Perception Check

After hearing the general classification of Awakened individuals, Xi Shenlian chose to ask a seemingly irrelevant question.

"I recall the probability of a human becoming an Awakened is about one in fifteen million."

"So, if I may ask, how long does it typically take for an Awakened to pass through the Initial Awakening Stage?"

For him, who was already in the Mature Stage, this question should have been meaningless in principle, but he needed a rough timeframe to analyze certain matters.

As someone from an ancient family, Ouin Chiyoka indeed knew the answer to this question and saw no reason not to answer it, so she said directly:

"Though all are Awakened, each one's physical constitution and innate conditions still vary greatly, so the time each Awakened spends in the Initial Awakening Stage also differs immensely!"

"The short cases take about two to three years to advance to the Mature Stage, while the long ones might take decades, but the difference in time doesn't directly represent a gap in talent—who goes further depends on a variety of comprehensive factors."

While answering the question, she assumed Xi Shenlian was trying to gauge how much longer he had before advancing to the Mature Stage.

In her view, he should have been in the Initial Awakening Stage for at least one to two years and undergone some very professional training.

Otherwise, there was no way he could leave her utterly powerless from the bottom of her heart.

As for his claim of having only been an Awakened for a month, she didn't believe it at all.

If that were really the case...

She dared not imagine what level this guy could reach if given a few more years.

All she could say was, Dongying couldn't accommodate this great deity...

However, what Xi Shenlian was pondering naturally wasn't when he himself would advance to the Mature Stage, but rather a sudden realization of why the local authorities in Dongying, and even various factions, hadn't come to contact him yet.

Yes.

At this very moment, Xi Shenlian was well aware that he had likely been exposed to certain upper-class elites long ago.

And he'd known it for a while.

Probably around the time he went to get a haircut.

When he saw the barber using all his strength to cut only two or three strands of his hair at a time, Xi Shenlian realized that his identity as an Awakened would be exposed sooner or later.

The actual reason was simple.

Compared to ordinary people, he was an anomaly!

A complete anomaly!

In clothing, food, housing, and travel, he would inevitably show signs of being different from normal people.

Let's set aside other things for now.

Take clothes, for example.

For a group of people whose arm strength starts at tons, what kind of clothes could withstand their movements without tearing at the slightest gesture?

At the very least, ordinary people's clothes definitely wouldn't work.

And since those special clothes were made from rare materials and needed by few, they could only be bought in a limited number of places.

So, if Xi Shenlian, a person with an ordinary identity, suddenly went to buy that kind of clothes, what would that imply?

Pure collection?

Maybe.

There might be people like that.

But what if they further investigated how much food Xi Shenlian had eaten recently?

And what if they looked into the various changes that had happened to him lately?

Not many people are truly fools.

Especially those who manage to sit in high positions.

And even more so in modern society!

More often than not, your spending records, your every move, leave indelible traces in every aspect.

With just a simple screening by upper management through big data, countless things become completely impossible to hide.

While getting his hair cut, Xi Shenlian suddenly realized all of this, confirming that anyone truly different from the norm would easily be exposed.

In an instant, many judgments formed in his mind.

He understood.

He could forcibly conceal himself.

With the system's abilities, that wouldn't be hard to do.

But in the end, it was all meaningless.

After all.

Why the fuck would I hide???

Playing the pig to eat the tiger?

I'm already cheating, what the hell am I pretending for!!

I don't care who you are?

I don't care how many of you there are?

If you dare make me unhappy, I'll crush you, every last one of you!!

So.

Even seeing the problem, he couldn't be bothered to cover it up, instead blatantly flaunting his many obvious traits.

Like eating enough food for a hundred people right in front of others.

Or leaping twenty or thirty meters in a single bound under the gaze of countless workers.

Or that thirty-day, thirty-night demon-slaying experience.

Honestly.

If you said the authorities and major organizations hadn't picked up any extra intel, Xi Shenlian wouldn't believe it at all.

But.

What slightly puzzled him was that in this entire month, no one had ever come to contact him.

He'd been waiting for them to show up and act cocky, so he could slap them down!

Yet, only random respawning wild monsters had stumbled into him...

Now, hearing Ouin Chiyoka's words.

He immediately grasped the general situation.

It was nothing more than all factions thinking he'd only recently awakened, with low threat level, so they were taking their time observing him from every angle.

Like gauging his personality and how dangerous he really was.

Or weighing whether recruiting him was worth it and what price they'd have to pay.

Or maybe, the factions were secretly bickering among themselves, fighting over who got first dibs on recruiting him.

For a moment.

Many speculations surfaced in Xi Shenlian's mind.

At the same time, his senses.

Like his hearing, began to automatically unlock part of their potential.

He started capturing every sound within a five-hundred-meter radius.

Footsteps, breathing, heartbeats.

As one of Shinjuku District's bustling streets.

Instantly.

Xi Shenlian not only perceived tens of thousands of people but also heard the endless traffic above ground and the insects and rodents below.

Then.

Xi Shenlian began to mobilize his Innate Ability--Perfect Nature, performing perception judgments on the targets he sensed.

It was like a prophetic power.

Question: Is this person paying attention to my movements?

No!

No!

No!

Yes!

No!

Yes!

No!

No!

Not long after.

A judgment from his own instincts made him realize that, when he sat in the corner of the café, within a radius of five hundred meters, eleven people were still keeping tabs on his movements.

Four of them were café patrons, including Ouin Chiyoka.

Another three were café employees.

As for the remaining four targets—

Through their heartbeats, Xi Shenlian judged that each was roughly two hundred meters away from him.

At this moment, Xi Shenlian couldn't help but feel that games were indeed more fun when played at a slower pace...