MTLNOVEL Chapter 9: Chapter 9
[Poison Resistance up to level 3]
[Airbending up to level 6]
[Agility 9 to 11]
Before losing consciousness, Akashi used all of his points.
He upgraded Poison Resistance skill by one point. He knew the effect of the drugging gas would shorten significantly after upgrading the skill.
After that, he would have some fighting to do.
So, he spent his last skill point upgrading Airbending.
As for Attribute points, he had 11.
[Name: Akashi.
Level: 5.
Class: Airbender.
Skill Points: 0
Attributes Points: 0
***Skill Trees***
Airbending — level 6
Martial Arts — level 4
***Skills***
Poison Resistance — level 3.
***Attributes ***
Wisdom. 4
Strength. 2
Vitality. 2
Agility. 11
Stamina. 2
HP: 100/100
Chi: 100/100
Stamina: 100/100]
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Akashi's eyelids fluttered. The moment he woke up, he found himself tied up with ropes in the back of what seemed to be a truck.
He turned his head left and right, only to see that he was alone.
The other cops were not around him.
It meant he was kidnapped alone.
He sat up and looked to see that he was in the driver's seat.
Given that the sky was still dark, it seemed he hadn't been unconscious for long.
"Shouldn't we tie him up more?" said one of the two who were driving.
Akashi closed his eyes while listening carefully.
"I literally exposed him to sleeping gas and injected him with a tranquilizer. It would be a miracle if he woke up before twelve hours. He still has ten left. Enough for us to deliver him."
"Man, that man is quite expensive, isn't he?"
"What can I say. It's his fault for becoming an airbender."
"Isn't it not his choice?"
"Is it my problem?"
"It's not."
"Okay. What should we do? Making it to the airport will take a long time."
Airport.
It seemed they wanted to get him through an airship.
If the client who wanted him was in one of the Poles, they would have taken him by sea. Same for the Fire Nation, since going through the sea would be faster than using an airship.
This left one option.
The Earth Kingdom.
The airship would cross a dangerous desert and take him to one of the cities.
This was just his own assumption.
It could be right or wrong.
For now, it was best to focus on how to get rid of the ropes and listen to them, as that might help him understand more.
He was curious about what happened to the other cops.
In his experience, these people were human traffickers, and killing the policemen would be the best course of action, the least annoying one.
But if they had someone working with them from the police, they might spare them.
Akashi, before losing consciousness, had suspected his lieutenant, Boba.
He had insisted that he party despite Akashi showing his dislike of the idea.
He was a suspect.
And if the other two cops were left alive, that would confirm that the kidnappers were not just asked to kidnap him, but to spare the others.
'I really hope it's not you, Boba,' he thought. 'But everything seems to have been planned beforehand for it to be a fluke. The drinking, the taxi that was modified to have a gas trigger and explode a tire at will. They had this planned for a while. The location, time, and place had already been set.'
'Shit. I'll leave thinking about that for later.'
Akashi thought as he looked around the container.
The light was faint, but he could see relatively clearly.
There was a trail of him being dragged, drawn in the dust.
And that was it — a trail for one person.
'They wouldn't have killed the other cops without bringing them into this container and disposing of the bodies later. I guess they are alive.'
'Boba, after all these years we worked together, and after I saved your brother from jail, you betray me like this.'
'So, this is what the triad members felt after finding out I worked undercover.'
He sighed deeply but didn't feel guilty or anything. Calling out the triad members was something to be proud of, as they deserved to pay the consequences of their actions.
Akashi looked at the ropes tying him. They were a little tight, especially around the knots.
After leveling up his agility, gaining almost three times his initial stat, he had flexibility beyond his previous limits.
His hands, tied behind his back, easily slipped under his legs and came in front of him. Next were the knots around his chest, which felt harder to deal with.
But let's not forget he had leveled up his airbending skill, allowing him to do things with more ease.
He grabbed his hands next to his mouth, trying to bend the air with his breath, creating pressure inside the knots, which suddenly loosened. But it was quite loud.
"What's that?" someone in front questioned.
"It's just some random box on the road that the wheel hit."
"Oh, right. For a second, I felt scared that the man behind us woke up."
"Looking at him, he seems to be sleeping peacefully."
"That's right."
Akashi waited until there was a speed bump, then put his hands on the knots, pressing a small amount of air inside them.
A deep frown appeared on his face.
He started regretting being a cop.
He wasn't getting paid enough to deal with all of this.
Maybe he should have stayed on the island with Tenzin and joined the Order of the White Lotus.
The only reason he had refused that was his desire to gain experience points and level up through his work as a policeman.
That was right.
Experience points.
What he was facing now was something he couldn't get every day.
Enemies.
He needed more of them.
Only by gaining enemies, eliminating the weak first, and slowly climbing to the top, could he reach max level and thrive in this world.
'It's too late to back down now.'
He thought.
As for the two drivers, they played the radio and started singing happily along with the song, seeming to enjoy themselves.
They didn't notice that someone sneaked behind them and was shaking his head to the song.
"And I'm going on the long road, honking on every chick… and on this beat, my life is on repeat…"
At first, there were two voices singing.
Then, there was a third one.
It took the two drivers some time to realize that.
As they showed signs of realizing it, Akashi put his hand on the nose of the one who wasn't driving.
He moved his other hand and made the air flow around, entering the man's nose forcefully and breaking through whatever barrier inside his body, even those around his brain.
The result was instant death.
'It seems oxygen can be used as a poison. Anime logic sometimes is logical.' Akashi thought, ignoring the notification that rang.
[Killing a nonbender]
[+200 exp]
He put his hand on the other man's nose, saying, "If you don't want to end up dead like your friend using my 4000-year-old airbending technique, keep driving while answering my questions."
That was a total lie.
He hadn't learned any lethal technique with Tenzin's help.
But you know, it didn't take a high skill level to turn the skills into deadly ones.
Like when you learn how to move soil using earthbending, it doesn't require much thinking to know you can bury your enemies alive.
The driver kept his hands on the wheel. Looking at his face in the mirror, Akashi saw him sweating while his eyes fell on his dead friend.
"Now, if you think of messing with me, I'll have you know, it's not my first time killing, not the second, nor the third. And I have never lost sleep over it." Akashi admitted. In the world of guns, you'd have to take a life before yours is taken. After a while in the job, you'd get used to it.
"You fucking psychopath…" complained the driver.
"I'm not. I feel sympathy, for your mother," Akashi replied, "but if you want to live, answer my questions honestly."
"Please don't kill me. I was just hired to transfer you…" he said, seeming to realize he messed with a messed-up person.
"By who?" asked Akashi.
"I don't know. I got paid handsomely, told I had to meet with a cab driver."
"And what happened to the other two cops who were in the taxi?"
"We threw them by the dumpster."
"Did you kill them?"
"No."
"So I was your only target."
"Yes."
"Pass me your ID."
"ID?"
"Yes, yours and your friend's."
It was essential to know your enemy, their identity, and their real job.
If they weren't involved with the triads and worked as mules, then it was possible to trace.
"I can't give it to you!"
"Why not?" Akashi said, reaching into the dead body's pocket.
He grabbed an ID.
The driver panicked at the sight.
He pressed the gas pedal, increasing the speed to the max, then jerked the wheel, flipping the vehicle in mid-air, causing a car crash.