“Now that’s something!” Looking at the golden legend before him, Feng Xue’s eyes lit up. The acceleration and brainpower boost were just bonuses; the key was the super-armor effect while the skill was active. In terms of practicality, it was leagues beyond that previous “Greased Soles” thing!
If it were used on a character, paired with Battle Continuation, that would be ten seconds of minor invincibility!
“The mutated ability is basically an integration of several affixes. Is that only true for mutations, or do all ascensions absorb some of the material’s traits?”
Feng Xue thought of this, but did not dwell on it. After all, this was the sort of thing he would figure out after a few more ascensions anyway.
Stretching slightly, he stood up. As he walked toward his workbench, he opened the Exchange and saw a highlighted [Harvest] icon shining brightly.
[Materials obtained from this exploration: 84 grams of H17 heat-conductive material, 5 cubic centimeters of special optical crystal, one pair of secondhand 3-star arm prosthetics, 274 grams of D18 alloy, general-purpose chips…]
[Estimated value: 1,226 vouchers. Extract/Sell (If no choice is made within three days, they will be sold automatically)]
“So only materials harvested from the battlefield can be sold directly? But credits can be exchanged for vouchers at a one-to-one rate, so there’s not much difference.”
Feng Xue glanced over the estimate and could not help shaking his head. The price was a little lower than he had expected. The main issue was that ocular crystal. Because of Ge Union regulations, buying that thing through unofficial channels carried a certain premium, but the cheat priced it at the market buyback rate, so naturally it was on the low side. As for the alloy, heat-conductive materials, and the like, their quotations were about the same as in reality.
As for the two 3-star arms…
Secondhand goods, and off-brand ones at that. Naturally, he could not expect the system to buy them back at the pre-insurance, post-tax price, but a total selling price of 500 still left Feng Xue rather speechless.
They had a 3-star rating, at least, okay? Even if they were secondhand stolen goods, selling them to those gang members would fetch eight or nine hundred.
Feng Xue shook his head, but he was in no hurry to deal with them. The system had no backpack, warehouse, or anything of the sort, so he might as well leave them aside for now. Compared to agonizing over something like this, he currently had something in urgent need of testing—
Whether consumed affixes could be obtained again.
Testing this was not difficult. Open the bargain-bin materials, casually craft a 1-star prosthetic, and see if Lightweight could be recorded.
[Unrecorded affix detected. Record? Note: Recording an affix will cause irreversible damage to the affix carrier. You may also obtain this affix by installing the prosthetic.]
“NICE!”
As the familiar prompt appeared before his eyes, Feng Xue’s suspended heart finally settled back down. He immediately chose to record it, and once the [Lightweight] affix returned to the affix library, a smile also appeared on his face.
“Good. This means I now have three white fodder affixes I can farm repeatedly. Next is to ascend Great Strength and see whether, if it doesn’t mutate, the affix effect will be affected. If there’s no problem, I’ll ascend Battle Continuation too!”
Feng Xue’s heart surged with excitement. Like unlocking a new game mechanic, he instantly immersed himself in it. But just as he was thinking of quickly crafting [Subdermal Armor] and [Rocket Headbutt] as well…
“Bang!”
A crisp, resounding gunshot, absolutely not from the street outside, abruptly interrupted Feng Xue’s movements.
“What’s going on?” Feng Xue’s expression turned extremely ugly. He reached out and grabbed his pistol, loading it as he moved closer to the door.
That gunshot had been far too close. Coupled with the lingering echo that followed, he could be certain it had come from inside the shop! Moreover, with Feng Xue’s experience of having fired off over a thousand credits’ worth of bullets, he could tell that the gun that fired that shot was definitely not some crude workshop product.
Feng Xue’s heart instantly leapt into his throat, and all the blood in his body seemed to freeze. Holding his breath, he gripped the gun in both hands and carefully moved toward the door. Although there was also the possibility that Old Jiang had accidentally had a misfire or something, still…
Would that old man really make such a low-level mistake?
After that gunshot, the air fell into a brief dead silence. But just as Feng Xue was weighing whether he should hide in the workshop or go out to take a look, a string of gunshots erupted all at once.
This time, however, Feng Xue no longer felt the slightest worry, because he could tell that the shop’s security system had been activated.
Although this seemed to confirm that the shop was under attack, at least they were not completely unable to fight back.
Three seconds later, the gunfire stopped abruptly. Feng Xue raised an eyebrow. The shop’s security system had been built by Old Jiang himself. It could maintain uninterrupted firepower for more than ten minutes and had functions for rapid reloading and sustained strikes. For it to stop so quickly—if the enemy’s technical ability was not so high that they could instantly disable the security system, then the enemy had either died or left.
Feeling slightly more at ease, Feng Xue tightly gripped his pistol. Although he was still somewhat conflicted, he walked out anyway. The security system had already stopped. If the enemy had shut it down, then he would not have any ability to resist regardless. But if the enemy had been eliminated or driven away, Feng Xue, who considered himself somewhat versed in human relations, felt that at a time like this, he ought to take the initiative to go out and show concern for the old man.
As he walked out of his workshop, the smell of gunpowder instantly surged into his nostrils. Smelling the faint tang of blood mixed in with the scent of propellant, an ominous premonition suddenly surfaced.
The pistol he had already put away was drawn once more. Safety off. Round chambered. Yet inside the shop, there was not the slightest sign of an enemy—only shelves riddled and smashed by the security system, and a spreading pool of viscous liquid mixed with motor oil and blood.
“Old man, don’t scare me! Old man!”
Looking at that distinctive white explosion of hair, Feng Xue felt his head buzz. Before his consciousness could react, his entire body had already rushed forward. Only, at this very moment, that body no longer had any signs of life.
“No, how could this happen?” Feng Xue stared at the gaping hole torn open in Old Jiang’s chest, at the organs and prosthetics churned into a tangled mess, and his brain almost crashed completely.
Toward Old Jiang, Feng Xue had always harbored extremely complicated feelings. On the one hand, he was deeply grateful to the old man for saving his life, and even more grateful for his almost charitable act of imparting knowledge and craft to him. But deep down, he had always carried a measure of suspicion.
Because he found it very hard to understand why, in a cyberpunk world like this, there would be such a good person. So much so that he had once darkly wondered whether the old man was some kind of soul-source-energy holder, cultivating him with the intention of seizing his body or something.
But at the moment Old Jiang died, all those suspicions transformed entirely into guilt. As the saying went, “Had one died back then, who could know the truth and falsehood of a lifetime?” No matter what this old man had been thinking, now that he was dead, all he had left Feng Xue with was a debt of kindness he could never fully repay.
Although Feng Xue had long known that he had transmigrated into a cyberpunk world where human life was worthless, this little shop had been like a safe harbor, preventing him from ever forming a clear understanding of the danger outside. Not until this moment, when Old Jiang used his death to make Feng Xue truly realize the peril of this world.
“Revenge!”
That thought instantly swelled in Feng Xue’s mind. But immediately after, he was left utterly at a loss, because he did not even know whom he should take revenge on.
And just as he stood there in confusion, a familiar mechanical female voice broke the dead silence:
“Loss of vital signs detected. Confirming user ‘Jiang Si’ deceased. Initiating final testament program according to preset protocol. Confirming testament beneficiary… confirmed. Mr. Feng Xue, user Jiang Si left behind a video will. Do you wish to receive it?”
There is a pinned affix collection post in the comments section. If you have any interesting affixes, feel free to submit them. Suitable ones will be added to the protagonist’s lottery pool.
PS1: The group got nuked again. The new group still has the same name as before. After joining, turn off the AI summary thing; that stuff nukes groups.
PS2: Many people didn’t understand. It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s that there’s no point. Technically, you could even drive a seven-star mecha and sweep through the junkyard, but what would be the point? After six hours of sweeping, your profits wouldn’t even cover the engine depreciation! The junkyard is a low-value target to begin with. The most reasonable tactic is to run knife-only, because your opponents are just a bunch of rats. If you use even slightly more consumables, you’re operating at a loss.