Because of the explosion, the sheriff personally oversaw the investigation. Every day, people living near the blast site were questioned, leaving everyone on edge. Many shops in town stayed closed, so no one would notice that Xilin didn't go to the bar. Besides, Xilin lived in the poorest part of town. The patrol officers had only made a few token inquiries before leaving, and they hadn't questioned him.
Back on the town's streets, Xilin had no plans to reopen the bar. Instead, he contacted Old Daiwen. After all, he had to let the owner know what was happening with the place.
Old Daiwen was in the throes of a new romance, his face glowing with happiness. Just as he'd always dreamed, he'd found a woman of a suitable age with an E-class Gene Type, and the two were planning their wedding and future together. When Xilin said he intended to head out and make his way in the world, Old Daiwen assumed he just wanted to try his luck in a more prosperous area. He gave him a few words of advice as an elder, then left it at that. It was good for young people to be driven and have ambitions. There was no reason to spend an entire life stuck in a poor, garbage-strewn place like this, especially when Xilin was only seventeen.
Old Daiwen had no plans to return, so he gave the little bar to Xilin. Its location was poor, after all, and it wouldn't fetch much even if he sold it. Old Daiwen didn't know anyone in the city, so he couldn't help Xilin with connections. He offered to give him some money instead, but Xilin refused.
After turning down Old Daiwen's offer, Xilin wished him well and ended the conversation. He had far more savings than Old Daiwen imagined. He didn't plan to sell the bar right away, either. Instead, he rented it out to someone else who lived in the poor district and told them to deposit the annual rent into his card.
After returning to his little room in the poor district and packing his things, Xilin went to Yuanye's residence again that night. Unlike his last visit, when he'd gone openly, this time he was discreet. What he was about to do was crucial, and the security at Yuanye's residence, along with its defenses against external and internal signals, gave him an extra measure of safety.
In the room, Xilin relaxed his body and began to guide the changes inside him. The chips integrated into his original genome had spread through his bloodstream as his body replicated, penetrating every cell. Now, he wanted to make the chips express themselves selectively. Of course, since they hadn't been fully activated to begin with, any selective expression would be limited.
He sent commands from his brain, each central signal reaching the chips inside every cell. The chips began to express themselves selectively, interfering with the expression of his original genes and causing changes. The most obvious were in Xilin's appearance.
The bones in his face began to change. His hair, eyes, and skin changed color, and even his bone structure shifted. This wasn't temporary dye, nor was it cosmetic surgery. It was a change at the genetic level, one that even advanced instruments couldn't detect, because it came from controlling and altering his very foundations. This was Xilin's trump card.
According to the data and information Hou Lei had left behind, in theory, the original body could control the chips and make them recombine, break, delete, or mutate the original DNA within its cells.
For example, if someone wanted to test Xilin's DNA, he could control the cells in his bodily fluids, hair, or other parts of his body and alter them at the very moment they left his body, preventing anyone from detecting his real DNA.
But because the chips weren't fully activated yet, after each major change, he would have to wait for a period of stabilization before he could make another change at the source.
The crackling of bones finally stopped. Once Xilin felt the changes in the rest of his body had ended, he looked at himself in the mirror and couldn't help gaping.
His black hair, dark eyes, and wheat-colored skin, which had given him the healthy, sun-kissed look of a young man, had become light gray hair, deep blue eyes, pale skin, and a frame that looked a little weaker than before. He looked just like one of the rich kids from the city. His face wasn't exceptionally handsome, but it was still neat and well-defined. Overall, he looked far less imposing than before.
Xilin frowned. He wasn't very satisfied with his new appearance, but the chips hadn't been perfectly activated, and some of the changes to his looks were beyond his control. Never mind. I'll make do with this for now.
Yuanye had once said there were only two kinds of people who changed the world: gods and madmen. Xilin thought the old man, Hou Lei, belonged to the latter. Whether he could reach the level of Glory and Password remained to be seen, but there was no denying that Hou Lei was a genius. With equipment like that, much of it operated by hand, he'd still managed to make something so absurdly powerful...
Xilin had spent a fortune on a blank ID card from the black market. Its identity serial number and magnetic imprint could both be verified by the authorities. He entered his name, his current face, and other falsified information, then swiped the card through the slot of a nearby machine. His identity information appeared on the screen. As long as the authorities didn't go to great lengths to investigate, the card wouldn't arouse the suspicions of inspectors.
Besides the ID card, Xilin had also bought a Star System-wide Savings Card on the underground black market. After a series of complicated, careful steps, he deposited all his remaining money into it.
The two cards had cost him several million Star Coins, leaving him with less than a tenth of his savings. And money alone wouldn't have been enough to get his hands on those things; without the right connections, it was impossible. That was one of the benefits of Xilin's three years as a Hunter.
The next day, his appearance completely changed, Xilin boarded the flight from X-C362 to X-C100, traveling light. He encountered no obstacles during the airport security checks or the verification of his identity.
Seated in the passenger starship, Xilin rubbed the curled-leaf pattern on his left thumb. The security check hadn't detected a thing. If this had been an ordinary subspace object, there was no way it would have gone through so smoothly, especially with dangerous items like guns inside.
He pressed a button on his chair, and an image appeared in front of him, showing the view outside the starship.
Though Xilin had lived in that poor little town, he'd visited many parts of the planet during his time as a Shadow Hunter. Seeing them now stirred a strange mix of feelings in him.
The towering buildings and bustling city grew smaller and blurrier until the whole planet came into view. For the first time, Xilin saw the true face of the Sky Eye: a satellite array. It monitored the entire planet's surface and could respond immediately, like when it had projected a protective shield that night to contain the destruction caused by the explosion.
Xilin took the pendant hanging around his neck and let it have a good look at the planet.
"Hena, Master, we're setting off. I don't know when we'll be back."
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