After following through the alley for a while, the shadowy figure suddenly turned left.
Galon stepped around a puddle on the ground and followed, lightening his footsteps. Regardless, he needed to figure out the background of the person he had killed that day, whether they had the capability to trace his identity. This was no longer just about potential points; it was primarily a matter of personal and family safety.
Turning into an even narrower and dirtier alleyway, the sound of a man berating a woman could faintly be heard from the apartments above. The alley was filled with the foul odor of rotting food waste.
The person he was following was squatting by a cylindrical garbage can, rummaging through it. Nearby, two homeless men were soundly asleep.
Galon quietly stood at the entrance of the alley, using the dim light from the apartments above to see inside.
The man rummaged through the garbage can and soon pulled out a black leather wallet, fished around inside it, and took out a small brass key. After pocketing the key, he looked around and continued moving forward.
Galon quickly withdrew his head when the man looked around, hiding by the corner wall, listening as the man's footsteps gradually faded. Then, he slowly peeked out again.
Without making a sound, the moment Galon peeked out, he felt a pain in his waist as if something had pricked him.
Reactively, he elbowed backward.
Thud!
A person grunted, stumbled from the hit, tried to run, but only made a few steps before collapsing to the ground, struggling a few times but ultimately failed to get up.
Galon's heart pounded, but this being his second actual fight, combined with the psychological changes from having killed someone, he was not as panicked or nervous as the first time.
Suppressing a slight turmoil inside, he took a few deep breaths and checked the stabbed area on his waist. There was a small slit in his clothes, clearly pierced by something like a dagger, though his skin was unharmed.
"If it weren't for my Burst Fist technique acting as defense, and my body's hardness akin to hard qigong, a normal person would have definitely been dead from this stab." Galon checked the wound location, right at the kidney area, breaking out in cold sweat.
Approaching the man on the ground, Galon saw a black dagger in his right hand and clothes as dirty as if they hadn't been washed in ages, looking like a typical homeless person.
"You won't get away with this for long, Lord James will avenge me!" The man chuckled darkly, his green eyes fixed on Galon, a trace of fresh blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, then his head tilted, and he died. The blood oozing from his mouth had a faintly black hue, indicating poison.
Galon hadn't even had the chance to question him before the man committed suicide. He checked the man's heartbeat and breathing, confirming death.
It seemed Galon had been caught between the conflicts of two forces, mistaken by this man for a member of a rival faction, who chose to kill himself to prevent leaking information.
This kind of loyalty and severity chilled Galon.
"It wasn't a personal tailing. The guy earlier must have been coming specifically for something, and this one, perhaps sent after noticing my tailing, to silence me. Or maybe a spy from another organization... Seems like my exposure isn't likely." After deducing the situation, Galon felt a slight relief. His accidental murder that night was mistaken as an action by another party.
"Wondering why I was decisively targeted for murder right after hailing a carriage, it seems I was caught at a critical moment by mistake..."
Galon analyzed the situation, feeling more convinced of the real truth.
Looking around, there were no sounds nearby, just the snoring of the homeless and the continued arguments from above, occasionally mixed with the mating calls of stray cats.
Galon bent down to check the assassin's body, finding a black and gold coin in an inner pocket of his shirt. Without further inspection, he pocketed the coin and quickly left the way he came.
Taking advantage of the sparse crowd, he casually walked out of the alley, meandering through the city until the town clock tower rang the hour, then he hurried home.
Click... Bang.
Galon closed the door, changed into slippers, and walked into the living room.
The oil lamp was lit, and his father, Lombard Eisen, was lounging on the sofa reading the newspaper, dressed in a black nightgown, with a slightly furrowed brow.
Eisen, a portly middle-aged man with messy black and purple hair and a face half-covered in white stubble, looked like a passionate football coach.
Seeing Galon return, he nodded slightly without saying a word.
"Where's Mom?" Galon naturally asked, taking off his coat and hanging it by the door.
"She took the rare day off to have coffee at Mrs. Cotinine's across the street," Eisen casually replied. "You're back late too. Don't stay out too long; it's dangerous at night. There have been many murders in the city recently, all in less crowded places. Remember not to go to deserted areas."
"I know. Heard about it from classmates," Galon nodded.
"Especially you, always running off to quiet places."
"Okay."
"Keep it down, your sister just went to bed. She has a competition rehearsal tomorrow." Eisen put down his newspaper, finished his coffee, and announced he was going to bed, advising Galon not to wait up for his mother, who would likely return late.
"Got it." Galon rested on the sofa for a while, drank some water, and saw his father to his bedroom. After waiting for the lights to go off, he went to his own room.
Sitting at his desk, he turned on the lamp and carefully took out the black coin, examining it under the light.
The coin, about the size of a walnut and as thick as a coin, had a double-masted sailing ship on the front, its sails billowed by the wind, with a serpent coiled above, seemingly ready to strike.
Below was the number: 1521.
Flipping it over, the back showed a knight's armor, a sword piercing upward through the armor, its tip against the helmet, surrounded by a wreath.
Galon rubbed the coin, noticing the dark paint revealing the underlying gold beneath certain areas.
Pressing his finger on these golden spots, his potential points slowly increased from 179% to 180%. Then it stopped.
"No more?"
Galon set the coin aside, having not used the attribute point he'd saved since his last visit to the old man. He had considered applying it to the Baiyun Secret Technique but pondered that Burst Fist might be more immediately beneficial. Having failed to borrow the book from the old man, he became even more hesitant to use the point.
"I thought I could find something valuable on him, but from a gang that stole so many antiques, I only got a coin. Should I say he was just a small fry?"
Shaking his head, he stored the coin in his desk drawer.
"Since it was a misunderstanding, let it end here. I shouldn't get involved further." Remembering the silent knife attack, Galon felt a chill.
"If I hadn't practiced Burst Fist, making my skin much tougher, that knife could have been fatal. It was his lack of strength this time, but if it had been someone stronger... with poison on the knife."
Shuddering at the thought, he decided to focus on school and martial arts training, leaving detective work to characters like Tari Mercury.
Resolved not to meddle further, especially since he'd found a new source of potential points, even without the follow-up absorption from the stolen medals, Galon's interest in recovering the medals waned.
"Let's add the last point to the Baiyun Secret Technique. Adding it earlier will accelerate my strength and physique improvements."
He finally decided to apply the point to the Baiyun Secret Technique in his skill bar.
Slowly, the flow in his mind surged into the technique, causing the "Intermediate" label to blur and slowly shift to "Advanced."
Snap!
Suddenly, a crisp sound in his mind caused the "Advanced" label to blur and revert to "Intermediate." A flow rushed back into Galon's mind.
"What happened?" He furrowed his brows and looked closely at the skill bar.
A new symbol appeared next to the Baiyun Secret Technique, unreadable, but Galon strangely knew its meaning—information incomplete.
"It seems the teaching of the secret technique wasn't complete... The key to the advanced technique must be held by the martial arts school's higher-ups and important disciples." Galon guessed the real situation.
Thinking it over, he looked at Burst Fist, finding a similar situation. After adding the attribute point, the label blurred and reverted to its original level, with a new symbol whose meaning Galon understood.
"Does advancing in Burst Fist require external medicinal stimulation for synchronous treatment to avoid damaging physique and intelligence?" He knew he was lucky to have even begun mastering Burst Fist without any aids.
And the Baiyun Secret Technique was no different; the school naturally kept its core teachings to itself, not revealing everything at once.
"To improve martial strength, I need to raise my standing within the martial arts school." Since his arrival in this world, Galon had been fascinated by martial arts, a dream on Earth now accessible here, fueling his passion and sense of security in pursuing it.
Facing a setback, he wasn't discouraged, knowing he just needed to perform well in the school's ranking matches to catch the attention of the core members.
"Since I can't add to the skills, let's add to the basic attributes." He navigated through the attribute bar, contemplating his next move.
Strength 0.53, Agility 0.23, Constitution 0.33, Intelligence 0.36.
"Having added to constitution, strength, and intelligence, let's try adding to agility this time and see what impact it has." Galon was willing to experiment with the attribute points.
Compared to his peers, any attribute point he added gave him a higher starting point.
After all, he was enhancing a regular human body with attribute points.
Plus, the solidification effect ensured that once he reached a certain level of an attribute, even with minimal training, his body would maintain peak condition without degradation. Ignoring martial arts training under such conditions seemed wasteful to him.