"How did I fall asleep?"
Li Li rubbed his eyes and woke up in the empty warehouse.
It was already dark outside.
He took out his phone, checked the time, and immediately felt something was wrong.
It was now 8:00 p.m. on January 15, Alliance Year 1104. Thirty-seven hours had passed since the morning he had summoned the Blue Star people into this world.
After teaching 'Level 8 Great Gale' how to control his body, Li Li had returned to the warehouse. Exhausted, he sat down on a delivery box and closed his eyes for a moment.
Then he accidentally fell asleep.
When he had extracted the remaining embers from 'Amulet Owl's body earlier, not only had he used up his reserve faith, he had also drawn roughly 1,600 points of faith from his own origin. That was why he had been so weak.
"No one came back after I slept for this long. Don't tell me they all got wiped out..."
He stretched, walked out of the warehouse, looked up at the pure night sky, and summoned the power of the Divine Legion.
The Divine Legion had originally been an army manually controlled by players. Although Li Li had now split the legion into individuals and handed control over to the Blue Star people, he could still sense the legion's locations and observe the world through their eyes.
First, he checked how many units in the Divine Legion were still alive.
Then he scratched his head in confusion, completely unable to make sense of it.
All ten bodies controlled by the Blue Star people were still alive, but things were very different from what Li Li had expected.
Li Li had thought the best-case scenario would be for the ten Blue Star people to stick together, use the embers he had given 'Amulet Owl,' and harvest faith across the wasteland as a team.
But in reality, only three honest fellows had gone outside the city, while the rest were scattered throughout Iron Wall City.
What was even more baffling was that the three honest fellows who had gone into the wasteland were so dim that they were almost impossible to sense.
That meant they had gained absolutely nothing so far.
Meanwhile, the ones huddled in the city radiated a warm glow, clearly having collected quite a bit of faith.
Too lazy to puzzle over it, Li Li simply closed his eyes and projected his consciousness into those bodies, using their first-person perspectives to find out what had happened.
He started with the brightest point of light, the Half-Winged Celestial called 'Golden Wind.'
Through 'Golden Wind's eyes, he saw the interior of a luxurious sedan.
The guy was sitting in the back seat, lighting a cigar in one hand, with a glass of red wine beside him. He looked thoroughly at ease.
The sedan's side windows were covered by curtains, hiding the street outside. From the edge of his vision, Li Li could only see the green treant driver and a treant in a suit and huge sunglasses seated in front.
Treant mafia?
Li Li began to wonder whether there was something wrong with his ability.
He withdrew from 'Golden Wind's view and carefully sensed the distance between them. He discovered that the car was heading toward him.
"Is this guy coming to level up, or to pick a fight?" Li Li muttered.
He was not afraid of 'Golden Wind' rebelling. At any time, he could expel 'Golden Wind's soul projection and take over the body himself.
Still, compared with the flesh created by the Divine Legion, he preferred his original body.
After peeking for a few more minutes and confirming that he could not get any more information through 'Golden Wind's eyes, Li Li gave up and shifted his attention to the second-brightest human, 'Amulet Owl.'
The first thing that entered his view was a dim passageway covered in slick moss.
It seemed to be the city's sewers.
Before Li Li could react, his vision suddenly lunged forward. A metal spearhead flashed in from the right and pierced through a monstrous cat with a human face on its abdomen.
That strike seemed to signal the start. His vision instantly went from stillness to motion.
'Amulet Owl' swept his gaze across the surroundings at incredible speed. The next instant, he chose a direction and ran along the walls like a parkour expert, brushing past a lunging monster dog.
Wriggling shadows filled the surroundings, like monsters lying in wait. Li Li only caught a blurred silhouette before the spear once again pierced a creature that had drawn close.
After watching for only a few minutes, Li Li, a complete outsider to combat, understood 'Amulet Owl's terrifying battlefield awareness.
His spearwork was not particularly dazzling, but he could always find the best route through the monsters' encirclement.
With less than half a second to scan his surroundings each time, he could gather all the information around him, immediately plan his next moves, and execute them with confidence and determination.
Like an owl hunting at night.
After watching a little longer, Li Li noticed that aside from the small monsters, a bloated humanoid creature was being kept far behind by 'Amulet Owl.'
This suspected leader looked extremely clumsy, but its actual speed was certainly not slow. It had merely been run in circles by 'Amulet Owl.'
There was something like that in the sewers?
Li Li withdrew from 'Amulet Owl's vision, took out a small notebook, and wrote down the oddities.
"'Golden Wind' joined a gang in less than two days. 'Amulet Owl' is extremely familiar with the sewer layout."
"Why?"
Li Li found the backgrounds of these Blue Star people increasingly impossible to understand...
He put away the notebook, closed his eyes again, and observed the third target, an elf named 'Sakurajima Mai.'
Just from the name, he could tell this guy's shooting had to be accurate.
'Sakurajima Mai's view was much cleaner—fragrant pork cutlet rice, a desk piled with case files, uniformed police officers, bloodstained sleeves, and a wanted poster marked with a huge red X.
When Li Li had created this world, he had set the default language to Chinese, so he could clearly read the information on the wanted poster.
He pulled back his gaze, took out his phone, and searched for the fugitive's name. That was when he learned this was a criminal with a bounty of 210,000 Alliance Coins.
"A warrant issued three years ago. Dead or alive. The crime is... spreading an evil cult."
This guy had become a bounty hunter?
Li Li sucked in a sharp breath and suddenly felt that even Iron Wall City was unsafe.
Gangs, bioweapon monsters, wanted criminals.
Were the people he had summoned planning to provoke every criminal force in Iron Wall City and drag him down with them?
Never mind anything else—the black luxury sedan 'Golden Wind' was riding in was about to arrive here!
At that thought, Li Li took out his notebook again, wrote "Things to Do" at the top of the page, and added beneath it:
"1: Get an alias."
He continued peeking at the other arrivals and found that the views of 'Li Yuan,' 'Level 8 Great Gale,' and the others were dark. Their bodies were alive, though, so they had probably gone "offline" to rest.
Who knew whether they had found safe places for their bodies before leaving?
The three people outside the city were all still active.
'Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword' and 'I Don't Want to Pay the Breach-of-Contract Penalty' were together. They appeared to be acting as guides for a team, deciding which direction it would travel.
Li Li peeked for a moment and found that the team's makeup was a mixed bag.
There was a scholar carrying books, mercenaries in exoskeletons, three knights in full armor carrying longswords, and a Mining Mech over five meters tall.
"Sigh..." Li Li sighed and looked at the last player.
Sure enough, the last guy had not helped him find anyone either.
'Lost a Leg' was sitting beside a lush lake. His view did not move at all, and Li Li had no idea what he was busy with.
Li Li sensed the distance between them, then studied the map for a while and determined that the guy was probably in Misty Forest, two hundred kilometers from Iron Wall City.
He had no idea what the guy was doing.
After looking through them all, Li Li's confusion only grew.
Although he could peek through these people's eyes, he still felt blind and deaf. He could only guess at their actions and had no understanding of what they were thinking.
But at least one thing could be confirmed.
These people had visited his world before, and more than once.
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