Special Search Team

Biodata

Background / History

Martial Arts Origins

The Special Search Team developed from the National Martial Arts Academy. The academy’s first head was Ma Jianguo’s grandfather, who founded it with other martial artists. The state formally established the Special Search Team in year 25 of the Republic, during widespread devastation and demonic activity 376 434.

Its original personnel were accomplished martial artists and battle-tested soldiers equipped with the finest modern weapons available. Li Guizhen devised its selection criteria, training courses, and operational guidelines, turning its unruly recruits into a disciplined force. He commanded the organization for a little over a decade before resigning after the war 376 377.

Early training emphasized both physical conditioning and willpower. Shi Chengyi recalls two hours of Horse Stance and Standing Meditation before dawn, followed by painful Iron Body training at night. At that time, martial artists typically needed at least ten years of training before qualifying for admission 435.

Adoption of Biochemical Enhancement

Even elite soldiers and martial artists suffered catastrophic losses against Aberrants with unusual abilities. In one Eastern Capital operation, a hundred-man unit hunting an illusion-using Eastern Island Aberrant was nearly annihilated within an hour. More than half died to their teammates’ weapons; the enemy was finally killed when a survivor detonated explosives on his own body 376.

Wartime biotechnology subsequently allowed the team to modify human genes. Enhancement potions and biochemical modification became its prevailing means of strengthening personnel, displacing its earlier reliance on traditional martial training 376.

Recruitment Reforms and Factional Conflict

More than a decade before Ma Jianguo’s account, Director Ling sharply reduced traditional martial-artist recruitment quotas and began favoring police academy graduates. Ma Jianguo’s father—a retired deputy director—protested at headquarters, returned home ill, and died a few years later 434.

Deputy Director Gu, who had taken office the year before last, was reportedly interested in recruiting traditional martial artists again. The resulting divide is identified as a struggle between the Martial Artist Faction and the Technological Reformation Faction. Fang Cheng explicitly sought admission without joining either side’s political battles 434 582.

Mandate and Authority

• Supernatural law enforcement: Handles monsters, criminal ability users, and incidents ordinary police cannot resolve 223.
• National reach: Operates throughout the country and helps restrain conglomerates and influential families 223.
• Interagency command: Can mobilize local government departments and police to support operations, including checkpoints and area lockdowns 223 319.
• Public secrecy: Government cooperation includes concealing the supernatural nature of its missions from civilians 122 223.
• Special legal protection: Gao Jin cites Article Seven of the Special Affairs Act when charging Fang Cheng with assaulting officers and obstructing special operations 284.
• Broad coercive powers: Ma Donghe describes its authority as comparable to the imperial Brocade-Clad Guard, including the power to execute first and report afterward 223.
• Political influence: Cheng Jiashu describes it as an increasingly autonomous power with substantial armed resources, sometimes forcing even the Presidential Palace to defer to it 533.

External Oversight

• Life Science Ethics Committee: According to Cheng Jiashu, the committee was created to counterbalance the team’s growing power. It pursued secret genetic-modification projects intended to mass-produce controllable super soldiers 533.

Organization and Personnel

Departments

Notable Personnel

• Ling Shaofeng — Chief of the organization; associated with reforms that reduced martial-artist recruitment 434 658.
• Li Guizhen — First commanding officer and architect of its early training and operational system; a legendary practitioner of martial arts and qi cultivation 376 377.
• Deputy Director Gu — Senior official reportedly interested in restoring some traditional martial-artist recruitment 434.
• Gao Jin — Senior Investigator and captain of the First Action Team. Known for integrity, protecting subordinates, and refusing to bow to pressure 371 382 659.
• Wei Zheng — Officer who helped Fang Cheng obtain examination materials and guided Fang Cheng, Ma Donghe, and Hou Peng through onboarding 584 658.
• Shi Chengyi — Veteran officer and former cadet instructor who supported Fang Cheng’s recruitment as a martial artist 435 658.
• Lu Tianming — Internal-affairs official secretly cooperating with Utopia under the name Bronze 626 741.
• Fang Cheng — Top-ranked recruit accepted into the Logistics and Medical Department; conceals his White Owl identity from colleagues 639 659.
• Ma Donghe — Operations recruit assigned to report to the twelfth floor; later earns an expedition slot through combat selection 658 756.
• Hou Peng — Recruit applying for intelligence-gathering work 658.
• Zhou Liang and A Li — Affairs Officers serving under Gao Jin during the Noah crackdown 323.
• Xu Fei — Promoted to Level 1 Officer before independently leading a serial-killer investigation 343.
• Chen Lei — Shield-wielding operative who fought alongside Xu Fei during the Rehabilitation Center incident 194 197.
• Cheng Le Yi — Specialist involved in resident screening and undercover work targeting a killer fixated on long-haired women 190 343.
• Luo Ge and A Jian — Veteran-and-rookie pair dispatched to retrieve the Red Tiger Gang’s Experimental Subject 113.

Headquarters and Facilities

The headquarters is a granite-faced compound built around a central courtyard, with armed sentries, a national emblem, and national flags at its entrance. Wei Zheng’s orientation identifies thirty-three aboveground floors and five underground levels 586 658.

Sealed Object Beneath Headquarters

• The site was formerly an underground sacrificial pit of the Ancient Yue Kingdom. Construction workers uncovered a colossal object there thirty years earlier 597.
• Exposure drove several hundred workers into collective madness; they killed one another until none survived 597.
• The object could not be safely relocated. Chief Li mobilized the team’s core combat forces to suppress it, then had headquarters built over the sealed site 597.
• The source remains roughly one hundred meters beneath the screening room, enclosed by nuclear-reactor-grade lead-zinc concrete 604.

Recruitment and Service

Selection Process

Standards and Vulnerabilities

• Ability and character take priority: The chief rejects automatic exclusion based on family history, arguing that candidates should be judged first on ability and then on character 604.
• Biometric safeguards: Repeated medical examinations help detect disguised Aberrants and hostile infiltrators 658.
• Privileged access: Despite strict selection, powerful figures can obtain the Core Question Bank in advance 592.
• Internal infiltration: Fang Cheng suspects senior protection when violent mercenaries pass screening. Lu Tianming is later revealed to have arranged their infiltration for Utopia 608 741.

Benefits and Everyday Service

• Employees receive generous pay, benefits, and high social standing; wealthy families compete to secure admission for their children 592 595.
• Service offers cultivation resources and protection for members’ families 434.
• Standard issue includes uniforms, shoes, work supplies, and everyday essentials 661.
• Credentials command deference from local officials. Ma Donghe uses his identification and a claim of pursuing suspects to end a traffic stop 434 660.
• Support staff still follow an ordinary office routine of attendance checks, paperwork, meals, and scheduled departure 660.

Capabilities and Equipment

Biochemical Enhancement

The organization uses enhancement potions and genetic modification to give personnel strength beyond ordinary human limits 134 376.

• Enhanced team members generally have RC cell values between 500 and 1,000, compared with values below 500 for ordinary humans 203.
• Higher RC values correlate with stronger physical capabilities and regeneration, but also greater risk of losing mental control 203.
• Enhancement is not universal across all jobs: clerical personnel are mostly ordinary people 594.

Investigation and Detection

• Search Hounds: Captured predators controlled and trained to detect their own kind by scent, even when targets suppress their abilities 203.
• Blood screening: RC-cell measurements provide a medical means of identifying mutation 203.
• Specialized instruments: Field teams scan battle sites for energy fluctuations, collect debris in special bags, and establish cordons before withdrawing 287.
• Undercover intelligence: Xu Hao secretly cooperates with the team from inside the Noah Organization 291 313.

Weapons and Special Equipment

• Special Effect Anesthetic Gun — Described by Luo Ge as capable of rendering a ten-ton elephant unconscious within three seconds 113.
• High-Voltage Stun Gun — Delivers two hundred thousand volts to cause muscle spasms and prevent attacks 113.
• Helicopter support — Includes heavy-machine-gun and rocket-propelled-grenade firepower 113.
• Riot shield and black machete — Used by Chen Lei against monsters at the Rehabilitation Center 194 197.
• Bio-Armor — Gao Jin’s armor provides exceptional defense, strength, and speed; its energy shock wave is compared to a small tactical missile 288.
• Dark blue identification booklet — Displays a golden shield crossed with a blade and the organization’s formal name 319.
• Soul Suppressing Bell’s Child Bell — Provides audio guidance for illusion screening. The Ancient Bronze Bell used during interviews contains a trace of the sealed object’s aura 597 604.

Relationships

• National Guard and Presidential Office — Nominal parent institution and actual direct authority, respectively 223.
• Local police and military — Provide manpower, lockdowns, and combat support during major incidents 194 197 319.
• Ma Family — Foundational martial-arts lineage; its members helped establish the predecessor academy and held senior team posts 434.
• Noah Organization — Major adversary targeted through undercover intelligence, arrests, ambushes, and the Noah Tower operation 313 318 404.
• Cheng Jiashu — Cooperating outsider whom Gao Jin mistakes for White Owl; supplies spatial-traversal assistance and evidence of Noah’s human experiments 371 404.
• White Owl — Listed as a dangerous murderous figure, yet also treated as a potential ally against Noah. Gao Jin does not recognize Fang Cheng as White Owl when they meet after his recruitment 197 371 659.
• Utopia — Hostile organization with an internal contact in Lu Tianming, who agrees to infiltrate the Other Shore expedition 741.
• Life Science Ethics Committee — Political counterweight pursuing its own super-soldier research 533.
• Truth Society — Remains wary of the team despite controlling Yong’an Island; orders Fang Cheng’s medical employment kept secret 726.

Major Operations