“There’s nothing good in this trash zone… But at least I successfully withdrew. This way, I can free Demon Sword from the trash zone. Speaking of which, what happened to my Wasteland Ghost mission? So as long as a hostile target locks onto me, it counts as entering combat, huh?”
On the morning of Trash Day, Feng Xue used Demon Sword to relink the new character that had just withdrawn from some unknown junkyard. It had cost 220 points to create, and from head to toe possessed only two skills: [Nigerundayo] and [Rocket Headbutt]. From this moment on, this character, named [Stand-in] by Feng Xue, would be the operator of the cyberware clinic.
Fortunately, the panel for his golden finger followed his consciousness. No matter which body it was, as long as his consciousness was on this side, he could activate the golden finger. Of course, wherever a character entered an instance from was still where it would return to.
After casually selling off supplies whose total value barely amounted to a hundred-odd points, Feng Xue checked the status of his other characters before preparing for today’s Trash Day.
Although he was not short on money now, among the gains from Trash Day, money was actually the least important.
Setting aside the Purple Mood that Old Jiang had gotten him, Feng Xue himself had once set the precedent of kicking out a Spinosaurus form with one foot. During the previous two Trash Days, although he had not obtained any major haul, he had still collected some high-end scrap like Dam alloy, which ordinary technology could hardly process a second time.
Right now, his operations in the district were still in their initial stage. Aside from probing the automated factory’s depths, the most urgent matter was actually putting together a new combat character.
At present, apart from his main body, he had a total of three characters. But aside from [Stand-in], this newly made character, the “positions” of [Demon Sword] and [Kong Wu] were not quite right.
Kong Wu was currently wearing the “John” cover, but he still had progress tied to the underground boxing circuit. If he died and his winning streak in the matches was broken, that would be far too much of a loss.
As for Demon Sword, he was a combat asset reserved for scouting the automated factory. Although before that, Feng Xue would also send in cannon fodder to explore the way, Demon Sword’s chances of surviving were still not high. Insisting on keeping him would truly be unnecessary. After all, as the affix pool expanded, the main combat characters that came later would only grow stronger and stronger. Rather than leave him aside to gather dust, it was better to make full use of him while he could still be useful.
Therefore, to ensure the plan progressed smoothly, Feng Xue still needed a character suited to John Jock.
“Let’s see if I can get some new affixes. If not, then using Hatred as the core to build a revenge-type suicide truck wouldn’t be bad either.”
As Feng Xue pondered this, pedestrians gradually began to appear outside the door. Following Old Jiang’s usual practice, he opened the haggling room and gestured for the customers to enter one by one.
……
“Doctor Feng, take a look at this. Look at how big this saw disc is. It’s definitely combat cyberware…”
“Then do you want to install it and try?” Feng Xue looked at the idiot in front of him waving around an engineering saw blade and snapped back without hesitation. Although he had already handled Trash Day twice on his own, there were still people who treated him like a fool. After pressing the button to eject this swindler, the next customer immediately entered.
It was just that the quality of today’s trash was fairly average. He only bought some scrap materials priced by weight.
“Doctor Feng, want to gamble on chips?”
“Tsk…” The moment he heard “gamble on chips,” Feng Xue’s interest dropped a few points. This thing was just like gambling on jade stones. Anything valuable would already have been picked out the moment it was seen. For stuff that could be packaged up and sold like this, saying nine out of ten bets would lose was already giving it too much credit.
However, thinking of the techniques Old Jiang had taught him for distinguishing the value of chips, Feng Xue did not say he did not want them. He merely gestured for the man to place them on the table so he could examine them one by one. Although there were no small number of people in this world who installed card readers in their fingers, the seller was not worried that Feng Xue would copy the data from the chips. Or rather, if Feng Xue truly dared to read chips of unknown origin without protection, not knowing whether they carried virulent viruses, then the seller would accept that.
“Trash, trash, trash…”
The customer was not worried, but Feng Xue cared very much. He only used his fingernail to press against the edges of the chips and flick them one by one, doing his best to avoid contact with the reading surface.
It was just that all these chips were tra—
[Unrecorded affix detected. Record it? Note: recording an affix will cause irreversible damage to the affix carrier. You may also obtain this affix by installing the cyberware.]
“Holy shit?!”
Feng Xue’s movements froze. Then, unhurriedly, he picked out several chips that still had at least some gambling value and said:
“The rest are all junk. Just weigh them. How much for these? If the price is right, I’ll take them all.”
Seeing that Feng Xue had accurately picked out every chip he himself had judged to have some value, though one of them had not been within his own judgment, the man did not dare guarantee whether it was because his own eyes were lacking or because Feng Xue had deliberately chosen a bad one to test him.
Reputation elsewhere did not matter, but when facing the savior of the slums—the second generation—if he left a bad impression, he would be in for more than he could handle!
After thinking for a while, the man ultimately did not raise the price on the spot, only naming a figure that matched his own estimate.
Feng Xue merely nodded at this and left a note on the man in his cranial drive. In the future, he would give him a discount on treatment. Then he called in the next customer…
……
“Not bad. Four with affixes, and two four-star cyberware parts. Unfortunately, they’re not any key components, so they can only be used as raw materials.”
By the time evening came, the clamor of Trash Day had gradually scattered. Feng Xue, whose main consciousness was attached to the Stand-in body, laid out the four items awaiting recording one by one.
An aged chip, a cyber-eye whose terminal end still showed dried yellowish-white material, a combat-specialized claw that had almost no normal functions left, and an energy nozzle whose main structure had clearly been shattered by something—these were his greatest gains today.
Aside from that chip, the other three were all heavily damaged cyberware wrecks. Judging from the damage, they had likely been blasted apart by some high-power weapon together with their wearers. In fact, just a few hours ago, these things had probably still been connected to corpses. From that alone, the disparity in firepower between the two sides was probably quite severe.
“These pieces of cyberware are at least high-end three-star. This kind of fighting style that has no intention of recovering spoils at all… Did some idiots rob a storefront in the tower district again and get mowed down by those wasteful bastards in the Military Police? Or maybe they were blind enough to target some second-generation heir who came down here to play, only to be instantly killed by stress-reacting bodyguards? Surely no one was brave enough to attack a Trauma Team member, right?”
Feng Xue muttered inwardly, but his hands were not slow at all. After roughly dismantling them and discovering that, aside from decent materials, there was no technology worth caring about, he set the chip aside and issued the recording command to the three cyberware wrecks…
Affix: Stare True
Type: Skill
Quality: Blue Fine
Effect: Can only be assigned to eye cyberware, granting that cyberware a skill. When this skill is activated, target one objective and learn the truth or falsehood of one question related to it. A skill of the same name can only be used on the same target once per day.
Remark: The cyber-eye stares true; appraised as false.
……
Affix: Damage Comes from Shouting
Type: Trait
Quality: Blue Fine
Effect: When attacking with an item bearing this affix, damage can be increased through vocalization. The increase is positively correlated with the user’s volume, up to a maximum of 200%.
Remark: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
……
Affix: Wisdom of the Battle Maniac
Type: Trait
Quality: Green Set
Effect: Can only be assigned to head cyberware. Each time an individual equipped with this cyberware kills one of its own kind, all attributes except Intelligence increase by 3%, while Intelligence decreases by 1%, lasting 10 minutes. Each trigger refreshes the duration. Hidden effects remain to be discovered.
Remark: Exchanging useless Intelligence for power—I’m so smart!