After handing his silver stopwatch over to the drunk gambler, Jace walked out of the residential building complex.
He leisurely strolled through the nearby market district, observing the bustling shops and the various shopkeepers.
Jace recognized and knew most of them, as he had lived in this area for the better part of his life.
And truly, what better way to begin acting as a Faceless than to start with the people he already know about?
Turning down the left side of the street, he walked into a local bakery.
It was a modest establishment. A middle-aged man wearing a flour-dusted chef's hat and a apron sat behind the counter, where multiple wrapped loaves and packets of fresh bread were neatly displayed for sale.
Behind the counter was a wooden door that led directly to the back room where the man baked his goods.
Currently, the baker seemed bored, staring completely absentmindedly at a packet of bread.
Jace knew his background. The man had a wife and four children to support, so he was notoriously stingy about money, but he was by no means a bad person.
The baker hadn't noticed Jace walk into the shop at all. And why would he? Jace was actively using the imitated 'Psychological Invisibility' via the Polymath ring that was still slipped onto his finger.
Seeing that the man's attention was focused on a single point, Jace initiated his hypnosis.
Using hypnosis on a target generally required the victim to be focused on something, unless the person happened to be weak-minded or drowsy like the gambler Jace had hypnotized earlier.
The moment the hypnosis took hold, Jace said firmly, "You feel sleepy. Go to sleep."
The baker's eyelids instantly grew heavy. His head slumped forward onto the wooden counter with a soft thud.
Jace stepped around the counter, picked up the sleeping baker, and carried him into the back room of the bakery.
A few minutes later, the baker walked back out into the front of the shop.
He casually adjusted his apron and sat back down at the counter with a bored expression.
When a customer finally walked through the front door, the baker stood up with a smile, efficiently wrapping the bread the customer wanted and even convincing them to purchase a few extra pastries before leaving.
This baker was obviously Jace. But Jace wasn't truly Jace anymore; he was now the baker.
And that was exactly how his grueling journey of acting as a Faceless officially began.
One day he was a simple baker, the next day he was a street vendor.
The day after that, he became a carriage driver, then a tailor, a construction worker, and even a housemaid.
He never stopped. He changed his face every other day.
One day he was a passionate young man pursuing a lady; the next day, he was the lady being pursued by multiple men.
One day he was a cruel husband who abused his wife; the next day, he became the broken wife who quietly suffered through that abuse.
He even became a doting grandmother who thoroughly spoiled her grandchildren.
It did not matter whether a person was good or bad, young or old, man or woman.
When he acted as bad people, he found their justifications for being bad, and became bad himself.
When he took on the face of an elderly person, he allowed himself to become wise, caring, tired, and cranky, emulating the exact weight of their years.
When he assumed the form of a woman, he fully adopted a feminine demeanor, mindset, and posture.
——
An entire month passed by in this manner.
For the second month, he took his acting different level.
He became a strict schoolteacher, a precise surgeon, a small-time street musician, a demanding factory manager, and even an authoritative police officer.
Jace specifically took on the faces of people who were listened to, respected, or envied by society.
He found that this particular dynamic was incredibly effective for his digestion.
——
The days quickly passed as two months passed in a flash.
Finally, Jace decided it was time to take a rest.
Currently, he was in the guise of a surgeon in his mid-forties—who, after a long shift at the hospital, was finally walking home.
In reality, the real surgeon was already fast asleep inside his own house.
As Jace walked down the dimly lit streets, his entire demeanor suddenly shifted.
He straightened his back and his tired, wrinkled features of the surgeon's face turned emotionless.
His flesh and and body wriggled slightly beneath his clothing as his physical frame became noticeably smaller and thinner.
His facial features smoothed out, growing younger and softer.
For the first time in a week, Jace had reassumed his own real face.
The clothes hanging on his body were now a little baggy for his natural frame, but he ignored it, activating the Polymath ring to teleport directly back to his bungalow in the North Boroughs.
He materialized instantly inside his large master bedroom.
The room was somewhat messy, though not with garbage or dirt.
Instead, the entire space was crowded with clothing stands filled with garments of various kind— suits, dresses, and various uniforms.
Jace disregarded them.
He stripped out of the oversized clothes, hung them on an empty stand, and headed straight into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, he was completely submerged in a big bathtub filled with steaming hot water.
Jace was actively using the 'Air Pipe' power to breathe under water. Frankly, this was the only practical use he had found for the ability so far.
And he enjoyed being underwater; it felt warm, weightless, and peaceful.
These past two months had been... entirely different.
He had completely thrown himself into a constant state changing faces and acting.
The only time he had assumed his true face were during his weekly visits with Catherine.
Somewhere in the midst of his busy schedule, he had hunted two Sequence 7 Beyonders and handed their characteristics over to Catherine to begin paying off his debt. He still owed her one more.
He sighed deeply beneath the water, air bubbles escaped his lips and floated to the surface of the water.
Because he had been acting continuously without a break, a kind of mental stress had slowly accumulated in his psyche.
Constantly adopting other people's identities, mimicking their distinct body language, and forcefully emulating their emotions had taken a psychological toll on him.
But it was entirely worth it.
The speed of his potion digestion was faster than it had ever been.
It was fast enough to the extent that he had digested the amount of potion it took three months to digest in two months.
But, of course, there was the cost of mental stress. If he blindly continued acting like this, he risked losing sight of his own true face and character, which would result in him losing control.
Therefore, he absolutely needed to rest and recuperate for a week or two.
After relaxing completely in the bath, Jace dried himself off and threw on a soft, comfortable bathrobe.
Without a single care in the world, he crawled into his bed and fell into a peaceful sleep...
Until his peaceful slumber was disturbed when his spiritual intuition stirred.