Chapter 45

When David returned home, it was already four in the afternoon. While fiddling with the small simulator monitor in his hands, his mind calculated just how he should handle the situation he was facing.

The simple solution was to hand the video recordings that he had now over to the police or send them to Galen. Everything would be over for Mr. Strat and Trainer Jeremy then.

However, what David needed right now was a period of hibernation. His strength was increasing rapidly, and with the help of the Shadow Servant, plenty of credit points, and his resources, he believed that he could become an armorer very quickly, as long as he was given some time.

Once he became an armorer, he would have the ability to defend himself.

Of course, he also had another option, which was to kill Mr. Strat himself.

As he pondered upon that possibility, David’s eyes were filled with a murderous intent.

The David of today was no longer the same person he had been when he first arrived into this world, much less his gullible predecessor. Having gone through numerous fusions of combat Knowledge Orbs, his mind had gone through thousands of dangerous battles.

In the illusion, he had been wounded nearly a hundred times and been on the brink of death more than ten times. He had also killed countless Bugs and armorers.

Although it was just an illusion, those experiences his soul had gone through were real. They not only gave David the mastery of the knowledge and combat ability, they also had an additional impact: he was no longer as fearful as before when he thought about killing someone. Instead, he felt an impulse to do it immediately.

Of course, that change would also help him adapt and survive in this world.

“For the sake of my father, for the sake of little Eddie, and for the sake of my stepmother Bersha, Strat cannot stay alive!” David concluded with a resolute mind. When he came up with the plan, he decided to settle on it.

Mr. Strat wanted to kill him and Hans and take control of Little Eddie, taking away a husband from Bersha and a father from Little Eddie. No matter who Mr. Strat was, David would not allow him to ruin his life and hurt his loved ones.

It would not be easy to kill Mr. Strat, since he had two bodyguards with him at all times. However, David had an advantage that no one else had: he could access Mr. Strat’s daily schedules and agendas.

As long as he seized the opportunity at the right time, David would be able to make sure Mr. Strat regretted his decisions for the rest of his life.

With that in mind, David opened Mr. Strat’s recent schedule and travel plans, looking for such an opportunity.

Unfortunately, it seemed that because Mr. Strat had recently noticed wrinkles and other signs of aging on his face, he had reduced his plans to go out. Essentially, he went nowhere except for his office at the Strat Hotel.

As for entering the hotel, David gave up on that idea without giving it a single thought.

He beckoned the Shadow Servant to come over, after which he pressed his hand against it and made it open his attribute panel.

Name: David Karl

Strength: 3.07 (1)

Agility: 1.9 (1)

Physique: 3.07 (1)

Mental Energy: 3.4 (1)

Literature (3% Intermediate), Mathematics (5% Intermediate), General (51% Beginner), Bodywork (1% Intermediate), Longsword Mastery (5% Beginner), Electronic Warfare Retaliation (98% Proficiency), Warhammer Mastery (83% Intermediate), Sniper (20% Intermediate), Shield Mastery (50% Intermediate), Heavy-axe Mastery (70% Intermediate)

His list of abilities was so long, it could blind one’s eyes if they saw it.

Even more impressive, each of those combat abilities could only be achieved by an ordinary person after going through years of trials, tribulations, and growth during life and death situations.

However, the only ability he could use against Mr. Strat was sniping.

Although his sniping ability was only at the 20%-Intermediate level, he understood from the illusions just why the Sniper Armorer was known as a special existence among armorers. Their offensive power was very terrifying.

Even if the Sniper Armorer was a great distance away from the enemy, he could become the enemy’s nightmare.

Although he was not a Sniper Armorer and could not get a specialized sniper rifle, he knew that there was a place where there was a sniping weapon that was on par with, or even better than, the specialized sniper rifles used by Sniper Armorers.

It was the city defense weapons on the walls of Pelan City. Since they were the walls that protected Pelan City and ensured their security, the authorities had installed a variety of powerful city defense weapons on them.

The weapons included heavyweight laser cannons, air defense quick-fire cannons, Gauss rifles, energy shields, and of course, the long-range sniper cannon, which was a more conventional long-range weapon.

The long-range sniper had a range of 5,000 meters and utilized the Class 1 ammunition, just like the Sniper Armors did. However, the rounds were much larger.

Such weapons were designed to target a single Bug that was close to the city’s defensive wall. They were manned and controlled by a combination of optical computers and sniper specialists.

Unlike the Sniper Armorers that fought in the wild, the city defense long-range sniper cannon had a fixed position and all reaction force would be absorbed by the walls. The attack would only require the operator to control it using the optical computer, while in a safe spot that was a little farther away.

Many of those who had a talent in sniping but could not become Sniper Armorers chose to become operators of long-range sniper cannons.

The other weapons used for city defense would destroy the Class 1 Bugs completely after launching an attack, thus the benefits would decrease as well.

However, the long-range sniper cannon was different from the rest. The attacks launched with it were penetrative and the damage would be more concentrated, hence not causing much damage to the Bug corpses. It brought benefits to the city every time it was used to attack a single Bug.

The Class 1 ammunition that was shot out would be retrieved again by a professional scanning device, making it the most commonly used weapon for city defense.

If there were no sound-proofing devices at the edges of the city, the sounds of the long-range sniper cannon’s firing would be heard by most people in the city.

The first thing that came to David’s mind was the long-range sniper cannon, but of course, he would never use Electronic Warfare Retaliation to attack the city’s defensive systems.

If he were to be discovered, he would definitely face the death penalty. If he caused the city defense system to malfunction and become disabled for a short period of time, the consequences would be disastrous.

Besides, although he had 98%-Proficiency in electronic countermeasures, there was still nothing he could do to attack such a sophisticated and complex military defense system.

It was simply not a confrontation of matching levels. Most of the most advanced equipment used by the military were incomparable to the ones used by civilians, as there were numerous military-specialized technologies.

If David merely relied on a medium-sized server to challenge the military’s defense system, he would be thinking too greatly of himself.

Once a professional from the military’s Electronic Warfare Division was alerted, he would have nowhere to escape.

David was trying to directly manipulate the long-range sniper cannon from a physical level. Regarding that, he could make the Shadow Servant manipulate the long-range sniper cannon as long as he could climb up the city wall. In fact, even if he didn’t climb the city wall, but stayed within ten meters from the optical computer, he could still make the Shadow Servant manipulate the long-range sniper cannon.

Bold plans popped up in his mind and he began to search for relevant information from all sources.

After practicing the eighteen movements of Bodywork at night, he did not go to sleep right away, instead going to the server room.

He put on the virtual helmet and entered the virtual world, where he then manipulated and modified the data again.

He imported the information that he found after a search into the virtual world, one by one. Soon, a 20-meter-tall city wall appeared in the virtual world. A huge building appeared 4.6 kilometers away from the building soon after.

If anyone saw that building, they would definitely recognize it to be the Strat Hotel.

David had copied the design of Strat Hotel from Stat Hotel’s security server and rebuilt it in the virtual world.

The highest part of the Strat Hotel was Mr. Strat’s massive, luxurious office, which was not blocked by any buildings.

There were very few high-rise buildings in Pelan City, and the Strat Hotel was one of the tallest.

The next step was to pull up information on the weather conditions. With a distance of 4.6 kilometers, he needed the weather to be pleasant in order to achieve accuracy.

David input all of the weather forecasts for the next few days into the medium-sized server, as well as the satellite cloud movement map that had been announced by the officials.

In the virtual world, he extrapolated the daily weather conditions for the next three days, including temperature, humidity, wind, and other aspects.

David also conducted the bullet trajectory computational analysis practice that he had been performing previously, using that scenario. The calculations were rather consistent despite the great distance.

He only came out of the virtual world when he received an alert from his identity bracelet.

This time, the identity bracelet had prompted him because it was time for him to fuse the Knowledge Orb again, as 24 hours had passed since the last time he had fused one.

Although he only had two remaining Knowledge Orbs to fuse, David did not want to waste any time at all.

The two remaining Knowledge Orbs in the Shadow Servant’s body were Longsword Mastery (80% Proficiency) and Spear Mastery (99% Proficiency).