The captive had been sniped, and the people of Green Street returned to their territory in disgrace.
In a basement not far from headquarters at Blackwood Building, a young man was wiping down his beloved sniper rifle.
A few minutes earlier, he had used that firearm to snipe an important captive from the gang.
Then, thanks to his identity, he had easily shaken off the suspicion of the gang members conducting the manhunt and returned to this basement.
Yet he had not fled, as though he were waiting for something.
Before long, a cloaked man entered without making a sound.
The young man seemed to have expected him. Without turning around, he remained focused on wiping his sniper rifle.
The cloaked man asked, "Did you take care of it?"
"Yeah."
The young man nodded.
Then, as if he had remembered something, his expression darkened. "Old Captain, this was the last thing I promised you. I won't do this again."
"Mm."
The cloaked man did not care in the slightest. He had come to silence him anyway.
At that moment, the young man seemed to have guessed something as well. A bitter, complicated smile hung at the corner of his lips.
He set down the rag in his hand. Tears shimmered in his eyes as he looked at the cloaked man one last time. "Old Captain, I've repaid what I owed you."
Hearing that, the cloaked man's gaze sharpened slightly. After a moment of silence, he said, "You won't even try to run?"
The young man smiled and shook his head. "You saved my life, Old Captain. When I agreed to do this for you, I had already prepared myself for this. If you don't kill me, I won't have the face to remain in the gang."
"Any last words?"
"No. I don't have any family. If I die, I die. No one will care. I won't cause you any trouble, Captain."
"..."
The young man's final words seemed to touch something in the cloaked man's heart, but he still struck without hesitation.
Looking at the corpse, a faint tremor finally appeared in those cold, sinister eyes.
That captive who had been taken alive had to die.
But he also knew it was the chairman's test. At that time, whoever went to kill the captive would definitely be the mole.
So, they needed an intermediary who would not be suspected.
If he had not been driven into such a desperate situation, he would not have wanted to kill the old team member he had personally trained.
Not long afterward, Suren, Kai, and the others returned to Green Street.
Once they returned to familiar territory, the gang members' gloomy moods quickly vanished. With a hundred thousand in hand, the coming days would be a carnival for them.
The convoy regrouped in the same alley where they had assembled. Ammunition was put into storage, combat losses were tallied, damaged motorcycles were sent to the repair shop, and severely wounded men were referred to the mechanical clinic.
Gang fights were commonplace, and everyone knew the procedures like the back of their hand.
Before long, all the miscellaneous matters had been handled.
Captain Kai was still somewhat downcast. He said to everyone, "All right, go do whatever you need to do."
Sam and the other veterans had been impatient for ages. Waggling their eyebrows, they said, "Captain, then we're off?"
Kai nodded. "Mm. Don't go too wild. Remember to gather on time for patrol tomorrow."
"Got it!"
The veterans scattered excitedly.
Suren had originally intended to leave with the crowd as well, but Kai called out to him.
"You did very well in this operation."
Kai praised Suren's performance, then got straight to the point. "You're a good shot. If you're thinking of advancing to a higher profession, practice diligently in your spare time. If you meet the Job Advancement requirements, I'll put in a word with the officers. The gang will allocate some resources to you then."
"Mm, thank you, Captain."
Suren nodded.
However, he did not intend to place his hopes for Job Advancement on the gang, nor did he want to become some "gang prodigy."
He already had the Job Advancement Material for the Abomination Puppeteer. Once he sold the spoils from killing Baldhead, he would probably have enough money for the time being. He intended to develop quietly. Before he had the means to protect himself, he had no plans to stand in the spotlight.
Kai was likely still troubled by the captive's death. Though he wanted to talk some more, he did not have the mood for it.
"If there's anything you don't understand about supernatural Job Advancement, or if you run into any trouble, tell me."
After a pause, Kai forced a smile onto his face. "Everyone worked hard on this mission. If there's nothing else, Suren, go relax too."
"Mm."
Suren did not say much more.
Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something and asked, "By the way, Captain. I have a question for you."
Kai raised a brow. "What is it?"
Suren deliberately put on a hesitant look before asking, "Earlier, I saw that Boss Angel's alchemical wings were incredibly powerful. I wanted to ask... if I get the chance to advance to a higher profession in the future, is it possible for me to obtain that kind of Augment Armor blueprint?"
This was something he had wanted to ask for a while. Wing Augment Armor was the kind he liked best among those he had seen so far. It could fly and fight. More importantly, compared with Augment Armor like Vajra Scales and the Golden Humerus, which focused on making one a tank, those wings suited his career plans better.
"Haha, you think that Augment Armor looks cool too, huh?"
Kai's eyes suddenly lit up when he heard that.
He smiled. "Back then, I wanted Boss Angel's Thousand Kill Wings too. I thought flying through the sky and using the wings as throwing knives was super cool."
It was as though everyone had a naive dream in childhood, only for it to become unattainable once they grew up.
Kai looked at Suren as if he had found a kindred spirit.
But then, his tone shifted. "Later, after I qualified to become a professional, I realized that was simply impossible."
Suren frowned in confusion. "Impossible?"
Kai seemed to realize Suren had misunderstood, so he explained, "In the gang, as long as you have made a certain amount of contribution, you can buy any Augment Armor blueprint in the gang warehouse at below-market prices. You can even buy the alchemical blueprints of the officers and the chairman!"
Suren listened without rushing to respond.
That was also what he had learned before. As long as one joined a gang and made even a little contribution, one could spend money to buy Augment Armor blueprints.
That was one of the benefits of joining a gang.
That was why he had asked the question just now, and why he had been puzzled when Kai said it was "impossible."
Kai smiled and explained further. "You should know that there are conditions for professionals to refine Alchemical Implants. You need a certain amount of 'Containment Value.' Boss Angel's Augment Armor has extremely strong curse characteristics, so it requires a very high Containment Value from the body."
"Containment Value?"
An unfamiliar term surfaced in Suren's mind. He truly had not known about that.
Only then did he learn that Containment Value was roughly equal to Dark Spiritual Energy plus one's Tier.
Kai continued, "For ordinary people like us, using a Breathing Technique to meditate until our Dark Spiritual Energy is full usually gets us to around seven or eight hundred points. With an advanced Breathing Technique, that upper limit might be higher."
After a pause, a bitter smile appeared on his face. "Boss Angel's Thousand Kill Wings is Silver Grade Augment Armor, and its requirements are extremely high. To fully contain it in your body, you need at least nine hundred to a thousand points to ensure you won't suffer backlash from the Augment Armor's curse characteristics and mutate!"
"Oh?"
Suren understood now.
So that was the difference behind quality classifications like "Black Iron" and "Silver Tier" for Augment Armor. The higher-grade the Augment Armor, the stronger the body had to be to withstand it without mutating.
But when he heard that the Silver Implant Thousand Kill Wings required a thousand points of Dark Spiritual Energy to ensure one would not mutate, Suren's thoughts became somewhat strange.
He looked at the data panel, where his maximum Dark Spiritual Energy had already risen to "1157." His brow twitched as he thought, That Heigam Breathing Technique the original owner learned seems to be pretty high-grade...
Ordinary people only had seven or eight hundred points when their First Tier Dark Spiritual Energy was full, while even impressive officers only had a thousand. He was already nearly at twelve hundred.
And it still felt as though he had only barely reached fullness, not his limit.
That was enough to show that either the gap between Breathing Techniques was enormous, or the original owner had been exceptionally talented.
Before Suren could think further, Kai continued, "So you understand why I said it was 'impossible,' right? It's not that you can't get the blueprint. It's that even if you got it, you couldn't use it. Boss Angel's Dark Spiritual Energy is only so high because he used to hunt the wilderness outside the city year-round and stayed in high-mutation environments for long periods."
Staying in high-mutation environments for long periods could indeed increase the body's tolerance for Dark Spiritual Energy. However, that method had a higher chance of causing "mutation" than increasing one's strength.
"Oh."
Suren nodded thoughtfully, but he was thinking about something else.
In other words, given his physical condition, could he actually choose something even better than Silver Tier Augment Armor?
At that moment, Kai remembered how Smoker Boss had scolded him into a sorry state when he had once said he wanted Thousand Kill Wings.
With a bitter smile, Kai copied that same line of reasoning. "The best Alchemical Implant is one that first matches your innate abilities, then your profession. Thousand Kill Wings actually isn't very suitable for a gunner profession. It's better suited for assassins and rangers. I think you should look for blueprints that enhance vision and skill, such as the powerful Titanium Alloy Eye used by gunners on the market, or the Dexterous Hand Bone."
"Ordinary Augment Armor blueprints only cost twenty or thirty thousand. Now that you've received your bonus, keep an eye out. Blueprints are hard to come by. If you find one that suits you, make sure you buy it."
"If you aren't satisfied with the blueprints within the gang, you can also visit Shadow Alley in North City. The Black Market occasionally has unexpectedly good items."
"Oh, you haven't had your Dark Spiritual Energy tested yet? Whenever you think it's necessary, I'll take you to headquarters. They have testing equipment there that can give you an accurate understanding of your condition."
Listening to Kai's grandmotherly advice, Suren smiled. "All right."
Before you continue