Chapter 75: Incarnation
“This skill is pretty interesting.”
Ji Minghuan thought to himself, raising an intrigued eyebrow as he lightly tapped the skill name “Binding Restraint Clone” with his fingertip. Immediately, a detailed description popped up.
【Binding Restraint Clone: Peel off a portion of the Binding Restraint from your body and form it into a humanoid figure.】
【Note 1: The “Binding Restraint Clone” can use all skills from the branches (the “Binding Restraint Clone” cannot use “Binding Restraint Clone”; only one clone can exist in the world at any time).】
【Note 2: You may use the power of “Binding Restraint Camouflage” to render the clone with human skin appearance and freely adjust its looks.】
【Note 3: The Binding Restraint Clone only possesses 30% of the attributes of the original body.】
His eyes scanned the skill description. Ji Minghuan’s pupils lit up for the first time in a while. In that moment, countless exhilarating scenarios flashed through his mind:
Like making the clone look like Ke Qirui, tricking Su Zimai into thinking she’s being taken out to dinner, and after the meal, just ditching her and leaving her alone with a bunch of bills, confused and looking around;
Or using the clone to impersonate Gu Wenyu, and then putting on a live death performance in front of his dad, brother, and sister—severed limbs, crushed skull, torn apart like five horses dismembering a corpse—making it as gruesome as possible, then secretly hiding behind a grave to watch those tough guys sob like babies.
Ji Minghuan twisted and rolled on the bed like a ball, then curled up under the blanket, letting out a sinister and bizarre chuckle just like the newly wanted criminal “Black Cocoon”. For a moment, he seemed a few years younger—even though he was only twelve, any younger and he’d be crawling back into the womb. “What a great thing...”
He muttered softly, already fully aware of the value this skill held. It was practically made for a double-agent lifestyle. Only now did he truly understand how much potential the Esper System’s skill tree—custom-built for “Black Cocoon”—had to offer.
Most importantly, he was still agonizing over what to do after meeting Su and Ke tomorrow.
Honestly, he never really intended to work seriously with Ke Qirui. His original plan was: have Black Cocoon casually trick Su Zimai and Ke Qirui to secure the Main Quest reward, then when they started questioning things, he’d simply say he didn’t know any Black Cocoon or Blue Arc, it was all Black Cocoon’s self-directed act—completely cut ties and pin nothing on Gu Wenyu.
But even so, Ke Qirui and Su Zimai wouldn’t just let it go. They’d try all kinds of ways to verify that “Gu Wenyu is Blue Arc”.
So now, using “Binding Restraint Clone” might just be the perfect way to get out of this mess.
Ji Minghuan scratched his chin, thinking, “This way, I can have the Binding Restraint Clone pretend to be ‘Gu Wenyu’, while I continue acting as Black Cocoon. If needed later, after I get the heart back from Jack the Ripper, I could even make the clone look like ‘Xia Pingzhou’ and send it to die, then find a way to free Unit Two from the brigade.”
Eagerly, he held down the skill icon with his finger.
【Current Skill Points: 0.】
Staring at the line of text, the light in his eyes dimmed—like he had aged right back after just getting younger.
Before long, he quietly opened the “Event Card Deck” and emotionlessly looked at the only card inside—“Caged Bird”.
【Caged Bird: When you’re hit by any “control-type” ability, you can discard this card to escape the effect.】
“Don’t really need this card for now. With Binding Restraint Clone, I can use it to probe enemies and take control-type hits. Once it’s done, I’ll just come out myself.”
Finding a reason to convince himself, he raised his finger and tapped the panel.
【Event Card “Caged Bird” has been sold in exchange for “1” Skill Point.】
Without hesitation, Ji Minghuan raised his right hand and jabbed the “Binding Restraint Clone” skill icon with his index finger.
【1 Skill Point consumed. Successfully learned the “Hidden” branch skill—“Binding Restraint Clone”.】
【Next skill in the “Hidden” branch is now available for learning.】
He jumped out of bed excitedly and activated the skill “Binding Restraint Clone”.
Immediately, strips of Binding Restraint slipped out from the cuffs of his coat and fell to the floor with a swish. The restraints slowly merged together like a pile of little snakes twitching and writhing on the floor, eventually rising upward and piecing together into a crooked humanoid figure.
Ji Minghuan stared blankly at the shadowy black humanoid.
“What the heck?”
He quickly realized he hadn’t used it right.
In the next moment, he mentally tried to activate the clone’s camouflage. The dark figure gradually took on human skin tones. Every contour of its body became clearer, like an artist adding “skin” and “bone structure” details to a sketch. Seconds later, it turned into a completely naked human.
Ji Minghuan silently moved his finger, guiding the human-shaped Binding Restraint to walk around the room.
Then he stretched out his hand and lightly pushed its chest—only to see the humanoid stumble backward a few steps.
He raised an eyebrow, lowered his head to look at his palm—the clone even simulated a human’s weight. The push felt just like touching a real person.
He curled his lips into a childish grin, “So handy. Now I can use the clone to talk with Dad—don’t have to worry about Uncle Ghost Bell twisting my head off on the spot.”
“Dismiss clone.” He muttered the command in his heart, and the Binding Restraint Clone instantly wilted like melting ice cream, slumped to the ground, and evaporated into hot vapor in midair.
【Binding Restraint Clone has been dismissed. Note: Max duration of the clone is 12 hours.】
Ji Minghuan hummed happily, plopping into the chair behind him.
He pulled up the Attributes Panel and quickly tapped the plus sign, assigning his only available Attribute Point.
【Primary Game Character “Black Cocoon”’s “Strength” attribute changed: B → B+】
“I should be able to beat quite a few people now. At the very least I qualify as a Dragon-level Esper, right? Can the Reality-altering Esper Association upgrade my rating already? Being stuck at Kui-level is such a joke.”
He thought as he lay back on the bed, arms behind his head.
Unit Two, “Xia Pingzhou”, had completed the “Find Jack the Ripper” Main Quest earlier this morning, still had unspent Attribute and Skill Points, but Ji Minghuan didn’t have the energy to deal with that now.
He’d sort out the stat distribution tomorrow morning before Xia Pingzhou met the other team members—no need to rush, there wasn’t much going on with Unit Two at the moment anyway.
“Tonight I’ll get to meet Kong Youling... and that half-demon brat. White Greedy Wolf... sounds like that demon’s original form might be wolf-related. So his kid with a human must be a little werewolf? Doesn’t seem so scary when I think of it like that...”
He stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, then put on his headphones and played Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence on his phone.
As Ryuichi Sakamoto’s piano began to play, he slowly closed his eyelids.
Listening and listening, he drifted into a deep sleep.