Only I Am A Reader-Chapter 541: Ability Chains, Reversed Coincidence

Taking a leisurely stroll on the streets, Leo looked around without care in his eyes. In reality, however, he was being extremely attentive.

'He is definitely here.'

No red flags screamed at him in an obvious manner, but his senses picked up a lot of clues.

Less crowded streets, lack of young individuals, no hustling or bustling… As a part of Enigma City, these little inconsistencies were like loud alarm clocks.

This area wasn't a slum, but it was on its way there. Those who came to the city with money only to lose, and those who bet everything on the City of Heroes and learned how harsh reality was.

This was the place where the low and high ends of society met in the middle. Things looked pretty peaceful… and silent.

'The perfect hiding place for someone like him.'

Of course, in Enigma City, corruption didn't thrive in poverty in desperation, the darkest places around were often found in the most expensive districts.

However, in the parts where one had to do everything just to make ends meet. Everyone turned their eyes over anything other than, and that made for great lairs.

Whether it was failed Heroes, or Villains who had lost their childish desire for chaos, they usually settled in such places until they were ready to face the world again.

Unfortunately, silent rehabilitation wasn't the purpose of Leo's target. He had followed a long trail of breadcrumbs all the way here, and he was almost 100% sure of his deduction.

Mentions of certain missing children, a rumor that the Association's database was hacked into, another rumor that suggested that someone broke into one of the Association's offices…

These breadcrumbs were too far away from each other to be connected, but for Leo who knew what he was looking for, it only took a few weeks to track to this general location.

Naturally, this breadcrumb wasn't the only one that Leo had stumbled on. In fact, with so much Villain activity that is usually suppressed by other Heroes, many more obvious targets had appeared on Leo's radar.

'I need to stop him as soon as possible.'

It was just that this specific Villain couldn't be delayed!

Confident in his deduction, Leo announced the end of the reconnaissance by slipping into his shadow in one of the dark alleys.

Compared to looking for the exact building where his target resided, scanning through the area using Shadow Movement was much more efficient.

Just because he was capable of extreme deduction didn't mean that he had to completely rely on it. That being said, Leo still moved based on what he deduced to be the most likely hiding spots.

'He really chose this one?'

Unexpectedly, Leo got a hit on the very first spot. It looked like a lively building with an active front, but it was actually half-abandoned.

Considering the overly suspicious acts that might not be overlooked even by the people of this area, it was Leo's first candidate. However, Leo thought that the supposedly smart Villain would skip such an obvious spot.

The lower three floors were empty, but Leo sensed three active Enigma Signals as soon as he stepped in. On the third floor, the sight of two juniors who were guiding their senior in cultivation appeared before Leo's eyes. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Do it! Compress, compress, and compress again, give it your all!"

Nonetheless, the tearstains on the young boy's face as well as the disheveled man's hollering completely destroyed that peaceful image.

Stealthily emerging from his shadow, a frown appeared on Leo's face… Only to quickly turn into attentive observation.

'So that's how he did it.'

The kids looked pitiful, but they weren't exactly suffering at the moment. What intrigued Leo was the Enigma operation that was currently taking place.

Stopping this was his original target, but seeing how it worked was quite a surprise!

'That's how the Ability Eraser came to be.'

Just like the Dark Gunner Colt, the Ability Eraser was yet another Villain that didn't start out as someone who was already strong.

Following Colt's route of exploiting Ability Users to find the special Summoning Gate, he was also someone who based his research on utilizing the abilities of others for his own purpose.

Unsurprisingly, the possibilities that could be opened up by superimposing different Special Abilities were limitless.

The Enigma to Fuel Conversion Methods, the Ability Measurement Device… All of these were just surface-level applications.

Back when war with the monsters was still raging, the interest in this field was especially strong. Only, since the device wasn't so readily available at that point, identifying and matching the right ones to pair wasn't easy.

'It really is too dangerous.'

By the time these conveniences were everywhere, the fog of war was already dissipating and the Higher-ups realized the dangers of these possibilities.

In fear that Awakened would become too strong that vain wealth, fame, and lust could no longer control them, the Higher-ups immediately shut down all relevant research in this field.

As much as it was mostly done for their own agenda, Leo agreed that such research was likely to bring about even more disaster, and the best example of that was sitting down in front of him.

'All he had to do was sync just two abilities to achieve this…'

His methods were inhumane, but if handled correctly, almost everyone could increase the quality of their Enigma.

Those that had strong abilities but lacking Enigma weren't as rare as they seemed. Rather, compared to this crazy researcher, they were likely to benefit more from this project.

However, the tremendous effect and potential weren't the source of Leo's surprise. The operation that the Ability Eraser was performing was almost identical to the refining that was taking place in his Secondary Energy Storage.

Finding the answer to one of his questions so soon left Leo with even more questions. Was matching and forming Ability Chains actually the true purpose behind the Awakening Phenomena?

Somehow, Leo felt the pull of fate as he pondered the coincidence streak that he had been hitting.

Everything was almost in reverse. Compared to the Ability Eraser who had to refine his Enigma to receive the ability of erasing abilities, Leo received the ability to refine Enigma after flexing his Erasure capability…