A Scientific Urban Detective

The week-long investigation and revenge operation by Lin Wuming, Misaka Mikoto, Shokuhou Misaki, and others concluded with the arrest of the mastermind, Tenjou Yaho.

Although they all knew that the incident was far from over, and Tenjou Yaho was just a scapegoat thrown out by the enemy, the situation, both publicly and privately, no longer allowed them to continue their reckless actions.

"Revenge" is inherently a gray area, and Lin Wuming's "revenge" was cloaked in a layer of "investigating illegal research facilities," coupled with his previously accumulated reputation, making it barely justifiable; but if they went too far, even the Anti-Skill forces might not be able to sit idly by.

Besides, Lin Wuming himself needed time to recover from his injuries and readjust to his body—if his body couldn't recover to the point where he could function normally, it would be better to follow Heaven Canceller's advice and switch to a full-body prosthetic...

Additionally, after the last super-acceleration, Lin Wuming felt that his "bullet time" had also changed, which indeed required some readjustment.

But at the same time, his and Shokuhou Misaki's investigation into the "Level 6 Shift Project" became increasingly blatant.

Now that they had broken the ice and revealed the truth to Misaka Mikoto, there was no need to be as cautious as before.

The existence of the Misaka Sisters could not be exposed—under the condition of adhering to this premise, the two sides maintained the most basic tacit understanding and did not escalate the matter.

Of course, the most important thing was that the strength displayed by Lin Wuming's side had indeed become powerful enough to require the Board of Directors and the Kihara family to deal with cautiously, which was why they wanted to maintain a tacit understanding.

Two confirmed Level 5s, Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki, and a suspected Level 5, Lin Wuming, plus a powerful group composed of several Level 4s and Level 3s.

It was no longer a matter of considering how to subjugate and suppress them, but rather of worrying about how to prevent them from rebelling.

Indeed, in the assessment of various forces, the evaluation of Lin Wuming's esper ability was no longer the Level 3 Power User listed in the Library, but an ambiguous "suspected Level 5."

The reason was the reports from hundreds of AIM diffusion field detection devices of different specifications and models in the seventh district during the duel between Misaka Mikoto and Lin Wuming that day.

More than seven hundred sets of detection equipment in normal working condition were simultaneously subjected to unfamiliar interference waves assessed as "Level 5" at a certain moment, rendering the ongoing experiments and detection data invalid.

Subsequent investigation determined that it was a phenomenon caused by "Railgun" Misaka Mikoto launching a large-scale lightning strike.

It was also the first time Misaka Mikoto had launched such a wide-range attack, so the relevant detection equipment did not have dedicated shielding settings.

The relevant wave parameters triggered by her predecessors, the other Level 5s, when activating their abilities had already been recorded and shielded through software algorithms, so they would not cause such a wide range of interference.

This was also a kind of convention—after all, every Level 5 would cause similar disturbances, and Academy City had formed a relatively complete set of countermeasures.

But the problem was the second "Level 5 intensity" wave detected within one minute after "Railgun's" outburst.

Considering that the only person dueling with Misaka Mikoto at the time was Lin Wuming; and the waves of the third-party attacker "Atom Smasher" had already been recorded and filed, and would not cause interference, not to mention that it was the Accelerator Suit rather than Mugino Shizuri herself who emitted "Atom Smasher" at the time...

It was not difficult to conclude that the initiator of the second interference phenomenon was Lin Wuming himself!

Although there were many doubts and uncertainties, and Lin Wuming's ability level was even backed by the Library's record of Level 3, the data recorded by the detection equipment was genuine and could not be faked.

At least, it was impossible for more than seven hundred sets of detection equipment located in different locations, different institutions, and performing different tasks at the time to simultaneously draw the same erroneous conclusion.

Thus, after learning about the information of Lin Wuming and Misaka Mikoto's duel that day, and that other equipment of their colleagues had obtained the same detection results, in less than a week, hundreds of different institutions and research groups had rushed to submit their reports of discovering the "eighth Level 5."

—In order to compete for the right to discover the "eighth Level 5."

Although many institutions had conducted various overt and covert tests and investigations on Lin Wuming afterward—a considerable portion of those who had been tracking Lin Wuming's actions these days were actually people from these research institutions—none of them had discovered Lin Wuming displaying Level 5 qualifications again, but with enough voices, more and more people, starting from those research institutions that submitted reports, had defaulted to Lin Wuming's "suspected Level 5" status...

Three Level 5s working together, even in the entire Academy City, was a considerable force!

This was also why no one jumped out to stop Lin Wuming and his group from investigating almost unscrupulously.

Of course, Academy City was full of hidden talents; from another perspective, just three Level 5s were far from reaching the point of being "invincible."

For some people, Lin Wuming and his group were only "somewhat troublesome," not unbeatable opponents.

Kihara Gensei was not surprised by the evaluation of Lin Wuming as a "suspected Level 5." Although he was in the second district and had not collected the wave data of that day, it was easy for him to obtain first-hand information with his abilities.

Not to mention, he was the first to see Lin Wuming's potential.

Although he disliked Lin Wuming's Level 3 ability level as being too low to be worth personally researching, Kihara Gensei had never stopped collecting information about Lin Wuming—reading it as a pastime.

If Lin Wuming really became Level 5 and needed to conduct research on his esper ability, Kihara Gensei would also have the most comprehensive first-hand information in his hands.

Moreover, the other two in that group—"Railgun" and "Mental Out," were also the key targets of Kihara Gensei's attention and research!

If Kihara Amata only needed to obtain the detailed ability parameters of the Level 5s to formulate a plan to subjugate them, then Kihara Gensei actually had those intelligence in his hands!

Kihara Gensei, who was in his own laboratory, showed a joyful smile, like a fruit farmer seeing his orchard ripen.

"Things are getting interesting. You can really bring surprises to this old man, Lin Wuming-kun."

Kihara Gensei decided to add a research topic for himself—whether "time-based" esper abilities really exist.