Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 49 - 41 Ability Mastery (Thanks to the alliance leader ’Waiting for the Lord with Wine’, thank you!)

Chapter 49: Chapter 41 Ability Mastery (Thanks to the alliance leader ’Waiting for the Lord with Wine’, thank you!)

Resolve a hammer my ass!

Susan had given Brian a way to clear his suspicions from the get go.

As a law enforcer with considerable authority, when dealing with an uncooperative murderer during the enforcement process, wouldn’t it be justified if the suspect got shot and killed?

Now that Brian held an official position with NW, continuing to sneak around and disguise himself to kill murderers was downright ridiculous.

He could legally kill people and fulfill the obsession of the deceased.

He hadn’t done it that way before.

But that was just because there was a rush to close the case of the food truck explosion.

The real challenge was that investigator with glasses, Karen.

Brian was somewhat conflicted about how to get rid of the investigator named Karen without suspicion.

...

Direct attacks are easy to dodge, hidden threats are difficult to defend against.

With the ability, Brian didn’t like leaving threats unaddressed.

He had to figure out why Karen, and the previously deceased investigator Galan, had targeted him!

Brian and Karen, both were NW employees.

As insiders, they knew the play and unwritten rules among them.

As long as Brian ensured that by following the lead with Karen, he could cleanly take care of all those who were privy, while also appearing to have no capability for committing crimes himself, then even if someone found certain clues or suspected him, they wouldn’t be able to touch him.

After pondering,

Brian came up with a barely workable method—fracture.

This inspiration came from his experience with a fracture in his previous life.

In his past life, Brian had suffered a fracture once and, during the recovery, the fracture had reopened due to running around and roughhousing with classmates.

Comparing two leg CT scans, there was no difference noticeable.

Brian happened to have such conditions.

Every time he fulfilled a corpse’s obsession, the accompanying Gift from the dead typically granted him more or less of a physical enhancement.

This process would heal his injuries and restore his stamina.

If so,

Brian could intentionally fracture his leg, become mobility impaired, and then go to the hospital to get proper records like x-rays.

In secret,

he’d recover from most of the injury.

Then he’d neatly take care of Karen and any trouble behind her.

Afterward, he’d just have to revert his injury back to its previous state.

The only issue was whether ’Golden Finger’ could do what he wanted it to do.

...

Back at the apartment,

Brian immediately sat cross-legged and slipped into a meditative state.

Over and over in his mind he repeated: "Enter the white space! Enter the white space! Enter the white space!"

Time seemed to blur.

A sense of trance overwhelmed him.

When Brian opened his eyes once more, everything before him was engulfed in white!

"Good!"

Brian shouted with joy!

It really worked!

This meant that the ’Golden Finger’ Gift from death was his own ability!

It was the manifestation of the power his spirit craved the most under the helpless and near-desperate conditions of the Blood Moon radiation!

After the excitement,

Brian was a bit stunned.

Gift of the deceased.

Not a special ability tied to the flesh.

Previously, Brian had been using this ability passively.

So, how could he actively wield it?

Without any obsession,

it seemed quite useless.

"The Power of the Mind..."

Brian thought for a moment, recalling how he had entered this unknown space.

Does it mean that his ability was driven by thought?

With that in mind,

Brian tried: "I want to see outside! I want to see outside!..."

It happened much faster this time.

After mentally repeating it four or five times,

the outside scenery manifested in front of Brian.

But it wasn’t the ’normal field of vision’ he had imagined, but rather a digital framework outlined by ripples creating a 3D world, akin to computer-generated 3D graphics, like 2D CAD drawings or 3D SolidWorks designs...

Brian immediately realized.

He had closed his eyes earlier to concentrate,

therefore, this ’visual’ feedback originated from the talent ’Supercomputer Perception’ he’d acquired.

Brian now knew how to control his abilities!

It was simple.

Thoughts!

Susan was right.

The core of the Blood Moon Gift indeed was the power of the spirit!

Inspired,

Brian wondered.

Could he use the Supercomputer Perception!

To create a Status Panel similar to Chip Wizard and panel-system novels he had seen in his previous world?

Although not very useful,

at least it would allow him (and the reader) to understand his condition more clearly.

It was also an attempt at exploiting and controlling his abilities for the first time.

...

No sooner thought than done!

Brian immediately started focusing on this idea in his mind: "Using the state when I first experienced Supercomputer Perception as unit 1, based on my self-awareness and Supercomputer Perception, create a personal Status Panel for myself..."

As he got practiced,

the feedback came quicker.

Instantly, a rudimentary digital panel appeared in Brian’s mind:

"Brian Lee

Physique: 0.9

Spirit: 1.1"

Talent:

1. Supercomputer Perception

2. Fury

3. Hound’s Sense of Smell

Skills:

1. Eighteen Forms of Vehicle Assessment

2. Throwing

3. Human Anatomy

4. Explosive Configuration

5. Handgun

..

31. Urination

...

Looking at this crude Status Panel, Brian felt somewhat disappointed.

First were his physique and spirit.

Physique was roughly equivalent to an amalgamation of the body’s speed, strength, recovery, and so on.

These were all a whole, driving each other.

Spirit...

In the real world, that was actually just an adjective.

Because with current technological means, there was no way to digitally calculate a person’s mental state.

Brian also didn’t know how "Supercomputer Perception" performed its calculations.

But it didn’t matter.

Having a direct perception was enough.

This crude panel was based on the state of Brian’s body when he had just received the "Supercomputer Perception."

Unit 1 was roughly equivalent to the physical fitness of a 23-year-old male who exercised regularly.

The panel’s display of his physique as 0.9 must have been the negative impact from the previous radiation examination.

He would just use the Gift ability to recover later.

Overall, the data on the panel were quite accurate.

It was the skills section that Brian wasn’t satisfied with.

There weren’t any levels.

The most ridiculous part was that even urination was recorded!

What was the point of recording that?

...

A thought struck Brian, "Classify the skills according to my personal understanding, subdividing them into levels, and directly remove any skills I consider unnecessary to record from the display."

The next moment.

A new panel appeared before Brian’s eyes:

"Brian Lee

Physique: 0.9

Spirit: 1.1

Talent:

1. Supercomputer Perception

2. Fury

3. Hound’s Sense of Smell

Skills:

1. Eighteen Forms of Vehicle Assessment - Expertise

2. Throwing - Expertise

3. Human Anatomy - Proficient

4. Explosive Configuration - Proficient

5. Handgun - Entry-level"

This time, Brian nodded in satisfaction.

In his understanding.

Entry-level was equivalent to practicing a skill for a few months and being able to execute it with some proficiency.

Proficient meant it was good enough to make a living off of.

Expertise meant doing exceptionally well in the industry, reaching the peak possible for an ordinary person.

Above that.

There was the master level.

This required effort and talent to reach and represented the human limit in a certain area.

However...

Why was "Eighteen Forms of Vehicle Assessment" still on the panel?

Brian shook his head.

Forget it.

It was, after all, a craft painstakingly perfected over countless nights of part-time practice.

Leave it there.

...

Having confirmed he could manipulate the "Golden Finger" at will,

Brian needed to consider how to acquire new obsessions.

Only by fulfilling an obsession.

And obtaining a Gift.

Could he "fracture" himself, reducing suspicion for his subsequent actions.

This method still carried risks.

But it was the most immediate solution he could think of.

Perfection was rare.

What suited the moment was sufficient.

Once he had the power to flip the table.

None of this would matter!

...

The obsessions of the deceased.

Victims of homicide cases had the highest drop rate.

However, because several Squad B teams were in a restorative state,

All the homicide cases in Los Angeles were currently directly assigned to a few Squad A teams of NW, in conjunction with local police departments.

So Brian had no way to get involved.

The question was.

Besides homicide cases,

What other kinds of deceased people were likely to harbor obsessions and allow him to get close?

PS: The values are exponential, not multiplicative; for example, a 0.1 difference in physique implies a complete overpowering, 1.2 in physique resembles a monster among ordinary people, and 1.3 is non-human, the overall values in this book won’t be very high.