72

Zhang Zhiyin still retained a fresh memory of this incident. In the aftermath, he also did detailed inquiries and investigations, often failing to sleep soundly at night because of his unending thoughts. Because in that event, he once thought that he had lost a very important person1 who afterwards turned out to be the most important person in his life, and he actually didn’t lose him.

When he thought of this, Zhang Zhiyin really wanted to put his hand into his pocket and pinch Yan Nian’s butt hard while he was still a cat!

But there was clearly more important matter to be done right now. So let him verify what kind of tricks they were playing and whether his guesses were correct or not.

Zhang Zhiyin’s identity was very special. Although this body in tomorrow’s world was his own, he held the role of a Player. For so many times he was able to ignore the rules of the world and come back from the dead. He could use the items purchased in the Item Store, leave the world and return to reality… All of these were based on the characteristics of the “Players” in the game. When Yin Nian constructed the world, he transplanted the game, <Tomorrow>, and its characteristics were then reflected into reality. Zhang Zhiyin who was an outsider, could not be more suitable as this “player”.

The only player who possessed the privilege to come here.

At the same time, he was also limited by this special characteristic.

Zhang Zhiyin didn’t notice at first. Later, as his experience in fighting increased, he began to realize a problem that stemmed from his existence— he was not as flexible as Dadao and Ah Mu when using his abilities. Each of them used their own powers in ways that were unique to themselves only, while he himself had always been using technical skills.

This problem was that he could not combine his ice ability with precision ability. When he used his usual ice ability, the upgrade of his precision ability would only bring him an increase in relevant stats.

Because in the game, the difference in being a dual ability users was just having two abilities. No player could release two active skills at the same time.

The attack power of precision ability was not as good as ice ability, so Zhang Zhiyin’s usual fighting method before was to buff his accuracy and then use his gun to deal with the enemy with his ice ability.

But this time, when he realised the abnormality in the situation, his first reaction was to send a warning message to the whole team, inform the captain of the Storm Unit, and at the same time, use his precision ability that had reached Level 6 and to activate his new skill “Clear the eyes and seek the source”.

In the game, there were few people that would improve their common mutation ability to an advanced level, resulting in many relevant resources related to precision ability upgrade appearing in the market, and because of this the market value tended to be cheap. When Zhang Zhiyin started his little store, he also hoarded a batch of those resources. When the time came, he would just raise his precision ability in one go, and the day before yesterday, he had just reached Level 6.

His field of vision was suddenly enveloped with a faint layer of clear green that extended to the far distance. This not only made him see further but also made him observe more attentively.

His eyes seemed to have connected with all the blood vessels in his body. What his eyes could see was what he could reach.

To the point that he could even feel the subtle vibration of the fly on the right wall, even if he could not see it, he could sense it— he believed that he could lock on to the fly right now, and then nub it in its heart— although the insect was really insignificant.

Just like a cook disjoining a cattle, when he focused his attention on a living body, he could vaguely sense the blood circulation, meridians, muscles, fat, internal organs…

It was as if he was doing a scan or x-ray at a person silently, but everything still appeared a bit fuzzy. He believed that if he raised his level, all these images would be even clearer.

This skill gave an influx of sensations to the user. However, Zhang Zhiyin had tried it out; as long as he tried to use his ice ability, the effect of this skill would disappear and everything would be the same as usual. He couldn’t rely on this skill to target the enemy’s weakness directly.

But the effect of this skill was now obvious.

Once it was activated, he could clearly sense that there were two distinct living bodies in location three. One of them was No. 3 who he was familiar with, while he was not familiar with the other one, they were closely connected with No. 3— If he did not guess wrongly, the man grabbed No. 3 and made them disappear from the public view using the same method.

The intruder’s ability level was not low, equipped with advanced devices that could block psychic detection along with some other special methods, the headquarters’ defense system was not alerted at all.

It was a pity that his skill could only scout to the scope of his vision, so he wasn’t able to determine how many of them came and where they were hidden.

However, Zhang Zhiyin did not think that this represent how strong they were. The items in the Item Store were such examples. The opponents might not be that strong, but they could be using their abilities and skills in a different way from the norm, causing them to be unable to come up with something to guard against them for the time being. Once these tricks were broken through, there would be nothing to worry about.

Zhang Zhiyin bowed his head and looked at the white cat in his pocket. In the next second, he raised his hand without hesitation in lightning speed.

He fired the pistol and multiple ice bullets launched towards the direction of the hidden intruders.

What Ah Kong and the rest saw was their captain suddenly firing several shots into the air, and for a period of time, the whole area was filled with flashes of white. No. 3 who had abruptly vanished in the public’s sight appeared, his hands and feet were bound, and the next second he was put on the ground.

Zhang Zhiyin hurriedly switched to “Clear the eyes and seek the source”, but he had lost the trace of the intruder, and even the signs of life activities had disappeared completely.

No. 2, who was in charge of providing support, rushed forward to help No. 3, and then a member from the peripheral took over No. 3 to enter the inner perimeter. Others with weapons on their arm were all on the alert, on guard and ready for orders.

At Zhang Zhiyin’s request, Yun Chu started seeking for other support.

A minute had passed, and there was no still movement; and yet another minute had passed.

When his count had reached 130, Zhang Zhiyin then issued an alert, “Inform the whole team to be vigilant.”

He knew that the other side was playing psychological tricks on them, but he also knew that they would not let them wait for a long time— the enemy would not allow them to obtain foreign aid and thus failing their attack because of this.

Now he had no doubt that their defensive layout had been made known to the other side. The mole was undoubtedly one of the members from the six battle units. More precisely, only members from Thunder, Storm, Mist Unit and Yun Chu who would have such a clear understanding of their layout because of their intertwined tasks.

As soon as the alarm sounded in the communication devices, eleven people appeared silently in the shadow of the hall. They didn’t give Thunder Unit any time to react as they struck. Their movements were unpredictable and the most terrible thing was their ability. As Zhang Zhiyin thought, they utilized their ability in a way they had never seen before.

There were a total of five people in charge of defending the inner perimeter, so it was one against two.

In reality, even if Yun Chu was not a “protected NPC”, he still could not make any move. He had confessed to Zhang Zhiyin about his reason for seeking protection. After Yun Lietian had met mishaps, he broke through Level 8 by force. His current state was unstable and it made him unable to use his ability at all. This was equivalent to exposing his secrets and weaknesses in front of Zhang Zhiyin. At that time, even if Yun Chu was not the alliance leader, Zhang Zhiyin still could not afford to have him injured. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to give an explanation to the headquarters.

Zhang Zhiyin tried to look in the direction of Dadao and the rest. The peripheral defenders were also in the middle of fighting. Presumably, their situation would not be any better than theirs.

Instead of scattering, these invaders were divided into pairs and surrounded each member of the team— Their purpose was very clear; to exhaust the fighting power of Thunder Unit. But at that time, Zhang Zhiyin’s prearranged position of each team member played its role. It enabled the team members to support each other while also allowing them to quickly return to their own designated spot to face their opponents and fight alone. Soon, as planned in advance, when the intruders acted, this one against two situations were firmly set. Each team member delayed two intruders— even if they were barely holding on. The Thunder Unit skilfully employed all methods to deal with the intruders, leaving them with no spare time while defending themselves to their best extent without launching any attacks.

Four invaders rushed straight to Zhang Zhiyin— three of his team members had stopped two of the invaders. As Ah Kong was not proficient in fighting, she could only stop one. The remaining four came to Zhang Zhiyin.

Zhang Zhiyin didn’t dodge. He carefully read the current situation and pulled out a short iron rod from behind, sticking it on the ground. At the same time, he injected his ice ability into the iron rod. The iron rod began to flash ice blue patterns akin to an incantation that appeared from time to time. Then, white fog formed on the rob and gradually spread to the ground. The whole indoor floor was covered with a thin layer of ice. The ice grew thicker and froze the invaders in place. The process was so fast that the invaders did not have the strength to break free at all. The four invaders were fixed in the moment of attacking Zhang Zhiyin. Two of them were holding a sword less than an inch away from him.

This was a phenomenon that Zhang Zhiyin noticed. These invaders were all fighting with swords in their hands. From the start, they did not use any elemental or psychic attack powers.

This freezing effect was a status array he bought from the Item Store. It would be able to freeze the enemy for one minute and the user would gain three minutes of ice armor effect. But the user would not be able to launch any attack during this time, once the enemy was attacked, the freezing effect would be removed.

In reality, everything was not as simple as moving the mouse and keyboard in the game. This array needed to be arranged in advance. Zhang Zhiyin knew the time and place of the invasion in advance, so he had quietly prepared the array in this hall in the name of patrolling. It took a lot of power to activate this array. He infused his accumulated power into the iron rod three days ago. When it was needed today, s imply injection of his power was all it needed to be activated.

This was exactly what Zhang Zhiyin wanted.

According to the arrangement in advance, Zhang Zhiyin would cast the freezing effect on the intruders, and the team would carry out a siege in order to quickly remove the intruders’ combat ability.

Within a minute, they had knocked down three invaders and were trying to deal with the fourth.

At this time, there were noises and shouts outside. Zhang Zhiyin was relieved. Storm Unit had arrived to help them.

When the freezing effect was removed, the invaders understood the current situation and did not communicate with each other. They even managed to get rid of the people around them and rushed to Zhang Zhiyin.

This was totally different from what Zhang Zhiyin expected. This array also had a strong protection effect. According to the plot in the game, these invaders were all coming for Yun Chu. The Thunder Unit’s Captain in the game then died protecting Yun Chu. When Zhang Zhiyin activated this array, he identified Yun Chu as the person that needed the most protection. Everyone’s stationed spot was arranged so that they would be able to protect Yun Chu. As long as there was no major accident, there was no need for a person to protect Yun Chu in exchange for their own life.

But now, it’s clear that the target was him!

The team members couldn’t stop them and Yun Chu couldn’t even look after himself. The invaders suddenly broke out at an amazing speed, they were twice as fast as before such that they could only see seven shadows passing by, and fourteen blades stabbed Zhang Zhiyin almost at the same time.

Under the great pressure of the invader’s attack, Zhang Zhiyin’s armor was destroyed quickly and broke into pieces.

The only way he could think of now was to freeze himself to protect his body. During the crisis, he even forgot that he brought a cat with him and who the cat was.

Zhang Zhiyin’s ability hadn’t been activated yet. At the critical moment, everyone only heard the sound of “Auwo”. A small fluffy white head came out of Captain Zhang’s coat pocket and spat out an ice blue ball silently.

The little ball expanded rapidly and became an ice ring with an outer diameter of about two meters. Centered on Zhang Zhiyin, it expanded towards the seven invaders. In less than half a second, the nearest intruder had made contact with the periphery of the ring— he began to freeze rapidly and soon dissolved, leaving nothing behind. The other six wanted to withdraw, but their speed was not faster than the expansion of the ring. Ultimately all of them could not escape the fate of being dissolved.

In a flash, those invaders with sharp blades turned into pools of water marks on the ground with nothing else remained.

Everyone here knew that this was the effect of the ice skill, Freeze Break, but no one had ever seen anyone make this simple advanced skill so domineering.

Let alone a cat.

But Zhang Zhiyin had seen it. In his mind, his family’s Xiaoxiang had used this skill to save himself when he wanted to fight against the goat boss that time. Although it refused to cooperate since then and was satisfied to be a cowardly cat.

He had not recovered from this near death experience. Between the illumination of the flint, Zhang Zhiyin suddenly thought of something. Then he lowered his head, lowered his voice, and exhaled to the cat who had just made great contributions in his arms, “It was you?”

Cat Yin Nian closed his eyes tightly, wearing a straight expression of “I didn’t do anything,” “I’m innocent”, and “I do everything because I love you.”

Zhang Zhiyin still retained a fresh memory of this incident. In the aftermath, he also did detailed inquiries and investigations, often failing to sleep soundly at night because of his unending thoughts. Because in that event, he once thought that he had lost a very important person1 who afterwards turned out to be the most important person in his life, and he actually didn’t lose him.

When he thought of this, Zhang Zhiyin really wanted to put his hand into his pocket and pinch Yan Nian’s butt hard while he was still a cat!

But there was clearly more important matter to be done right now. So let him verify what kind of tricks they were playing and whether his guesses were correct or not.

Zhang Zhiyin’s identity was very special. Although this body in tomorrow’s world was his own, he held the role of a Player. For so many times he was able to ignore the rules of the world and come back from the dead. He could use the items purchased in the Item Store, leave the world and return to reality… All of these were based on the characteristics of the “Players” in the game. When Yin Nian constructed the world, he transplanted the game, <Tomorrow>, and its characteristics were then reflected into reality. Zhang Zhiyin who was an outsider, could not be more suitable as this “player”.

The only player who possessed the privilege to come here.

At the same time, he was also limited by this special characteristic.

Zhang Zhiyin didn’t notice at first. Later, as his experience in fighting increased, he began to realize a problem that stemmed from his existence— he was not as flexible as Dadao and Ah Mu when using his abilities. Each of them used their own powers in ways that were unique to themselves only, while he himself had always been using technical skills.

This problem was that he could not combine his ice ability with precision ability. When he used his usual ice ability, the upgrade of his precision ability would only bring him an increase in relevant stats.

Because in the game, the difference in being a dual ability users was just having two abilities. No player could release two active skills at the same time.

The attack power of precision ability was not as good as ice ability, so Zhang Zhiyin’s usual fighting method before was to buff his accuracy and then use his gun to deal with the enemy with his ice ability.

But this time, when he realised the abnormality in the situation, his first reaction was to send a warning message to the whole team, inform the captain of the Storm Unit, and at the same time, use his precision ability that had reached Level 6 and to activate his new skill “Clear the eyes and seek the source”.

In the game, there were few people that would improve their common mutation ability to an advanced level, resulting in many relevant resources related to precision ability upgrade appearing in the market, and because of this the market value tended to be cheap. When Zhang Zhiyin started his little store, he also hoarded a batch of those resources. When the time came, he would just raise his precision ability in one go, and the day before yesterday, he had just reached Level 6.

His field of vision was suddenly enveloped with a faint layer of clear green that extended to the far distance. This not only made him see further but also made him observe more attentively.

His eyes seemed to have connected with all the blood vessels in his body. What his eyes could see was what he could reach.

To the point that he could even feel the subtle vibration of the fly on the right wall, even if he could not see it, he could sense it— he believed that he could lock on to the fly right now, and then nub it in its heart— although the insect was really insignificant.

Just like a cook disjoining a cattle, when he focused his attention on a living body, he could vaguely sense the blood circulation, meridians, muscles, fat, internal organs…

It was as if he was doing a scan or x-ray at a person silently, but everything still appeared a bit fuzzy. He believed that if he raised his level, all these images would be even clearer.

This skill gave an influx of sensations to the user. However, Zhang Zhiyin had tried it out; as long as he tried to use his ice ability, the effect of this skill would disappear and everything would be the same as usual. He couldn’t rely on this skill to target the enemy’s weakness directly.

But the effect of this skill was now obvious.

Once it was activated, he could clearly sense that there were two distinct living bodies in location three. One of them was No. 3 who he was familiar with, while he was not familiar with the other one, they were closely connected with No. 3— If he did not guess wrongly, the man grabbed No. 3 and made them disappear from the public view using the same method.

The intruder’s ability level was not low, equipped with advanced devices that could block psychic detection along with some other special methods, the headquarters’ defense system was not alerted at all.

It was a pity that his skill could only scout to the scope of his vision, so he wasn’t able to determine how many of them came and where they were hidden.

However, Zhang Zhiyin did not think that this represent how strong they were. The items in the Item Store were such examples. The opponents might not be that strong, but they could be using their abilities and skills in a different way from the norm, causing them to be unable to come up with something to guard against them for the time being. Once these tricks were broken through, there would be nothing to worry about.

Zhang Zhiyin bowed his head and looked at the white cat in his pocket. In the next second, he raised his hand without hesitation in lightning speed.

He fired the pistol and multiple ice bullets launched towards the direction of the hidden intruders.

What Ah Kong and the rest saw was their captain suddenly firing several shots into the air, and for a period of time, the whole area was filled with flashes of white. No. 3 who had abruptly vanished in the public’s sight appeared, his hands and feet were bound, and the next second he was put on the ground.

Zhang Zhiyin hurriedly switched to “Clear the eyes and seek the source”, but he had lost the trace of the intruder, and even the signs of life activities had disappeared completely.

No. 2, who was in charge of providing support, rushed forward to help No. 3, and then a member from the peripheral took over No. 3 to enter the inner perimeter. Others with weapons on their arm were all on the alert, on guard and ready for orders.

At Zhang Zhiyin’s request, Yun Chu started seeking for other support.

A minute had passed, and there was no still movement; and yet another minute had passed.

When his count had reached 130, Zhang Zhiyin then issued an alert, “Inform the whole team to be vigilant.”

He knew that the other side was playing psychological tricks on them, but he also knew that they would not let them wait for a long time— the enemy would not allow them to obtain foreign aid and thus failing their attack because of this.

Now he had no doubt that their defensive layout had been made known to the other side. The mole was undoubtedly one of the members from the six battle units. More precisely, only members from Thunder, Storm, Mist Unit and Yun Chu who would have such a clear understanding of their layout because of their intertwined tasks.

As soon as the alarm sounded in the communication devices, eleven people appeared silently in the shadow of the hall. They didn’t give Thunder Unit any time to react as they struck. Their movements were unpredictable and the most terrible thing was their ability. As Zhang Zhiyin thought, they utilized their ability in a way they had never seen before.

There were a total of five people in charge of defending the inner perimeter, so it was one against two.

In reality, even if Yun Chu was not a “protected NPC”, he still could not make any move. He had confessed to Zhang Zhiyin about his reason for seeking protection. After Yun Lietian had met mishaps, he broke through Level 8 by force. His current state was unstable and it made him unable to use his ability at all. This was equivalent to exposing his secrets and weaknesses in front of Zhang Zhiyin. At that time, even if Yun Chu was not the alliance leader, Zhang Zhiyin still could not afford to have him injured. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to give an explanation to the headquarters.

Zhang Zhiyin tried to look in the direction of Dadao and the rest. The peripheral defenders were also in the middle of fighting. Presumably, their situation would not be any better than theirs.

Instead of scattering, these invaders were divided into pairs and surrounded each member of the team— Their purpose was very clear; to exhaust the fighting power of Thunder Unit. But at that time, Zhang Zhiyin’s prearranged position of each team member played its role. It enabled the team members to support each other while also allowing them to quickly return to their own designated spot to face their opponents and fight alone. Soon, as planned in advance, when the intruders acted, this one against two situations were firmly set. Each team member delayed two intruders— even if they were barely holding on. The Thunder Unit skilfully employed all methods to deal with the intruders, leaving them with no spare time while defending themselves to their best extent without launching any attacks.

Four invaders rushed straight to Zhang Zhiyin— three of his team members had stopped two of the invaders. As Ah Kong was not proficient in fighting, she could only stop one. The remaining four came to Zhang Zhiyin.

Zhang Zhiyin didn’t dodge. He carefully read the current situation and pulled out a short iron rod from behind, sticking it on the ground. At the same time, he injected his ice ability into the iron rod. The iron rod began to flash ice blue patterns akin to an incantation that appeared from time to time. Then, white fog formed on the rob and gradually spread to the ground. The whole indoor floor was covered with a thin layer of ice. The ice grew thicker and froze the invaders in place. The process was so fast that the invaders did not have the strength to break free at all. The four invaders were fixed in the moment of attacking Zhang Zhiyin. Two of them were holding a sword less than an inch away from him.

This was a phenomenon that Zhang Zhiyin noticed. These invaders were all fighting with swords in their hands. From the start, they did not use any elemental or psychic attack powers.

This freezing effect was a status array he bought from the Item Store. It would be able to freeze the enemy for one minute and the user would gain three minutes of ice armor effect. But the user would not be able to launch any attack during this time, once the enemy was attacked, the freezing effect would be removed.

In reality, everything was not as simple as moving the mouse and keyboard in the game. This array needed to be arranged in advance. Zhang Zhiyin knew the time and place of the invasion in advance, so he had quietly prepared the array in this hall in the name of patrolling. It took a lot of power to activate this array. He infused his accumulated power into the iron rod three days ago. When it was needed today, s imply injection of his power was all it needed to be activated.

This was exactly what Zhang Zhiyin wanted.

According to the arrangement in advance, Zhang Zhiyin would cast the freezing effect on the intruders, and the team would carry out a siege in order to quickly remove the intruders’ combat ability.

Within a minute, they had knocked down three invaders and were trying to deal with the fourth.

At this time, there were noises and shouts outside. Zhang Zhiyin was relieved. Storm Unit had arrived to help them.

When the freezing effect was removed, the invaders understood the current situation and did not communicate with each other. They even managed to get rid of the people around them and rushed to Zhang Zhiyin.

This was totally different from what Zhang Zhiyin expected. This array also had a strong protection effect. According to the plot in the game, these invaders were all coming for Yun Chu. The Thunder Unit’s Captain in the game then died protecting Yun Chu. When Zhang Zhiyin activated this array, he identified Yun Chu as the person that needed the most protection. Everyone’s stationed spot was arranged so that they would be able to protect Yun Chu. As long as there was no major accident, there was no need for a person to protect Yun Chu in exchange for their own life.

But now, it’s clear that the target was him!

The team members couldn’t stop them and Yun Chu couldn’t even look after himself. The invaders suddenly broke out at an amazing speed, they were twice as fast as before such that they could only see seven shadows passing by, and fourteen blades stabbed Zhang Zhiyin almost at the same time.

Under the great pressure of the invader’s attack, Zhang Zhiyin’s armor was destroyed quickly and broke into pieces.

The only way he could think of now was to freeze himself to protect his body. During the crisis, he even forgot that he brought a cat with him and who the cat was.

Zhang Zhiyin’s ability hadn’t been activated yet. At the critical moment, everyone only heard the sound of “Auwo”. A small fluffy white head came out of Captain Zhang’s coat pocket and spat out an ice blue ball silently.

The little ball expanded rapidly and became an ice ring with an outer diameter of about two meters. Centered on Zhang Zhiyin, it expanded towards the seven invaders. In less than half a second, the nearest intruder had made contact with the periphery of the ring— he began to freeze rapidly and soon dissolved, leaving nothing behind. The other six wanted to withdraw, but their speed was not faster than the expansion of the ring. Ultimately all of them could not escape the fate of being dissolved.

In a flash, those invaders with sharp blades turned into pools of water marks on the ground with nothing else remained.

Everyone here knew that this was the effect of the ice skill, Freeze Break, but no one had ever seen anyone make this simple advanced skill so domineering.

Let alone a cat.

But Zhang Zhiyin had seen it. In his mind, his family’s Xiaoxiang had used this skill to save himself when he wanted to fight against the goat boss that time. Although it refused to cooperate since then and was satisfied to be a cowardly cat.

He had not recovered from this near death experience. Between the illumination of the flint, Zhang Zhiyin suddenly thought of something. Then he lowered his head, lowered his voice, and exhaled to the cat who had just made great contributions in his arms, “It was you?”

Cat Yin Nian closed his eyes tightly, wearing a straight expression of “I didn’t do anything,” “I’m innocent”, and “I do everything because I love you.”