But before I go out and spend a couple days prepping for the heist, there were a few other matters I wanted to attend to—namely my points. At the moment, I had two Perk points and one Skill point.

As soon as I returned home, tired as I was, I opened up the interface and entered the Perk pavilion. This time around I wanted to grab a Perception Perk. Considering I was about to go on an intelligence-gathering trip, it made sense to do it first.

I arrived in the ancient hall before a large shelf covered in ornate scrolls. A flickering fire illuminated the shelf as per usual, however, it wasn’t alone this time around. A second ball of fire, flickering in a more ghastly hue, sat just beside it. In fact, the ghastly fire sat above every shelf, illuminating them all. Must be the free Perk point.

I was a little tempted to wander around and read every scroll, but I was here for the Perception Perk, so I held myself back. Barely. I doubled down my efforts to reading the various names and short descriptions of the numerous scrolls on display. Now that I was level eight in Perception, there were quite a few interesting new ones.

I narrowed down the list to just three this time around.

「Superior Hearing」

「Technical Expertise」

「Locational Awareness」

All three seemed pretty nice. Superior Hearing had the most obvious effect out of the three. I wasn’t sure how superior it would be though, and I had a slight worry about not being able to control it.

Technical Expertise basically would allow me to diagnose what was wrong with a device or machine almost instantaneously. It would be rather helpful, especially for making new toys or trying to repair ancient stuff. The most use for it, though, would be for stuff I was entirely clueless of their inner workings, such as the Gravitic Chamber or Advent’s Blackout Radiation Chamber, which was what the whole thing worked around.

And lastly, Locational Awareness. It was the most simple out of all three of the Perks. Based on its description, it would allow me to always know my location, no matter where or when I was. The when part was a bit confusing though. Did it mean I would know what time it was too? Or was it referring to some kind of time travel- surely not though. If there was time travel, the world would already be fucked, wouldn’t it?

Out of the three, I leaned more toward Superior Hearing and Technical Expertise. More so the latter. I didn’t grab it for one solid reason though. Unlike most of the other scrolls on the shelf, it was half phantasmal. I could read it, but I couldn’t pick up the scroll. Technical Expertise required Tech level eight.

Which brought me back to where I started, though in a slightly better position. Did I want to wait to spend my Perk point? I had been thinking of using the Skill point on Tech, so it wouldn’t be that long of a wait all things considered.

I leaned up against the shelf and stared out the window of the pavilion, taking in the peace-evoking view of moonlit sakura trees as I ran through several scenarios and questions. Eventually, I decided to just wait.

I was a bit worried about leaving the space since this was the first time I’d ever wanted to leave without picking a Perk. It proved to be a nonissue as I was whisked back to consciousness a few seconds later.

Before doing anything else, I shifted my canteen to produce Sentinel’s Supreme Supplement smoothie in preparation. It was something I should’ve done before even entering the Perk pavilion.

I shifted gears, instead grabbing my notebook before settling back down on the bed. With a thought, the Skill list came up instead. I looked through it briefly, writing down every Skill I had yet to acquire. There was a surprising amount of them, everything from artistic Skills like Sculpting and Writing to Alchemy to even something called Void Mobility. Might be referring to getting around in space, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

Only once I was done with that did I actually go and pick my Skill. Of course, I picked Tech. I had a lot of considerations for what I should pick, for instance catapulting Stealth to level ten, though, at the end of the day, Tech was the one I picked. It was by far the most useful considering the direction I was headed. At least, for now. I’d have to probably start leveling Stealth if I wanted to face off with Edgerunners or the megacorps. Or heck, even the larger gangs.

After making my final decision, my vision turned entirely black. After a few seconds, my perception shifted and I felt as if I stood in an empty abyss. A light flickered on in the distance, revealing a small reading desk.

I headed over to it, well accustomed to how the learning spaces of the interface worked. As soon as I approached, even more lights flicked on all around me, revealing rows and rows of bookshelves. I stood in a fair-sized library, surrounded on all sides by books.

「Read」

I stared at the interface prompt in dismay. Read what? Surely- surely it can’t mean to read all of the books, right? That was just-

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The books shifted, all of them taking on a red glow. Well, almost all of them. One of them had a slight green glow to it, which drew my eye to its spine. It was Mechanisms and You: A Noobs Guide to Industrial Maintenance, something I’d read in the past.

Damn it! Does it really want me to read all of them? How the hell was I supposed to get through this library in the limited amount of time I had? Breathe, Shiro. Just breathe… might as well start somewhere.

I sighed deeply as I grabbed the closest book: Physicist’s Guide to Mechanical Engineering.

— — —

I exited the interface space feeling surprisingly well rested… for all of a couple seconds till the rest of my brain caught up with the agonizing amount of information I’d just gone through. This level of knowledge had been particularly brutal. Not only did I have to read hundreds—maybe even thousands—of books, but after each one I had to go through a proving scenario to show I understood what was in the books.

I failed quite a few of the scenarios, which forced me to go back through the books and retry. Sometimes I even failed repeatedly, dragging out the whole process. I drowned out my sorrows, and the agony in my stomach, with long drags from the Canteen.

Once I was feeling better, I shifted over to the window of my apartment and sat down, staring out at the traffic for a few moments as I settled back into my own skin. This wasn’t exactly how I thought I’d end up when I first set out to spend some of my points, but well… not everything goes as expected.

I’ll wait a couple days till I get a Perk though. In the meantime, I’ll scout out a bit more. How to do that though… hmm… I could get a job for the apartments directly, though it would tie me to the place more than I would like… could I sneak in a camera somehow? That might work the best.

How to do that? Hmm… Cristoph had a wife, maybe that could be my in? Hmm... Ah, yeah, that could work. Been a while since I did the ole' Rotten Lover con. Er- well, a modified version of the Rotten Lover. A safer version? Just needed a few things to get off the ground.

I pushed myself away from the window and headed for the door. A little drizzle of rain fell from the sky as I headed down and out onto the streets, inserting myself into the masses of careless civilians.

I headed for a small corner store called Tony’s Castle, which was a weird mesh of home decorations and a gun store. Or maybe not that weird? As I stepped in and looked around, I noticed almost all of the decorations had been specifically carved to have hidden spots for various weapons.

Anyway, I wasn’t here for any of that. I headed to a small side area full of cards for various events. I picked out a cheesy romantic card covered in hearts, as well as a small teddy bear.

After I returned to my apartment, I wasted no time setting up one of the scrap cameras I had on hand as well as making a new transmitter. I hooked it all up to a small, lightweight battery.

From there, I cut the seam of the teddy bear back open and pulled out a bit of its stuffing. I ripped out both of its eyes and 3D printed two new ones out of the one-way plastic. I also took the opportunity to start printing one more thing. I stuffed in the cheap tech, using the stuffing to get it mounted all right before renewing the seam of the teddy bear.

I flicked open my deck, messing around with some programs for a few minutes before I finally pulled up the camera, staring out of the teddy bear’s eye and out into my apartment. It wasn’t the most sophisticated setup by any means, but it worked for my purposes… at least as long as they didn’t use a BugHound™.

I doubt it though. At most, I was expecting cameras, ID scanners, and the occasional guard for the apartment section’s security. Based on some research through the Net, they were nice apartments… but that was only comparatively to the vast majority of living spaces in Aythryn City. They were only slightly better than Timpton Towers where I first got into the investigatory business.

I checked over the bear several times, carefully making sure everything looked nice before I wrote down some generic sappy love letter stuff into the card. Finding Cristoph’s exact address was rather easy. A cross-reference with what he said back at the gala, his social media accounts, and the blueprint of the building made it simple.

I also packed one of the blouses and skirts I got from Feras for school. They were nice, really nice, and perfect for what I wanted to achieve. I would wear them over there, but skirts and motorcycles weren’t a very nice combination.

I left almost everything I had in my bag behind, only bringing along the Sidewinder and a couple empty cardboard boxes. Just as I was about ready to leave, the printer finished production. A small plastic tag, labeled with Lunar Courier Service in dark blue, sat in the middle of it. A fake corporation, of course.

I left my apartment and headed for Whitechapel Center. On the way, I stopped by a flower stall and snagged a small bouquet of some kind of synthetic red flower. It was pretty, I guess. More importantly, it was cheap.

The bottom three floors of Whitechapel Center were an open-concept mall of sorts. No doors into the building, so technically the first three floors were still outside underneath the rest of the tower. I stopped by a bathroom, swapped clothes for the nicer blouse and skirt, and pinned the Lunar Courier Service badge to my shirt. Disguise complete.

I walked out to the elevator and hit floor eighty-one, the lobby floor for Whitechapel Apartments. The elevator panel cut off at floor eight-one too. Must have a separate elevator. Probably a security feature. It was a rather long trip up, made far worse than it should’ve been by screechy autotune music blaring over the speaker.

By the time I was debating whether or not to jump off the building, the elevator doors dinged. I stepped out into a fairly large hall with a main desk off to one side and elevators across the way. The place even had a built-in bar off to the side and a rather fancy one at that.

I kept my eyes peeled for security, spotting about a dozen cameras scattered around the place. Their black globes blended in with the roof quite well. And I was right about the guards. Seemed like a low-level force though. Untrained at the very least. There were three, one at the bar, one behind the desk, and the last by the elevator. No armor. They looked more like mall cops than anything. Not even a problem.

I headed to the main desk, pausing just in front of a woman typing away on a computer as I threw on an accent. “I gotta delivery for ya.”

The woman eyed me for a moment before her eyes flicked to my chest. “Lunar Courier Service? Never heard of them.”

”Ah, well… ya know how it is in the big city…” I passed over the bear, envelope, and flowers.

”Chek chek…” The woman grabbed the envelope and looked it over. “Alright. Wish my husband could be so romantic…” She muttered as she motioned to the guard behind her. The guy took it and brought the gift to a back room.

I headed back to the elevator. Now was the waiting game.