"Something else?"
Feng Xue raised his brows, his tone carrying an unavoidable hint of curiosity. Old Man Jiang checked the time, stood up, and locked the shop door. Without looking back, he said:
"If you want to establish yourself here, knowing how to slap together prosthetics isn't enough. You need some ability to protect yourself."
Hearing this, Feng Xue immediately perked up, even pausing the study threads he had split off, seemingly waiting for what Old Man Jiang would say next.
Old Man Jiang wasn't surprised by Feng Xue's quick-wittedness. He casually pulled a small pistol from the counter drawer and tossed it to Feng Xue:
"First, gun disassembly, maintenance, and basic marksmanship. Then, we'll find some hand-to-hand combat manuals. I'm not asking you to beat anyone, but at least when someone blocks your door, you can run away, or... take a few down with you."
Feng Xue fumbled to catch the pistol, but his face was full of excitement—not just out of a man's love for weapons, but also because of the combat option in his cheat interface that he had never dared to touch.
Although he didn't know exactly what kind of combat mode it was, given his current state where he had almost no combat ability aside from slightly stronger neural reflexes, trying it blindly would absolutely be reckless. But if he could gain some actual combat capability, testing out that Junkyard node that even a severed head could enter should be doable, right?
"Alright!"
A thousand words condensed into one resolute answer. In response, Old Man Jiang tossed him a copy of the *Blacksteel International Armed Personnel Dispatch Department New Recruit Training Manual*.
...
The next day, Old Man Jiang temporarily closed the shop and led Feng Xue through the back door to a small warehouse converted into a shooting range.
"This place used to be a small gang's stronghold. After I 'persuaded' them to leave, it became mine." Old Man Jiang explained lightly, then continued:
"You played around quite a bit last night, didn't you? How was the practice?"
At this, Feng Xue's expression turned slightly awkward. Still, he pulled out the unloaded pistol Old Man Jiang had given him, and in less than three seconds, broke it down into its component parts.
"Not bad. Though the Phantom Dragon Soul Type-3 has its merits, being able to do it so smoothly means you have confidence." Old Man Jiang nodded, pulled out a briefcase from the corner, and opened it to reveal all kinds of gun parts inside:
"In the Ge Federation, guns are like clothes—a necessity. However, with your flesh-and-blood abilities, you can't use smart firearms or energy weapons. If you want to use traditional guns against high-end threats, you need more skill and methods."
Saying this, Old Man Jiang pushed the briefcase toward Feng Xue:
"Try using these parts to piece together a few reliable buddies first. Then I'll teach you how to unleash their power."
For the next several hours, Feng Xue immersed himself in a world of metal, gunpowder, and mechanical principles. Old Man Jiang's teaching style was the same as when he taught prosthetics—crude, direct, but always grasping the core.
Assembling firearms was much simpler than manufacturing prosthetics. As long as you grasped the essentials and got the caliber right, it was basically not difficult. What Old Man Jiang was really teaching him was how to use these haphazardly assembled weapons—
Specifically, how to pick up any gun and hit the enemy with it.
Old Man Jiang didn't teach him any "correct shooting postures." Instead, he had him shoot from all sorts of strange positions. According to the old man, his bones were transformed from Dum alloy—he didn't need to worry about recoil at all. Comparatively, what he should focus on was being able to draw and shoot under any circumstances while maintaining accuracy.
Feng Xue didn't doubt Old Man Jiang's words. Such unorthodox methods might be imbalanced, but they were absolutely practical. As for formal shooting training, he didn't intend to ignore it either. With the manual Old Man Jiang had given him, he could practice that content on his own.
"Bam! Bam! Bam!"
Even suppressed, the grating gunshots echoed through the enclosed space. As bullets were expended like they cost nothing, Feng Xue gradually began to find that thing called "feel."
The coordination abilities of the Phantom Dragon Soul Type-3 combined with bones transformed from Dum alloy made his progress terrifyingly fast. By afternoon, he could already perform a backflip while firing and hitting the target—something unthinkable even in FPS games.
Compared to the free-form shooting, Old Man Jiang was much more rigid when it came to combat training. There were hardly any unorthodox tricks; instead, he completely demanded that Feng Xue drill according to the doctrines in that manual. He even hand-built a humanoid robot on the spot to spar with him.
For the next few days, Feng Xue maintained a schedule of studying prosthetic maintenance in the morning, practicing shooting in the afternoon, and then getting beaten by the robot. His hand-to-hand combat skills improved visibly. Now, when facing that combat robot, he could barely manage to parry and counter.
As for marksmanship... just as Old Man Jiang said, as long as you fired enough bullets, even the worst talent could be fed into becoming a crack shot. Not to mention his talent wasn't bad to begin with.
However, what truly left Feng Xue helpless was that he now owed Old Man Jiang another 200 credits for ammunition.
Old Man Jiang's small shop could produce bullets, and the old man sold them to him at cost—one credit for fifty rounds. That he had racked up a 200-credit bill was proof enough of Feng Xue's diligence.
...
Monday night. Having finished the busy Junk Day work, Feng Xue—who finally had no training—sorted the junk he had scavenged today, then flung himself onto his bed and stared at his cheat interface.
Along with his rapidly increasing strength, the [Battlefield Selection] interface of his cheat now displayed a new map in addition to the original [Junkyard]—one depicting a primeval forest labeled [Extraterritorial]. This seemed to indicate that his current strength had met the requirements to enter a new map.
"In other words, this [Junkyard] newbie dungeon shouldn't pose much of a threat anymore, right?"
Feng Xue muttered inwardly. Finally, he couldn't resist focusing his attention on the interface—it was time to go inside and take a look.
[Behind every glamorous city lies a corner piled high with junk. In the cracks between scrapped prosthetics and rotting data, you might dig out some barely usable electronic trash. But be careful—the local hyenas won't mind turning you into junk either.]
As the thought of selection settled, the Junkyard icon expanded. After a string of meaningful text flashed by, what appeared before Feng Xue was not his physical body or consciousness entering the dungeon as he had imagined. Rather, it was a window that looked somewhat like a game's character customization interface, accompanied by a small pop-up—
[Please create a character.]
"Holy crap, so it wasn't my real body entering after all!"
Feng Xue's face darkened. He suddenly felt a bit of regret. If he had known his real body wasn't required, he would have entered long ago!
Only...
How exactly did one create this character?
As this thought rose in Feng Xue's mind, a line of prompts appeared—
[Character creation requirements: Basic humanoid framework (requires at least: head ×1, torso ×1, arms ×2, legs ×2). Note: The head unit must possess information-gathering capabilities.]
"You mean I have to assemble a robot?"
As for why the protagonist's head was left behind, I don't think it's that hard to understand. The organs in the head require more complex techniques to extract and preserve. No objections there, right? Whether it's the cochlea, frontal lobe, cerebellum, pons, or eyeballs—which of these aren't delicate components? They don't sell for much, so why take them?
Secondly, the protagonist had no modification marks, no signs of manual labor. Clearly a spoiled rich kid. If they delayed, a medical support team might arrive in an airship at any moment. They had to grab what was easy to carry and leave ASAP!
Besides, if you want to harvest a body, you have to subdue them first, right? To ensure the valuable organs remain intact, cutting the neck is the fastest way, isn't it? Two birds with one stone—chop off the head, carry away the body, evacuate at maximum speed.
The protagonist truly has no prosthetic modifications at all, but the Scavengers didn't know that. Old Man Jiang also said that in this society, you can't survive without a neural interface. Who knew whether the protagonist had a chip in his brain? What if you took the head and got tracked?
Finally, it's not that the cochlea is valuable—it's that Old Man Jiang is awesome. Like I said, one-star prosthetic finished products aren't even worth as much as their materials. Two-star prosthetics aren't as useful as flesh-and-blood bodies. Three-star prosthetics are where the real value is. The fact that Old Man Jiang could assemble a whole body on a 600-credit budget is because he's awesome and didn't charge labor fees. It's not that one cochlea can be exchanged for a cheap set of prosthetics. Understand?
It's like how in *The Sixty Million Dollar Man*, transforming into a biochemical bionic human cost six thousand—it's not that bionic human tech only costs six thousand, but that Professor Jiang Si is awesome. Get it?
I've made the prices very clear. Low-end three-star prosthetics cost five thousand a set on the gray market, not counting labor. A cochlea is six hundred, and that's because it was urgently needed.