Robert Chen took a step toward the parking lot.
Then he stopped.
Allen watched the dot hover in place on the management panel. Three seconds. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
Robert didn't move. He turned back to the black sedan, opened the door, and took something from the passenger seat. The management panel's resolution was insufficient—details at the edges of the effective range of external monitoring were blurred into a mass of pixels.
The dot moved again. Not toward the parking lot. toward the warehouse.
Allen's shoulder lifted two centimeters off the concrete pillar.
Robert Chen walked through the warehouse's main entrance. On the management panel, a new green dot appeared in the entrance corridor of the first room.
The Phantom Mirror activated.
The data flooded the management panel at a rate unlike any other challenger. It didn't scroll line by line—it bounced off in chunks. The system panel was so dense that the Phantom Mirror's display bar was stretched to its limit.
[Robert Chen]
[Occupation: Truth Hunter]
[Rank: A]
[Strength: B- / Agility: B / Constitution: B- / Intelligence: A+ / Perception: SS / Luck: C]
[Skills: Eye of Truth (Rank A) / Residue Analysis (Rank A) / Cognitive Shield (Rank B) / Trace Reconstruction (Rank A) / ■■■ (Encrypted) (Rank ?) / ■■■■ (Encrypted) (Rank ?)] Allen's gaze was fixed on "Perception: SS".
SS. Not A. Not S. It's SS.
The highest single attribute on the entire System panel. A whole tier higher than his job rank.
Two encrypted skills. The F-level scanning permission of the Phantom Clone Mirror couldn't read them.
A system notification automatically popped up on the management panel:
[Warning: The current Challenger's level (A-rank) far exceeds the dungeon level (F+). Power Suppression Protocol has been activated.]
[Suppression Rules: The Challenger's attributes will be suppressed to the maximum level of the dungeon level + 2 major levels.]
[A-rank → Attribute cap after suppression: C-rank.]
[Note: Perception-type attributes are not affected by Power Suppression.] The last line.
Perception-type attributes are not affected by Power Suppression.
Robert Chen's Strength, Agility, and Constitution will be suppressed to C-rank. For an F+-rank dungeon, C-rank attributes are sufficient for a flawless run.
But his Perception—SS-rank Perception—is fully preserved.
He didn't enter the dungeon to fight monsters.
Allen stood up from the ground. His movements were faster than usual. His knees didn't crack.
On the management panel, Robert's green dot was slowly moving in the corridor of the first room. The speed was about two-thirds of an average person's walking speed. Not cautiously—he was watching.
The illusory mirror in the first room transmitted abnormal data:
[Challenger detected activated active skill: Eye of Truth (Rank A)] Allen brought up the interior view of the first room. The monitoring resolution of the management panel was much higher inside the dungeon than outside—he could see Robert's every move.
Robert stood in the middle of the corridor. His right hand was against the wall—not supporting it, but his palm flat against the stone surface, his fingertips applying slight pressure, slowly sliding from left to right. He was "reading" the wall.
A second alert popped up on the management panel:
[Warning: Challenger's skill "Eye of Truth" is scanning the dungeon's internal structure.]
[Scanning content: Energy patterns, construction logic, information residue, timestamps] Allen's right hand reached into his hoodie pocket. The stiff edge of the business card in his phone case pressed against his fingertips through the fabric.
Robert withdrew his hand from the wall. He stood still. His head tilted slightly—not looking at anything, but processing information.
Then he continued walking.
Room One. Skeleton guards awoke in the corner, red lights gleaming in their eye sockets. Three. Standard configuration.
Robert didn't draw his weapon.
As the first skeleton guard charged, he dodged the horizontal slash, his right index and middle fingers touching the skeleton's sternum.
A single touch.
The skeleton guard's skeleton shattered from the point of contact, cracks radiating outwards, the entire skeleton disintegrating within half a second.
C-rank attribute. One strike. No weapon needed.
The second and third were dealt with in eight seconds. The same method—two fingers, one point of contact, structural collapse.
No unnecessary movements. No battle cry, no charging, no flashy skill effects. Like someone casually turning off three lights in a living room.
Allen paused for a moment while typing in the notes section of the management panel.
He had seen Jason's B-rank strength shatter a skeleton with a single punch. He had seen Wayne's D-rank saber sweep across the battlefield. I've seen Lina's C-grade dagger weave through gaps.
Never seen anything like this.
This isn't crushing. Crushing at least leaves traces of force output. What Robert did was closer to—disassembly. He knew where the skeleton guard's structural weaknesses were, applying pressure with minimal force to the most precise locations. C-grade attributes were enough. Even D-grade would have been enough.
Not because he was strong. Because he understood.
After clearing the first room, Robert didn't immediately head to the second. He crouched down.
Allen zoomed in on the interior view.
Robert crouched beside the skeleton guard's fragments. His right hand was on the ground again. The Eye of Truth—the runes in his iris were spinning, and the management panel's alerts kept refreshing.
[Scan Update: Monster Behavior Pattern · AI Response Logic · Real-time Trace Correction] Real-time trace correction.
A chill ran down Allen's spine. Not cold—it was a cognitive alertness.
Yesterday. When Wayne entered the dungeon, he manually adjusted the monster density, switched hunting modes, manipulated the terrain, and altered the lighting. Each modification left a "fingerprint" in the dungeon's energy structure.
Robert was reading these fingerprints.
Allen quickly opened the operation log on the management panel. All administrator operations from the past forty-eight hours—terrain movement, lighting adjustments, monster AI switching, and modifications to the fog of fear intensity—were listed in black and white.
What did these operations leave on the dungeon's physical level?
He wasn't sure.
But Robert Chen's SS-level perception was clearly certain.
Allen made a decision. From the moment Robert entered the dungeon, he would not perform any administrator operations. No lighting adjustments. No terrain alterations. No touching of monster AI. He would let the dungeon run in its completely default state.
He wouldn't give him any new fingerprints.
Robert stood up from the ground. He spent about forty seconds reading the information in the first room. Then he walked to the second room.
Allen sat back down next to pillar P2-17. He shrunk the management panel to the bottom right corner of his view, leaving only a green dot tracking Robert's location and an alert bar.
He stopped looking.
Less action, fewer traces. Even the frequent refreshes of the management panel might leave some kind of "observer effect" at the dungeon's system level—he wasn't sure if Robert's Eye of Truth could detect that level of trace, but he didn't want to risk it.
Twenty-seven minutes.
Robert Chen completed fifteen rooms in twenty-seven minutes.
The management panel's automatic log showed: Zero damage taken. Zero skill usage (except for Eye of Truth). Zero item consumption. Monster kills: forty-one.
When the Shadow Knight Boss charged at Robert in room ten, Robert took a half-step to the left. The knight's sword grazed three centimeters past his right shoulder. Robert's right hand touched the knight's nape.
The knight shattered into black smoke.
The Mirror Knight copied Robert's C-rank attributes in room fifteen. It adopted the same "two-finger tap" attack method as Robert.
Robert looked at the Mirror Knight for three seconds. Then he closed his right eye.
A notification popped up on the management panel—[Challenger has disabled the active skill: Eye of Truth].
The Mirror Knight charged. Two fingers pointed towards Robert's chest.
Robert caught the Mirror Knight's wrist with his left hand. The force was so precise that the knight's attack stopped one centimeter from his chest. Then he used his right hand—his right hand with his right eye closed, without using any skills—to strike the Mirror Knight's helmet visor with two fingers.
The knight shattered into silver fragments.
The Mirror Knight copied attributes and skills. Robert had disabled his skills. He defeated his own mirror image with pure C-rank attributes and physical reflexes.
The management panel's record showed that this boss fight lasted four seconds.
Four seconds.
Allen closed his eyes briefly.
Wayne fought the same boss for four minutes and eighteen seconds.
Robert used four seconds. With one eye closed.
The level difference was part of it. But not all of it.
Allen mentally recalibrated a number—the true meaning of the words "A-rank Awakener." It's not D-rank multiplied by three. It's not the same thing magnified three times. It's a different species.
[Room 15 cleared. Boss killed: Mirror Knight. Clear time: 4 seconds.]
[BP contribution: +6,200.]
Six thousand two hundred.
One person. Twenty-seven minutes. Six thousand two hundred BP.
More than what Wayne contributed after being tortured for fifty-three minutes—because A-rank challengers have a higher base BP multiplier in F+ rank dungeons.
Allen opened the full view of the management panel. Robert's green dot stopped in the center of Room 15. Fragments of the Mirror Knight were scattered all over the floor.
The hidden door was lit on the north wall.
Robert saw it. He took two steps toward the hidden door.
He stopped.
He turned around.
He walked toward the exit.
Allen's finger hovered over the management panel for a second.
Robert didn't enter the hidden room. He saw the door. He took two steps. Then he chose not to go in.
Why?
Allen didn't know. But an A-level investigator with SS-level perception choosing not to do something is more noteworthy than choosing to do it.
Robert retraced his steps. Faster than when he entered—no longer stopping to scan the walls and floor. He had obtained the necessary information.
On the control panel, the green dot receded from the corridor of the first room and returned to the warehouse floor.
Allen reactivated the external surveillance.
Robert stood inside the warehouse. The blue light from the diamond-shaped opening illuminated his gray suit. He adjusted his left cuff—the button that was half a circle tighter than the right.
Then he took a pen and a piece of white cardstock from his suit pocket.
Not a business card. Larger than a business card. Closer to the size of an index card.
He wrote on the cardstock. He wrote for a long time. At least forty seconds.
After finishing, he placed the cardstock on the warehouse floor—right next to the diamond-shaped opening. He weighed the corner down with a piece of gravel to prevent it from being blown away by the wind.
He walked out of the warehouse.
Allen watched on the control panel as Robert's dot returned to the black sedan. He opened the door. He got into the driver's seat. The car didn't start immediately.
Thirty seconds.
The car started. It drove away from the red-hook zone.
The point of light disappeared beyond the perception boundary of the external surveillance.
Allen waited five minutes. He confirmed that Robert's car hadn't returned.
He climbed up from the second basement level of the parking lot, walked through the alley, and entered through the warehouse's main entrance.
The card was next to the diamond-shaped opening. White. Gravel weighed down the upper left corner.
Allen crouched down and picked up the card.
Robert's handwriting. The same as on the back of the business card—equal spacing between each letter. But this time it was much longer.
"Architect_00— I don't know who you are. But you're nearby. Probably within three blocks.
My advice is the same as last time—call me. Not as a GWA investigator. As someone trying to figure out 'why underground cities exist around the world'.
What you created might be part of the answer.
—R.C." Allen read the card twice from beginning to end.
"Within three blocks." Allen glanced up at the warehouse's tin roof. A few beams of light shone through the rust and holes. Dust swirled within them.
He folded the cardstock into quarters and stuffed it into his sweatshirt pocket. Clinging to it with the business card.
He stood up.
His right hand reached for his phone. His thumb swiped across the lock screen. Robert Chen's number was on the business card. Eleven digits. He could dial it now.
The management panel flickered on his left.
Not a normal flick. The entire panel's border changed color from blue to red.
Allen's thumb hovered over the lock screen.
A pop-up appeared in the center of the panel. It wasn't any format he'd ever seen—not a system notification, not customer data, not BP settlement.
Red background. White text. The border flashed faster than any previous alert.
[——Emergency Event——] [External Dungeon Anomaly Detection] [Detection Source: Dungeon Architect System · Environmental Awareness Module (Passive)] [Location: 2.3 km from your dungeon · Southwest-West] [Target: Natural D-level dungeon "Rat's Nest" · GWA No. NYC-BK-0447] [Anomaly Type: Core energy rapidly expanding · Monster density index exceeds critical threshold · Spatial structure stability drops to 12%] Allen took his hand off his phone.
[Estimated Event: Dungeon Break]
[Estimated Time Window: 10-14 hours]
[Estimated Break Scale: D-level · Estimated number of monsters emerging: 200-400]
[Breakout Radius: 1.2 km radius centered on the dungeon entrance] Allen drew a map in his mind.
Rat's Nest. NYC-BK-0447. He knew the place—the southwest corner of Red Hook District, beneath an old industrial area near the docks. A Class D natural dungeon registered in GWA's public database, cleared weekly by two to three guild teams to prevent excessive monster density.
Radius: 1.2 kilometers.
What does the 1.2-kilometer radius cover? Allen didn't need a map app. He'd lived in Red Hook District for a year and a half.
Coffin Street residential area. Three six-story apartment buildings. Approximately eight hundred to one thousand residents. Mostly unawakened ordinary people.
If tomorrow is a workday—what day is it today? Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday. School is in session.
Red Hook Community Center. A daycare center for low-income families.
The red pop-up on the management panel had two lines at the bottom.
[Note: The dungeon outbreak warning function is only perceptible to the "Dungeon Architect" profession. GWA's regular monitoring system's outbreak warning accuracy is 2-4 hours in advance.]
[Current estimated time until outbreak: 10-14 hours. GWA has not yet issued any warnings.] Ten to fourteen hours. GWA's standard system can only detect anomalies two to four hours in advance.
Time difference: at least six hours.
Six hours. GWA doesn't know. The residents of Red Hook don't know. The eight hundred people on Coffin Street don't know. The kids of PS 234 don't know.
Only one person in the world knows that a Class D dungeon outbreak is counting down.
Allen crouches beside the diamond-shaped opening in the warehouse. A pale blue light shines on his glasses. The reflection of the red pop-up window overlaps on the blue light, and the lens shows a murky purple.
A Class D dungeon has broken out. Two hundred to four hundred Class D monsters have flooded the surface.
Three years ago. On the day of the Cataclysm. A Class S dungeon in downtown New York City broke out.
His parents died that day.
Allen's right hand is pulled from his hoodie pocket. His fingers are holding two things.
A piece of white cardstock. Folded into quarters. R.C.'s handwriting.
A business card. Robert Chen, Senior Investigator, Global Awakener Administration.
The hand on the back