CH 6

"Young master, the tracking signal you left on Mason Cooper has disappeared."

Batman, who was beating up a black-clad assassin, received the news from Afuo without affecting his punching motion. The butler spoke in a regretful tone:

"He may have been captured by the assassins of Leixiao Gu, or even worse... Jason's tragedy is about to repeat itself. Perhaps you are right, these talented children really need to stay away from you to be safe."

"No!"

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

Master Wayne punched a killer who tried to sneak attack him, with an expressionless face. He said in a deep voice:

"Once is enough for Jason's incident! Keep tracking, Afuo.

When I first met Mason at the police station, I left not only a tracking signal on him, but also a special pheromone that can last for seven days.

Deploy a swarm of drones to search for him throughout Gotham.

We must find him."

"..."

Butler Alfred fell silent for a moment and said:

"Your behavior of leaving countermeasures when you first met others is really despicable. Isn't Diana's incident enough for you to learn a lesson?

That misunderstanding cost you at least five hundred million dollars."

"Just enough to replace the entire power system of the Batplane."

Batman looked at the direction where Mason disappeared and then glanced at the burning wreckage of several fighter jets a few blocks away. He said in a low voice:

"Afuo, you really need to improve your driving skills. You've cost me a lot of money again tonight..."

"It's okay, young master. Wayne Industries' stocks have been doing well lately. The special tracking drone model has been released. Also, the assassins are starting to retreat.

If you want to put trackers on them too, please hurry."

---

When Mason woke up again, he found himself lying on a strange bed. He opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling. Then, a familiar translucent screen unfolded in front of him, displaying his current status:

Name: Mason Cooper

Status: Injured (healing), leg bone fracture (healing), sedative effect (countdown 17 minutes)

Identity: Gotham High School dropout, Penguin betrayer

Skills: Shooting Lv1, Alchemy Lv0, Engineering Lv0, Forging Lv0, Tailoring Lv0

"Your physique is really poor. Except for some talent in shooting, you are almost an ordinary person. I'm starting to regret bringing you back."

A voice sounded from beside the bed, making Mason turn his head with difficulty. It was a middle-aged man wearing a strange coat and an old-fashioned suit as an inner layer.

His face was almost featureless, but the star map mask he had on the side of his hand made Mason recognize his identity.

"Then maybe you should have left me there."

Mason said weakly:

"Before I passed out, I heard you say something about 'honor' and 'Star Council.' Who are you? A member of some mysterious organization in Gotham, like the Court of Owls?"

"Hmm, you even know the Court of Owls? It seems I need to reassess your knowledge."

The guy sat on a chair beside the bed, picked up a recording tablet, and scribbled on it. He then said in a posture of knowing everything without looking up:"But my organization is much more powerful than the Court of Owls. They are not even on the same level. Anything extra will be told to you after you pass the entrance test. I can only tell you what you need to know.

For example..."

The man knocked on the record board in his hand and looked up at Mason, saying:

"I know you are confused about your current situation. You can think of it as a 'selection'.

My team suffered heavy losses during the last exploration operation and had to recruit new members to fill the gap. As you can see, I treated you in my own way, pulling you back from the brink of death.

So, you owe me a favor.

In this way, my request for you to join my team won't be too sudden. I have been observing you since the moment you saved Catwoman."

At this point, the guy smiled as if he had remembered something fun and said:

"Actually, my team is already full. Gotham City is not lacking in talented people with various abilities, and we were planning to start our operation soon.

But at this critical moment, you caught my attention with a series of outstanding performances, so I decided to give you a chance."

"Well, thank you."

Mason replied expressionlessly.

He already felt that something was wrong.

Although the guy in front of him behaved politely, his tone of voice was unquestionable and made people uncomfortable.

It seemed that even pulling Mason into a dangerous exploration operation was a kind of grace from a condescending attitude. From this point of view, this guy must be an arrogant and hypocritical person.

"Can I refuse this operation?"

Mason asked directly:

"I am grateful for saving me, and perhaps I can repay you in other ways. Although I don't have much money now, I have a wealthy friend."

The guy smiled and said nothing, just looked at Mason with a mocking look, as if looking at a person who was talking nonsense. The young man shrugged and asked again:

"What is the operation? Where are we exploring? How long will it take?"

"You'll find out when the time comes."

The guy ended the conversation on his own initiative, stood up, adjusted his collar, and showed a fake smile to Mason:

"There is a day and a half before the operation starts. There are enough guns and accessories you need in the basement of this house. Please prepare as much as possible. Your responsibilities are fire support and sniper.

You can call me Old K, of course, it's a fake name.

You can also try to escape, and I won't stop you.

But your world's secret organization is really great. I happen to have obtained some interesting things from a woman named Amanda Waller."

He pointed to the connection between his neck and spine with malice and then turned and left. Mason's face changed slightly, and he put his weak hand on his neck.

There was a just-healed wound there.

At the moment his finger touched it, a prompt appeared in Mason's eyes:

"Detected engineering explosive, analyzing... The item is a 'Suicide Squad implanted micro-bomb,' with both active and passive triggering modes. After detonation, it will form a deadly explosion in the spine.

The item is very precise, and any unnecessary touch will cause it to detonate immediately."It is recommended to attempt dismantling when Engineering reaches Level 2, First Aid reaches Level 3, or when possessing fast healing medicine. In the blueprint analysis..."

"Fuck!"

Mason clenched his fists. That bastard!

As expected, with so many lines, he couldn't be a good person, right?

But the young man didn't despair. He didn't have time to despair, nor was he the kind of person who would give up on reality. Otherwise, he wouldn't have risked saving the Catwoman after being reborn.

The character card had already provided a solution, so what he needed to do next was simple: seize every moment to quickly improve his Engineering skills to Level 2.

First Aid hadn't been unlocked yet, but Mason knew what to do.

He endured the numbness in his body and struggled to sit up, pulling open the bedside table to find a fruit knife and a family first aid kit.

After taking a few deep breaths, the young man grabbed the knife and pricked his finger. As the blood flowed out, he clumsily stopped the bleeding and bandaged the wound with alcohol cotton and gauze.

A minute later, Mason saw the prompt that the First Aid branch had been unlocked.

But that cold Level 0 made him feel extremely frustrated.

That damn Old K said that they would start exploring in a day and a half. It was possible to rush Engineering in a day and a half, but First Aid... he couldn't keep cutting himself and bandaging himself up like this.

Regardless of whether he was playing for his life or not, the efficiency was too low.

Thinking this, Mason took off the bandage on his finger and rewrapped it. This time, he had some experience, and the result was obviously better than the last time.

"Successfully completed a standard rapid bandaging. First Aid proficiency increased."

Mason looked at the prompt in front of him and sighed again. He took off the bandage and started to wrap it for the third time, but this time he saw the other things in the first aid kit. He remembered the process of wilderness bandaging that he had learned before and tried it out.

"Successfully completed an excellent technique rapid bandaging. First Aid proficiency increased by X5."

"Hmm?"

The young man's eyes lit up.

Did this thing require skill to gain experience?

It couldn't just be based on the number of times.

He rubbed his chin and recalled his experience of practicing shooting and assembling firearms. He quickly came to a conclusion.

"This system requires me to strive for excellence every time I create something, so that I can quickly improve my proficiency in a short period of time.

Come to think of it, shooting was the same way.

There were skill prompts when aiming accurately, but not when firing randomly.

I think I understand now."

Ten minutes later, Mason looked at the indented fingers from repeatedly bandaging. He decided to take a break and go to the basement to see if he could get enough weapon parts.

Then he found out that he had underestimated Old K.

The basement in front of him was filled with three large cabinets of various firearms and modification parts.

From pistols to rifles, and even heavy machine guns. From classic bolt-action rifles to futuristic modular rifles, everything was available.

There was even a box in the corner of the basement that neatly stored various explosives, micro drones, and unopened anti-tank rocket ammunition boxes.Although everything here is still within the realm of "individual weapons", the sheer quantity of them cannot be called a collection, it should be called an "arsenal".

The terrifying amount of explosives made Mason pause for a moment.

So many explosives could easily destroy the entire Gotham East District overnight. Indeed, anything is possible in this magical city.

"Detection of a large number of engineering components, basic weapon blueprints updated."

As Mason surveyed the entire basement, his character card continuously flashed with one new weapon blueprint after another, resembling a database update.

As before, these blueprints were all products of component strengthening based on the weapons in front of him. Although they looked different, they all had a unified name, which was the "Engineer Engineering Gun Series".

Obviously, the cold and aloof character card had its own logic for categorizing manufactured objects.

And when Mason saw the astonishing number of weapons in front of him, he quickly revealed an expectant smile.

"What a collection! I'll dismantle them all and reassemble them, then dismantle them again and reassemble them. I have enough materials to raise my engineering skills to Level 2 before I die.

I'll be very busy for the next day and a half."

Mason strode forward, rudely grabbing the chair next to him and viciously smashing it into Old K's weapon collection cabinet.

Amidst the sound of shattering glass, he took out a sleek and simple assault rifle, full of minimalist industrial beauty, and walked towards the workbench.

A few minutes later, holding disassembly tools, Mason looked at the various gun parts piled up on the table. He removed the barrel and trigger.

"Successfully completed one standard process - engineering item disassembly, engineering skill proficiency increased."

The young man reached out and touched the disassembled components in front of him, with an information label popping up for each part.

The vast majority were evaluated as "standard items", but the disassembled barrel had an "excellent item" evaluation that made Mason's eyes light up.

He took out this excellent quality barrel and put it aside, selecting an ordinary barrel from the accessory box to reassemble the parts in front of him.

"Successfully completed one standard process - engineering item assembly, engineering skill proficiency increased."

"That's it!"

Mason breathed a sigh of relief. Starting the second disassembly and reassembly, after repeating it several times, he became more and more proficient, and his disassembly speed became faster and faster.

Finally, after about the tenth assembly was completed, a prompt that Mason had been waiting for finally appeared:

"Successfully completed one excellent process - fast and accurate assembly, engineering skill proficiency increased by X5."

"Come on!"

The young man grinned and continued to repeat this process until his arms were a little sore, then he stopped.

He sat in the chair next to him, panting, and closed his eyes to disassemble this gun. At first, he was slow, but the muscle memory formed by repeated disassembly allowed him to complete the process intact.

However, disassembly was simple, but assembly was difficult.

Mason could only grope his way through this activity, and this time it took him several minutes to put the last component in place, but he did not open his eyes throughout the entire process.

His attempt was worth it.

"Successfully completed one outstanding process - fast assembly, engineering skill proficiency increased by X10."

"That's it! I knew it!"Mason excitedly opened his eyes and kissed the rifle he had assembled with his eyes closed for almost an hour. He had finally figured out the tricks to improve his branching skills.

"Now it's time to replicate this process."

The young man closed his eyes again, satisfied, and disassembled and assembled the gun again. But this time, the prompt disappointed him:

"The blueprint has been fully mastered, and the proficiency of engineering skills cannot be improved."

"Well, it seems that exploiting bugs to gain experience is not going to work."

Mason sighed and put the gun back in the collection cabinet behind him. He picked up another gun and quickly disassembled it at the workbench.

First, he inspected the parts and, not finding any excellent quality components, began practicing disassembly and assembly.

The process was tedious, but the young man knew he had to make the most of his time. On the one hand, Old K had generously provided so many components that he would be doing himself a disservice if he didn't use this opportunity to gain engineering experience. On the other hand, he really needed to prepare enough for the dangerous exploration mission.

Old K was hypocritical and arrogant and didn't even try to hide the danger. He told Mason that his previous team had been wiped out and that he had found "new people." In reality, weren't they disposable cannon fodder controlled by these miniature bombs?

In a situation where the other party held the bomb switch and he couldn't dismantle the miniature bomb, it was better to be practical. As for waiting for Batman to rescue them, that was not even an option in Mason's mind. It was not that he didn't trust Master's integrity and action ability; it was mainly because the mysterious Old K could take himself away from those black-clad assassins even when Batman entered the battlefield. This indicated that this guy might not be Batman's opponent, but it would be easy to kill him before Master intervened.

"I really have to rely on myself this time."

Mason disassembled the gun while rubbing his forehead. His neck and back were slightly numb, and then he squinted his eyes, and a fierce light burst out of his eyes.

"I have only been reborn for less than three days, and one exciting thing after another has happened. They say that a purposeless life needs a goal to live better..."

The young man moved his neck and disassembled the weapon in a vicious way.

He muttered to himself:

"Old K, right? Star Alliance, right? Kidnapping me to be your cannon fodder, right? Pretending to be a big shot, right? As the philosopher said, having a small goal first can make the mind peaceful! The rest, enjoy the new life and so on... After killing you, we'll talk!"