"Huh? Where did he go? Did he suddenly disappear again?"
Saten Ruiko ran past the spot where she had just seen the senior student. She turned the corner of the street, placing a hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the sun as she blinked in confusion.
"Hoo... haa... Which senior are we even chasing, Saten-san?" Uiharu Kazari took a deep breath, leaning on her knees as she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"He disappeared so suddenly. He must be a Spatial Esper, and a rare, powerful one at that!"
Saten had excitedly told her that this senior had saved her life a few days ago, and then vanished without a trace. Uiharu reasoned that, just like her Judgment colleague Shirai Kuroko, he must be a teleporter. Being able to move himself and others seamlessly meant he was definitely a high-level Esper.
Moreover, as a Judgment officer who frequently accessed the city's databases, Uiharu knew that there were less than sixty registered Spatial Teleporters in Academy City, and only a tiny fraction of them were high-level. *Who could he be?*
"You don't understand, Uiharu! In the blink of an eye, we just appeared in a completely different place! It was really amazing!" Unable to spot Yuuya in the crowd, Saten raised a finger, explaining with exaggerated awe. "It was like time travel!"
Thinking back to that day, Saten shivered. She had been surrounded in an alleyway by several intimidating men in black suits holding concealed firearms. She could hear the terrifying click of the guns' safeties being flicked off, and she truly thought she was going to be killed just for being nosy. But in a flash, she had appeared safely on a distant rooftop.
The senior had spoken a few reassuring words and seen her off. She had memorized his face, vowing to thank him properly if she ever saw him again.
"Moreover, and most importantly, that senior didn't look down on people just because he was super capable! In the past, most high-level Espers I've met would look down on those of us with Level 0 abilities," Saten said cheerfully, recalling the senior's gentle eyes.
"Huh? Has Saten-san fallen in love at first sight with her mysterious savior?" Uiharu blinked, smiling sweetly at her friend's flushed expression.
As Saten's best friend, Uiharu knew that Saten was incredibly sensitive and perceptive in matters of the heart, able to easily read the subtle fluctuations in other people's emotions. It was why she was such a great mediator. However, Uiharu also knew that beneath her cheerful exterior, Saten was actually deeply insecure about not having any superpowers. Therefore, Uiharu usually avoided the topic of Esper rankings in casual conversation.
"N-No! It's just gratitude! Pure gratitude!" Saten placed her hands on her hips, looking slightly regretful. "You see, isn't it a shame and super impolite of me not to even know my savior's name?"
It had been days since the incident, and she had finally spotted him, only to lose him again.
"That makes sense. But what exactly happened that makes you so eager to thank him in secret?" Uiharu asked, puzzled.
"This is a top secret! I promised my senior I wouldn't tell anyone," Saten said firmly. Her brows furrowed slightly, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
'Who would have thought that the strange-talking friend I met that day was actually a military clone? And it seems there are thousands more of them...' Saten thought, her chest tightening with worry.
She was incredibly anxious about her cloned friend. Hearing that strange designation—Misaka 9223—gave her a terrible feeling. Encountering human clones was something that supposedly only existed in urban legends. Discovering they were real should have been exciting, but she only felt a deep sense of dread and helplessness.
'Will I ever get to see her again?'
"Oh, okay then. If it's a secret, I won't pry," Uiharu said quickly, noticing Saten's furrowed brows.
"Hey! Found him! Uiharu, hurry up!" Saten looked up, her eyes lighting up instantly. She called out, grabbed Uiharu's hand, and eagerly began running down the street again.
"Oh dear! Not again!" Uiharu cried, not even having the chance to catch her breath.
...
A Few Blocks Ahead.
"Another Bronze Chest containing a Level 2 ability. Just how many low-level abilities have I opened so far?" Yuuya touched his chin, dismissing the System notification.
Over the past month, he had diligently farmed the Bronze Treasure Chests around Academy City almost every time they refreshed, collecting about twenty a day. However, most of them contained redundant Level 2 abilities and low-mystery junk items.
Yuuya felt that the items were neither exceptionally good nor entirely useless, making it a pity to just throw them away. As expected of standard gacha mechanics, 99% of the free items were just ordinary filler. Unless you were extremely lucky, you could only hope for a damaged high-level item. Moreover, most of the high-level drops were completely useless if damaged—like the cracked 'Earth Dragon Balls' he had pulled a week ago.
However, during his farming, he had discovered a massive, game-breaking bug in the System's logic regarding Treasure Chests.
The unlock conditions for Chests of Silver quality or higher were active manifestations of his true inner thoughts. The System generated the 'Quest' based on his true desires at the exact microsecond he touched the chest.
By mastering the core principle of The Book of the Law—"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"—he could actively manipulate his true inner desires at any given moment.
He had to admit, The Book of the Law was truly an overpowered Grimoire. Rated as a Supreme Magical Book by the System, he had barely scratched the surface of its conceptual magic.
Human desires were the most powerful weapon. They could be amplified infinitely, and used to attack others by triggering their most fundamental nature.
Aleister Crowley had refined this concept into a conceptual magic attack known as Spiritual Tripping. He flipped the primary usage, instead weaponizing the desires and fantasies of the Magic Gods to attack the Magic Gods themselves. The greater their desires and fantasies, the more devastating the backlash.
Having just begun to explore this technique, Yuuya couldn't attack others with it yet, but he could flawlessly control his own fantasies and desires.
'So, I found a major bug in the System,' Yuuya smirked. 'Unfortunately, the unlock conditions for the high-tier chests I've already triggered can't be retroactively changed. That's a real shame.'
But moving forward? He wouldn't have to embarrass himself by having the System expose his deepest, most primal thoughts whenever he encountered a new high-level chest. He could just use The Book of the Law to rewrite his desires to something incredibly easy right before he touched it.
'You damn System. You didn't expect me to discover your bug and hack your RNG, did you? Hahaha.'
Ding.
"...Huh? Isn't that Saten Ruiko's Treasure Chest icon?"
Yuuya noticed two markers on his System Map rapidly approaching him from behind. He stopped and quickly turned around.
A lively girl with long, flowing black hair, wearing a middle school sailor uniform and a five-petaled white plum blossom hair ornament, was practically dragging along a shorter girl in a similar uniform wearing a flower headdress. They were running straight toward him, heavily panting.
"Hey~ Senpai! Look over here!" Saten called out cheerfully the moment Yuuya turned around, waving her hand high in the air.
"So she really was following me," Yuuya muttered to himself. He smiled and waved back.
He hadn't spoken much to Saten during the alleyway rescue because he was rushing to teleport the targeted Misaka Sister to safety, but he hadn't expected to casually run into her today.
"Huh...?"
Uiharu Kazari, struggling to breathe, blinked at Yuuya. She felt that he looked incredibly familiar, as if she had seen this senior's face in a highly classified file recently.
The next moment, a specific memory flashed through her mind: the time she unexpectedly ran into Misaka Mikoto a while ago, and the classified database hack that Shirai Kuroko had urgently asked her to perform regarding a mysterious "Multi-Skill" user.
'It's him...' Uiharu froze, her heart skipping a beat as she instantly realized exactly who this senior was. 'The Eighth Level 5!'
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