LV2 Puppetry had further branches: LV2 Puppet Creation and LV2 Puppet Manipulation.
And then there was the progress bar.
Next to the bar, a small button had appeared, along with two new lines of annotation.
[Collect more Fortune. When the Fortune Gauge is full, you can unlock a new world and deploy an avatar.]
[Current progress: 17.3% / Worlds unlocked: 1]
These two lines contained a lot of information.
Three key terms: Fortune, new worlds, and avatars.
You gain Fortune to unlock new worlds, send avatars into those worlds, and then collect more Fortune in the new world. This seems to be the most important new function of the panel, aside from displaying attributes.
Hardy mentally clicked the button.
All the data on the panel began to distort, eventually forming a black vortex big enough to swallow a person.
Hardy felt a strand of his consciousness being torn away and devoured by the vortex.
"My head feels a little dizzy..."
He shook his head, closed his eyes, and experienced something new and strange.
It was as if his consciousness had split in two.
One remained here, while the other was in a distant, different world—almost with its own independent will, yet still completely subject to his original self.
"It's a bit like the Shadow Clone Jutsu? But also kind of different?"
Hardy didn't know the B-rank Shadow Clone Jutsu yet, but he understood how it worked.
Clearly, this so-called avatar was far more advanced than a shadow clone—almost like becoming two separate living beings.
...
...
Ominous lightning tore through the sky, rain pouring down beneath thick, heavy clouds.
This was Gotham.
And when Hardy's consciousness entered this world, he immediately felt something was wrong.
He was in a small room, about ten square meters, with floors and walls made of some white, metallic-looking material—clearly very sturdy.
Cold blue light shone in through a bulletproof glass door, and angry voices could be heard from the rooms on either side.
He had just finished absorbing this body's settings and partial memories when the noise next door caught his attention.
"Oh, hey! Black Mask, you're almost there! So close to the right answer! Think harder! Has wings, but isn't an angel; drinks blood, but isn't a devil—what could it be? The answer's really simple!"
A slippery, exaggerated voice came from the room to his left, as if performing on stage.
"Go to hell! You freak, can't you switch rooms?! I swear I'll rip your mouth off and feed it to Batman!"
The guy next door sounded on the verge of a breakdown.
This guy spouted two hundred riddles a day. If you couldn't answer, he'd keep pestering you. Only if you solved his riddle would he quiet down for a bit to think of a new one.
Hardy covered his ears, sat in the corner, and began sorting through his thoughts.
His current location was...
Arkham.
Mmm!
The Riddler and Black Mask are his neighbors in Arkham.
The former is notorious and widely disliked, while the latter is a second- or third-tier villain in Gotham.
As for himself, his name is Clear Water—transliterated from "Clear Water" in Chinese.
On the streets of Gotham, he's known as the Puppeteer, a bottom-of-the-barrel villain among bottom-of-the-barrel villains.
He's an Asian mad doctor whose medical skills are mediocre but who is obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. In the process of stitching corpses together, he's mastered the crude art of turning bodies into puppets, controlling their movements with steel wires.
To Clear Water, this feels a bit like human marionettes, but in reality, both his puppet-making skills and his methods of control are quite rough. Any professionally trained cop with a weapon could take down a whole group of his puppets.
Pretty low-tier stuff—so he's just a small-time villain, not even as impressive as the two next door.
Crimes like his normally wouldn't land someone in Arkham.
But since the doctors deemed him mentally unstable, he ended up here.
"Oh, hey, that was the easiest riddle ever! Even a kindergartener could solve it, you idiot. If only Batman were here—he's the only genius who's ever solved all my hardest riddles!"
"How about I give you an even simpler one? I'll have to think about it. Honestly, this is the first time I've realized how hard it is to come up with an easy riddle…"
"Hey, you over there, why don't you take a guess? You've been quiet for a while!"
Clear Water put down the hand he'd pressed to his ear, speechless.
Completely useless—this guy just talks way too much.
"First of all, my name isn't 'hey.'"
"Second, the answer to your last riddle was 'bat.'"
"Third, stop bothering me. If you keep it up, I'll turn you into a puppet!"
"Fourth!"
Clear Water couldn't help but punch the wall.
"Riddler, get out of Gotham!"
Next door, the Riddler took off his green hat, looking confused.
Why does this so-called Puppeteer seem to have such a grudge against me?
"You're the one who should get out of Gotham! Listen, I'll give you a riddle—if you can't answer it, when I get out of here, I'll definitely—"
"Ding dong!"
Clear Water, looking impatient, started banging furiously on the bulletproof glass door in front of him.
The commotion was quickly noticed by the staff monitoring the cameras.
Soon, the heavy iron door swung open and a fully armed guard walked in.
"Clear Water! You'd better have a good reason for this, or I'll show you what happens when you disturb me!"
"Officer! The Riddler just said he's in contact with the Penguin outside and has already planned a breakout. He even invited me and Black Mask to join him."
Black Mask: ???
When was I ever invited to break out?
The guard didn't dare be careless and quickly pulled out his communicator.
"Room 408, the Riddler is suspected of planning an escape. Recommend transfer to the underground high-security wing."
Riddler: ???
"Oh, hey! I'm not planning a breakout!"
The Riddler pressed up against the glass, shouting.
"Are you saying you don't want to break out?"
Clear Water gave him an Anya-like mischievous smile and asked slyly.
"Of course I want to! Who here doesn't want to break out? Don't you?"
The Riddler shot back.
"Nope. Arkham is full of talented people, and they're all so pleasant to talk to. I love it here! Black Mask, you heard the Riddler trying to incite us, right?"
Black Mask finally caught on and nodded vigorously in front of the guard.
A squad of armed guards quickly arrived, cuffed and shackled the Riddler, and dragged him off to a higher-security cell.
"Finally, some peace and quiet!"
Black Mask took a deep breath and sat down in the corner of his cell.
"Don't be so sure. Every cell has audio and video surveillance. They'll figure out the truth soon enough, so that guy might be back."
Clear Water sat cross-legged in the center of his cell, sighing helplessly.