"Mmm~ that was a good sleep, meow."
Cipher groggily sat up, then stretched.
She took her personal terminal out of her system backpack and glanced at the screen.
"Ten o'clock already... no wonder I slept so well."
Putting down the terminal, getting dressed, and tidying her slightly messy hair, Cipher pushed open the door and walked out.
Arriving in the living room, Cipher looked around and found no one. She didn't hear any sounds either; it seemed no one was home.
However, there was a bread and a bottle of water on the table, with a note tucked under the water.
Cipher walked over, picked up the note, and read its contents.
"Boss Cipher, Lauren and the others went to pick up a commission. They'll be back around noon. They originally wanted to take you with them, but because I saw you only came back in the early hours of the morning yesterday, I told them to let you sleep in a bit more."
"I'm currently preparing to go to the basement to interrogate Shen. If you need to ask anything, just go to the study room and pull out the second book from the bottom and the second to last book on the left bookshelf. That's the mechanism to the basement."
"Oh, and remember to eat breakfast."
—Claire.
"So they went out."
After reading the note, Cipher understood why she hadn't heard any movement.
She put the note aside, picked up the bread on the table, and began to eat.
After eating, Cipher went to the study and moved two books as instructed on the note.
Then, accompanied by a faint sound, Cipher saw the desk originally placed behind the bookshelf slowly move aside. Soon, a dark opening was revealed.
Walking down the stairs, she soon arrived in the basement.
The basement was not dirty and damp as Cipher had imagined; instead, it was very clean.
It was filled with various experimental equipment and materials she couldn't understand.
Cipher quickly spotted Claire and Shen.
They were sitting face to face in a transparent glass room, and Claire seemed to be asking Shen, some questions.
However, this glass room seemed to be soundproof, and Cipher could only hear some faint, blurry sounds.
Before Cipher could even go up to knock on the door, Claire inside the room seemed to sense something. She stood up, picked up a notebook from the table, and came over to open the glass room door.
"Boss Cipher, you're here."
Cipher nodded, "Did you find out anything?"
"I asked a lot about the Reverse Current Alliance. Boss Cipher, you can take a look."
Saying this, Claire handed her the notebook.
Taking the notebook, Cipher looked curiously at the intelligence written inside.
"The Reverse Current Alliance, an anti-corporate organization active in the Pit Bottom District. Its internal members number around 500, while its peripheral members are too numerous and scattered to count."
"Its internal combat strength mainly consists of five A+ level Deputy Leaders and one S- (suspected S) level Leader. As for the others, C-level members are the most common, but they are generally cannon fodder armed with firearms. The core combat strength is B- to B+ level, numbering around fifty people..."
"Its goal is to overthrow the monopolistic rule of the major corporations, but after more than ten years of establishment, its highest achievement was only destroying an Apex Entertainment Branch in a certain part of the Honeycomb District eight years ago (Note: Apex Entertainment is the weakest in terms of combat strength, security, and information), after which it was purged of all its infiltrating forces in the Honeycomb District by the IMA and placed on a wanted list. It can currently only retreat back to the Pit Bottom District."
"I thought they'd be really strong if they were going to overthrow the corporations, but now it seems they're not much at all. The strongest Leader is at most S-level..."
After a brief glance, Cipher had a general understanding of this so-called Reverse Current Alliance.
She had learned from videos while browsing her terminal that the corporations had several S-level combatants, and even S+ was rumored to exist.
Besides, they only had a little over five hundred members after all.
According to the videos, a single corporate branch was guarded by hundreds of ability users, not to mention the IMA, which had countless ability users who could be dispatched to various locations at any time.
In the end, wasn't it just an organization that used "overthrowing the corporations" as an excuse to trick and deceive people into risking their lives?
Otherwise, they wouldn't have been silent ever since being driven away by the IMA eight years ago.
"I understand now. So, what kind of combat strength will they bring when we go to trade with them?"
Putting down the note, Cipher asked Claire.
More than whether this alliance was truly trying to overthrow the corporations, she was more concerned about when she would get her hands on those million-plus credit points.
Hearing Cipher's question, Claire first stroked her chin in thought for a while, then gave her deduction.
"They can definitely deduce that Boss you are an A+ level combatant. If they want a normal transaction, they will at most send a few A- or A-level combatants to prevent us from turning against them. So Chu Qingyu will definitely come, after all, Augie is his son."
"If they also want to fall out with us, then they will at least send two Deputy Leaders to ambush us, as two A+ and a few A- to A-level combatants should be enough to take us down."
After Claire finished speaking, she turned the notebook to another page and read out its contents:
"Li Jun, Gravity-type ability; Feng Wuya, Guardian-type ability, can create a powerful barrier that can withstand many high-intensity attacks, such as missiles; Jin Chuan, Energy-type ability, can release incredibly powerful energy pulses, with high lethality and destructive power. As for the remaining two, Mo Zhishu and Guan Lan, their abilities are unknown because they haven't been seen in action yet. It is initially suspected to be related to the Mental-type."
"This is all the intelligence regarding these five Deputy Leaders. As for the Leader, he is very mysterious; it is said that very few people have seen him."
"They all sound quite strong..."
After listening to Claire, Cipher fell into thought.
How to put it, she really didn't know which category her combat strength belonged to. Although she was a demigod, it was ultimately different from Amphoreus's combat strength system.
However, after thinking about it, if she really felt something was wrong, she could always run away. With Divinity Speed, Cipher truly didn't believe anyone could catch her.
Even if they could catch her, they couldn't defeat her.
She was different from ordinary ability users, and she still had that wisp of Reclusive Princess's aura unused.
"No big deal." Thinking this, Cipher confidently raised her head, "Believe me, as long as I'm here, even if they really send out two A+ level combatants, they won't be able to catch us!"