was strong, but everything was built on having a new enough generation of Heaven Chip, and the target being conscious.
If the Heaven Chip generation was outdated, it could only guarantee information security on the public network. In reality, if the owner lost consciousness, face-to-face decryption was completely unpreventable.
Soon, Xia Li learned this employee's name and recent memories.
He stripped off the target's clothes and put them on, then provided the scanned facial data to the spiritual artifact Thousand Faces.
Then put on Thousand Faces.
Afterward, Xia Li used Heaven Chip to scan the target's throat. After obtaining the data, he fine-tuned his implanted prosthetic at the trachea position to simulate the target's voice as well.
With this, Xia Li had perfectly transformed into the target.
"Pity I can't mimic the build, but this should be good enough."
With his current appearance, openly leaving the sewage treatment station would be no problem.
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Finally...
He set new commands in the unfortunate employee's Heaven Chip: detect consciousness recovery, then knock unconscious again. The program would deactivate after two more times.
Two more knockouts should be more than enough for him to complete this mission.
"Buddy, you've had it rough too. Consider this compensation."
After setting everything up, Xia Li produced ten spirit stones from his storage ring and placed them beside the target.
Proletarians don't make things difficult for proletarians.
Then Xia Li waited until quitting time before leaving as the target.
On the way he encountered several coworkers, but none talked to him—his effort simulating the voice was wasted.
Some coworkers didn't even bother giving him a second glance.
Arriving at the locker room, Xia Li changed into the target's off-duty clothes. Following the target's memories to the garage, he directly cracked the motorcycle lock and rode off.
Night had just fallen. Upper City's nights were utterly extravagant—the city's originally spacious areas became cramped under the dense filling of holographic images.
Colorful lights created dazzling light pollution. Even the clouds and moon above the city were dyed into rich glazed hues.
Xia Li rode the motorcycle racing down the road while annoying advertisements echoed across the night sky...
Even this damned motorcycle he was riding forcibly played ads that couldn't be turned off.
Because this motorcycle was something the employee had bought on installment through a loan—no permission to disable ads. Xia Li really wanted to hack this feature off directly.
But Heaven Chip prompted...
【Forcibly unlocking will not trigger an alarm】
【But forcibly disabling advertisements will trigger an alarm】
The motorcycle manufacturer didn't care much about whether vehicles got stolen. Stolen was better—they'd love for customers to buy another one.
But ads couldn't stop. Stopping meant one less fraction of profit.
"Good evening, Linguang City."
"Our city's local enterprise Linguang Tech has broken through profit margins by another three points. Congratulations to all citizens! Residence tax can be reduced again—please continue supporting local enterprises!"
"There was a cultivator duel in the southern city yesterday. Sect folks always like peddling their antique wares..."
"There's been gang violence in Lower City recently. Why can't they ever stay quiet? Please be careful when traveling to Lower City, Upper City citizens!"
"Major progress—the safe zone's southern line has advanced another twenty kilometers! Please give our city defense forces your respect!"
"Finally, some bad news. Jiao Su Er attacked Xiangyun City two hours ago. We hope everyone can donate a few spirit stones to send condolences."
The local news radio of Linguang City. The host was reporting news in an exaggerated style. After hearing it, Xia Li curiously searched for Xiangyun City.
Xiangyun City was a sect-governed city with numerous sects of varying sizes established within the safe zone.
And the footage of Jiao Su Er attacking the city barrier had been recorded by cameras. Jiao Su Er was a giant serpentine creature with two heads.
Being named after a star meant it was likewise a kilometer-class demon beast—humanity's great enemy.
To Xia Li, Jiao Su Er looked like a mutated dragon.
It had characteristics of both lizard and snake, but the head resembled a crocodile, capable of spitting azure plasma to bombard city barriers.
After several unsuccessful attacks, Jiao Su Er let out a piercing shriek before departing.
Seeing this, Xia Li didn't continue following that topic. No matter how ferocious star-class demons were, they weren't his current concern.
All the way to the base of a certain building.
Qiming Mining Corporation's transaction would take place here tonight. His actions were undoubtedly terrorism—the kind that would make the news. Who knew how the news anchor would report it then.
【Sister Ke, I've arrived at the target location. How do I infiltrate the building?】
Xia Li contacted Ke Xiao through Heaven Chip. Professional matters should be left to professionals—Ke Xiao was a spy and more skilled at such things.
【Use the divine ability Realm Fusion to take the safety passage to the rooftop. The transaction is on the top floor. Or if you don't mind wasting spiritual energy, you could fly straight up.】
【I'll walk up instead】
Xia Li immediately pulled up this building's internal layout. Not everyone could cultivate to Foundation Establishment and earn the qualification to fly.
Nor did all cultivators have such abundant spiritual energy supplies to wastefully fly around.
So buildings still needed stairwell passages.
The spiritual energy stored in Xia Li's Spirit Core was limited, and once he started cultivating to recover, the spiritual energy fluctuations risked detection.
Therefore, wasting spiritual energy before battle was foolish behavior.
After planning his route, Xia Li entered an alley and used the divine ability Realm Fusion. Arriving at the building's entrance, he followed behind someone and entered through the main door.
Then used Divine Sense Intrusion to deceive the cameras.
This way, he achieved double invisibility.
Physically present, but unable to be effectively observed—this cognitive-angle invisibility was the most terrifying kind.
