After waking up the next day, I temporarily put aside my thoughts on analysing my own personality and choices, and followed through with my plans to go out into the city and buy a disguise and some other things for the upcoming guild test.

  Out of habit I used concealment magic to leave the hotel, to make sure I wouldn’t be followed. I had no idea whether or not it was pointless or not, but old habits die hard.

  My first destination today was the bank, where I could access the funds I had built up through Genesis over the years.

  The bank wasn’t far away from the hotel I was staying at, so I didn’t bother getting on an autonav, and just walked there. The sidewalks were relatively less crowded than they had been yesterday, since there were grey clouds covering the sky hinting at rain in the near future, so it was easy to slip between everyone while remaining concealed.

  Of course I wasn’t concealing my leaking mana, since it put a lot of strain on my body and [Magical Physique], but the average person wouldn’t be able to detect the relatively low amount of mana I was leaking with the chaotic manascape in the city.

  So I made it to the bank without incident and went through the simple process of withdrawing money from the account. I didn’t have to interact with anyone, and I didn’t have to provide id; all I needed to do was input the account number in an ATM, then I inputted the one-hundred digit long passcode I had asked Genesis to set up for the account.

  With my perfect (with a few exceptions) memory, it was a quick and easy process to withdraw a large amount of cash. It was probably enough to buy a luxury car, and would probably be enough to send an alert to Genesis who co-owned the account, but it was no big deal. I just stuffed the cash into my space bag where it entered my Internal World, ready to be used for untraceable transactions.

  After achieving my first objective for the day, I happily strode out of the bank. However, although it had only taken a short while since I entered the bank, when I exited it was already heavily pouring rain outside, drenching the grey sidewalks an even darker shade, and making the crowds walking them disperse to only a trickle.

  I shrugged as I walked out into the cold rain towards my next destination, ignoring how my clothes quickly became soaked. I would be buying new clothes today anyways, and I didn’t have any particular care for the clothes I was wearing.

  Unfortunately for me, my next destination was not nearby, and I didn’t have a device that could call for an autonav, so I was left to walk in the rain along the mostly empty sidewalks. Thankfully my next destination was a shop where I could obtain such a device, commonly called a cell due to its rectangular shape. It was somewhat ironic how some things shared similar names to things from my life on Earth, but it wasn’t exactly the same, after all, I didn’t speak English anymore.

  My thoughts idled away walking down the sidewalk, and I noticed that I had been walking for quite a while without seeing a street intersection to get me to the other side of the block of buildings I was walking alongside. The ‘city blocks’ in this city weren’t always square, and some of them were more like very long rectangles, making it somewhat difficult to traverse to the other side without going through the gaps and alleyways between the buildings.

  Normally I would’ve just continued walking alongside the street and taken the long but clear way around, but I was in somewhat of a hurry to get a cell. Minex had told me that the shop where I could get a mask only stayed open until around two o'clock, so I wanted to get there as quickly as possible.

  So as I came across one of the alleyways that cut through the line of buildings, I decided to take a chance and walk through it.

  The alleyway was just like any other, making me confident in my decision. However, as I got close to what looked like a T intersection, I felt like I walked through a thin waterfall. But as I stopped to understand what I had just felt, I realized that it was more like I ripped through a thin barrier. Because, although my [Mana Sense] wasn’t in my active Skills, I was able to easily sense that the normal chaotic mana in the city was now almost completely still around me.

  Not only that, but I could hear the sounds of gunfire and fighting, in stark contrast to the quiet alleyway I had just been walking through.

  I swallowed hard as I realized my current situation. Most likely, I had stumbled across a fight between two gangs or rival organizations. It was part of the information on the city that I had downloaded from the future message to my AI. Much of the information was on the different territories in the city and which organization they belonged to, and I quickly made use of my AI and asked it, 'What territory am I in right now?'

  My AI promptly responded to my inquiry, “The area you are currently in is near the borders of Kralium and The Rejects, two different gangs with opposing views that often clash with one another.”

  Oh, well that’s just great isn’t it. I’ll just back up slowly and act like I didn’t hear anything.

  However, just as I was turning around to walk back the way I came, I heard the sounds of some shouting before the gunfire quickly sputtered out and the sound of running.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  My heart jumped to my throat as I thought they might be coming for me, but the sound of running footfalls got quieter, not louder.

  I had already walked back the way I came, but as the sounds of fighting died off behind me I grew curious. Thinking about my original goal of getting to the other side of the block, I thought, ‘Well, if there’s no harm in checking it out if it’s safe.’

  So I turned around and fired off one of my divination crystals to see if it was safe for me to walk through the area I had heard the fighting from. The jumble of information I received in return indicated that there would be no danger, so I confidently strode back into the alleyway.

  As I walked past the point where I had gone through the barrier, I could tell that whatever had been keeping the mana still before had stopped working its magic. The mana was unfrozen now, but it was still slow, though it didn’t seem like it would take long before it assimilated back with the chaos of the city mana.

  Whatever barrier I had crossed through before was seemingly no longer in place; a good sign that whoever had put it up was no longer here. With this new information I was much more confident, and quickly jogged towards where I had heard the fighting coming from.

  I rounded two more corners before arriving at an open courtyard or gathering area. There were metallic stairways and walkways going up the sides of the buildings until the upward view was blocked by what was probably the floor of another building in the city that seemed to reach for the sky.

  The scene of the level I was standing at looked like what I could only describe as the aftermath of a gang fight. The surrounding walls of the buildings were chipped and broken in many spots, mostly clustered around where cover seemed to be. Apparently whatever fight that had taken place here didn’t involve much magic, with most of the damage seemingly caused by projectiles and bullets.

  It made sense, since whatever barrier I had come through had obviously frozen the surrounding mana, making any magic not powered by personal mana pointless to attempt.

  Besides that though, there were some dead bodies lying around the area. All of them looked like Humans, but on closer inspection some of them seemed to have some body parts replaced with bionic parts. My AI was quick to label them as members of Kralium, which made sense, since Kralium was a type of shiny alloy often used in bionics.

  Which meant that the majority of the dead people I could see were members of the opposite gang, The Rejects.

  As I took in the scene and analyzed everything, I came to the conclusion that this must’ve been an ambush made by Kralium on The Rejects. Since the barrier that froze mana would obviously benefit the Kralium the most due to their bionic replacements, and the fact that most of the dead were of The Rejects.

  I shrugged as I came to the conclusion of what had gone down here. In the end it didn’t really matter to me. What really mattered was the fact that the LOOT of the battle was lying around without anyone to claim it.

  So, with a bit of pep in my step, I skipped around to the various bodies to pick up anything of value. It was a bit unpleasant going around looting in soaked clothes, but I would be walking back out into the rain as soon as I got done looting. So I just pulled out a pair of diving goggles from my Internal World, the same ones I had used in the Dungeon of Tribulation, to keep the water in my dripping hair from getting into my eyes as I worked.

  Sure I had to breathe through my mouth, since the goggles also covered my nose, but it wasn’t like I had many options to choose from in my Internal World. With my magic being powered by my own mana, I could take things out, and put things into my Internal World even in this restrictive atmosphere.

  As I walked around picking up things I thought I wanted, I listened to the city backdrop of cars and autonavs in the distance with splashing and falling water all around me. I started my looting by going over the Kralium bodies. I was particularly interested in their bionics, not because I wanted to use them (because I couldn’t really do that), but because they were the most expensive and valuable thing here.

  Needless to say, it was a bit messy, since being respectful with dead bodies wasn’t really a priority in this situation. However I still tried to be as careful as possible, but unfortunately I still ended up splashing some blood on my clothes, and at the very last Kralium blood spurted directly onto my face staining my goggles. They probably had some sort of heart modification that kept their blood pumping even after their death, but removing such a modification was a bit too delicate of a task, seeing as how I had already acquired all of the other visible bionics I decided that the heart wasn’t worth it.

  I tried to wipe the blood off of my goggles, but that ended up smearing all over them instead, obscuring my vision even further. Seeing that getting any more looting done, while not being able to see, would be a problem, and the fact that I probably shouldn’t stay here any longer, I decided to leave and wash off the blood in the rain and change clothes.

  As I picked up the severed limb and was about to send it into my Internal World, I heard the sound of a man’s voice from the side, “Well, well, well what do we have here? A wizard corpse looter is new to me.”

  I froze as I tried to process. Someone snuck up on me? I was being alert the whole time, whoever it is is definitely not some random nobody. I swallowed dryly and postponed putting the limb into my Internal World. I didn’t know how long he had been watching, but the one thing I knew for certain was that this new opponent was someone I had to handle with care.

  A few things I had read in a book in my past life ran through my head as I prepared for the stranger.

  -

  Law 19: Know who you’re dealing with – do not offend the wrong person:

  Never assume everyone will react the same way.

  Choose who you deal with carefully.

  Never offend the wrong person.

  Law 3: Conceal your intentions:

  Keep them off-balance. They cannot prepare if they don’t know. Guide them down the wrong path.

  Law 26: Keep your hands clean:

  Never appear soiled by mistakes.

  Use others as scapegoats to disguise your involvement.

  -

  My mind raced as I prepared myself to engage whoever had seen me. And the fleeting thought crossed my mind, I hope I can finish this up before the store closes…