Although all sorts of thoughts surfaced in Feng Xue’s mind, he did not actually court death by reaching out to touch it. He simply watched in silence as that lump of metal continued to change.
He suddenly realized that he might be able to learn this thing!
Yes, although it was a fast-forwarded cutscene, the entire processing procedure had indeed been displayed before Feng Xue in full. If he could take this set of techniques…
“All right, I can’t learn it.”
Feng Xue’s earlier excitement instantly cooled, because he discovered that he did not even recognize the high-end equipment shown in the CG!
All he could do was quietly watch as those two liang of D9 steel were broken down into small pieces, made into different components, then assembled again, until in the end they became a right-hand skeleton of standard dimensions.
Although it looked like there was nothing wrong with it, Feng Xue still cautiously found a temperature gun, a Geiger counter, and other equipment to test it. He then poked it with a wooden stick. Only after confirming there was no issue did he reach out and pick up this prosthetic skeleton, and his golden finger gave its appraisal right on time—
【Cheap Right Arm Skeleton】: A two-star prosthetic skeleton with average performance. Due to its special structure, its weight is far lower than the normal standard.
“Uh, doesn’t this have bearings and hydraulic rods… So when the auxiliary components are listed as optional, it means I can use finished parts made of other materials or with better performance, and if I don’t have them, it’ll just make them directly from the main material? Also, this skeleton is actually less than two liang. Isn’t that a bit too light?”
Feng Xue glanced at the appraisal result. After finding that there wasn’t much useful information, he used his equipment to measure the skeleton’s parameters and was rather surprised for a moment. The interior of this right arm skeleton was hollow, and the walls of the tubes contained a large number of cavities as well. But there was no doubt that this seemingly fragile structure actually surpassed human bone in strength.
One had to know that the actual weight of this arm skeleton was less than one-tenth that of the bones in a human hand!
“In that case, if I directly manufacture a prosthesis, could I even put in one-tenth of a skeleton? Oh, right, it only reduces the consumption of base materials, huh? But what kind of materials count as base materials? If metal counts, then lubricating oil, filling materials, and the like should count too. Do artificial muscle fibers count?”
Feng Xue’s brows lifted slightly. After switching to the 【Universal Right Arm Prosthesis】 blueprint, he stuffed this arm skeleton into the required components slot, only to find that the 【Cheap Goods】 option among the additional affixes had become unselectable. When he forcibly clicked it, the interface immediately popped up the words “Effects of the same type cannot stack.”
“In other words, when a material optimized by 【Cheap Goods】 is added, the entire prosthesis can no longer be optimized by 【Cheap Goods】? Then can multiple 【Cheap Goods】 materials be used at the same time?”
As soon as this thought popped into Feng Xue’s mind, he immediately got moving. One after another, he crafted a 【Cheap Storage Battery】, 【Cheap Arm Muscle Assembly】, and 【Cheap Hand Drive Assembly】.
In truth, the most outrageous one was this drive assembly… Damn it, even the silicon used to make the chip was reduced to one-tenth!
But there was no need to think too deeply about matters involving his golden finger. After gathering four components that were only one-tenth their normal weight, Feng Xue directly opened the manufacturing bench. Strictly speaking, at this point, he could assemble the prosthesis even without the system, but if the system acknowledged it, that meant there was the possibility of filling in other affixes.
“It worked!”
Seeing the three materials fill the slots at the same time, Feng Xue’s face revealed an expression of wild joy. Without the slightest hesitation, he pressed the orange-red button, and the four sets of parts quickly assembled together. Very soon, a prosthetic limb including the palm, forearm, and upper arm appeared before his eyes—
Name: Cheap Lightweight Right Arm
Position: Arm
Grade: Two-star
Evaluation: A right arm prosthesis with ordinary performance. Due to its special structure, its production cost and weight are far lower than conventional standards.
Feng Xue immediately reached out, wanting to use his equipment to test this prosthesis’s performance. But the instant his fingers touched it, what arrived first was his golden finger’s notification sound—
【Unrecorded affix detected. Record it? Note: recording an affix will cause irreversible damage to the affix carrier. You may also obtain this affix by installing the prosthesis.】
“Good grief!” Feng Xue’s eyes lit up. He had originally been wondering how he was supposed to obtain affixes, and now, hadn’t a path just appeared?
According to his golden finger, if he installed it on himself, he could directly obtain the affix. Otherwise, he would have to acquire it through a method similar to “dismantling equipment.”
“This really is the classic online-game routine of baiting players into grinding and spending money. Come to think of it, could my golden finger be that extraction shooter game I picked up before transmigrating? But damn it, I only said I’d think about it. I hadn’t even gotten my hands on the basic settings!”
Feng Xue was speechless inwardly. In reality, however, there was no way he would chop off one of his arms just for the sake of one more affix. Moreover, this prosthesis’s weight itself was problematic, so he couldn’t possibly give it to Old Man Jiang. The materials were just some junked scrap parts too, so destroying it would not hurt.
Thinking this, Feng Xue decisively selected record. But contrary to what he had imagined, the prosthesis did not directly dissolve or turn into motes of light and disappear. Instead, it seemed to be twisted and crushed by something, turning into a pile of debris in the physical sense.
“This actually obeys conservation of mass pretty well. But does this mean that if I run into an enemy equipped with an affixed prosthesis, I can record it once and directly cripple his prosthesis?”
Feng Xue looked at the pile of fragments and gave them a brief inspection. After discovering that every valuable structure had been completely destroyed, he simply swept them into that pile of metal scrap, planning to melt them down together later.
Compared to that, what he cared about more now was naturally the newly obtained affix—
Affix: Lightweight
Type: Trait
Quality: White Common
Effect: Grants an item the Lightweight trait. Items that obtain this trait have their weight reduced to one-third of the original. Effects of the same type cannot stack.
Remark: I want to fly higher~ fly higher~ the gale… Shit! The gale is here!
…
“Why is it only one-third? This prosthesis’s weight is only one-tenth of normal, all right? But if it’s purely weight reduction, it should be able to stack with Cheap Goods. And Lightweight doesn’t reduce the prosthesis’s performance. If I first use Cheap Goods to make the prosthetic components, then use this affix to assemble them, I can make a prosthesis that’s one-thirtieth the conventional weight without any loss in performance…
“And this remark… That’s true too. Not all prostheses need to have their weight reduced. This should be more suitable for flight, mobility, and other types with strict weight requirements. I just don’t know if installing it will cause structural changes like Cheap Goods does. Speaking of which, this white quality doesn’t have ‘cannot be ascended’…”
Thinking this, Feng Xue immediately clicked the originally grayed-out and unselectable 【Affix Ascension】 button in the manufacturing bench interface. What appeared before his eyes was a tree diagram with one node above and three below. Just from the look of it, he knew that at least four affixes were required to use it, so he could only set it aside for the time being and shift his attention back to where it had been originally—
He casually crafted a lightweight one-star prosthetic component. This time, however, he was disappointed, because the prosthetic component that was produced did not have any structural optimization. Its reduced weight seemed more like an additionally applied buff.
“Why is there this kind of difference? It can’t be because of ascension, can it?”
With a puzzled expression, Feng Xue opened the affix list and compared the similarities and differences between the two affixes. Then he suddenly noticed one detail—
“Type… The types of these two affixes are different. Cheap Goods is manufacturing-type, while Lightweight is trait-type… Traits are buffs, while manufacturing refers to effects achieved through craftsmanship? Then are there other types too?”
Feng Xue was incomparably excited at this moment. He deftly sorted through the pile of scrap parts while experimenting with all sorts of blueprints in his head. Right now, he no longer cared about Old Jiang’s notion that “one-star prostheses are worse than tossing back into the furnace.” His only goal now was to get more affixes!