A Mid-Door Sniper Duel

With a spell that made people overlook him in place, Old Man strolled down the street.

Old Man had spent the entire day wandering the streets.

His expression grew uglier by the minute.

"There are too many. Far too many."

"Aiya! How can there be so many wraiths?"

"This place is truly steeped in evil. Old Man shouldn't casually interfere with its overall balance."

Old Man rubbed his head, troubled.

These wraiths could do very little harm to Old Man. His magic was no joke, after all.

For ordinary people, however, it was a different story.

Without the appropriate exorcism abilities, even well-trained soldiers would be easily slaughtered.

"It looks like Old Man needs a little help!"

Old Man returned to his antique shop.

The moment he stepped inside, he saw Jiang Xiang.

"A Xiang is here."

Jiang Xiang stood up and took out the Dried Pufferfish he had prepared earlier.

"Uncle, here's something new I found."

With that, he handed the Dried Pufferfish to Old Man.

"A Xiang, Dried Pufferfish of this quality must have been hard to find, right?"

Even as he said that, Old Man was delighted that Jiang Xiang wanted to give him a gift.

Old Man also found it incredible that Dried Pufferfish of such fine quality existed.

Using it to cast certain spells would probably increase their power by several tenths.

First the Dried Lizard, then the Dried Pufferfish.

It seemed A Xiang truly had an affinity for Qi Magic.

It was about time.

Things had been unsettled around here lately. Learning a few skills for self-defense would be good for him.

Old Man made his decision.

Then he looked at Jiang Xiang solemnly and said, "A Xiang, you should have a rough idea of Old Man's abilities by now. My lineage practices Qi Magic. Would you be willing to join our lineage?"

Jiang Xiang froze. He could learn magic this way, too?

He quickly replied, "Of course I would."

This would let him learn magic while also giving him an identity he could use openly.

Most importantly, learning this way would strengthen his own abilities.

Among his current cards, Ah Xing's abilities were martial arts, which he could learn, but Alice's viral abilities couldn't be learned.

Naturally, studying under a veteran mage like Old Man would be great.

Perfect!

Old Man nodded approvingly. "Good. According to our rules, relatives can't take each other as masters, so I'll accept you as a disciple on behalf of my late senior fellow apprentice. There aren't any other formalities now. Go over there and light a stick of incense, and that will complete your initiation."

Jiang Xiang asked curiously, "Uncle, how many people are left in our Qi Magic lineage?"

Jiang Xiang really was curious about how many people belonged to the Qi Magic lineage. After all, he hadn't specified that, so he didn't know how the system would fill in the details.

Still, there probably weren't any others.

"Only the two of us," Old Man said forlornly. "The requirements for practicing Qi Magic aren't particularly high, but they aren't low either. There's a vast, scattered range of things to learn, and most importantly, in the end, part of it comes down to luck."

Luck?

Jiang Xiang was a little confused. Qi Magic depended on luck, too?

On second thought, that was possible. The original work hadn't explained much about the origins and workings of Qi Magic, after all.

After sending out a paper talisman to contact Ah Xing, Old Man turned back and began teaching Jiang Xiang about Qi Magic.

Why did Old Man contact Ah Xing? Jiang Xiang wondered.

At a small secret base S.H.I.E.L.D. had built without authorization.

Nick asked Coulson, "Have you found the source of that John fellow's paper talismans?"

Through his investigation, Coulson had discovered that the doctor, John, had survived the longest out of those several dozen people. Once the others were targeted by the wraith, the longest any of them had lasted was just over three days.

Not only had he escaped being killed the first time, when the wraith took the form of his son, but the second time, when it took the form of his wife, it had shown no sign of attacking him even after four or five days.

If Coulson hadn't brought his people over and interfered, John might never have come to harm.

"Director, according to our investigation, he didn't buy his paper talismans anywhere. Most likely, they were either passed down from his ancestors or made by him."

Having learned his lesson, Coulson had to acknowledge that experts in all sorts of fields were hidden among ordinary people.

That made things troublesome...

Bzz-

"Director, a transmission from Natasha."

"The target has arrived."

"Understood."

Elsewhere.

Old Man pushed open a door he rarely used.

As expected, Coulson and Natasha followed close behind, entering the restaurant after him.

Beyond that, they probably had communicators hidden beneath their hair or collars.

Who knew how many communicators they had concealed all over their bodies?

These two S.H.I.E.L.D. heavyweights had come together.

It seemed that dark, egg-headed Nick Fury might be personally keeping an eye on this matter.

Jiang Xiang instantly realized that the value of this meeting had risen considerably.

Ah Xing seized the initiative.

He immediately addressed Natasha, who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Beautiful, you look decent enough, but I'm a man of strict morals, so please behave yourself. And you, Mr. Bald Agent, please keep your distance. I'm allergic to agents, okay?"

Natasha smoothed her hair and said earnestly, "Mr. Xing, I'm actually from S.H.I.E.L.D. too."

Coulson discreetly touched his collar and pulled a file from inside his jacket.

"No offense intended. These are the cases we've collected of individuals returning from the dead."

With that, Coulson respectfully handed the stack of documents to Old Man.

Ah Xing turned away without saying anything.

Old Man picked up the documents and compared them against the places he had inspected. There were essentially no errors.

There were simply some places he hadn't investigated yet.

Both Old Man and Ah Xing merely looked at the two of them without speaking.

Seeing this, Nick Fury felt there was no point in dragging things out. They were the ones asking for help, after all.

Over the communicator, he signaled for Coulson to speak first.

"Here's the situation, gentlemen. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mission is to protect the human world from supernatural influences and safeguard the entire planet. I would like to sincerely invite you both to join S.H.I.E.L.D. as consultants."

Coulson took the initiative and extended the invitation. His performance at their previous meeting had been rather poor, which could be attributed to his failure to get his emotions under control after encountering the wraith.

This time, he was much better prepared and wasn't nearly as uneasy.

Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s preparations had clearly been rushed last time. For this formal contact, they were no longer scrambling quite so much.