As soon as he reached the door, he put his hand on the knob and turned it.
It didn't open. The door was obviously locked.
'Always worth a try,' he thought.
He scanned the hallway; it was dim with a flickering light, and there was no one around.
He pulled out two paper tools from his inner coat.
The tools were precise cutouts of paper, small, slim, and sharp. By injecting spirituality into them, he could manipulate their rigidity and use them as improvised lockpicks—one of the many clever applications of his 'Paper Weapon' ability.
He had tried it out a few times in practice, but now it was time for field application.
He slid the paper picks into the keyhole, feeling the internal pins of the lock against the paper.
With a flick of his nimble fingers and a little focus, the lock turned with a satisfying
'click'.
He turned the handle and pushed the door open, slipping inside before closing it silently behind him.
The room was on the shabby side, It was partitioned into two areas; the one he had just entered seemed to be a kitchen, holding a rickety wooden table meant for eating.
To the right was the bedroom, containing a sagging bed, a bedside table, and a solitary, worn-out chair.
He continued to look around, hoping to find something interesting, but there was nothing of note.
So, he pulled out two paper figurines and hid them in appropriate places—one tucked behind the doorframe, another beneath the table—in case a battle broke out.
'A Magician must always be prepared.'
Jace remembered this was the first principle of Klein's acting method for a Magician.
Of course, the principles of an acting method should be tailored differenly to different people, but Jace didn't really mind being a bit prepared.
With his preparation done, he went into the bedroom, pulled out the chair, and sat facing the door.
Now, he would wait.
——
Natalie was waiting in the shadows of the alley nearby.
It had been an hour, but there was no sign of Hobert the criminal.
As a Hunter, she possessed impressive amount of patience, but today she wasn't the active predator; she was just backup.
Today's mission was an easy one, and she had deliberately chosen this one because she wanted to see how Jace performed in the field.
And Natalie was impressed. His divination abilities were sharp; she knew this because she possessed a sealed artifact of the Sequence 9 Seer pathway in the form of a silver pendulum.
She kept it with Sarah since she became a Beyonder, and the abilities that artifact provided were much weaker than what Jace had shown her today.
She also possessed a crystal orb, though she didn't know much about it—it was related to astrological divinations, but it came with some serious, debilitating side effects.
Seeing Jace perform divinations with such ease—finding the target within an hour—made her realize how far ahead he was.
It was a task that should have taken her half a day of legwork, and perhaps another half-day to capture the target.
So now, only the final part remained, and she kept waiting.
After several minutes, Natalie finally saw the target.
He was walking, looking around warily, before entering the building.
Natalie waited until the distance was appropriate and started following him inside.
She tracked him as he reached the 2nd floor as he walked toward the door of his room.
Natalie stopped near the stairwell, peering toward the second floor.
Hobert opened the door and walked into the room.
Natalie now threw away her stealth and strode into the hallway with a serious expression, her hand hovering near her holster, prepared to enter the room at any time should things go wrong.
—
Jace was sitting patiently, slumped on the wooden chair, waiting for the target to walk in. God, he was bored.
'Oh?' He instantly straightened up.
A subtle ripple in his senses—a premonition—signaled the door was about to open.
He looked at the table beside him, snatched up a paper, and rolled it into a firm baton.
'Clack.'
The door opened. Hobert walked into his room and heaved a sigh of relief. He had been in hiding for a few weeks now, and the constant paranoia had taken a toll on his mental health.
He removed his hat and coat, hung them by the door, and walked into the room, glancing around the familiar space.
!!!
He stopped in his tracks. He looked to his right, into the bedroom.
Sitting by the side of the bed was a man on a chair, impeccably dressed.
Half of his face was obscured by the low brim of his black hat, revealing only his mouth.
"Oh! You're finally here. I've been waiting for you, Hobert!" the man on the chair said with a soft, pleasant voice, his lips curling into a charming smile.
He even raised a gloved hand and gave Hobert a friendly wave.
Hobert was stunned, but as a Beyonder, he recovered quickly, figuring that this man was likely a bounty hunter looking for him.
--
Jace, of course, was putting on an act. In truth, he was a little nervous.
But he shrugged off the tension; he had done more difficult and bizarre things before.
Meanwhile, the Hobert guy reached a hand toward his waist and pulled out a gun.
Jace sighed inwardly. 'And here I thought it was going to be a fistfight.'
Before the man could point the gun his way, Jace triggered the paper figurine substitute he had hidden behind the door and vanished from the chair, leaving behind only a small, palm-sized paper cutout.
Jace appeared behind the target and used the paper roll he had formed before, smacking it squarely into the back of the target's head with a dull 'thwack'.
Hobert collapsed onto the creaky floorboards with a heavy thud.
The door opened and Natalie stepped in, gun drawn, only to see Jace standing over the target's unconscious body.
Jace looked at Natalie and asked, "Now what?"
Natalie looked around the room in silence, assessing the efficiency of the takedown.
"Nothing really. We just drop him off at the nearest MI9 drop point. They will process everything and send the reward to Madam Catherine, as we are her associates," Natalie explained.
Jace nodded.
He had heard about this—Catherine was apparently a registered contractor for MI9 and did things for them in return for money, delegating tasks to her associates like Natalie while keeping a small cut for herself. Of course, she only stepped in when the matters were serious.
Natalie looked at him for a moment. "You can leave if you want. I'll drop him off," she said.
Jace thought for a moment and nodded. "Okay." He removed his hat, bowed in farewell, and turned around to leave.
"Wait."
Jace stopped and turned around to look at Natalie. "Yes?" he asked.
"Do you have the formula for Sequence 7 of the Spectator pathway?" she asked, looking at him seriously.
Jace smiled.