“Yeah, the chances of success should be pretty high this time.” Brian Clark answered with a smile.

“Tch—” The crowd was unconvinced and began to criticize Old David's string of failed blind dates.

Brian Clark just listened with a smile, offering no opinion. He hadn’t told them that, in fact, Old David had struck it rich overnight by winning the lottery and had gone off to pursue his dreams.

Old David’s dream—to find a woman with an E-level genotype, not too young and not too old, retrieve the sperm he’d stored in the sperm bank years ago, hopefully have a child with an E-level genotype, open a small shop in the city, and live a stable life. As long as he had money, it wouldn’t be hard to find a woman with an E-level genotype, even if Old David himself was a lower F-level genotype.

The annual water, land, and air triathlon was a major event that everyone on the planet paid close attention to, and it was especially anticipated by gamblers because the stakes were so high. Even if you didn’t bet on the exact winner, as long as you met certain criteria, you could become rich overnight. It was by winning big in this event that Old David managed to escape poverty.

Of course, the main reason Old David was able to win was thanks to Brian Clark. Every time Old David placed a bet, he would ask Brian Clark first, and only then would he dare to wager.

Although Old David was obsessed with money, he treated Brian Clark well; otherwise, Brian Clark wouldn’t have helped him. And this time, Old David transferred Brian Clark his share of the winnings on the very same day.

As night deepened, the guests gradually left.

Brian Clark took a shower, changed clothes, sprayed a special solution to remove other scents, and then locked up the shop. He glanced at the black sky, where a few tiny, starlike dots flickered.

The weather forecast said there would be moderate rain starting at midnight, lasting for an hour, and there were still forty minutes to go.

Forty minutes… that was enough.

Thirty minutes later, Brian Clark arrived at a factory district, moving under the cover of protruding eaves and awnings. He skillfully avoided the perimeter scanners, took out a pre-prepared magnetic card, opened the main door, and silently slipped into an employee dormitory next to the warehouse. After all, this wasn’t the central city; the security systems in small places like this weren’t sophisticated or complex.

The person lying in bed seemed to sense something, but before he could react, he lost consciousness, as if falling into another deep sleep. But behind his ear and on a spot on his neck, hidden by hair, three slender black needles had silently pierced in.

Brian Clark gently swept his hand over, retrieved the needles, and after making sure he’d left no other traces, left the way he came, under the cover of eaves and awnings.

There were “sky eyes” in the sky, and thermal weapons would be detected by the local surveillance network. To handle things quietly and without a trace, only primitive methods would do, since they didn’t produce energy fluctuations.

As a hunter, Brian Clark could be considered to have had a tough path. Because of his age and genotype, he couldn’t be an aboveboard hunter. More precisely, Brian Clark was a shadow hunter. So-called shadow hunters were those who worked with hunters but remained in the dark, with sensitive identities that couldn’t be exposed.

From the age of fourteen until now, Brian Clark had been a shadow hunter for nearly three years. He chose to become a hunter at first for Hannah Clark’s illness. After Hannah Clark passed away, Brian Clark kept up the profession. Because to leave this planet safely, he needed a lot of money.

Five minutes after Brian Clark left, another shadow slipped in, took away the person Brian Clark had dealt with, and went to claim the bounty, which they would then split evenly.

In nearly three years of cooperation, that hunter had never known the “shadow’s” identity. Of course, the hunter didn’t care, as long as he could catch the prey and get the bounty; nothing else mattered. And Brian Clark believed that the hunter he’d chosen would never go to great lengths to investigate the “shadow’s” identity, because before choosing a partner, Brian Clark had put a lot of effort into analyzing all possible scenarios from multiple angles.

For some hunters who weren’t exactly competent, without a “shadow,” they simply couldn’t complete their tasks or make any money—in fact, they’d probably lose their lives. So, in a way, these hunters and shadows had a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship. As for top-tier hunters, they didn’t need shadows at all. Of course, hunter teams were an exception; they were a special case.

That hunter would never have guessed that the “shadow” working with his own D-level genotype was actually only F-level. No one would believe it if they heard.

At midnight, the sound of rain began to fall, Brian Clark sat in an abandoned building, watching the raindrops outside grow heavier. The rain washed away any lingering traces and scent left by Brian Clark, which was one of the reasons he chose to act at this time.

What natural raindrops were like, Brian Clark didn’t know; he’d only seen them on TV. On this planet, there were none—only weather precisely controlled by meteorological stations, exact sunlight intensity, simulated wind, rain, thunder, and lightning—everything was artificial.

A gust of wind blew through the cracked wall, and Brian Clark caught the scent of cement and waste slag, along with some unexpectedly familiar smells…

Brian Clark raised an eyebrow, carefully distinguishing the scents in the wind. After confirming, his expression turned odd—he hadn’t expected that, in this day and age, someone was still using that.

Chapter Two: Test Subject