15 Safe House

The capital of the country where Daniel resides is located within a rather mountainous region filled with many nature reserves protected by the federal government.

One afternoon, a few hours after the explosion of the laboratory within District X-23 that was unreported by the news due to a gag order surrounding the incident, a mature man looking to be in his sixties is appreciating the magnificent view before him while seated on the rocking chair by the side of the porch in front of the entrance of his countryside lodge.

Located only 10 kilometers away from the city center, the man could commute from a countryside forest to a concrete one in less than 15 minutes with his private automated car. As the man hummed a relaxing tune while sipping a nice cup of chamomile tea that was originally placed by the coffee table, he decided to refresh himself by taking a walk through the woods by the river that swerved by his house.

Stretching his arms and legs slowly, the man walked down the stairs from the porch towards the lush green grass below, moving towards the direction of the flowing river. However, as he walked through the many trees covering his view and arrived by the riverside, he found a person currently laying flat on the grass, dripping wet, with wounds all over his body.

The blood oozing out from his wounds had turned the entire area around him crimson red, almost frightening the poor old man to death when he figured out that the person was still alive. Cursing at his bad luck, the man instantly ran over towards the wounded person and started dragging him back towards his countryside lodge. Since he was still feeling shocked, he was too distracted to notice that the wounds within the person's body seemed to be healing at a visible speed…

***

"Agent 012, wake up! Wake up!"

This was the first thing that the boy heard when he opened his eyes after losing consciousness. He found someone currently shaking his body back and forth, causing the boy to wince as the constant movements exacerbated the wounds within his body.

The person gave Agent 012 a relieved look when he saw that he was finally awake.

"How long did I pass out for, 077?" The agent spoke in a raspy voice due to the lack of water in his throat.

"You've been unconscious for almost 48 hours after the old man found you by the river!" The person known as Agent 077 exclaimed. From the looks of it, he looked more like a middle-schooler than a spy due to his small stature and the naïve look within his eyes.

It was then that Agent 012 sat in a daze for a few seconds. 077 thought that he was just shocked by being asleep for so long, little did he know, 012 was actually communicating with a certain mysterious system bound inside his soul.

[Welcome back to the land of the living, Master! Due to absorbing all the adamantine stored within the laboratory at District X-23, I've become much stronger! Master can now access many of my functions that were previously unavailable due to lack of energy…]

"Stop." The agent instantly cut his system off before asking with an emotionless voice. "Tell me, why am I still alive?"

[After absorbing the adamantine into your soul, you were allowed to choose an additional supernatural power. Unfortunately, you were too busy running away from the Federation soldier at the time to choose your power. After the soldier crushed most of your rib bones and damaged many of your vital organs, I implemented standard emergency procedures and forcefully chose the skill for you: Stem Cell Therapy Lvl 1.]

[Due to your lack of experience with manipulating spiritual energy, as Master got blown by the jetpack's explosion and was faced with third degree burns, I forcefully took over your soul and manipulated the soul energy for you, injecting a huge amount of energy to stimulate the stem cells within your body to heal your internal wounds.]

"So that's why I still have the energy to swim against the current of the river all the way back up to the safehouse." Agent 012 nodded to himself when he realized what had truly happened. "There must be a trade-off for forcefully taking over my soul like that. What is it?"

[I'm afraid that the sudden exertion of your soul caused it to be cracked, with the fissure reaching the halfway point within your soul. Currently, the soul energy stored inside you is leaking from your body at a fast pace. Without replenishing this energy, all the cells within your body would stop functioning when the energy runs out, causing instant death.]

"Well, at least I'm still alive right now…" Agent 012 thought to himself. "How long before all the spiritual energy depletes from my body?"

[About 30 days.]

"How do I recover it?"

[By completing more missions from the Perfect Spy System.]

After taking a look at the new missions that have popped up in front of Agent 012's eye, he couldn't help but give out a sneer.

"Most of these missions could not be completed in such a short period of time. Besides, now that I've shown myself to the authorities, there's no way I could act as much in the open as I did before…"

[However, with all the EXP you have gotten from your pervious mission, you can now upgrade and select more abilities for yourself to upgrade both your body and your mind. With these powers, it would be much easier for you.]

Agent 012 clicked his tongue as he stared at all the base points he had gotten from the previous mission. "It's great that I can become much more powerful now that I have all these skills in my hands, but after exchanging most of my merit points for that tiny speck of antihydrogen from the Martian Empire, I would also need to complete some missions for them as well… what a pain in the ass…"

After thoroughly contemplating about his future plans, he stood up from the makeshift infirmary bed that he was residing for the past two days and walked out of the room as Agent 077 strolled behind.

If Commander Eric were to see what was before Agent 012's eyes, he would have immediately gotten Minerva's permission to nuke the entire place to high heavens.

Unaware to the Federation, what served as a countryside home for an inconspicuous old man is actually a front for one of the many safehouses the Martian Empire built during the war.

The country house actually had a hidden door that leads to a massive cavern below that could hide up to 500 people with room to spare.

The cavern itself has multiple paths that led to different exits, which serves as a perfect escape route for Agent 012 after completing such a flashy mission.

The agent in question walked out of the infirmary and strode along a paved road, passing by many identical concrete single-story cube-sized houses located on both sides before suddenly making a turn and heading inside one of the houses.

"Agent 012, I heard that you've caused quite a commotion out there. I thought you've simply applied for a reconnaissance mission." A mature voice could be heard from the corner of the single-room house, hidden within the shadows.

It seemed that 012 is already used to the darkness and remained unfazed as he replied, "There was a problem with the mission sir, so I simply acted according to what I thought was best for the Empire before escaping from the site."

"Yes. It's quite surprising that you managed to swim all the way back here with all the wounds in your body. As I recall, you didn't obtain any health nanobots from us, so how was it that you survived such grievous wounds?" The man asked with a cold voice, instantly exuding a sharp aura that made Agent 012's hair stand on end.

"I managed to get myself a stem cell generating medicine from the reconnaissance site before eliminating the entire place, sir." The agent replied as quickly as possible as he started to ooze out a cold sweat.

"Hm… it seems you were lucky at the time. Tell me, why did you decide to blow up the place where you were supposed to gather information?"

"According to the mission, I was to identify the reason for the sudden quarantine and information blackout of all the meteorite impact sites by spying on quarantine zone X-23. Within the site, I found scientists working in a laboratory researching a mysterious substance." Agent 012 started to narrate, making himself sound as convincingly as possible.

"Yes, you've already told me through the report before you suddenly decided to go on a rampage. Go on."

"I found that the unknown substance can be directly absorbed inside one's body through contact. People 'infected' by this substance seemed to be unaffected, but I wasn't sure as most of the people were quarantined within the laboratory with access to the patients only given to certain guards and scientists."

"Although you have a knack in story-telling, I'm getting a little impatient here. Why was it that you decided to blow up the laboratory? Tell me within a sentence or I'll just chop your head off and use the read your memories through the nano-chip in your brain." The man said as his voice turned colder and colder.

"…The reason why I destroyed the laboratory is because I have stolen all the unknown substance within their lab and simply caused an explosion to make the Federation think that it was destroyed instead."