There were many places in the Buffer Zone where contribution points could be exchanged for supplies.
For example, beneath the staff residential compound where Cheng Ye lived, at the supply exchange next to the chunky meat cafeteria, one could buy plenty of scarce, controlled goods.
Yet when it came to purchasing transcendent ore to forge cold weapons, only a single place in the entire Buffer Zone carried it.
"Arriving at Great Wall of Happiness Station!"
The automated announcement sounded. Cheng Ye's eyelids twitched, and he stepped off the carriage with the flow of passengers.
As the location closest to the Great Wall of Happiness, this area was undeniably the heart of the Buffer Zone.
He looked up.
The towering wall, over thirty meters high, stood like a natural chasm, severing the Buffer Zone's countless prying gazes.
Under the sunlight, the wall's surface was heavily pitted and scarred. Dark brown patches clung to certain sections, leaving it unclear whether they were dried bloodstains or corrosive marks left behind by an infected entity's surprise attack.
At the foot of the massive wall stood a dense ring of ten-meter-tall metal watchtowers, evenly spaced every fifty meters.
And at the center of these watchtowers lay the very place hundreds of thousands of Buffer Zone residents dreamed of passing through.
The Gate of Happiness!
A colossal alloy gate roughly fifteen meters high and seven meters wide.
*No wonder the original host swallowed pills and ended his life within a day of leaving this gate in sheer terror.*
Standing in the middle of the street directly opposite the great gate, Cheng Ye looked through the smaller pedestrian passage beneath it, catching a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg that was the Inner City.
They truly were two entirely different worlds.
The Buffer Zone reeked of the ancient, decaying Old Era, while the Inner City was the high-tech metropolis of human imagination.
Whether it was the spotless alloy pavement or the neon-lit skyscrapers gleaming even in broad daylight, it gave people an irresistible urge to rush inside and explore.
Unfortunately, the strict rules of contribution points had long barred ninety-nine point nine percent of the Buffer Zone's population from entering, and an inspector like Cheng Ye was no exception.
Unless one day he could attain Ding Yishan's rank as station chief, he might never gain regular opportunities to return to the Inner City.
Tearing his gaze away from the massive wall, he looked at the streets lined with shops offering everything from weapon modification stalls to secondhand protective gear. The air carried a mixture of engine oil, rust, and the faint tang of disinfectant.
As the safest place in the Buffer Zone, ninety percent of all daily transactions involving contribution points took place here.
Cheng Ye swept his gaze across the area and quickly found his destination—an unassuming two-story building wedged among the crowded storefronts.
[Transcendent Mineral Materials - Buffer Zone Branch]
This was the only place in the Buffer Zone where one could buy transcendent materials, and the only shop offering weapon-forging services with them.
Once a customer placed an order, it would be transmitted to the Inner City, where forging masters would craft the weapon before it was trucked back to the Buffer Zone to complete the transaction.
"Are you looking to forge a handy weapon, sir?"
Seeing Cheng Ye head straight for the shop, the greeter standing out front brightened up and immediately came forward.
"Yes."
"Did you bring your own materials for us to forge, or do you intend to purchase materials from our store?"
"Purchase."
Cheng Ye kept his words brief. He had no desire to broadcast his intentions in front of a bustling street; he knew better than to flaunt his wealth.
The greeter understood at once and ushered Cheng Ye inside, gently pulling the door shut behind them.
"Hmm?"
"I won't lie to you, sir—our shop deals in rare visitors. We can go three years without a customer, but one sale feeds us for three years."
The greeter paused before adding, "The mineral materials on display are just samples. Once you choose one, we place a remote order, and masters in the Inner City will forge it. If you need a weapon in a hurry, we also have finished pieces ready to go. Order now, and it can be in your hands by the afternoon!"
"Let me see the materials first... the transcendent materials."
"Very well. Please follow me to the second floor."
Following the greeter, Xiao Cui, up to the second floor, Cheng Ye noticed how deserted the place was.
One person on the first floor, one on the second.
Counting Xiao Cui, there were only three people in the entire shop. It truly lived up to the saying of "dealing in rare visitors."
"Master Liu, this customer wants to see our transcendent materials. I'll leave him in your hands."
Having introduced Cheng Ye, Xiao Cui gave a nod and briskly headed back down the stairs, granting them ample privacy.
The Master Liu he spoke of was a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested man of imposing height.
With a full beard framing his face, he looked distinctly unkempt.
"The shop only has three kinds of transcendent materials in stock right now. What weapon do you intend to forge?"
"A short blade. I only need a small amount mixed in."
"Naturally. If you used pure transcendent material, you'd be looking at tens of thousands of contribution points at minimum."
Master Liu gave an easy chuckle. "Besides, transcendent materials aren't like the rumors make them out to be—more isn't always better. At the end of the day, these things are sources of contamination born from the atrocities of transcendents. The more you add, the easier it is to harm the wielder."
"There's such a catch?"
Cheng Ye's interest was piqued. He hadn't expected transcendent materials to hold such hidden intricacies.
"Short blades rely on short-range bursts of power to slit throats and drink blood up close. Adding too much sharpness-imbuing ore actually ruins their agility. As luck would have it, our shop recently received a fine material well-suited for forging blades..."
With that, Master Liu ducked beneath the counter for a moment and retrieved a clear glass bottle.
A fiery red stone rested quietly at the bottom. It was roughly the size of a golden bean, its surface rippling with dense, visible striations that faintly flickered with light like fire.
*This is a mineral containing a transcendent's power?*
Cheng Ye's eyes widened. This was his first time seeing something that had never existed in the modern world since transmigrating.
Through the glass, the mineral looked beautiful and mysterious, though he couldn't discern anything else about it.
"Fire-Concealed Iron. Adding just three grams is enough to grant its basic trait—a boost to speed and power on your first strike. The exact increase depends on the wielder's force-exertion technique, ranging from a minimum of five percent up to around ten percent."
"That miraculous?"
Cheng Ye felt a surge of excitement and blurted out, "How many contribution points?"
"Fifty points per gram. If you add three grams, along with the appropriate auxiliary materials and labor, it comes to two hundred contribution points."
"How... how much?"
As if doused in ice water, Cheng Ye froze.
Fifty contribution points for a single gram?
Good grief. Given the purchasing power of contribution points in the Buffer Zone, ordinary people wouldn't even have the right to look at it.
"Please understand, the cost of excavating and finding this kind of material is enormous. God knows how many lives were sacrificed for it. Moreover, these things are non-renewable; there's one less piece every time one is used, and they can't be mass-produced."
What Master Liu said aligned with what Liu Bi had mentioned before.
The reason so many scavengers tirelessly combed every inch of the wasteland was to strike it rich overnight by finding such transcendent materials.
If the price were ordinary, who would risk leaving their bones on the wasteland to venture outside?
"All right... can you offer a discount, or let me pay part of it on credit for now?"
Cheng Ye took out his identity badge from his pocket and introduced himself. "I'm a new inspector at the checkpoint, and I haven't been on the job long, so I don't have many points on hand. Could you make an exception?"
Master Liu's instinct was to refuse, but upon hearing the word "inspector," he paused, hesitating.
After thinking for a moment, he stood up. "Please wait here. Allow me to consult with the main store and see what the manager says."
"Of course. Thank you for the trouble."
Putting the glass bottle back under the counter, Master Liu walked into the second floor's only partitioned cubicle, pulled out a defense comm, and dialed a number.
"Master Su, here's the situation..."
After briefly explaining Cheng Ye's circumstances, Master Liu didn't forget to add, "This inspector may look young, but he doesn't seem like an empty showpiece. He's got some real foundation in him."
"Is that so?" A skeptical voice came from the receiver, but Master Su didn't question it further.
"Give him a discount, then. Waive the labor and basic consumable fees, and just charge him for the transcendent material itself."
"Understood."
Hanging up the call, Master Liu came back out and named the price.
Cheng Ye was still caught off guard. Even charging only for the transcendent material, it still came to a hundred and fifty points.
He had no choice but to bite the bullet. "Is there any way to stretch it just a little more? I only have a hundred and forty-three points right now. Could I borrow the remaining seven points from you?"
"Seven points?"
Master Liu could make that call himself. He nodded readily. "No problem. Follow me to pick your blade design."
Inside the partitioned room, blueprints were spread across the table, displaying dozens of short blade styles.
From common recon daggers and tactical straight blades to widely used bayonets and folding knives...
Cheng Ye browsed back and forth until his gaze suddenly locked onto a unique profile that completely diverged from ancient weapon designs, leaning instead toward modern combative cutlery.
"The Whirlwind Spike—a brutal weapon," Master Liu explained.
"Its tip is sharp as an awl, ground with a false edge designed to tear open wounds with twisting force upon thrusting. As long as it strikes a vital spot, paired with the dual twist near the base of the point, its lethality is nothing short of terrifying.
"Furthermore... this Whirlwind Spike comes equipped with a threaded quick-connect socket. You can reverse-mount it onto a steel pipe to serve as a spear shaft, turning it into a mid-range, tri-edged short spear."
"Then I'll take this one!"
Cheng Ye made his decision on the spot without hesitation.
Transcendent materials were so exorbitant that he wouldn't be able to scrape together enough points to forge a second weapon anytime soon.
Choosing a Whirlwind Spike that could serve as close-quarters self-defense while doubling as a mid-range short spear was essentially saving himself a hundred and fifty points.
"A wise choice."
A flicker of surprise flashed in the corners of Master Liu's squinted eyes before sinking back into his weathered wrinkles.
Having weathered over a decade in this trade, he could generally gauge a person's character simply from their choice of weapon.
For instance, those who picked tactical blades with extended hilts were inevitably people who feared death above all else.
And those who demanded a three-inch broken spike right off the bat were usually ruthless figures who lived on the edge of a knife year-round.
An inspector choosing a Whirlwind Spike made specifically to claim lives?
Fascinating!
In the past, those who dared wield such a weapon were almost always ruthless bastards who put their lives on the line.
"Forging will take three days. You can pick it up anytime after one o'clock in the afternoon on July 1st."
...
Chapter 19