“This thing’s a little hard to control. No wonder it doesn’t lock on once you use it in the game…”
Feng Xue held the Pojun Sword, his expression somewhat subtle.
After activating the [Weapon Enhancement] function, every swing of the sword felt as if it were being driven by a tremendous force. While both speed and power increased, the attack recovery was practically maxed out. Every strike left him briefly stiff. Fortunately, the Huanlong Soul’s motion-module learning function was extremely effective, and combined with Cai Jian’s effect of increasing proficiency and reducing side effects, Feng Xue did not take long to master the trick of using inertia to cancel the recovery—and even increase his attack speed further.
As for firearms, this thing was even more absurd. Once the enhancement function was activated, an extremely fantastical ring-shaped guide rail would unfold in front of the barrel. Judging from the firing effect, it should be a technology similar to electromagnetic acceleration, capable of further increasing the muzzle velocity of bullets. Since he had no specialized equipment, and after his prosthetic eye had been fleshified it could no longer run programs, he could not measure it precisely. But given that it exceeded the capture capabilities of both the Huanlong Soul and the Yazi prosthetic eye, it had definitely reached Mach five.
However, the drawbacks of doing so were also obvious. Though it resembled electromagnetic acceleration, for some unknown reason the recoil became extremely great. A shotgun, being an anti-group weapon, did not care much about aiming, and a handgun could barely be suppressed with [Cai Jian]. But a sniper rifle, even with [Cai Jian]’s assistance, was basically incapable of accurate rapid fire—of course, if one was truly sniping, a single shot was already enough.
What Feng Xue truly cared about, however, was that the act of activating the enhancement skill did not seem to have placed any burden on his arm. He had originally wanted to test whether the cheap regeneration of the Cinan Arm and flesh Origin Energy could restore the loss, but looking at it now, there had been no loss at all.
“What’s going on? Could it be like those game items with usage counts, where there’s no effect at all before they’re used up, and then they’re instantly scrapped afterward?”
Feng Xue pondered inwardly, yet another guess faintly arose in his heart—
“If that’s really the case, wouldn’t that be way too awesome?”
Although Feng Xue had an idea, he did not try it immediately. After all, [EX Enhancement] would blow up his hand, and a flesh hand was unlike a mechanical one. If it exploded and left him with a blood-loss debuff, allowing someone else to take advantage of him, it would be better to wait until he reached the extraction point before testing it.
Thinking this, Feng Xue tested the feel of a perfect reload, then folded up the sniper rifle and hung it on his back together with the shotgun, holding only a single handgun.
Testing the Pojun Sword was for the sake of considering whether his other avatars should be fitted with a Tomboy. As for John’s character setting, he ought to carry the use of guns through to the end—at least under normal circumstances, he would not use weapons other than firearms.
“Kid, were you the one firing just now?”
All of a sudden, a voice rang out beside his ear. Feng Xue looked toward the sound and saw a two-meter-tall man with exposed subdermal armor and even ballistic plates installed on his head, leading a group of underlings as they stared at him.
It was not as though Feng Xue had only just been spotted. In fact, from the very first gunshot, who knew how many people had been observing this side.
However, daring to fire a gun in the junkyard meant one possessed some strength in itself. Ordinary scavengers would hide as far away as possible, while some weaker cleaners would not risk their lives only to make someone else a wedding dress.
In the hunting ground that was the junkyard, predators would only choose to strike when they were confident they could deal with their opponent at little cost.
And this big fellow was clearly planning to rely on his full set of bulletproof equipment to have a little “talk” with Feng Xue, this “mimic” who had entered fully kitted out.
“It was me. What about it?”
Feng Xue flexed his fingers, but before the burly man could throw down any harsh words, Feng Xue’s figure vanished without a trace.
“Shit, optical camouflage!” The burly man’s expression changed, but immediately afterward he waved his hand and said,
“Spread out! Optical stealth can’t move fast! Stealth of this level is at least a four-star prosthetic! Take him down, and I’ll treat everyone to Yunding Pavilion!”
“Oh!” The underlings instantly grew excited. Optical camouflage might be a sharp weapon one-on-one, but when observed from multiple angles, it was very easy for flaws to appear. Even those high-end models capable of blocking thermal sensors were the same!
Only, Feng Xue’s was not traditional optical camouflage. Although it did indeed slow him down, it was not something that could be seen through simply by adding a few more angles.
However, Feng Xue had no intention of using the opportunity to slip away either, because he still had a few ideas he intended to test.
Flesh Origin Energy slowly circulated and poured into the bullet, yet he did not fire immediately. He merely accumulated power in silence, then aimed at the burly man’s metal arm and pulled the trigger!
“Bang!”
The bullet and the sound arrived almost simultaneously. The underlings panicked instinctively, but their boss, armored head to toe in bulletproof plating, showed no fear whatsoever. Perhaps when he had first completed this transformation, the sound of gunfire would still have frightened him, but now, after this suit of armor had taken countless bullets for him, he had become completely desensitized…
Only, why did it hurt?!
The burly man’s expression abruptly turned ugly. A large hole had already appeared in the metal right arm he was so proud of. But that was not the important part. The important part was: why did a mechanical arm hurt?!
“It worked!”
Feng Xue, who had revealed himself because of the stealth-breaking strike, raised his shotgun and blasted away a few approaching small fry. Looking at the granulation tissue around the wound on the burly man’s arm, he felt secretly delighted.
Under the effect of ignoring defense, it was not surprising that he had shot through a prosthetic body. What he had wanted to test was whether the Origin Energy attached to the bullet could be affected by “attack effects are guaranteed to trigger”!
And the facts proved—
“It can!”
Whether it was because of “effects are guaranteed to trigger,” or because “ignoring protection” also ignored the protection of the enemy’s Origin Energy, the result was that a stealth-breaking strike could make flesh Origin Energy take effect on an enemy!
In this way, the stealth-breaking strike had truly become a sure-kill method. Because it did not merely hit; it would also turn prosthetic organs that could keep functioning despite minor damage—even if affected, not fatally—into frail flesh and blood that might bleed nonstop from the slightest injury, or even cause other organs to fail together with it!
“Kill him! Kill him for me!”
The burly man did not understand how this kid before him had bypassed the confrontation between Origin Energies, but he was very glad the other party had not shot him in the head!
“Bang!”
The enhanced shotgun blast directly sent an approaching underling flying off his feet. Feng Xue exerted force beneath his feet, and his entire body swiftly darted in front of the burly man. At the same time, preparations on the main body’s side had already been completed. John slapped away the burly man’s arm as he tried to block him, then pressed one hand against the exposed bulletproof armor!
“Second experiment, begin!”
“Get lost!”
The burly man had already prepared himself to suffer serious damage, but after contact occurred, the imagined agony still did not arrive.
“Could it be that this move of his only works sometimes?”
A sudden yearning for survival arose in the burly man’s heart. He kicked John away and was about to call his underlings to protect him as he retreated.
Only…
Why did the sensors in the armor on his chest feel wrong? And why were his underlings looking at him like that?
Several traces of fear suddenly rose in the burly man’s heart. He lowered his head, and at once the sight of that enormous thing terrified him so badly that horror appeared on his face—
“What did you do to me?!”
Many of the settings in this book have real-life prototypes. If you think they’re absurd, all I can say is that you don’t understand cyberpunk (or Xida).