Chapter 137: Stealth and Observe Evolve! The Player Hunter
Observe and Dash were Faust’s main picks for upgrade; they would take twelve skill stones together and leave him with five.
He could choose to upgrade a Silver-grade skill like Shadow of the Mind, but it would take ten skill stones and leave him with seven skill stones, which he couldn’t use to upgrade any iron-tier skill.
Besides, he wasn’t in desperate need of mental defenses right now.
And with the remaining five skill stones, he could use four to upgrade Light Clones.
He took out and crushed the fifteen stones one by one, then willed them to upgrade his skills.
[Congratulations! You have upgraded "Observe Lv2" to "Hunter Lv3".]
[Hunter Lv3 (Iron): Check your environment for traps or hidden enemies. Mark targets to track for three minutes. Hide your gaze from prey. Requirements: 30 Spirit. Cooldown: 10 seconds.]
[Congratulations! You have upgraded "Dash Lv2" to "Jumper Lv3".]
[Jumper Lv3 (Bronze): Increase speed by 20% for a single movement. Increase speed by 50% for a second movement. You will skip frames for a second, disappearing and becoming untouchable. Cooldown: 5 seconds.]
[Congratulations! You have upgraded "Light Clones Lv1" to "Light Clones Lv2".]
[Light Clones Lv2 (Iron): Create clones that have no weight or strength. These clones are destroyed in one hit, but your speed increases by 30% while they are still moving (Can now create ten Light clones).]
Two of them evolved!
Faust read their new abilities with a nod of appreciation. They nerfed his boy, Dash, and took away its bugs, but the Jumper skill upgrade was bound to have things he could exploit.
Hunter was also good. He would need it to safely spot anyone hiding where he wanted to escape.
He could hear people moving to the back, too. They were going to try and escape being rounded up by the soldiers.
"They’ll be the distraction for me, I guess."
Some of them had to have good stealth skills they were confident in, but they would still mess up one way or the other if they underestimated the military’s ability to spot threats.
He immediately turned on Mirage and Hunter, using them to find a path through the building in which he would not be detected at all.
Observe highlighted hidden cameras and motion sensors hidden around the school with purple lines. Stealth showed the range and field shape of these hidden sensors like he was using special goggles to see different spectrums.
Soon he was at the class window he wanted to use, discreetly searching the forest that surrounded the school. He immediately caught around thirty soldiers hiding and an alarming amount of net traps and alarms.
"Is that a fucking bear trap?" he whispered to himself. "These people are crazy."
Mirage created red arrows in his vision that alerted him when anyone was looking in his direction. His first instinct was to jump out of the window once no one was looking and use Dash, or rather Jumper, while kicking off the walls.
But he decided to wait.
Thalia was vehemently arguing with the students at the entrance of the school on why just working with the military was more sensible than fighting them, using basic logic and facts to combat the emotional annoyance they felt about not controlling every little thing about their lives.
Meanwhile, at the back of the school, students sneaking out were easily caught by the soldiers. They tripped sensors and met people waiting for them at the next turn, or jumped out into the open and had soldiers on them before they even touched the ground.
This created a level of unpredictability in his escape that Faust wanted to avoid.
"Even the nighttime advantage is reduced because of their Night Vision goggles."
After five minutes of arguments and fighting, all eyes were away from Faust. He peeked out one more time to confirm where the hidden cameras were, then moved.
He swung over the window sill, then kicked off to the ground, reaching earth in seconds.
’Jumper!’
His figure blurred and then completely disappeared, only reappearing when his feet touched the ground. The frame jump would make sure the cameras missed him even though they were watching most of the school.
He was gone the moment he landed, using the fifty percent Dash to get to the treeline.
His figure basically flickered from the window to the ground then into the trees so quickly and silently none of the students or soldiers arguing just a few meters away noticed anything.
He weaved past the snipers and hidden soldiers scanning the area who were actually using thermal imaging goggles, instead of night vision. Smart, since someone might have an ability that made them invisible.
He still got past them easily. Sometimes he just relied on Mirage and his speed to just move past people.
[Mirage Lv3 (Iron): Provides you with innate intuition of how to hide your presence. Warns you of approaching eyes. Your presence blends into your environment, causing people to overlook you.]
He relaxed at the edge of the small forest. The city lights glowed in the distance. The scent of pollution and smoke drifted with the cool, evening wind. The difference between Earth’s air and the digital world of the Origin Server was stark.
His footsteps were silent against the leaf-covered ground; even the sigh of relief he let out was quiet.
Still, he was caught.
He felt it before they came out.
Five soldiers in all-black camo, holding modified sub-machine guns with thermal vision helmets covering their faces.
"Nice try, kid," one of them, the leader Faust assumed, said. "But I’ve been prepared. Someone blabbed about how their Stealth skill works. If we look at you, you’ll feel it."
So they waited here, dead silent, making sure not to look in the school’s direction so they could catch him?
"How did you know I was here?" Faust asked for future reference.
"You let out a breath," the squad leader answered, tapping his ear. "We have something for enhancing those sounds."
If it was some kind of sensor, Hunter should have marked it. The device must have relied on the enhancement of sounds.
Faust let out a quick shout to test that, and all the soldiers flinched.
"What are you doing?!" the squad leader squawked. "Oh, I see. You’re extracting information. You’re quite the operator. Are you in the top 100? I get a fee for bringing one of you in."
