ALL NOVEL 0024 – Rat Has Nowhere to Hide
Opening up to the transparent world felt extremely intriguing. Letting Zoe Carter become the scapegoat in reality. However, adhering to the principle of not causing trouble unless absolutely necessary, Zoe had no intention of using this power recklessly for mischief.
Her choice was to: Use it normally in critical moments, while trying to keep the ability of the transparent world active all the time.
Once a mature adult possessed such an ability, they should find ways to keep it open to ensure absolute control over their surroundings, thus ensuring their own safety.
Zoe felt she might be a bit paranoid, but isn't it strange that someone who can remain calm despite encountering a series of unusual situations is truly peculiar?
However, when she tried to keep the transparent world constantly open, she found that maintaining it at full power for an extended period was quite draining, not physically, but mentally.
Concentrating intensely, coordinating vision, hearing, and smell, and calculating visuals in her mind was no small feat and inevitably left her mentally fatigued. Not to mention that even if the physical exhaustion were easily recoverable, Zoe would still try to minimize it as much as possible to avoid excessive strain.
In order to minimize the consumption, reducing the intensity of perception slightly was necessary. However, if the reduction was too much, the meaning of keeping the transparent world open constantly would be lost.
Therefore, the temporary solution was to gradually lower the intensity of perception. The closer to the limit of perception, the lower the intensity of perception invested in it, only retaining subconscious attention to some extremely special events.
The closer to Zoe's original position, the higher the intensity of perception.
After adjusting the layout continuously, the transparent world finally successfully maintained a constant open state without burdening Zoe.
In this current state, within a radius of ten meters around her, the transparent world was in full power mode, enough to make her aware of any changes within it. Further away, up to the limit of the transparent world of over two hundred meters, the intensity of perception and attention gradually decreased.
Unless there was a significant disturbance, Zoe wouldn't invest too much attention.
After completing all this, Zoe picked up her smartphone, preparing to see if anyone had tried to contact her after she had slept for another twelve hours. But in fact, apart from a bunch of boring group chats @everyone all day long, there were only a few messages from Benny sent in the morning.
This was not surprising. It wasn't unusual for a modern person to disappear from the internet for twelve hours.
It would be strange if someone thought she was missing and urgently tried to find her.
In fact, for freelancers like her, if they suddenly disappeared or died at home, they would only be discovered when their parents called them every few months. Thinking casually like this, Zoe opened the messages from Benny on Fishbook.
He said that when she had free time in the afternoon, she should go find him.
The compensation from the internet-famous shop and the Hampsterburgg Morning News had already been arranged, and Benny planned to personally hand her the bank card.
Seeing this, Zoe put her phone in her pocket, quickly went to the bathroom to freshen up, changed her clothes, and then opened the door.
Just as she was about to knock on Benny's door opposite hers, she suddenly froze in place. A squeaking sound came from not far away. Zoe followed the sound. A gray, wet mouse was crawling down from the water pipe outside the corridor window.
Clearly, the slightly slippery surface of the water pipe due to a light rain had no effect on the mouse. Seeing this, Zoe inexplicably had a thought: perhaps she could use this mouse to test the effectiveness of the transparent world?
While she indeed had no intention of using the ability of the transparent world for anything malicious, she was still curious about its practical applications.
Without further ado, Zoe turned around, opened the door, took out an umbrella, and went straight down the elevator.
Ding dong.
The elevator door opened. Zoe, standing at the entrance of the building, didn't bother to look up to see where the mouse on the water pipe had gone, because her sense of smell had already indicated the direction of the mouse.
It had already skillfully left the water pipe.
Zoe calmly opened the umbrella and walked out of the relatively dry building entrance.
A chill mixed with rain greeted her. The fresh scent of grass permeated the air, a post-rain freshness. After activating the transparent world, Zoe casually scanned and formed a trajectory map of the mouse's movements based on the scent traces in her mind.
Compared to when she only had super smell, the trajectory map formed in her mind was even clearer. The coordinated senses seemed to enhance her sense of smell.
Although the smell dissipates quickly in the rain, Zoe's sense of smell could still detect traces of the mouse passing through. After roughly identifying the intensity of the smell, Zoe walked into the rain in a certain direction.
Her steps were slow but firm. Under her continuous observation, the smell of the mouse became clearer in her perception, gradually standing out from the numerous scents.
Occasionally, a few places where the smell was washed away by the rain, upon a brief look around, were quickly picked up again. After a few steps, Zoe arrived near the neighborhood market.
At this moment, it was raining, and it wasn't mealtime. There were hardly any people in the market.
In front of Zoe was a drain. It was left open for convenience and used for sewage discharge from the market. The smell of the mouse abruptly stopped here.
The complex smells of the market and the sewer intertwined into a tangled mess here. Seeing this, Zoe activated the transparent world at high power.
For points that didn't require attention, perception was continuously weakened. First came the sound of raindrops falling on the umbrella and various sounds within the market.
Then, observing carefully, she extended her hearing to a sufficient depth and ignored irrelevant noises. The rustling of the mouse's movements and the squeaking in its mouth became clear.
Coupled with the powerful sense of smell from the transparent world, the complex smells here were sorted out. The smell of the mouse... became clear amidst the many complex scents.
At this moment, the transparent world had already been established. Coupled with the memory of the drainage plan she had seen from Benny before, Zoe looked down.
She saw a vast empire of countless pipes underground. Through the ground, she could see the shadows of countless mice moving below. The one Zoe was tracking was among them. As a relatively old residential area, Wings Gone New Village indeed had a somewhat outdated drainage system.
Leveraging the inadequate drainage system, they had constructed a vast underground kingdom. It was vividly displayed in Zoe's transparent world. This was the hidden corner beneath humanity's feet, more unknown to people.
With the ability of the transparent world, nothing escaped Zoe's view.
