Is He an Assassin, You Think He Is Poor?

He reached the end of the gravel road and rounded the corner.

Gan Ming's footsteps suddenly halted.

Before the guard station entrance of Tunnel Zone Seven, a dense crowd of people was packed tightly.

A rough scan revealed seventy or eighty of them.

The vast majority of the Awakened formed teams of three to five and were fully equipped.

On their left arms or chests, various guild emblems were pinned.

There were silver patterns on a blue background, black characters on a red background,

and even a small flag plugged into a shoulder guard, with styles as varied as a fashion show.

On the surface of the equipment worn by a few individuals, faint blue glows even shimmered.

Fine quality.

Gan Ming stepped into the boundary line of the Fallen Zone.

His equipment automatically manifested.

Chainmail armor, chainmail greaves, an edgesteel one-handed sword.

Over his entire body, these three items were all he had.

Helmet, bracers, gauntlets, battle boots, belt... not a single one more.

Among this group of Awakened armed to the teeth, his outfit was indistinguishable from running naked.

Gazes cast over one by one.

"...Just these two pieces?"

"This is Tunnel Zone Seven, you know, not the Woodlands from one to fifteen."

"A solo player, probably. No emblem."

"Even if someone's poor, they shouldn't be poor to this extent. Not even a helmet?"

"Without a loan, how could anyone afford equipment?"

"Then they shouldn't even be coming here."

"Why? What if their strength is high?"

"True."

Gan Ming remained completely unconcerned.

The Soul-Stealing Panel popped up automatically at the edge of his vision.

He flipped through it column by column.

Every single Awakened who passed by him had their tier, talent, and skill list all laid out before his eyes.

Densely packed, his whole vision filled with text.

So much text that Gan Ming didn't even want to look.

Mainly because looking was useless, since he couldn't make a move anyway.

Gan Ming withdrew his attention from the panel,

only looking at those with more than three specialized skills, while ignoring all the others.

Ahead was the guard station entrance.

More than a dozen Tier-2 security personnel stood in two rows, holding terminals to scan the identity cards of the queuing Awakened one by one.

The line was not short, but it moved quickly.

Gan Ming walked briskly to the end of the line and came to a halt.

Soon, a dozen people followed up behind him.

Beast Scent automatically delivered the scent information from both in front and behind him.

Mhm, the smell of the living.

"Hey, buddy."

A voice came from behind him.

Gan Ming turned his head.

He discovered that the person standing behind him was a skinny guy.

He wore a full set of green equipment and tucked two short daggers at his waist.

"Are you serious about coming here wearing just these two pieces?"

It wasn't impolite, merely curious.

Gan Ming nodded.

"Yeah, I'm poor. I can't bear to spend contribution points."

Hearing this, the skinny guy rolled his eyes and said,

"Oh, you can spare anything else, but you can't spare this."

"What's the use of keeping your contribution points? What if you take a hit inside and end up flat on a stretcher straight away?"

"People like us have today but no tomorrow, so you really can't skimp on equipment money in the early stages."

"That makes sense." Gan Ming nodded approvingly. "Then I'll go back and buy some today."

The skinny guy looked him up and down twice, instantly growing interested.

"Do you have a team?"

"No, by myself."

"Huh? By yourself?"

The skinny guy raised his eyebrows.

"Do you know what the situation is like inside the tunnel?"

"The monsters inside all travel in groups, almost none of them stray alone. If you go in by yourself and your equipment is like this..."

"Thanks for the reminder." Gan Ming replied again.

"How about teaming up? Over our side..."

Ahem.

A crisp, decisive cough came from behind.

The skinny guy immediately shut his mouth.

Gan Ming followed the direction of the guy's shoulder and glanced back at the two people standing in line.

One had the build of a burly man, arms crossed over his chest, his expression not exactly fierce,

but the meaning in his gaze was very clear: "Don't bother."

Beside him was a female Awakened wearing goggles.

She wasn't looking at Gan Ming; she was inspecting the supplies inside her ring.

Gan Ming withdrew his gaze and smiled at the skinny guy.

"Thanks for the invite. Actually, I'm just messing around casually. If it doesn't work out, I'll just fall back to the outer edges of the Woodlands."

"Oh, oh... Alright then." The skinny guy scratched the back of his head. "Be careful then."

The line continued to move forward.

Gan Ming walked up to the guard station entrance and took out his identity card.

Beep.

The scan passed.

The security personnel's gaze merely lingered for an extra second on his two lonely pieces of defensive gear before stepping aside to clear the path, saying nothing.

Gan Ming stepped into Tunnel Zone Seven.

The moment he stepped onto the tunnel floor, the atmosphere changed abruptly.

The temperature dropped by a good several degrees noticeably.

The gravel beneath his feet carried a damp, sticky sensation.

The entrance was a wide descending slope.

On the reinforced concrete walls on both sides, glowing ores corroded by Source Essence were embedded, their pale micro-light illuminating the slope like a morgue corridor.

Gan Ming took a dozen steps forward.

Behind him, the skinny guy and his two teammates also entered one after another.

Then...

The skinny guy saw the figure of that fellow up ahead, who only wore two pieces of equipment, begin to fade.

First his outline blurred.

Then his entire body, along with those shabby chainmail armor and the sword at his waist, was erased from vision together.

In less than a second, even his footsteps vanished.

The skinny guy's pupils contracted.

He abruptly turned his head to look at the burly man beside him and whispered,

"Holy shit... Is he an assassin? Stealth talent?"

The burly man looked at the empty patch of ground where Gan Ming had disappeared and lowered his crossed arms.

"People with incomplete equipment like that, talk to them less in the future."

"Huh?"

"Anyone who dares to wear two pieces of broken armor to take on Tunnel Zone Seven,"

the burly man walked forward without looking back,

"is either a lunatic or a ruthless bastard. Go around them, understand?"

The skinny guy uttered two "oh"s and caught up with the team.

Yet he couldn't help casting a few more glances back at the empty slope.

Actually.

Gan Ming hadn't entered the tunnel.

Instead, he returned to the vicinity of the slope at the tunnel entrance and stopped, pressing close to the left-hand wall.

Under the Shadowmeld state,

his entire body merged seamlessly with the dim concrete wall.

His breathing slowed down, his footsteps entirely silent.

The Awakened walking on the slope passed by him one after another.

Three-person squads, five-person formations, occasionally paired duos.

The Soul-Stealing Panel refreshed densely on the right side of his vision.

Yet Gan Ming paid no attention to any of this.

He only watched to see if anyone turned their head, frowned, or showed any abnormalities in their footsteps.

However, none did.

An Awakened swordsman wearing a full set of blue gear walked past less than a meter from his right side, chatting with a companion, completely unresponsive.

An Awakened mage whose level displayed as "?"

walked down the slope,

his gaze sweeping across the wall where Gan Ming stood, yet he didn't linger either.

Gan Ming moved forward another two steps, closing in beside a heavy-shield Awakened whose level was likewise "?", with a distance of no more than two meters.

Yet the other person still didn't even lift an eyelid.

It seemed the effect of [Shadowmeld] was quite good.

Gan Ming already had a clear idea in his mind.

Tier-1 Awakened, even if their levels were vastly superior to his,

in the absence of specialized perception-type skills, [Shadowmeld +7] was roughly equivalent to invisibility to them.

But.

His gaze shifted toward the tunnel entrance.

The dozen Tier-2 security personnel there stood in two rows, holding terminals, their expressions relaxed.

Yet three of those gazes were currently looking in his direction.