A Comprehensive Network: An Endless Adventure Begins as a Wanderer

Cheng Yi was woken up by his phone alarm.

It's 7 PM. The light filtering through the curtains has changed from white to grayish-blue.

He sat up and flexed his fingers.

After getting out of bed and washing his face, Cheng Yi took out the Shadow Spirit Cloak from his backpack and put it on.

He walked to the open space in the second bedroom and turned on the control panel.

[Story Dungeon: The Earl's Manor at Sunset]

Challenge Level: 4

[Dungeon Completion Requirement: Kill Count Vid Hawke]

[Dungeon Death Penalty: Soul Weakness (lasts 3 days)]

[Enter?]

"Yes."

The familiar feeling of dizziness.

When Cheng Yi opened his eyes again, he was standing on a dirt road. Tall trees lined both sides, their branches intertwining overhead, blocking out only a narrow sliver of sky. The setting sun filtered through the trees, turning the dirt road a dark red. About three hundred meters away, he could see a gray stone wall. At intervals along the wall, simple magic lamps illuminated the space.

manor.

Instead of continuing along the dirt road, he turned and walked into the woods.

He had zero information about the manor and had to investigate from scratch. He knew nothing about the count's guards—how many men they had, their strength, or how often they changed shifts.

Cheng Yi circled around the woods, approaching the manor from the north side.

There was no main gate on the north side, and the magic lamps were spaced further apart, with some areas nearly eighty meters apart, leaving large dark areas in between. He found a section of wall where no magic lamp was shining directly on him and used shadow teleportation to climb over it.

Cheng Yi landed behind a clump of bushes. The Eyes of Night made everything in the twilight crystal clear.

To his north were the stables and storerooms, unguarded. Cheng Yi made his way south along the shadows of the stables, mentally tracing the map of the manor.

Stable, storeroom, servants' quarters, kitchen, storage room.

Cheng Yi stopped and listened at each building he passed.

There were very few servants on the manor. Cheng Yi only found two people tidying up in the kitchen, chatting quietly as they worked.

He went around the kitchen and approached the main building.

The main building is a three-story stone villa with light gray exterior walls. The doors and windows on the first floor are closed, and the curtains are drawn tightly. The same is true for the second floor. There is a window on the east side of the third floor that is slightly ajar.

He didn't rush up. He found a secluded corner in the garden on the east side of the main building, squatted down, closed his eyes, and narrowed the range of his Observation Haki to the interior of the main building.

There are eight people on the first floor. There are two guards near the main entrance, two people sitting and chatting in the lobby, and two people walking back and forth in the corridor.

There was a servant in the direction of the kitchen. There were also two other people in the room on the east side, one sitting and one standing.

The seated man exuded a calm and composed aura; he was likely Earl Hawke. The standing man possessed a refined and concentrated aura, like a heavy sword sheathed in its sheath.

A melee fighter.

There were two people on the third floor. One was pacing back and forth in the corridor; he was probably a guard.

The other was in the guest room on the east side, the one with the window open. This person was neither asleep nor moving; he was simply sitting in the room.

His aura was different from that of the guard standing on the first floor; it was more restrained, and it seemed as if something was slowly flowing within him.

The spellcaster.

Cheng Yi didn't go in through the third-floor window. A professional sitting in his bedroom without sleeping is either waiting for someone or for news. Going in through the window would be tantamount to walking into a trap.

He teleported from the shadows of the garden to the second-floor windowsill. The window was closed, but the curtains weren't fully drawn, leaving a crack. Cheng Yi used his sorcerer's hand to pry open the latch and silently slipped inside.

The second floor consists of guest rooms. Cheng Yi crouched below the window, observing the flow of his Observation Haki.

The maid in the next room was sleeping, her breathing steady, and there was no one in the hallway.

He waited patiently in the darkness.

About an hour later, the guards in the corridor changed shifts.

Cheng Yi noted down the time intervals: approximately two hours per shift, with one person per shift, patrolling only the third-floor corridor.

About half an hour later, the guards on the first floor began to change shifts. Footsteps, voices, and the clanging of armor plates came from downstairs, lasting for about two minutes before falling silent.

Cheng Yi suddenly sensed that the calm aura on the first floor had moved.

The man stood up from the chair, walked out of the room, down the corridor, and up the stairs.

It takes about thirty seconds to get from the stairwell on the first floor to the bedroom on the third floor.

The guard paused at the doorway, then the footsteps continued forward—Earl Hawke said something as he passed the guard, who responded, and then the footsteps stopped at the bedroom door.

Wade Hawke went into the master bedroom. He walked a few steps around the room, then lay down on the bed.

But his breathing didn't become steady; he didn't sleep, he just lay there.

Ten minutes later, the man's breathing finally changed. He switched from deep alertness to light sleep; his heart rate was still faster than normal, but his breathing became more regular.

Cheng Yi stood up from below the window of the guest room. The moonlight outside was dim, and a large shadow stretched across the east side of the main building's exterior wall, extending from the roof to the second floor.

He slipped out of the window and then darted onto the third-floor terrace.

The window was closed. Cheng Yi reached out and gently pushed it, but it didn't budge.

The window was bolted from the inside, the latch tight, unlike the loose latches on the second floor. It wouldn't be impossible to pry it open with the hand of a sorcerer, but the sound of the latch sliding would be very clear in the quiet night. Besides, Earl Hawke was a light sleeper; that little sound would be enough to wake him.

Cheng Yi withdrew his hand but did not touch the window.

He recalled a detail he had noticed during the reconnaissance. The hinges of the main building's doors were all oiled, opening and closing silently. Cheng Yi had initially thought it was a coincidence, but now, thinking about it, it was possible that Earl Hawke disliked noise.

A light sleeper will be sensitive to any noise that might be made.

Then let's go through the door.

Cheng Yi disappeared from the windowsill and teleported to the shadows of the corridor, at the far end of the corridor, the furthest point from the guards.

The corridor was short, about fifteen meters long, ending at the stairwell. A guard stood beside the stairwell, his face turned to the side towards Cheng Yi.

Cheng Yi crouched in the shadows, took a throwing knife from his scabbard, and then put it away.

He will be seen by the guards as he walks down the corridor.

But this was the only way. He had to cross the fifteen-meter corridor without alerting the guards, open Earl Hawke's bedroom door, slip inside, and then close the door again.

Dusk was falling.

Cheng Yi cast a spell, and a thick twilight surged from his body, spreading silently from his own point of origin, along the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor.

Under the cover of darkness, twilight is invisible.

Cheng Yi's figure disappeared into the twilight. Combined with the Shadow Cloak and his affinity for shadows, his concealment in the twilight was almost invisible. He moved silently along the wall to the other end of the corridor.

The guard yawned about eight meters in front of him.

Cheng Yi walked to the door of Earl Hawke's bedroom, grasped the doorknob, and turned it gently.

The door opened a crack, and Cheng Yi slipped inside, gently closing the door behind him.

The bedroom was dark. The curtains were drawn, and only moonlight filtered in through the gaps, casting a thin silver line on the floor.

A person was lying on the bed, the blanket covering their chest.

Cheng Yi stood by the door, motionless. He used his Observation Haki to sense the state of the person on the bed.

Light sleep.

He didn't draw his sword. Dusk seeped from him, filling the entire bedroom. A thick shadow fell over the floor beside the bed. He vanished from the shadows by the door, reappearing standing by the bed, less than a meter from the person on it.

That person did not wake up.

Cheng Yi looked down at that face.

Count Wid Hawke was older than I had imagined. His hair was gray, his skin was loose, he had deep bags under his eyes, and his mouth was downturned. Even in his sleep, he had an impatient expression.

The Observation Haki noticed something unusual: the Count was wearing a black ring on his right index finger, which emitted subtle magical fluctuations.

Cheng Yi frowned.

An invisible hand grasped the ring and slowly slid it off his finger. Count Hawke's finger twitched, but he didn't wake up.

Cheng Yi stuffed the ring into his backpack.

Then he drew the First Blood Dagger. The blade gleamed coldly in the twilight. Cheng Yi gripped the sword with both hands, tip pointing downwards, aiming it at Earl Hawke's throat.

He stabbed silently.

The moment the blade pierced through, a layer of pale golden light instantly appeared on Count Hawke's body.

The blade was blocked by the light membrane and only penetrated less than half a centimeter, without even breaking the skin.

Cheng Yi didn't recognize the spell fluctuation, but his extensive experience in role-playing games allowed him to guess what the spell was.

The Fourth Ring, the Protective School.

Anti-death barrier.

Cheng Yi regretted it.

I regret not using detection magic to thoroughly examine the count beforehand.

This is due to a lack of experience.

But Cheng Yi had no time to think about these things now. Hawke's eyes suddenly snapped open.

His right hand gripped Cheng Yi's wrist with astonishing strength.

"assassin."

Hawke's voice was hoarse and low, carrying an eerie calm.

His left hand emerged from under the blanket, fingers spread, palm facing Cheng Yi's face.

A dark purple light danced in his palm.

Magic Explosion.