Old Ed was silenced by the rebuttal and fell into a quiet retreat within his mind.
Elias didn't bother with him. He looked up once more, squinting to confirm the position of the dim moon obscured by the smog.
Spirituality surged.
He directly draped himself in the upgraded 【Moonlight Veil】.
When the moonlight transformed into a veil and draped over him, Elias immediately felt that the effect of the Scale Two 【Moonlight Veil】 had improved by a massive margin compared to its Scale One version!
Originally, even on a night with poor visibility, the Scale One 【Moonlight Veil】 was, at best, a flawed optical invisibility even with the moon's blessing.
In essence, the spell's effect wasn't true "invisibility."
It merely used light refraction to forcibly add a layer of environmental concealment to his body.
The best this concealment could achieve was lowering his presence and reducing his spiritual traces.
If a transcendent who knew what they were looking at looked closely, they could still spot the anomalies.
However, now.
After the spell had advanced, the concealment provided by this moon veil had undergone a qualitative leap!
Especially since it was a moonlit night.
Even under Hope County's wretched industrial smog, where the moonlight didn't penetrate well and only a few rays could struggle through, the effect of the upgraded spell far exceeded the limits of what Scale One could achieve!
In the blink of an eye.
Elias's lean frame completely vanished within the dark alley!
It was as if he had evaporated into thin air, leaving not even a faint outline behind!
Of course.
The price for enjoying this top-tier stealth experience was that his spirituality consumption had doubled.
Moreover, due to the smoggy weather, 【Moonlight Blessing】 felt as though it were being suppressed by a heavy shroud.
Even though Elias was now at Scale Two, his spirituality recovery speed was much slower without being able to fully bathe in the moonlight.
However, he wasn't afraid of the consumption.
After all, his spirit bar was naturally long.
"Kid, are you celebrating too early?"
"Did you forget that mystics have a certain spell at Scale Two?"
In his mind, Old Ed finally found a chance to strike back during the long silence and suddenly spoke up again.
"It's called 【Reveal Invisibility】."
"..."
"You really know how to pick your moments, Old Ed."
"You never miss a chance to get the last word in."
Elias couldn't help but roast the old man for his stubborn need to save face.
"Except, you're wrong, old-timer," Elias retorted confidently in his mind.
"Back when I was in a death match with Firth in Hastings Port, I noticed something."
"The effective detection radius of that guy's 【Reveal Invisibility】 was a mere ten meters!"
"Oh, that's about thirty feet."
"Let's assume Cecil knows this spell too."
"Her spiritual level is Scale Three at best, definitely not over Scale Four."
"Setting aside whether she'd use a Scale Three or Scale Four version of the spell to reveal me—even if she did!"
"Let's just add another thirty feet to her upgraded detection range."
"And the maximum range for 【Mental Channel】 is sixty feet."
Elias drew a clear geometric defense diagram in his mind.
"So in theory, as long as I control the animal and keep it at a safe distance of six feet from her to observe, it would be very difficult for her to discover my true body."
"But in reality, six feet is already quite close. I don't actually need to be that close."
Elias shrugged.
"I can just move around her and any people she might have brought, then use the small animal I'm controlling to scout."
"Damn it!"
Old Ed completely deflated after hearing this airtight tactical deduction.
The old man lamented gloomily: "Boring! Truly boring!"
"Congratulations, you've completely seen through the cowardly essence of invisibility spells in actual combat."
"Stay calm, stay calm," Elias chuckled triumphantly in his mind.
"This is what they call 'Mastering math and physics lets you walk the world without fear'!"
"I can roughly understand math and physics," Old Ed asked humbly, "but what on earth is the 'chemistry' part?"
"You can think of it as alchemy."
"Oh, that makes sense!" the old man realized.
...
With the tactic set, Elias immediately sprang into action.
He activated Spirit Vision and soon found a stray cat fighting a life-and-death battle with a large rat near a trash can in the alley corner.
Elias released his new Scale Two spell without hesitation—【Mental Channel】.
An invisible spiritual tentacle extended instantly, forcibly establishing a one-way mental channel between his own spirituality and the stray cat!
"Meow—!"
The stray cat's fur stood on end, and its body froze as if someone had pressed the pause button.
The rat, which had been pinned under the cat's claws and was half-dead, saw its chance and fled, immediately ducking into the dark sewers and escaping with its life.
However, to Elias's surprise, after using this spell, this spiritual connection wasn't a direct control of the cat's limbs and body.
Instead, he had to constantly apply strong psychological suggestions to the cat's cerebral cortex through the mental channel!
He had to make the cat's subconscious believe these were its own decisions, causing it to act according to his suggestions.
The difficulty of this operation was much higher than direct control, but it was also more discreet, as it wouldn't cause others to suspect the cat.
Once he was familiar with the operation, Elias immediately shared the cat's vision onto his own retinas.
Next, he slapped a 【Traceless Step】 onto his own legs.
His entire being became as light as a weightless feather.
Invisible and traceless, Elias became like a non-existent ghost, completely merging into the night as he crept toward Spark Square.
In the center of Spark Square, Ms. Cecil stood quietly beneath the statue.
However, time ticked by.
The mobile support squad she was waiting for had yet to arrive, and the ordinary street vendors who had been lingering nearby gradually packed up and left.
The vast square became empty and deathly silent.
Just as Cecil was becoming impatient and preparing to use the Origin Web information node to urge them again, she was greeted by a cat.
A dirty black and white tuxedo stray slowly emerged from the shadows at the edge of the square.
It walked with an elegant feline gait, heading straight for a spot about six feet in front of Cecil and sitting down.
Its emerald green eyes stared directly at Cecil.
In the middle of the night, in an empty central square, a stray cat stopping at this sensitive moment in front of an investigator and staring her down?
Something was definitely wrong.
She immediately realized that this was no ordinary cat!
Cecil didn't hesitate; Spirit Vision and 【Arcane Detection】 were deployed simultaneously toward the cat!
However, within her detection range, apart from some faint environmental spiritual fluctuations, she didn't see any transcendent's physical form or outline.
She only saw a layer of spiritual light deep within the cat's pupils that didn't belong to the cat itself.
"This isn't magic!" Cecil's heart skipped a beat as she made an instant judgment.
"This is a pure spiritual manipulation spell! It comes from the methods of a Moon Lord believer!"
But... Cecil's brow furrowed deeply.
In her memory, this spell for establishing a remote mental channel required at least a Scale Two rank to barely perform!
And this was inconsistent with the clues she had surveyed at the treatment room this afternoon.
But regardless, since the opponent had come to her, Cecil took a deep breath and set aside all her contempt.
"Elias Rockland, I know it's you."
She narrowed her eyes, warily scanning the empty square as she spoke slowly, her voice carrying far in the cold wind with an unquestionable official authority.
"There's no need to keep playing tricks. Come out."
"The matter of you killing Richard Firth in Hastings Port... the Seventh Agency has already uncovered everything."
Beyond sixty-six feet, Elias, hiding behind a lamp post at the edge of the square, heard every word clearly with his enhanced hearing.
His body, hidden in the shadows, stiffened suddenly.
Just as he thought! He really had been too immature back in Hastings Port!
Well, my apologies; it's my first time transmigrating.
Who could have predicted this?
I'll have to use an alias for my business from now on!
Sorry, Bruce Wayne.
And to everyone else named Bruce Wayne.
Rate on N.U.
