At noon the next day, the meal arrived on schedule.
It was still dry bread, dried meat, and half a flask of water.
The guard put down the supplies and turned to leave.
The door lock clicked shut, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded down the corridor.
Leo Vance checked the food first out of habit, setting it aside once he confirmed it was safe.
But instead of eating right away, he turned his attention to Ho Yinsen.
Ho Yinsen understood, nodding before carefully tearing a piece of metal foil from his own food packaging.
It was a thin metallic seal, roughly the size of a fingernail, with roughly folded edges that faintly revealed two long, thin metal strips.
“This is all I could manage,” Ho Yinsen said in a low voice.
“Anything bigger would be easily discovered.”
Lucas took it, testing the resilience and hardness of the metal strips between his fingers.
Not perfect, but good enough to handle an old-fashioned pin tumbler lock in a cave.
Tony leaned over and took a look.
“Are you serious?
You’re going to pick the lock with that?”
Lucas didn’t answer.
He tore a piece off his own food packaging and began fine-tuning the strips using his fingernails and the edge of the stone wall.
His movements were light, making almost no sound, but every stroke precisely shaved off unwanted burrs.
Tony watched for a dozen seconds before clicking his tongue.
“What were you before this, a soldier or a locksmith?”
“A soldier.”
“Soldiers learn this?”
“Learn a bit more, live a bit longer.”
Tony was left speechless.
He leaned back against the wall, muttering, “Fine, I guess soldier standards are higher than mine.”
A system notification popped up silently.
[Host’s actions align with character logic.]
[Character Completion Rate: 8% → 9%]
Lucas didn’t get distracted checking it.
All his focus was now on the metal strips in his hand.
Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes.
The two thin metal strips gradually took shape—one slightly curved at the tip, the other kept straight.
Simple, but functional.
He hid the tools in the seam of his trousers, then leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes to rest.
Between afternoon and evening, Lucas did three more things.
First, he found a short piece of discarded iron wire in the stone room, about ten centimeters long, and hid it inside his shoe lining.
Second, he crushed the dry bread into fine powder and wrapped it into several small pouches using cloth scraps.
This powder could serve as a rudimentary visual distraction to throw into the air when necessary.
Third, during a thirty-second gap while the guards were changing shifts, he scraped some diesel fuel from a crack in the doorway’s threshold and wiped the oil residue onto a cloth scrap.
As Tony watched him do all this, his expression grew increasingly complex.
“…preparing for a prison break or a camping trip?”
“Both.”
Tony: “…”
In the evening, after night had completely fallen, the desert outside the cave was dyed a deep ink-blue.
Lucas finally opened his eyes slowly.
He didn’t rush to get up.
Instead, he sat quietly in the dark for ten seconds, letting his hearing adjust to the ambient details of the night.
Wind blowing in the distance.
Low chatter near the cave entrance.
The steady hum of the diesel generator.
Everything normal.
He stood up.
His movements remained silent.
Ho Yinsen looked up, watching him nervously.
Tony, uncharacteristically, didn’t make any sarcastic remarks, just quietly observing.
Lucas walked over to the door of the stone room, retrieved the two metal strips from his trouser seam, and crouched down.
The keyhole was slightly larger than he had anticipated, but the structure of an old-fashioned pin tumbler lock wasn’t much different.
He took a deep breath and inserted the two metal strips into the keyhole one by one.
First was the curved one, used to apply light rotational tension.
Then the straight one, used to push the pins.
*Click.*
An extremely subtle sound.
The lock cylinder turned a fraction of a notch.
Lucas didn’t push further.
He let go and slipped the metal strips back into his seam.
“What’s wrong?” Ho Yinsen asked in a hushed voice.
“Not yet,” Lucas said.
“Opening the door now will make a noticeable noise, and the guards will hear.”
He sat back down in the corner and closed his eyes.
Tony frowned.
“Didn’t you just say you could open it?”
“I can, but now isn’t the optimal time,” Lucas replied calmly.
“When the diesel generator’s load shifts next, the noise will drown out the sound of the lock.”
Tony froze for two seconds.
“You even memorized the generator’s load cycle?”
“When a diesel generator powers extra equipment, its RPM briefly drops, changing the frequency of the noise it produces.
That shift lasts about four to six seconds—more than enough to cover the sound of a lock being picked.”
Tony opened his mouth, but only two words came out: “That’s insane.”
He didn’t doubt it, because earlier today he had indeed heard the generator change its tune twice—once when welding equipment started up, and once when the ventilation system switched over.
This bastard had actually kept track of even that.
“How often does the generator load change?” Ho Yinsen asked.
“Irregularly,” Lucas said.
“But the average interval is roughly forty minutes to an hour.
So the three of them sat quietly in the dark.
The air held only the rhythmic humming of the diesel engine, punctuated occasionally by whistle calls outside the cave.
Tony leaned against the wall, staring at Lucas’s back.
The thought in his head had gradually shifted from *this guy is just lucky and tough* to *who the hell is he, really?*
Twenty-three minutes later.
The generator’s hum suddenly flickered slightly, its rhythm dropping by about half a beat before returning to normal.
Now.
Lucas shot up instantly, the metal strips re-entering the keyhole.
*Click.*
A soft sound, but completely swallowed by the shifting pitch of the generator.
The lock was open.
Lucas didn’t push the door immediately.
Instead, he shifted the iron bar about three centimeters to the left, confirming the hinges weren’t jammed, before slipping out sideways.
The entire motion was seamless, and closing the door behind him was controlled precisely within the window of generator noise.
Ho Yinsen stared at the shut iron gate, stunned for a long moment.
Tony whispered, “If this guy wasn’t on our side, I’d be picking out my coffin right now.”
Ho Yinsen gave a bitter smile.
“Same.”
In the corridor.
Lucas moved swiftly against the base of the wall.
He had rehearsed this route four times in his mind.
Segment 1: Reach the wooden crate pile, two seconds.
Segment 2: Pass the rock wall recess, three seconds.
Segment 3: A blind spot positioned slightly left of the middle corridor, crossable in about one and a half seconds.
Segment 4: Six meters from the armory door, requiring extra attention to the vision angles of the guards on the left.
He paused briefly when reaching Segment 3, because the shadow cast by an old cable box on the opposite wall differed slightly from his daytime observation.
It wasn’t major, but Batman’s habit was to pause a second to double-check rather than take risks.
Half a second later, the shadow returned to normal, and he continued forward.
Outside the armory door.
Two guards—one sitting, one standing against the wall—just like during the day.
Lucas stopped in the shadows about five meters diagonally opposite the armory, in no rush to approach.
He was waiting for the seated guard to yawn.
Based on daytime observation, this guard yawned roughly every fifteen minutes, closing his eyes briefly for two to three seconds each time.
About forty seconds later.
The guard’s mouth began to open.
Lucas moved.
He glided silently out from the shadows, footsteps feather-light, keeping his center of gravity extremely low and treading precisely where gravel was sparsest.
Three meters, two meters, one meter.
The guard closed his eyes as the yawn reached its peak.
Lucas reached out, his fingertips touching the door lock.