The following morning, the Lower Sector was rife with whispers. The Crimson Fangs had lost a significant shipment of Mana Cores, two low-level Warriors were dead, and Lyra "The Viper" was reportedly nursing a severe temper, furious that a Stage 1 Novice had managed to briefly incapacitate her and escape.
Viktor D. Harper, meanwhile, was meticulously preparing breakfast for Elara.
He moved slowly, deliberately, favoring his uninjured side. The gash from Lyra's vibro-blade, which should have required emergency medical intervention and left him bedridden for a week, was now just a tight, purplish line beneath his shirt. The Top-Tier Healing Factor had worked wonders, knitting the deep muscle tissue back together with astonishing speed.
To the outside world, however, he needed to maintain the illusion of crippling injury.
When Elara woke up, her brow furrowed with immediate concern. "Brother, are you alright? You're moving funny."
"Just a work accident," Viktor replied easily, stirring the nutrient paste. "A heavy lift slipped at the processing plant. It's nothing serious, but the supervisor insisted I take the day off."
He applied a layer of cheap, strong-smelling salve to the bandage wrapped around his torso—salve that did nothing for the advanced wound healing, but smelled authentically medicinal. It was the theater of mediocrity.
"You should rest," Elara insisted, already moving to take the bowl from him. "I can go to the market today."
"No," Viktor said, a slight edge in his voice that made her pause. He softened his tone immediately. "No, I need the exercise. Walking helps." He needed to be visible, establishing the narrative that he was injured but functional, thereby justifying his continued existence and subsequent slow rise in power.
The Power of the Passive
As the day progressed, Viktor mentally analyzed his first acquired talent.
The Top-Tier Healing Factor was purely passive. It required no cultivation energy to activate; it simply was. This was crucial. It meant no one could detect a sudden spike in his energy signature, which would have happened if he'd copied an active shield or an explosive elemental attack. The healing was internal and continuous.
Benefit: Immunity to crippling injury, vastly reduced downtime, and the ability to tank hits that would kill his peers.
Cover Story: He would attribute minor cuts and bruises to the grueling work schedule and major injuries (which he would deliberately sustain in controlled fights) to sheer, desperate luck and the use of cheap, low-grade artifacts he would claim to have acquired.
This passive talent provided the foundational resilience he needed. Now, he needed something that would accelerate his core strength—the one thing everyone would be watching.
His Novice Cultivation Talent was his most glaring weakness. It meant his energy pool (Mana) was small, his recovery speed was glacial, and his overall potential was capped before he even started. The fastest way to break the confines of the Warrior Realm was to improve the quality of his core cultivation.
Next Target: A superior Cultivation Talent.
The Hunt for the Next Talent
Viktor spent the afternoon reviewing the public Talent Registry and the classified sector logs he had painstakingly scraped from unsecured networks over the past year.
He filtered the data. Monarch City Academy was the nexus of power on Earth, housing Talents up to the Divine rank. But those people were untouchable, shielded by layers of security and Emperor-level bodyguards.
He focused on the tier just below them: Apex- and Special-Rank Talents attached to mid-level guilds or security firms. These individuals were strong, but arrogant, often walking among the lower sectors to prove their dominance.
He identified a primary target: Gaius Trak, a high-ranking enforcer for the Obsidian Shield security company.
Gaius was a Stage 8 Warrior, on the verge of the Epic-Warrior Realm. His public Talent was Apex-Tier Stone Affinity, allowing him to manipulate earth and rock.
His secondary, hidden talent—and the one Viktor cared about—was a highly efficient Special-Tier Cultivation Talent: The Aether Well.
The Aether Well Talent granted:
Massive Mana Capacity: An energy reservoir many times larger than typical.
Rapid Absorption: Exponentially faster rate of absorbing ambient mana for cultivation.
Copying this talent would immediately transform Viktor's pathetic Novice core into a Special-Tier powerhouse, bypassing years of tedious, low-efficiency cultivation. It would be an undetectable, internal change.
The problem: Gaius was a Stage 8 Warrior. He was exponentially more powerful than Lyra. A fight was out of the question.
The solution: Not a fight, but a calculated, momentary transgression.
Gaius Trak was known to visit the "Iron & Grit" underground fighting arena every two weeks to train his combat Warriors, often using his Stone Affinity to create custom training environments. His next visit was scheduled for twelve days from now.
Viktor closed his eyes, the image of Gaius Trak's status flickering in his mind. He still had 29 days left on his Replication Cooldown, plenty of time to plan.
"Thirteen days," Viktor murmured to himself, the scent of the cheap salve masking the internal fire of his ambition. "Thirteen days to prepare for the inevitable collision."
He stood up, ignoring the phantom pain in his side. He didn't just need to survive; he needed to be fast enough to touch Gaius and escape an overwhelming Stage 8 power, and ruthless enough to ensure Gaius would never trace the momentary contact back to a 'Novice' like him.
The planning stage was always the most dangerous.