Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 47: Two Middle-aged Man

"Great."

The plan was progressing very smoothly, and the next step was to take the surveillance footage back to Chloe so she could identify her attacker. Once they had footage of the perpetrator, it was going to be far easier to find him.

"After you identify the perpetrator, ask the manager here whether he's been visiting this pub recently. If he hasn't, then send the footage over to me, and the pawn shop will help us track him down."

The pawn shop was a very stingy business, but Adam definitely had the authority to use the pawn shop's resources to track down a person with visual footage already provided. After all, that was a very simple task.

With video footage of the perpetrator and information on his past activity, they would be able to track him down even without the pawn shop.

"Alright, but it's going to take two or three more days on my end."

While this wasn't a difficult task, it was still going to take time to identify and track down someone.

"Alright, I'll wait for you."

After a brief discussion, Adam and Karen left the pub.

During the next two or three days, Karen and Chloe were responsible for picking out the perpetrator from the footage, while Adam was using that time to train his telegnosis.

Telegnosis was extremely important for adapters. It could allow them to avoid sneak attacks, dispel illusions, and it could enhance their senses. It could be said that telegnosis was essentially a pair of eyes for adapters, but after two or three days of training, the progress he made, or the lack thereof, was rather discouraging.

This wasn't much of a surprise for Adam. Back when he was training with Sadou, he had displayed mediocre potential in all areas aside from his connection with his invoked entities.

There was potential for vast disparities in how endowed adapters could be. There was no guarantee that an adapter could become a master even after training for decades, so it would've been downright delusional for him to expect to make noticeable progress in the span of just two or three days.

It looks like I'll have to rely on absorbing the power of anomalies if I want to speed up my progress. I wonder if there are anomalies out there with extremely potent telegnosis that can allow me to make rapid progress in my own telegnosis in a short time by absorbing their power.

Adam was still very inexperienced when it came to absorbing the power of anomalies. Up to this point, he had only absorbed part of the scarecrow's power.

The scarecrow was a combat-class anomaly with high strength and resistance, as well as immense offensive capabilities. After absorbing its power, Adam noticed a clear improvement in the abilities of his invoked entities.

I have to find more anomalies for experimentation.

While Adam was pondering this matter, Kim Hee-cho appeared in the Metaverse with some news.

"Looks like our business is off to a flying start. It's only been a couple of days, and we've already received 14 job requests."

Kim Hee-cho opened up the electronic interface as he spoke, and sure enough, there were 14 messages, all of which were requesting psychotherapy services.

"As expected, demand far outweighs supply when it comes to low-end adapter psychotherapy services."

There were far too many occupations that suited adapters, but adapters were extremely rare, so there was always a shortage. Furthermore, psychotherapy was a very dangerous line of work, and all those who were capable of working in this field would generally choose to secure professional qualifications so that they could make their work more lucrative. There were also more sinister individuals who would apply to become hitmen in the black market. Due to the limitations of the Mechguard officers, it was not as dangerous for adapters to work as hitmen as all of their assignments took place in the psychic world.

Hence, low-end psychotherapists had always been extremely sought after, and that was also the main reason why Kim Hee-cho had decided to form this collaborative relationship.

"14? But we haven't even finished this job yet! Karen and Chloe should be able to identify the perpetrator in the next couple of days."

"We can't afford to get bogged down by a single job. We can work on multiple jobs at once for maximum efficiency."

Adam nodded in response. He was even more eager to take on jobs than Kim Hee-cho was, and his urgency stemmed from the immense pressure weighing down on him, the pressure of surviving in this hostile world, the pressure to become more powerful, and the pressure to earn more money. "With so many clients, I should be able to choose one that suits me."

Adam cast his gaze toward the catalog of requests and filtered through them carefully. He wanted to choose an anomaly with telegnotic powers, but also one that was weaker and easier to defeat.

After some selection, he narrowed it down to two clients.

"These two middle-aged men are both fine."

Kim Hee-cho inspected the information on the two clients to find that both men belonged to the upper middle class and were high-ranking employees at major companies.

One of them worked in a financial institution, and his request was for the clinic to rid him of his guilt. According to the short description that he had provided, he had done too many disgusting and underhanded things in his life, and he needed to have his conscience cleansed periodically.

"So what this is saying is that this isn't his first time receiving psychotherapeutic treatment." This was the first time that Adam had encountered a client like this.

"That's right. Someone like him most likely needs to keep a clear mind at all times, and they can't afford for their guilt to affect their business. Of course, after having his guilt cleansed away, he would also just be happier and more emotionally stable in general."

"What an extravagant way to live," Adam mused with a nod. "The emotional anomaly in his psychic world shouldn't be all that powerful, right?"

"I'm not an adapter, so I don't know about that, but I would think that it's not very powerful."

"The second one should be about the same as well."

The second middle-aged man worked at a high-tech enterprise, one that serviced the Metaverse. People in his line of work were compensated quite handsomely, but the workload was enormous, and it was grueling work. For the sake of his family, he was stretching himself extremely thin, and as a result, he had developed severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder of late.

"I'm happy to take on both of these clients."

"Alright, I'll get in contact with them." Kim Hee-cho was naturally keen to take on more jobs, and he sent replies to both of the clients.

The first one to respond was the finance man. Everything was very fast and convenient in the Metaverse, and only about 10 minutes later, a hologram of a well-built middle-aged man appeared.

"Hello, and welcome to Memories Clinic. I am one of the managers here, and my name is Kim Hee-cho. Wow, you look great! I can tell you work out regularly in the real world. I have half a foot in the finance circles, so I know that there's a culture of pursuing health and physical wellbeing in those circles."

Kim Hee-cho immediately began to praise the man's physique on sight.

"Hello." The finance nodded as he said in a polite manner, "My name is Peter, and I'm contacting your clinic because the clinic that I regularly sought psychotherapy services from recently raised their prices. My issues are quite minor, so I shouldn't have to spend so much for psychotherapy. I saw on your advertisement that your prices start at 80,000. This is just a routinely periodic cleanse, so I presume 80,000 should be enough to cover the service, right?"

Peter didn't waste even a second of time and immediately cut straight to the chase.

When it came to negotiating prices, Kim Hee-cho was also a seasoned professional.

"We do indeed offer a starting price of 80,000, but judging from the information you provided, your case doesn't fall into the category of the easiest cases to treat, so we'll have to set the price according to the situation."

"Alright, and how do we do that?"

"First, you have to provide me with some further details. When was your last cleanse?"

"14 months ago..."

A discussion was held on the spot, and after around 20 minutes, the two of them finally settled on a price somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000.

120,000 was the base price, while the rest was the bonus, and whether the bonus would be issued or not would depend on the power of the anomaly in the client's psychic world, and to what degree Adam was able to cleanse it.

After settling on a price and signing a contract, Peter immediately requested the cleanse to commence.

In his words: "Don't waste my time. This is my address, if I don't see you today, there will be deductions made to the final payment. That's a clause on the contract."

Adam and Kim Hee-cho exchanged a glance, and having established what had to be done, both of them logged out of the Metaverse.

Several hours later, the trio met up with Peter in the real world in front of a stock exchange office.