After five hours, when he woke up naturally from bed, he was already full of energy and had returned to his best state.

Returning to the chair where he had once fallen, Ethan Cooper wore a grave expression as he closed his eyes once again.

The mysterious mental waves once more scanned toward the safe box.

Suddenly, his body twitched. This time, the scan went unusually smoothly, barely consuming any of his energy, and easily reached twenty-five percent progress.

However, at this point, it slowed down again, and that snail-like pace—if anything, even slower—inevitably reappeared.

At thirty-five percent, with progress at this stage, Ethan Cooper already felt waves of fatigue. He made a snap decision and chose to give up. That feeling of utter exhaustion was unpleasant, and he had no intention of trying a second time.

Moreover, his recent experience made him seriously wonder whether his psychic scanning ability could function like a computer downloading software, with breakpoint resumption.

Since he had never encountered a similar situation before, he had nothing to compare it to.

He really had no idea what was inside this safe box, that even scanning it would consume so much energy.

Even the most advanced computer would be impressive enough. Although he couldn’t create one out of thin air with his ability, scanning it once wouldn’t be a big deal for him.

Could it be that the contents of this safe box were even more advanced and complex than that? In his memory, if it was just a matter of scanning, it shouldn’t require so much psychic power.

Rest, rest.

Exercise, order takeout, bathe, eat, sleep.

Just like that, after seven days of hard work, he finally succeeded, scanning the entire box into his mind.

Although he already knew that he would probably never be able to replicate it in his lifetime, the joy of success still made him beam with happiness.

Chapter Three: Leave of Absence

After days of continuous use, Ethan Cooper unexpectedly discovered that his psychic ability seemed to have grown in an unforeseen way. Although he didn’t know by how much, he did have a very real sense of improvement.

Just as he was overjoyed by this, his gaze unintentionally fell on the calendar on the wall.

Suddenly, he remembered something. When John Harris left, he had said that the safe box needed to be delivered to Xiao Putuo within a month.

A month, oh my god...

Ethan Cooper’s expression changed dramatically. He rushed madly toward his phone, only to find it had long since run out of battery.

These past few days, he had been preoccupied with just one thing, and things like his phone had been completely forgotten. Fortunately, he had a spare battery on hand. He quickly swapped it in, turned on the phone, checked the date, and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Day and night had passed, and it had already been ten days. Luckily, there were still twenty days left, and since this place wasn’t too far from Xiao Putuo, he could definitely make it there within five days no matter what.

“Beep beep beep...”

The sound of text messages kept ringing. He glanced at his phone and saw there were already more than thirty messages.

Opening them one by one, aside from a few spam messages, most were from close colleagues asking why he had suddenly disappeared.

Ethan Cooper slapped his forehead, thinking to himself that this was bad. He hadn’t been to the company for ten days. Although Eric Bennett was a fairly reasonable boss, no boss would be happy with an employee who had gone missing for ten days without a word.

He quickly washed up, shaved off his full beard, hesitated for a moment, then dug out a travel bag from his room, put the safe box inside, and covered it with some spare clothes.

He left his apartment, jumped into a taxi, and headed straight to the company.

His appearance caused a stir among his colleagues. In those few small offices, everyone saw each other all the time—even the smallest gossip spread quickly, let alone the sudden disappearance of a living, breathing person for ten days.

Ethan Cooper smiled and nodded at them, then walked to the manager’s office and knocked on the door.

The manager’s office was divided into two rooms: the inner room was naturally Eric Bennett’s, while the outer room was where the secretary, Emily Bolton, worked.

The door opened, revealing a delicate and elegant face. Emily Bolton asked in a low voice, “Ethan Cooper, where have you been these past few days? The boss has asked about you several times a day.”

She could see Ethan Cooper through the glass window, of course.

With a wry smile, Ethan Cooper gave her a grateful look and said softly, “Can I see the boss now?”

After hesitating for a moment, Emily Bolton sighed, “Be careful.”

She opened the door, then turned and knocked on the inner door of the manager’s office.

Ethan Cooper was quite moved; the concern in Emily Bolton’s eyes was clearly genuine.

In this company, he only had three friends he could really talk to, and Emily Bolton was one of them. Although she was a female friend, in his eyes, she was far more reliable than many who called themselves brothers.

After a moment, Emily Bolton came out, gave him a warning look, and said, “Go in.”