A Suspicious Shadow at Dawn

Weiguang District, Number Fifteen, Golden Maple Garden.

Chen Chuan looked out through the room's floor-to-ceiling window.

High-rises crowded Weiguang District, their lights and shadows dazzling. It was Central City's administrative and commercial heart, the most prosperous area in the entire city, and even in all of Jibei Province.

His new home stood within it: an eight-story villa with five floors aboveground and three below, all connected by an elevator.

The grounds were extensive. On the scenic shore of Star Pool Lake, where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, the property occupied a corner all to itself. It was practically an estate.

It had comprehensive security facilities. A small-airship mooring lay near the villa, letting him depart by Airship whenever he wished. Even when he went out to sea to train, he would no longer need to travel to an outside mooring point.

The villa came with a Resonance Nest. Given a suitable resonator, it could handle Domain Field intrusion and defense. Of course, it was only a backup for special circumstances. Under ordinary conditions, his An Shield access was enough.

What pleased him most was the collection room on the fourth floor. He had specifically requested its renovation. It could hold everything he owned now, with room for several times more in the future.

The first basement level was a garage, with a set of generators and space reserved for Domain Field-disrupting organisms. The second was more unusual: it connected to a passage into the Convergence Zone. From there, he could drive to the Convergence Zone's station or straight into the zone itself.

The training ground occupied the lowest level and had been reinforced throughout to withstand the ordinary force of a Fighter's blows. That was only the standard specification, though. Whether it could withstand his