After his awakening, the change was immediate.
Kai felt it in his body—denser muscle fibres, sharper reflexes, clearer senses. His physical stats now exceeded an average adult's, and his interface confirmed it.
The children were moved to individual hostels—small but clean, each with its bed, study desk, and private washroom. The orphanage, funded by the New Healers Association, would support them until the age of sixteen. After that, they were expected to live on their own.
Fortunately, the orphanage was affiliated with Beijing Prime International Academy, a reputable institution only a short walk away. It offered scholarships to awakened orphans, and its campus was known for advanced facilities and well-balanced programs.
Kai kept to himself. While others rushed to learn mana arts or spar in the training yard, he silently meditated. He used no circulation or accumulation technique. Just slow, measured breathing. unlike his past life, he was building his foundation from the ground up.
To others, he was nothing special. Just another F-rank, with a seemingly useless skill—Scribe Mastery.
Ironically, it was because of that that caretaker Miriam approached him one afternoon.
"Kai," she said, kneeling beside him after lunch. "A few of us noticed your skill. There's a need for extra hands in the archives. If you're willing to help—copying texts, sorting, sometimes assisting researchers—you'll be paid."
He didn't speak right away. Just watched her.
"It's not much," she continued, mistaking his silence. "But one bronze per copied book. A fair deal, and it'll add up."
He nodded once. "I'll do it."
For most kids, it was a luxury. The orphanage provided everything, so even a few bronze coins could go far.
His days settled into a rhythm. He woke before dawn, jogged across the vast compound, and then exercised near a small pond on a raised slope overlooking the grounds. The orphanage was massive—four wings, each with multiple floors, interconnected by elevated walkways. A large dome covered the central hall, flanked by training zones, the research complex, and residential towers.
His training spot gave him a clear view of the southern yard and one wing of the dorms. It was quiet, shaded, and rarely visited.
Once the sun rose, he'd return, clean up, and spend hours working in the library. The tasks were dull—copying pages by hand, sorting older records, preparing bundles for trade—but it was consistent income. And it kept his presence low along with finding new info.
Each night, once the halls quieted and the lights dimmed, Kai walked out casually. No one could see or sense him. Cameras didn't register his presence. Patrol drones passed without pause. To the world, he simply didn't exist.
The orphanage's perimeter blurred into the urban sprawl of the outer sector—a dense web of towering buildings, skywalks, and glowing signs. It was always busy, always moving. Even now, three months before the grand festival, vendors had begun setting up stalls, lights blinked with soft fanfare, and music trickled through the alleys.
Kai wandered through it.
He'd already scouted the legitimate markets—the official storefronts, public vendors, and the ones under government regulation. Everything they sold was tagged. Not visibly, but magically—embedded with minor tracking seals that set off alerts if moved improperly or stolen. Kai could see them all. His Eye for Worth didn't just gauge value—it highlighted enchantments, hidden mechanisms, and markings that most would never notice.
There were methods to strip those tags—not particularly risky, but they required specific resources and tools he didn't have access to right now. So for the time being, he left the legitimate stalls alone.
Instead, his attention turned elsewhere.
The black markets within the business zones were a different story.
Hidden in plain sight, they operated inside the chaos—small stalls tucked between commercial towers, or crammed into repurposed maintenance corridors. These sellers dealt in goods that had changed hands too many times to trace—unregistered, unlicensed, and mostly untagged. Spatial rings, potions, relics, even old-world tech. All sold under the table.
There was no pressure for him. He could stand a meter from a vendor, study their goods in silence, and walk away without anyone ever knowing he was there.
Over the coming months, Kai would run silent, targeted heists across the city. His marks would be chosen carefully—those with negative auras, individuals tied to shady dealings, gambling dens, blackmail rings, or illegal vaults. Many in the city lived by dirty means. Kai would simply reclaim a portion of that, undetected and precise.
He needed the storage ring to store that flow—gold, stones, physical currency, rarer assets, and other catchy artefacts.
He also needed something else.
A high-end, pre-network premium smartphone—one of the last-generation encrypted models built before the widespread surveillance mesh. He remembered exactly what they looked like. In his old life, they were a prized tool for off-grid operations. Rare, expensive, and untraceable.
These kinds of models weren't sold anywhere legally anymore. But he knew they still moved through black markets.
The lights of the city shimmered overhead. Crowds laughed. Firecrackers echoed from deeper zones.
Kai walked beneath it all, silent and invisible.