Generator and Exoskeleton

Outside the south gate. Around twenty yaks, driven by nine well-equipped gunmen, came to a halt fifty meters from the south gate. In the absence of established trust, this was a relatively safe distance for both parties. Many players were active nearby—chopping trees, hauling stones. Seeing this group, they set down their work one after another and gathered at a cautious distance, whispering among themselves. "Look at that guy's arm. Is that a prosthetic?" "What prosthetic? That's a cybernetic limb!" "Damn, what's the difference?" "The difference is... it sounds way more cyberpunk that way. And look at the second guy on the left—his entire eye is mechanical! I bet they don't just have cybernetic limbs; they've definitely got implant mods or bionic organs too!" "Did you see their guns? That scorpion-tail barrel looks sick!" "Uuu, when will I be able to buy a weapon that cool?" "Don't get your hopes up. The game devs are just showing them off right now. You won't be able to afford one until level 10 at the earliest." The people in the caravan felt much the same, eyeing these bluecoats with strange expressions. They had accompanied their boss to many places, reaching as far as the prosperous coast of the Far East. Along the way, they had seen far more shelters than they could count on both hands, but they had never encountered one this bizarre. "What are they doing?" "Probably building houses." "Don't they live underground?" "...Maybe they got tired of living down there?" "Maybe they just scavenged those coats." Liszt cared nothing for what these people thought; his face was written with pure impatience. These unsophisticated bumpkins were always like this—curious about everything, wanting to gawk at everything, with zero regard for whether staring at people was polite. Still, the blue coats on their backs were rather interesting. He had never heard of a shelter near Ling Lake Wetland Park. Yet, judging by the backbreaking labor they put into building crude shacks, it was likely a low-tier community shelter facility, typically housing between one and a hundred people. Such shelters rarely possessed a fully closed-loop ecosystem, equipped with a few hibernation pods at most. Most likely, they had either run out of food or the shelter had lost power, forcing them to come out and scrape together a living. Perhaps another new location could be added to his trade map, Liszt mused. Just then, Yu Hu jogged up to the south gate and said to Chu Guang, who was walking out: "Brother Chu, I've brought Boss Li's caravan... Be careful." The scavengers of Bet Street did not know Liszt's full name. To them, a big shot of this stature was on the same level as the town mayor and would never waste a breath on them. Only Brother Chu was approachable—not only had he lived among them as a neighbor for a time, but he also hadn't turned his back on them after moving on. "I'll be careful." Chu Guang nodded in understanding, then stepped forward with several players in tow. Seeing a story event trigger, the surrounding players hushed one after another, and those who hadn't were quickly yanked into silence by the players beside them. "I always thought you were just a scavenger from Bet Street. Seems my eyes deceived me," Liszt said with a faint smile, his tone cheerful. "Looks like I've made another sound investment." "Glad you think so." Chu Guang signaled the players beside him to set the burlap sacks on the ground. Wasting no words, he cut straight to the point. "Here are the goods you wanted. Feel free to weigh them." Liszt gestured to the subordinate beside him. Catching his drift, the man with the cybernetic eye and prosthetic arm stepped forward, lifting the sacks with his alloy right hand before turning back to his boss with a nod. A satisfied smile spread across Liszt's face. "Very good. You kept your promise. Seems I didn't make this trip in vain." With that, he signaled his other men to unload the goods Chu Guang had ordered from the yaks' backs, setting them down beside the sacks of Blue Parasol mushrooms. The 10 kW firewood generator had been disassembled into parts packed into two crates. In another crate that stood half a person tall lay the KV-1 powered exoskeleton. "The manual is inside the crate. We source directly from the manufacturer and don't offer assembly services, but we guarantee every part listed in the manual is in the box... There really aren't that many, so feel free to take inventory on the spot. That exoskeleton is already assembled; you can turn it on and test it." Even without the reminder, Chu Guang intended to do just that. After all, there was no such thing as after-sales service in the wasteland. First, he checked the generator parts against the manual twice. Then, Chu Guang lifted the exoskeleton from its crate and strapped it onto his body. The contraption was remarkably light—its total weight likely under thirty jin—and it genuinely looked like an exposed skeleton. One could say that whatever should be exposed was bare, and whatever shouldn't be was bare as well. The only parts that looked somewhat solid were the humerus along the arm and several alloy ribs shielding the chest. "You'd best not count on it to stop bullets for you. The main structure of the KV-1 powered exoskeleton is made of aluminum alloy and a small amount of specialty plastic-steel, renowned for its outstanding lightweight frame and power efficiency. Its twelve motor modules deliver millisecond response times and grant the wearer two hundred kilograms of additional carrying capacity. "Beyond that, it offers up to twelve hours of battery life and an adaptive gait system... Of course, those are just the basics. You can refer to the manual for the details. "If you insist on using it in combat, remember to bolt on a few more steel plates. I've seen mercenaries do that, though at the expense of mobility." Chu Guang read through the manual attentively. In summary: this thing was fantastic for hauling bricks. Endurance: A. Burst power: C. Mobility: decent. Basic protection: virtually nonexistent. However, its bare-bones skeletal design gave the user plenty of room for modification; if needed, one could weld steel plates or mount weapons onto it. It was essentially a tank engine mounted on a tractor chassis. Perhaps the manufacturer had overproduced the former and couldn't sell them, so they had simply modified them to sell on the cheap to mercenaries and manual laborers. Chu Guang figured its manufacturing cost couldn't be very high either—roughly something Xia Yan could have bought if she had worked hard and saved up before she ended up captive here. He couldn't help but wonder: was this thing truly worth eight hundred chips? After all, the chips issued by Boulder City carried substantial purchasing power. "Are you done testing? I should remind you, the battery only lasts twelve hours—there's no need to leave it running constantly. Turn off the power when you aren't using it and treat it as physical exercise," Liszt urged, seeing Chu Guang take his sweet time. Every extra second spent here was a cost against his schedule. Now that the trade was done, it was time for him to head out. "All done... I'm quite satisfied." Chu Guang nodded, switched off the power, and slipped out of the exoskeleton. This piece of equipment could be sold to the players later on. He was confident that with their ingenuity, they would find all sorts of creative ways to put it to use. When the chance arose, he would organize a caravan to Boulder City to stock up on goods—ideally trading any remaining Blue Parasol mushrooms, which should fetch far more than buying through Liszt. Liszt had no idea what Chu Guang was thinking. To him, twenty kilograms of Blue Parasol mushrooms represented this outpost's entire harvest over the past half-month, very likely paid for with several lives. Exchanging a firewood generator and an exoskeleton for such valuable goods made this trip well worth the effort. "A pleasure doing business! By the way, is there anything else you need? I have a few good items left—salt, weapons, and some everyday necessities. Have a look; there's bound to be something you can use. Even if you don't need them, your people might." As he spoke, Liszt deliberately raised his voice. Yet to his bewilderment, the crowd around them showed no reaction whatsoever, merely watching him like an audience enjoying a show. "What is that NPC saying?" "No idea. Who cares what he's saying? Just treat it like a movie without subtitles." "Sick! The manager got himself an exoskeleton!" "Move those bricks, boys! Let's grind hard and buy him a full set of power armor—wouldn't that be way cooler than an exoskeleton?" "Credit where it's due, the detail in this game is insane. Player actions advance game progress, game progress drives settlement prosperity, and the NPC's gear updates accordingly. Everything connects seamlessly!" "Dev team, please drop the open beta already! I'll swipe straight to VIP 10!" Liszt's face was a portrait of utter confusion. "?" What on earth were these people babbling about? Surely there couldn't be a crowd this large without a single person interested in buying his wares? Suppressing a chuckle, Chu Guang cleared his throat to spare him the embarrassment. "We can certainly talk business. "However, I don't have many chips on hand. I'm afraid we'll have to barter." "That's fine," Liszt said, wiping the blank look from his face and composing himself. "Barter is precisely what I had in mind." Aside from the generator and exoskeleton ordered earlier, Liszt's caravan indeed carried quite a few good wares. Among them were several 9mm and 7mm bolt-action rifles. Chu Guang quickly realized that eighty percent of what this guy sold was surplus junk and discarded parts from Boulder City's arms factories, bought cheap and refitted in small workshops. For instance, the barrel of the 9mm pipe rifle was clearly the exact same model as the 9mm pistol Xia Yan had carried before—even the rifling matched. And the receiver was even more telling. The receiver of the 9mm pipe rifle was strikingly similar to the 9mm pistol, using virtually the identical gas-operated mechanism, with the rifle merely lacking a piston. It amounted to converting a semi-automatic into a manual repeating rifle with a lengthened barrel and a ninety-degree bolt turn. In gamer terms: reduced jam rate, improved mid-range accuracy, and a minor boost to short-to-medium-range stopping power. The barrel and receiver of the 7mm pipe rifle bore an uncanny resemblance to the 7mm assault rifle Xia Yan had repaired earlier. It followed nearly the exact same logic: converting automatic to bolt-action, and burst-fire to single-shot. At any rate, rate of fire meant little to rural survivors; cheap, dependable, and hard-hitting was what most wastelanders prioritized. After browsing through the stock, Chu Guang selected two bolt-action pipe rifles of each caliber. Though Liszt initially dug his heels in at two hundred chips apiece, he relented once Chu Guang exposed the rifles' "secrets" and pointed out that a well-crafted assault rifle cost a mere one hundred and fifty chips in a city shop. Incidentally, that price had been pried out of Xia Yan. "You have no idea... what we went through bringing these things out from Boulder City! The ruins crawl with countless mutants and bandits, yet I brought them right to your doorstep and asked for only one hundred and fifty chips. Is that unreasonable? Not in the slightest!" "We prefer doing business with honest people. An assault rifle with a shelf tag of one hundred and fifty chips has a receiver and barrel worth fifty chips at most. And your cost? Thirty at best, maybe even twenty. After all, I never expected you to use prime components for these; eighty percent chance they're production-line rejects." "That's slander!" Liszt flushed crimson, fuming with indignation, clearly stung where it hurt. Chu Guang smiled. "I'd call it rational analysis. By the way, migrating reindeer are different from hyenas. They don't belong here, and they certainly don't venture deep into the urban ruins; instead, they move southeast along the outskirts of Qingquan City. Let me guess... wild furs sell rather well back home, don't they? Why not pick up some deer pelts to take back? You should turn a tidy profit." If his goal had merely been salvaging scrap, there would have been no need to trek this far north. Far better salvage could be found among the city's vast ruins. Liszt's expression stiffened. "I know that. I don't need you to teach me." "How about eight deer pelts for four rifles and one hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition? As I recall, last time you mentioned thirty rounds came included with each gun." "Heh, last time the price was two hundred chips. Out of the question—twelve pelts, minimum!" "Twelve? Are you talking about hyena skins? If it's deer pelts, I'm afraid you'll have to throw in another two kilograms of coarse salt." "Who the hell wants hyena skins! You're out of your mind—even a vampire isn't this greedy!" Liszt cursed under his breath, though he went no further than that single outburst. The noblewomen and wealthy young ladies living in the inner city had an insatiable appetite for beautiful furs and the romantic tales of wilderness adventure tied to them. And the big shots were always eager to use such hard-won rarities to flaunt their wealth and status. Once brought back, these deer pelts were guaranteed to sell fast. With that in mind, he finally dipped his proud head. "I need to inspect the goods first." Chu Guang gave a faint smile and nodded. "Deal."