Time slipped quietly by amid the preparations before opening. Before long, Old Man Jiang had arrived at the shop as well. He added a chair behind the counter and said,
“How’s your study of the materials I gave you before?”
“I’ve basically read through all of it, but most of it doesn’t feel very real to me.” Feng Xue answered honestly. Old Man Jiang did not seem to doubt him and nodded.
“As long as you’ve read it. Today I’ll teach you something new…”
As he spoke, Old Man Jiang pulled a metal connecting rod from the corner and tossed it to Feng Xue.
“Activate your source energy on it.”
“Wait, didn’t we practice this before?” Feng Xue caught the connecting rod, feeling somewhat baffled. Back when he was trying to restore his body, he had attempted it many times on a lump of iron, but he had never seen that lump change in any way!
“It’s different. Before, I was having you remember the feeling of activating it. Now, I’m teaching you advanced applications of source energy.” Old Man Jiang’s tone was no different from usual, but his attention remained fixed on every change in Feng Xue’s expression.
Feng Xue immediately grew interested. As he mobilized his source energy, he said,
“Explain in detail!”
“Didn’t I say before? Source energy is, in essence, a kind of copy and paste. Different kinds of source energy can rewrite different types of information. For example, flesh-and-blood source energy can rewrite human body information. If your attainments in biology are high enough, you can also try rewriting information from other animals. Now, try not to think of the connecting rod in your hand as a connecting rod. Treat it as a leg bone, then activate your source energy and see!”
“You can do that?” Feng Xue’s eyes instantly lit up. He had thought before that the source energies introduced by the AI were far too useless, but it turned out the blame lay with the Ge Union’s information control!
After all, Feng Xue had been transmigrated for less than a month. Although all that had been left of him was a head, he had no memory of anyone chopping off his body. Coupled with the friendliness Old Man Jiang had shown him, he still carried a bit of the innocence from his previous life.
Faced with an opportunity to use supernatural powers like this, he naturally would not let it pass. As source energy flowed, the connecting rod quickly turned into a pale bone.
“It worked?” Feng Xue looked at the bone club in his hand and casually swung it twice, discovering that it was much lighter than the connecting rod. Seeing this, Old Man Jiang reached out, took the bone, swung it a couple of times, then bent it hard.
“Crack!”
The bone club snapped at once. Old Man Jiang nodded, then shook his head and said,
“Your flesh-and-blood ability is indeed very strong. And because you restored your body before, the conversion efficiency is extremely exaggerated. But next, you need to try controlling it.”
“Controlling it?”
“Right. For example, only making the structure and shape turn into bone while retaining the original metallic material, and so on. Flesh-and-blood source energy is relatively weak in this aspect, but as a prosthetic doctor, mastering this sort of technique will be of great help in making prosthetics.”
Old Man Jiang picked up a metal block from the table. Source energy surged, and the metal block immediately turned into a soft piece of “cloth.” However, when one reached out and touched it, one could still feel the texture that metal ought to have.
“I don’t have flesh-and-blood source energy, so if you want to reach this level, you’ll probably need quite a bit of practice. I recommend doing more segmented training. For example, separate the three thoughts of ‘the same shape as bone,’ ‘the same structure as bone,’ and ‘the same material as bone,’ and simply realize one of them at a time. Not just bone, but also skin, fat, muscle fibers, and so on. The goal isn’t to make them identical, but to make them resemble the form as much as possible. Because in materials science, form is actually the most important thing.”
“Oh. Then when I’m fighting, couldn’t I also turn someone else’s prosthetic into flesh and blood or some other relatively fragile form through contact?” Feng Xue’s thoughts scattered widely, but Old Man Jiang shook his head.
“How could it be that easy? You have source energy. Do you think others don’t? Source energy is highly exclusive. As long as the other party has even the slightest resistance, your source energy won’t be able to take effect. As for your source energy overpowering theirs… at that point, your physical strength should be able to crush mechs directly. There’d be no need to use such methods.”
As Old Man Jiang spoke, he also opened his terminal, pulled up a folder, and signaled for Feng Xue to receive it. Feng Xue connected the data cable and did not dwell on the collapse of his idea. Instead, he changed the subject and asked a new question.
“Dr. Jiang, I’ve wanted to ask for ages. Why don’t you use wireless transmission?”
Feng Xue had thought the answer would be something like “wireless ports are easy for hackers to invade,” but Old Man Jiang gave him an answer that was absurd yet somehow reasonable.
“Because wireless ports are taxed.”
“Huh?”
“Because they’re taxed! The Ge Union’s wireless transmission is patented. If you use it, you have to pay patent fees to the relevant companies and regulatory taxes to the Ge Union government. If you use Great Yan’s wireless transmission technology, although there are no patent fees, there’s a two-thousand-percent tariff. And the Ge Union has wireless signals around the clock. As soon as you open a port, you’ll be searched. If you accidentally receive a paid signal, they might even come to your door to collect fees… Of course, there’s shielding technology too, but every time you use that sort of thing, the probability of being discovered goes up. If it isn’t necessary, it’s best not to use it.”
“…”
Feng Xue wordlessly shut his mouth and focused on reading the materials Old Man Jiang had given him. Old Man Jiang did not say much either. He casually found a few parts and began piling them together.
Just then, Feng Xue, who was reading the materials, suddenly slapped his forehead.
“Dr. Jiang, when you repaired prosthetics before, did you cheat with source energy?!”
“What do you mean, cheat?” Since Old Man Jiang had taught Feng Xue source-energy rewriting, he naturally was not worried that Feng Xue would think of this. He shot back with perfect confidence,
“To use source energy, you first have to know how to use it and to what extent. Even without source energy, I would still know how it should be modified. In terms of the result, all I did was use source energy to skip over the details that would require manual processing. If your technique were up to par, the moment you picked up the parts I processed, you would notice the difference between them and the parts you processed. But you can’t see it. That’s the gap! When the day comes that you can understand those subtle differences, you’ll be able to achieve the same effect even without source energy!”
“…” Feng Xue was left stunned by Old Man Jiang’s words. In his embarrassment, he could only forcefully change the subject.
“It’s awfully quiet this morning!”
“Nonsense. It’s the once-a-week Trash Day. It’s not like you haven’t seen it before!” Old Man Jiang casually stuffed the assembled parts into a drawer, but he still explained for Feng Xue, who had not paid attention to such things before.
“Slums like the Rust District are basically all built around garbage dumps. Starting in the early hours of every Monday, the garbage dump temporarily closes to receive the garbage dumped down from above. It doesn’t reopen until seven in the morning. That’s why scavengers usually have the biggest hauls on Mondays. Mm, right—you were picked up by me on Trash Day.”
“Although that is the truth, I still hope you could put it a little more tactfully.” Feng Xue bared his teeth and muttered softly, then asked with some curiosity,
“Since that’s the case, aren’t you going today?”
“There are differences between Trash Days too.” Old Man Jiang waved his hand, his tone a little subtle as he explained,
“Although in theory it’s once a week, the garbage thrown down from above is different at different times. The reason I went to the dump before was because I heard a bunch of idiots up there had robbed corporate storefronts and quite a few people died. I was wondering if I could pick up some combat prosthetic parts or something. I didn’t expect to pick you up instead.”
Old Man Jiang’s words left Feng Xue somewhat speechless. He suddenly remembered how, when he was little in his previous life, he had asked his mother where he came from and what his mother had told him. He had never expected that today, he really would become someone “picked up from a trash heap.”