“There really isn’t anyone?”
Feng Xue controlled Demon Sword, detouring through more than a dozen intersections, switching routes seven or eight times, and entering over a dozen shops under various pretexts. Only after he finally confirmed that no one was truly following him did he make two slight adjustments to his face and return to Old Jiang’s cybernetics clinic.
Three point seven million—whether as point vouchers or credits—was undoubtedly an enormous sum. But when he started considering how to spend it, it gave him something of a headache.
His first instinct, of course, was to upgrade his main body with a full set of high-end goods. The awkward problem was that the finished cybernetic bodies in the shop had far too poor a cost-performance ratio, with markups generally exceeding tenfold. The money to buy one would be enough for him to make ten.
As for making them himself...
He didn’t have the blueprints.
Yes, among the materials Old Man Jiang had left behind, there were no blueprints for cybernetic bodies above four-star.
And blueprints for technology that could serve as a treasured trump card even in a small nation—if they were sold on the black market at all—were absolutely not something he could afford.
Given the current situation, Feng Xue had only two ways to get his hands on advanced blueprints. Either he first acquired a few finished products, dismantled them, reverse-engineered and mapped them, then researched the relevant blueprints.
Or he imitated the birth of the Second Son Arm and gambled on blueprints through mutation.
His golden finger had not explained the cause of the mutation, but based on the effects of the Second Son Arm and the affixes added at the time, Feng Xue could roughly understand it. It should be something akin to Runewords, where different affixes combined to create a finished product that matched the effects of specific equipment.
For example, [Cheap Goods] corresponded to the Second Son Mechanical Arm’s ability to regenerate at a cost lower than flesh; [Dark Sword] corresponded to the Second Son Mechanical Arm version of the Sword of Hell; [Great Strength] corresponded to cultivating the Second Son Dao and causing magnetic field power to surge, and so on.
It was a little forced, but considering the previous mutation combination for [Nigerundayo], Feng Xue felt there should be no problem with this line of thinking.
Which brought up another problem—
The number of affixes he had on hand was still far too small, nowhere near enough for him to probe the rules of mutation.
But even if he couldn’t produce a high-end cybernetic body in the short term, strengthening his own main body was a must. At the very least, he had to add the affix [Nigerundayo] to himself!
“Besides [Nigerundayo], [A Hymn of Loyalty] can be added too. That thing won’t be useful most of the time, but once it is, it means getting a bodyguard for free. Rocket Headbutt can also be added; it’s useful whether for offense or escape. Great Strength and Subcutaneous Armor have to be added too, and Bird Breathing... All right, I want to add every single affix.”
Feng Xue muttered inwardly like this, and even planned to make a Second Son Arm to install. But considering that Demon Sword had previously “almost” fallen into demonic deviation, he still suppressed the thought.
He wasn’t worried about the limit on affix slots. When creating a character, he had naturally chosen the minimum number of cybernetics, but if he really wanted to add more, stuffing three or five plug-ins into his head or installing two sets of cybernetics on his arms were all perfectly normal things.
However, after counting through his affixes, Feng Xue noticed one special case: an affix that, despite being of blue quality, he had never used—
[Spinosaurus Form].
The reason he had to test it was mainly because of the cost of “temporary bodily deformation.” Without confirming what degree of impact this thing would cause, he would not dare install it directly onto his main body.
In fact, when Feng Xue crafted Demon Sword, he had added this affix with the intention of testing the skill. Who would have thought that the Heavenly Martial Killing Dao would be so domineering, directly influencing his mode of thought? Having killed his way from beginning to end, he never had a chance to test this skill at all.
“Come to think of it, there’s also a newly unlocked Outer Domain Battlefield in the golden finger that I haven’t run yet. Perfect, I’ll give it a try and test this Spinosaurus Form while I’m at it. The Junkyard is a bit too childish for Demon Sword now. From now on, I’ll just routinely farm it every Junk Day and see if there’s anything good.”
As Feng Xue spoke, he had already opened the golden finger and entered the battlefield selection interface. Looking at the [Outer Domain] option beneath [Junkyard], he issued the command.
[Welcome to the playground of probability. Opportunity and death run side by side here. For you, who come from a world of order where everything is determined like code, perhaps some time will be needed to adapt—but your enemies may not give you such a chance. Very well, it is time to place the chips of fate upon the gambling table, and the one dealing your cards is none other than that capricious Goddess of Fate.]
“Oh? Judging from this description, the new map is heavy on the gambling, huh?”
Feng Xue swept his eyes over the scene description, then immediately saw Demon Sword on the character selection interface, along with the option to create a new character beside it.
“As expected, I can create a new one. I just don’t know whether there’s an upper limit to the number of characters that can exist simultaneously.”
Feng Xue muttered inwardly, immediately bought materials from the shop, spent nearly seventy thousand credits, and crafted a Demon Sword Unit Two with a configuration exactly identical to Demon Sword’s. The only difference was that he moved the [Insurance] affix onto the blueprint-forged Second Son Arm.
Although the current strength of his consciousness made it somewhat difficult to control two bodies at the same time, Old Man Jiang’s death had completely destroyed his sense of security. When he had sent Demon Sword out earlier, he had been a little worried about whether his main body might be threatened. He could only make one more and keep it at home—one Demon Sword going out, the other staying at home. If some blind fool came knocking, Feng Xue could instantly switch control targets.
As for the one outside being in danger... no danger could compare to the safety of his main body!
......
Entering battlefield: Outer Domain
Preparation time: 55 seconds
Battlefield intensity: Unknown
Extraction condition: After constructing a shelter (searching), remain inside for 30 seconds to successfully extract.
Extraction time limit: 24 hours
Extraction failure: Loss of synchronization
Random side objectives:
1. Camping Master: Gather five types of edible ingredients (0/5)
2. Monster Hunter: Kill five types of mutated creatures (0/5)
3. Forest Ranger: Complete extraction without engaging in combat.
......
Along with the sense of detachment brought by a large consumption of source energy, Feng Xue appeared in a dense forest. Looking at the prompt panel before him, his expression could not help but twitch:
“What does ‘intensity unknown’ mean? Also, what the hell is building a shelter? So I’m doing wilderness survival now?”
He had originally thought that compared with scavenging in the Junkyard, it would at most be a change of location for search, fight, and extraction. He had never expected it to turn into wilderness survival. And also...
“Where the hell has this sent me? Is this even still inside the country?”
Looking at the forms of the surrounding plants, Feng Xue quickly called up the data in his brain drive, but could find absolutely nothing relevant. He even shifted the weight of his consciousness and used his main body to log onto the Gelian internet, spending a hefty sum to buy a copy of Plant Illustrated, yet still came up empty-handed.
“Tsk, what a bad buy!” Feng Xue stored that copy of Plant Illustrated into his brain drive and inwardly shook his head. At the same time, he was glad that he had been cautious enough to choose to buy a data pack rather than opt for the cheaper online search.
For something that wasn’t even in a plant encyclopedia, if it turned out to be some special species, then the moment he searched for it, internet surveillance might lock onto him in minutes.
Only...
“I originally thought this so-called Outer Domain just meant the outdoors, but from the looks of it now, the waters here run deep...”
I truly do not understand some comments. What do you mean by “treating technology as black magic”? What do you mean by “a piece of cloth can completely shield all sorts of information fields? And even create a blank area in scans?” So fighter jet stealth coatings are black magic now? Then again, to primitive people, technology is black magic.
And what kind of world is this book set in? Can you understand post-apocalyptic? The previous civilization could even write the ability to rewrite reality with information into DNA. Old Man Jiang can rub metal into cloth with his hands, but somehow he can’t make a piece of anti-detection fabric?
I encounter this kind of abstract comment in almost every book. You can accept someone blowing up planets with one hand and erasing the Great Dao, you can accept traveling through time and space, reincarnation and rebirth, but you can’t accept a piece of cloth that blocks conventional detection?
If you insist on saying it that way, the three-color plastic tarps laid over our own planes and aircraft carriers can also prevent enemies from seeing the true appearance beneath the cloth, so are plastic tarps black magic too?
So it’s really just that if you can accept it, it’s technology, and if you can’t accept it, it’s magic?
Are you the spokesperson of the Heavenly Dao, or the designer of the universe?
......
All right, enough about the absurd stuff. Let’s have some normal discussion.
Some people asked: since faces can be changed, what’s the point of hiding...
First, not everyone can change their face at low cost.
Second, besides faces, there are also traits like gait that are very difficult to alter.
Third, for the black market, it can effectively avoid trouble. For example, if customers are being followed and so on—even if you can change, it isn’t instantaneous. If everyone looks the same, it can reduce the kind of doorway-blocking behavior seen in traditional auction-house plots.
After all, the black market needs a reputation too. If incidents keep happening, who would still come?