Close Encounter

"Huh?"

"D-Did you see that Chief Li?"

"That guy just disappeared!"

"He's an Awakened!"

The assistant stutteringly said as he stared at the spot where Max stood before he disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Now knowing that he was an Awakened, he became quite annoyed that the person immediately disappeared without even waiting to hear their words.

If the individual has some skill as convenient as that, he could have stayed even just for a bit.

He didn't know that Max was too cautious and thought that since they were walking so confidently, they must have some powerful skills or they were just idiots, but in the end, Max wasn't going to risk it, there's no point for him to do so.

"I did."

Chief Li and his assistant, Jing Fei, had been waiting for someone to show up, and when they tried to approach the individual to ask some questions, the person was gone.

He thought that the person might have seen fights happening in the areas around them and along with Jing Fei, he wanted to take the chance to speak with the person and maybe find new information.

"Chief Li, could it be him?"

Trying to connect the dots, thinking of the Puppet Master and the person with his entire body covered that seemed to be hiding his identity, Jing Fei looked at Chief Li to ask.

"Unlikely. If he was the Puppet Master, he should be hiding in his cave by now. He won't ever need to go out if his puppet is the same as what our informants said."

Shaking his head and replying, Chief Li looked at the same spot, remembering the appearance of the unknown individual, preparing to report it when they get back.

These incidents weren't new for them. In the past few days, they have seen a lot more unidentified Awakeneds than usual, and only a small portion of them was willing to communicate with them.

Every time they tried to initiate contact, they were ignored, giving them more trouble than they already have.

However, they also understand the fear and the disconnection between them, but they still have to keep trying since there have been a few Awakeneds who joined them with few and acceptable conditions.

"So that's another new one, huh?"

Jing Fei thought back to what he saw a moment ago, the new Awakened just disappeared. There are a lot of explanations for it and thinking about only one of them, and he already knows how troublesome it will be.

"Yeah, only one of the many more I guess."

"Could it be teleportation?"

Jing Fei thought it could be some form of teleportation, but whatever it is, that will be a hard one to catch if the Awakened were to be a criminal.

"We should go back to get more information."

Without waiting for Jing Fei to move, Chief Li walked back to his car while the scene of the black figure disappearing in front of them run through his mind.

Something tells him the new Awakened would be trouble in the future, and they will be up for challenging and rough months.

...

Max walked on the busy streets of the city after changing into regular clothes. The sun was already coming down as street lights brighten up the city.

Now Max was intently thinking about the events back at the abandoned building where the two Awakeneds fought.

One of the things on his mind was the glowing cube. When the water user asked what the puppet needed, the puppet answered that he needed something from him.

Initially, when he was at the site where it happened, Max couldn't understand it, but now he had more time to think about it, he had some ideas as to what went on.

'Could it be that the glowing cube was with the water skill user and he wanted it?'

'How did he get it anyway and what's the use of it? That looks very important.'

The glowing cube on the hands of the puppet looked like something he would want to get his hands on. It was too bad that he wasn't able to see it up close and maybe inspect it himself.

'Little Dou, do you know anything about it?'

[The glowing cube? It looks familiar. I've never really seen anything like that, but from what happened back there, I think I have an idea of what it is!]

[But if it's really that then I can't tell you about it unless you discover it yourself! Once you encounter the same situation, then I would be able to explain everything!]

Although Max was disappointed hearing Little Dou's works, it made him think about the whole Awakened situation in the past where Little Dou couldn't say it.

Maybe this will also be important for him in the future. Max only has to run around the city more and encounter more Awakeneds and more fights without revealing himself and being in danger.

Everything that happened in the past few days, including Layla and the mission, Max had now accumulated a large number of Points.

His current Points reached 15400. From the daily sessions with Yu'er, adding all the things that happened around the day of the party, and the 2000 Points from the mission, it all piled up greatly.

It was surprising how fast they can earn Points when they don't waste it on items and skills.

Though even with all that, they were still quite far away from the Magical Space that costs 50000 Points.

But Max wasn't discouraged, expecting that in around a month, he would be able to afford it if he continues the pace he is in right now.

Looking around and seeing the peaceful faces of the people around him walking on their own pace, Max felt all the things that happened were unreal.

He is an Awakened, and he just watched two Awakeneds fight each other with one side dying. Also, the Awakened phone, the chats, and the forums, it was a whole different world than what was around him.

It occurred to him while thinking back on what happened a while ago; Max wondered who were the two people that he saw advancing towards him.

From the looks of it, they aren't ordinary individuals since they have the same clothes and something was printed on it but he didn't have the time to look at what it was.

Max read about government forces, organizations, and families around the world, but he doesn't exactly know where they are hiding their bases or who were they.

Max questioned whether it was possible that they were from one of those groups and what were they planning on doing when they walked up to him.

Not that it mattered since he would only choose to stay away from them. Max couldn't deal with them on his own, especially if he doesn't know anything about them.

They should have many members on their group, which is a significant advantage against someone like him, who only has a few trusted members and a limited number of Points that he could spend.