Chapter 135: John Doe

As a Type 6 — Tier 1 disguise armament, Fake Skin operated within strict thresholds.

To see through it directly, a martial artist would need at least sixty-one star power and be face-to-face with Adam, applying focused perception. Alternatively, they would need a detection armament that outclassed it in tier and function.

Neither scenario was common.

A powerhouse exceeding sixty-one star power would be rarely seen in the mid regions since it was repulsive to them. And an armament superior to Fake Skin required resources and craftsmanship that only a handful of people in the alliance could achieve.

After this installation, she would have none left, since she had only ever created two.

Both forged carefully with the materials Remedy had painstakingly provided.

Ivy positioned the strip into the circular wound on Adam’s neck.

The moment it made full contact, it activated.

A faint hiss escaped as it began releasing a reactive gas. The smell resembled burning skin.

Adam’s veins bulged along his arms and neck. The cloth remained lodged between his teeth, as he registered something else…

The bedsheets hadn’t torn.

Which meant they were very durable.

Good.

The burning intensified as Adam stopped thinking straight and the armament fused at the cellular level, stitching into nerves and energy channels simultaneously. Gradually, the initial burning began to fade.

Adam felt the first trace of relief.

Then Ivy brought out a small remote-like device. She pressed it against the side of the implant and truly activated it.

The burning stopped instantly and a new pain replaced it.

Adam’s skin began to tighten, then pull and it was not just skin.

His bone structure shifted beneath muscle, his jawline compressed, his cheekbones altered and the bridge of his nose restructured.

His hair texture changed at the roots too, as the pigmentation shifted.

Even his eyes.

His vision blurred as pressure built behind them and warm blood flooded downward.

As the blood trailed from the corners, he couldn’t hold it in anymore and the cloth fell from his mouth.

“Aahhh—!”

The scream tore out of him.

It felt like his insides were being turned inside out.

Which, from a structural perspective, was not far from the truth.

Fake Skin wasn’t an illusion.

It was adaptive remodeling.

His skin shriveled momentarily before tightening into new elasticity. His hair thinned, dried, then regrew in altered density. The orbital pressure behind his eyes pulsed violently before settling.

Through it all, Ivy calmly packed her tools back into the metal box.

Procedure complete.

She stepped back and observed.

“Now we wait.”

Adam’s scream filled the room as the final integration phase continued, the armament rewriting him down to signature level.

****

The pain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, but Adam remained lying in the now-disordered bed. The sheets had been ripped free from the mattress, twisted from the force he had exerted. Yet despite the strain his body had endured, there wasn’t a single drop of sweat on his skin.

It was abnormal but not immediately relevant, as he stepped off the bed as if nothing had happened and walked into the bathroom, as the vanity mirror reflected a stranger and for a moment, genuine disorientation struck.

The face he had studied for years, the tired eighteen-year-old with coiled black curls and green eyes sharpened by exhaustion, was gone.

His hair was still black, but they were straight now.

His facial structure had shifted. He now had a broader jaw, refined cheekbones and the faint shadows beneath his eyes had vanished. In their place stood a slightly above-average twenty-four-year-old man, clean-shaven and composed, with golden eyes staring back at him.

Even his height had increased subtly and his center of gravity felt different.

Adam lifted a hand and touched his cheek.

“I can’t even see any resemblance to my former self.”

“It’s to be expected,” Ivy said from behind him. “It is one of my designs.”

She paused.

“Oh. By the way, your name is John Doe now.”

Adam’s gaze remained on the mirror.

“John Doe?”

He turned his head slightly.

“Why that name?”

“It’s because the skin you’re wearing belonged to him.”

His fingers stopped moving suddenly as he turned to face ivy and his right hand was now touching the side of his now smooth neck where the implant had fused.

He held her gaze.

“How are these made?”

Ivy did not hesitate.

“For such a clean resemblance,” she said evenly, “something had to be used as reference.”

“A corpse is compressed using a special extraction method. All viable genetic material is collected and refined. The strip is then woven for integration compatibility.”

It was a simple explanation, with no embellishment so Adam processed it quickly.

“And my implant came from this… John Doe?”

She nodded.

He studied the reflection again.

Based on bone density and skin elasticity, the original host had been young.

“And judging by how he looks, he didn’t die of old age.”

“He didn’t.”

“How did he die?”

Ivy answered casually.

“Rem killed him.”

Adam’s gaze remained steady.

“What did he do to be killed?”

Ivy leaned lightly against the bathroom doorframe.

“Well… about a week ago, the rape and murder of a Catkin from the Essential Race happened in Tristan.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“You gave me the skin of a wanted murderer?”

Ivy chuckled.

“That would be funny. But no. He’s not wanted.”

She shrugged.

“He was never caught. No evidence linked him to the crime.”

Adam processed the implications.

“So why kill him?”

“Rem figured it was him.”

She said it casually.

“And she was right.”

Ivy folded her arms.

“It surprises me sometimes how she figures these things out. I know her family was influential, but there are moments she knows things that catch even me off guard.”

She tilted her head slightly.

“And I’m a genius.”

Adam’s thoughts aligned instantly.

Doesn’t she know?

If Ivy was unaware that Remedy was a regressor, then the information gap inside this team was deliberate.

Adam chose not to address it now.

That conversation required timing.

Ivy straightened slightly.

“By the way, Doe, can I ask you a question?”

He looked at her evenly.

“You can call me Adam in private.”

“What if I slip up and call you Adam in public?” she countered. “It’s better I get used to Joe.”

He exhaled quietly.

“Fine. What did you want to ask?”

She studied him more carefully now.

“What did you do to the leader for her to treat you the way she did when you arrived?”

“…”

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