The Disappearing Thief

By the time the citizens came out of the shelter, it was already evening. The afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled golden scales on the outer walls of the city's buildings. It looked very sad and beautiful.

Yang Xi also took the opportunity to sneak into the crowd. In any case, due to the existence of professional Heroes, no one would notice him strangely dressed in public. What's more, everyone was busy crazily posting on their social media.

To an ordinary person, being able to experience such a dangerous and exciting event felt like a new lease on life. It was also a rare experience in a boring life. Of course, they had to share and vent it online.

"It has turned into a party." After Yang Xi came out of the toilet, he shook his head as he looked at the crowd surrounding the cordoned area and taking pictures with the Mystic Beast.

The staffs from the Heroes Association were collecting the corpse of the Mystic Beast into their work vehicles. Reporters surrounded the two Heroes to interview them. There were constant flashes and livestream robots hovered in the sky. Although the number of people watching the livestream had decreased, it was still more than a million viewers.

On the bullet screen, there was a discussion about the explosive growth in strength of Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero. Many people even spent money to create a super fan tag for Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero.

On this day, the gifts donated to Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero on the livestream alone had exceeded 10 million. This was also quite rare. Typically, only Grade-A Heroes could have such popularity.

It could be said that after today's battle, Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero's status in the professional Heroes circle had risen quite a bit.

After all, people loved stories of heroes risking their lives in order to protect the safety of their lives and property.

The Public Relations department of Red Space Agency, which was affiliated with Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero only briefly touched upon and explained a few words regarding the entire incident to the reporters.

After dealing with the reporters, Blazing Butterfly quietly pulled Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero to the side. After making sure that no one was eavesdropping, she asked mysteriously, "Senior, do you know what I just encountered?"

Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero only wanted to go home and rest. He was already using his willpower to barely suppress the side effects of the blue pill now. "What? Was it a citizen taking refuge in the higher levels?"

"No, no! It's this!"

Blazing Butterfly took out the corpse of the Mystic Beast clone and handed it to Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero.

"This is the clone body of the Cyclops Predator? You went to deal with this just now?" Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero was very surprised.

Blazing Butterfly placed her hands behind her back and wiggled her toes. "It wasn't me. It was a weirdo wearing a mask. I wanted to keep him here since he violated the 'Espers Act', but I was not his match…"

"You're not his match?"

Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero knew that Blazing Butterfly was at least a Grade-C Esper, and normal Espers were no match for her.

"Yeah, he crushed my flame butterflies with his bare hands o (T-T) o."

Blazing Butterfly explained the process of her fight to Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero.

No matter what, Blazing Butterfly was a genius. The two consecutive failures today had dealt her a huge blow.

Hot and Sour Rice Noodles Hero stroked his stubbled chin. "Could it be an Esper organization? I heard that the Espers in the Sakura Group of District Six have been active in Harbor City recently."

Blazing Butterfly perked up. "So, Senior, you think that mysterious person is from the Sakura Group?!"

If her opponent was from the Sakura Group, it would not be embarrassing if she was defeated.

On Planet Azure, other than the Hero Association, there were many Esper organizations. Some were recognized by the Federation, while others were secretly active.

Sakura Group from the Sixth District was the cream of the crop. They were all experts and there was no lack of Grade-A Espers. It was even rumored that the leader of Sakura Group was a powerful Grade-S Esper!

One had to know that even the world's strongest Hero, Explosive Man, was only at S-Grade!

"We can't be sure. He didn't reveal much of his abilities when you fought against him. We have to report this matter."

"Ah! Surely there's no need…"

Blazing Butterfly felt that this matter was too embarrassing.

...

"Yang Xi, where did you run off to? I was really afraid that you would be swallowed by the Mystic Beast."

After seeing Yang Xi, Fan Peng hung up the phone in his hand and called Lin Naixue, who was beside him, to rush over to Yang Xi's side.

Although they were in a state of panic when the Mystic Beast attacked, he and Lin Naixue still ran and hid in the same shelter.

After getting closer, he poked Yang Xi. "You brat! You didn't cherish such a good opportunity! But don't worry, as a brother, I kept a one-meter distance from your girlfriend throughout the whole process!"

Yang Xi was speechless, but he still gave Fan Peng a brief explanation. It was nothing more than a common excuse like getting knocked down and getting lost.

"Are you hurt?" Yang Xi asked Lin Naixue.

Lin Naixue shook her head. She was different from Fan Peng. She had seen Yang Xi walk upstairs on purpose with her own eyes. However, she did not point it out. "I'm fine. Fan Peng took good care of me on the way. But you, didn't you fall down? Is it serious?"

Fan Peng also came to a realization. "That's right, brother. Don't let anything happen to you. Hurry up and go to the hospital to take a look. It's rare for the insurance policies that apply against Mystic Beast attacks to be usable!"

"Insurance against Mystic Beasts" was an insurance policy set up by insurance companies to mitigate losses in a Mystic Beast attack. The federal government suggested that every citizen should apply for one.

After all, in these times, one might not be able to get into a car accident for the rest of their lives. However, the invasion of Mystic Beasts was a very real fate that every person on Planet Azure could scarcely avoid.

According to the experts' statistics, every person on Planet Azure would encounter 3.26 Mystic Beasts in their lifetime.

No idea how they calculated it, but it was very scary.

Yang Xi naturally knew that he wasn't injured. Also, he couldn't be checked at the hospital for the time being. After all, this might expose his identity as an Esper.

What he had to do next was very dangerous. Maintaining his identity as an ordinary person would save him a lot of trouble.

As they had not been released from work yet, Yang Xi and Fan Peng returned to the office to continue working after bidding farewell to Lin Naixue.

After dealing with the documents, it was already 8pm. After rejecting Fan Peng's invitation to have dinner together, Yang Xi went back to the toilet again and stuffed the mask, robe, and gloves into his backpack.

The reason why he chose to take off his disguise in this toilet earlier in the evening was because the camera here was broken.

"That saved me a lot of trouble."

Today could be said to be a very busy day. The most important thing was obtaining the Fire-resistant Shell, a Grade-B Esper Ability. Yang Xi felt that he had to spend some time to properly digest today's harvest.

Sometimes, having more Esper Abilities was not a good thing. Although ordinary Espers only had one Esper Ability, after a lot of hard work and cultivation, they could discover many applications for the Esper Ability. With the direction he was developing in, Yang Xi might not be able to invest a lot of energy into a single Esper Ability.

"I won't be collecting more new Esper Abilities for now."

Yang Xi placed his bag beside him and closed his eyes to rest on the subway.

He silently activated Super Brain again. Practicing Brain Overload on the way home was also a good choice. Right now, he really did not have enough time. He needed to learn how to properly use the fragment of time he had.

Yang Xi's sense of smell was constantly magnified. He could smell the barbecue smoke on the body of the uncle sitting opposite him. There was cumin, garlic, and some chili powder. Yes, this was the smell of roasted eggplants. This uncle also had the smell of engine oil on him. His occupation could be a car mechanic. His right hand smelled of blood. He might have been injured during a repair job.

A meter away from him was a woman. Her perfume was a little thick. En, there was some body odor mixed in as well. There was the smell of durians on her mouth, but it wasn't very strong. She probably wasn't eating durians, but durian pastries. Was it a candy or cake?

He needed to analyze it carefully.

Right, if I could identify the brand of this woman's perfume, I could roughly calculate her income, then slowly deduce her occupation and guess her character through her habits.

From the looks of it, he needed to massively supplement his knowledge on everyday subjects now.

Although Super Brain was currently only a Grade-D+ ability, its potential was far above that of Fire-resistant Shell. Developing it would be of greater help to Yang Xi.

"Mm? Someone actually stole from me?"

Yang Xi opened his eyes the moment his bag was stolen.

It was probably because Yang Xi's action of protecting the bag had caused the thief to misunderstand that there was something valuable in the bag. In addition, he was resting with his eyes closed. The thief felt that there was an opportunity for him to take action.

Otherwise, adult men were usually not thieves' targets.

"This guy!"

Yang Xi hurriedly got up to chase after the thief in the dark green aviation jacket. However, when he pushed aside the passengers beside him, he realized that there was no sign of the thief in the carriage!

The door between the carriages had not opened yet, so the thief could not have run to another carriage.

However, none of the people in the carriage matched the characteristics of the thief!

Even if he took off his clothes, where could he hide Yang Xi's bag?!

Had he bumped into an Esper?

Was it an ability that could let him walk through walls, turn invisible, or something else?