After some simple research, Feng Xue had gained a basic understanding of his golden finger. Overall, it was a typical game-type golden finger.
The [Exchange] was the classic in-game shop. One could use real-world credits to top up points and purchase all sorts of goods from it, ranging from daily necessities like food, clothing, housing, and transportation to military firearms and mechs. Unfortunately, Feng Xue was currently penniless. In the future, though, if he had some starting capital, he could make money by reselling certain scarce goods that were priceless on the market.
By comparison, the [Manufacturing Bench] seemed slightly more complicated. Various slots labeled with words like [Required Components], [Auxiliary Components], [Additional Affixes], and [Design Blueprint] were arranged in an orderly fashion. There was also an icon called the [Affix Library], but after opening it, the menu inside was empty. All he could see was a grayed-out option in the corner labeled [Affix Upgrade].
Feng Xue knew absolutely nothing about prosthetics, and he had no materials on hand to experiment with, so he could only wait until he obtained some materials in the future before testing it out.
As for the final [Battlefield Selection], that was naturally the combat module. However, the only selectable battlefield right now was a sub-option called [Junkyard]. Considering that he was currently just a dead head, Feng Xue naturally did not dare click in to see what was going on.
“As expected, I should first think about how to save up a body for myself.”
Faced with a golden finger that was temporarily of no use, Feng Xue sighed and turned his gaze back to the tablet. Looking at the completely unfamiliar characters, Feng Xue was not particularly despairing. After all, judging from the old man’s language earlier, at least the pronunciation was Chinese. Even if the writing was different, he could choose to have the tablet read it aloud to him. Mm, in a world like this, surely they couldn’t lack even AI text-to-speech, right?
With that thought, Feng Xue immediately said:
“I don’t recognize this writing. Help me switch it to the script corresponding to the language I’m currently using.”
“Understood. Please wait a moment. It has been detected that the language you are using is Chinese. Switching now. Completed.”
Before the female voice, which sounded almost entirely devoid of mechanical quality, had even finished speaking, the text on the tablet had already changed. Although he very much wanted to retort inwardly, “So they have Chinese here too,” he was still drawn in by those familiar square characters.
The document the old man had left him was called An Overview of Source Energy. According to it, every person in this world possessed an aptitude known as “Source Energy.” This aptitude had four affinities, corresponding respectively to [Soul], [Spirit], [Energy], and [Flesh].
When one of a person’s four basic attributes broke through a certain critical point, the corresponding Source Energy would be activated. And once Source Energy was activated, there was no opportunity to regret it.
In numerical terms, it was similar to every person being born with 20 attribute points randomly distributed among the four attributes. If one attribute exceeded 8 points, they could awaken a supernatural ability. If all four innate attributes were below 8, then when they broke through 8 points in one or several attributes through acquired training, they could also awaken. It was just that unless multiple attributes broke through at the same time, the only attribute that could awaken would be the first one to break through.
Among these four attributes, Soul Source Energy was the rarest. There was not much content about it in the materials either; it only said that even if the physical body died, it could preserve the soul in a “specific” manner, and as long as a suitable body was found, one could revive again.
Spirit Source Energy possessed powerful perception and insight. According to the information, more than ninety percent of the top hackers in this world were holders of Spirit Source Energy. The remaining ten percent were Soul Source Energy ability users who had abandoned their physical bodies and existed within the online world as souls.
By comparison, Energy Source Energy was quite common. Their advantage was that their Source Energy accumulated extremely quickly, they had high biological energy reserves, they were compatible with all sorts of energy-output prosthetics and weapons, and they had extremely strong endurance. Furthermore, they were not picky about energy types. Most people who possessed this kind of Source Energy worked as soldiers, security personnel, and the like.
As for Flesh… that was a thoroughly commonplace ability. Under non-innate circumstances, the first three required specific cultivation methods to awaken, while Flesh abilities only required physical training to activate.
Its ability sounded absurd: it could assimilate “foreign objects” such as prosthetics into flesh and blood. It sounded very powerful, but after assimilation, the prosthetic would become a body of flesh and blood, so its output naturally could not compare to the prosthetic before assimilation. In terms of cost-performance ratio, it could be said to be a total loss.
However, this ability was not entirely without advantages. First, Flesh-type ability users had no concept of bodily rejection. As long as things like blood type were compatible, it was fine, so their organs were very popular on the black market (was this an advantage?). Second, they had long lifespans and could even avoid organ aging by continuously assimilating prosthetics. They were also unafraid of hackers and did not need to worry about cyberpsychosis caused by prosthetic modifications that were almost irreversible.
Especially for those at the bottom of society, even if they installed low-end engineering prosthetics due to temporary poverty, they still had a chance to regret it.
As Feng Xue read these introductions, his expression darkened—
“Why do I feel like, aside from an extremely small number of ‘children abandoned by heaven’ who are born past the critical threshold, the people who actively awaken Flesh abilities are either top-tier tycoons or super paupers? And the kind of pauper so poor they can only sell themselves!”
Of course, that was what he said, but for Feng Xue as he was now, it was actually the most suitable option.
After all, he currently only had a dead head left. According to the tablet AI’s introduction, if he wanted to reach the level of a normal person through methods such as prosthetic modification, he would need at least two hand prosthetics, two leg prosthetics, one torso prosthetic, and a set of head modification surgeries. That was not even counting various internal organ-type plugins.
Leaving aside whether installing so many prosthetics would instantly give him cyberpsychosis, first of all, even if he used the lowest-standard 3-star prosthetics and did not consider factors such as surgery fees and labor costs, the credits required would start at five thousand.
This number did not look large, but according to the tablet AI, the vast majority of wage earners earned less than two hundred credits a month—and that was for skilled workers.
As for higher incomes, one either had to work in a technical field, be an employee cultivated by a corporation from childhood, or possess sufficiently powerful martial strength. Very clearly, he had none of these.
But if he took his Flesh ability into account, then there was no need to consider various expensive control terminals and modification surgeries. As long as he was fitted with a full set of 1-star prosthetics and then used Source Energy assimilation to handle the rest, the total cost for the whole set would not even reach a thousand credits…
“Wait!”
Feng Xue suddenly felt that something was wrong. He immediately opened his system shop and looked at the price of 3-star prosthetics. After confirming that his memory was correct, a large number of question marks could not help appearing on his face. In the list, the cheapest 3-star hand prosthetic was actually priced at five thousand points!
And these points exchanged with real-world credits at a rate of one to one!
At this moment, Feng Xue very much suspected that something was wrong with his golden finger. It clearly said it was the market price and was unaffected by market fluctuations, so how was it so much more expensive than the plan given by the AI?