Chapter 156: Blast

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The quality of the parts in the mechs is mainly determined by the material as well as the craftsmanship. And as these aspects of parts-production come into light, the metallic materials holds an absolute advantage compared to other materials existed, which hence, the majority of the mech parts being made out of metals today.

However, a subject had arisen among those maniacs over mech parts in the Nine Gates city recently…

"Skeleton? You mean those parts were made out of skeletons? How was their performance? Have you seen the actual product?"

"Tsk, as if I have the chance to witness with my own eyes. Dociley, you know, the parts always managed to vanish upon rolling out of the production before we even get there. People go crazy over them. I had also heard of how there were quite a number of people camping at the trading market as they eyed the registered list of selling items available, awaiting for their precious to appear like a daily miracle. Hehe, though I have yet to see it by my own eyes, I do have a pal of mine who was able to seize one of them at great fortune. And… he said, he took the trouble to test it out, you know what he got?"

"What?"

"Heh! Dociley, those parts… compared to the same parts by Master Wei… the overall pointer, 9%. They were 9% higher!"

"For real? Much higher than Master Wei’s pieces? I’m not buying this. You do know what kind of an elite Master Wei is. His workmanship has to be the best!"

"Not buying this? Well, save your beliefs then, zip your purse along with your mouth. Hmph, when did I, Xu your Bro ever lied to his loyal allies?"

"Yikes. True, true, true! Calm down, my bro… but I must say this is really shocking to me! There was actually someone with a better workmanship than Master Wei. I mean, being skeptical and shocked at the same time is sort of expected, don’t you think?"

"Mhm, you have a point. You are shocked, you don’t say. I was also shocked the moment I heard my friend mentioning it. It was like the first time I heard of people complimenting the mech parts produced by someone other than Master Wei himself, considering how he had been conquering the market for years…"

"Right! Yikes, a man who could produce such part… he has to be a potent one. Amazing!"

"Mhm, I wonder who that potent one is, for he actually was able to pull off such a great innovation, making parts with bones… I’m not sure if I would not bow before him upon seeing him, as these parts were pure handcrafts too. Look at the level of expertise."

"Pure… handcrafts?! No way! There are still men who strived for purely handcrafted productions?"

"Yeah… I nearly fell from my chair hearing about it. There are still craftsmen willing to make a part of mech from scratch with only their hands. Sigh, see… we are making mech parts, he is making mech parts too, but this is the difference striking the ground! Rumor said that Master Wei was utterly silenced the moment the skeleton parts came to his site."

"Sigh… when would we even be close to that? Behind an expert crafter there are always the other better crafters as well… I can’t deny that. And now the market is chaotic, as if a fire was set upon the world, especially when those pilots were crowding the trading market like bees in the honeycombs, all mesmerized and squeezing to see if their precious popped up on the interface."

"Precious they are. The figure does matter, even by a difference of 1% in quality could have been the saving grace of your life in the nick of time, let alone that mouth-watering 9% stat. Those pilots who have always been playing with fire would need the better gambling rate than anybody else. The parts were not costly either. The price of his usual parts was around 50 points, when Master Wei’s parts were easily beyond 100 points. But I had heard about something unusual being crafted yesterday."

"Something unusual? The heck?"

"I'm not too sure but I heard it goes a horrific amount of 500 points. Heh, and it disappeared from the selling list the moment it was registered. People were unable to identify what the item was through the crowd, the figure of the price was very clear though. Tsk, tsk, tsk, 500 filthy points! And the person just buys it like buying a cog from the flea market. The buyer has to be some level of maniac."

"500 points? What are 500 points when you are at the edge of life? He bought a safety charm for himself. In no time the 500 points would come back to him as long as he still has the life to earn them. Everyone must be turning green-eyed over his successful purchase, I guess. An actual safety charm in the shop, I think people would buy it even if it goes by 1000 points without hesitation. So I heard of how the kiddos from the Sanctuary were starting to notice the existence of the parts too."

"Oh? They started noticing it already? But that is expected. Hehehe, the Sanctuary might be a great institute, but an elite of the elites like this should be a rare kind among them. I seriously wanted to know who the greater master this is. He had been staying low, that it annoys me."

"Could he be from the latest batch this year? I had never seen such piece before, until recently."

"Probably! But there is yet any information about this master craftsman. Those old folks at the Sanctuary should know something, only they could have known him so far. You see, those fellas crowding the auction there, aren’t they too bewildered of the man’s identity?"

"Mhm, such craftsmanship, it shouldn’t be an issue for him to pass the Level 5 Trial I guess?"

"Haleyson knows! Hmph, whatever Level 5 Trial it is, how could we not know the fact that those newcomers from the outside do not recognize what a Level-5 was?"

"Sigh… true…"

…

Ye Chong relaxed before the processor in the room, his eyes fixed upon the hologram of items registered in the trading market. Ye Chong clicked a thumbnail on the side and the hologram of the item selected popped up along with descriptions on the interface.

The fact that the parts were selling hot cakes was totally unexpected for Ye Chong. Parts of such unique and high performance were highly sought by the pilots in the mech market. Not only the standard 50-point parts were gone within twinkling of eyes, the first-class parts which Ye Chong put on the list at a daylight robbery price of 500 points also were sold in one second after he submitted the trading barcodes to the server.

Getting points were no longer an issue to our hero since then, as he already had more than 3000 points in his hands, which was way beyond the 1400-point requirement to pass the trial. So, our hero began spending his remaining time on window-shopping in leisure.

Unfortunately, his luck seemed to have ended days back after the insane sales. He found nothing interesting at the ores section, neither did the skeletons at the bones section appealed him at the slightest. Instead, he laid his hands upon a number of mechs, like this really strange-looking mech for example, which its appearance literally shouted a mutated insect at Ye Chong. It had a brown segmented body, so swift movements were possible. There was a miniature engine at each segment and 4 passive artificial tentacles were added as extensions.

He had experimented its performance before and this mech was astounding when it traveled through the burrows or the gaps. It was so rapid, yet so peculiarly agile.

Other than this odd mech, Ye Chong had also purchased an engineering mech. Well these mechs were not occupying any of his space. As long as they would be an aid to any form of emergencies, it would be not a problem.

Nine Gates City generally sold the items through two channels - first being the trading virtual networking system Ye Chong spent his days and nights surfing, which happened to be the most convenient and completed way to do shopping; second being the stores by the street like the Blue Sandstone store for instance, where most of their stocks were also available in the networking system, their main income was from walk-in purchases however. They could be not as completed as the networking system, but they were certainly outstanding in a way. They were distinctive and there were a lot of things which would be considered inappropriate to appear online, an information of some top-notch mechs for example.

Since Ye Chong had long fulfilled the point requirement, fairly quickly after he was informed by the Sanctuary, that he had passed Level 3! What he had to do next was simply to wait, to anticipate the Level 4 Trial coming after 2 months or so. He was not aware of the fact that how amazing it was for a mere boy like him to pass the first 3 levels effortlessly, judging by how he did not notice the horrified eyes of Wei Xi, as if she was looking at a monster.

Ye Chong with ample time currently wanted to carry on his training courses, be it the chemist courses left by Lunatic Guan, the fitness training he had been doing the whole time or the meditation training. Speaking of meditation, he realized the fact that it was exclusive to the insiders of the Sanctuary, consequently he stopped his meditation entirely as he did not want to alert, alarm or annoy anyone beyond his proximity. Meditation was quite tricky and the elderlies at the Sanctuary were terrifyingly resourceful at this. Who knows what could happen to his head if he were to begin meditating somewhere.

The bright side was, it had been quite some time since the last wave of his syndrome attack and Ye Chong was relieved.

After he had received the notification of his success in Level 3, somehow he had been getting some eyes from the people around wherever he went. They seemed to be peeking whenever he was there, or was he overthinking?

Ye Chong’s action grew more cautious.

On the other hand, Maltese was in such terrible luck lately, as he literally missed two lovely and godly ores right before his eyes, in one day! The agony was enough to make him cut his own throat a few times! Everything had gone wrong at Maltese ever since. Whatever he did ought to go wrong somehow. It felt like he could choke himself even when he was drinking.

"Maltese!" Two young men in their battle suits came to him.

Maltese lifted his head and replied spiritlessly, "Mhm."

The unusual behavior of Maltese soon caught their attention, "What’s wrong? Maltese, you look bad…" One of the young men with a long hair spoke, "I thought you had just received commendation from the Sanctuary? Are you having a headache over the possible ways to spend that amount of points you had gotten? Keke, we could give fine advices on that you know?"

"Maltese, please, don’t be so down." The other young man added, "If that old fiend saw this, you are so going to get slaughtered." Old Fiend was a nickname for a teacher among them. The teacher was stern and went rigid as a ruler. His eyes were on everything, including the dress code among his trainees.

"Sigh! I’m just a person with bad luck!" Maltese’s tone was spiteful.

"Oh? But we didn’t hear any misfortune from you these days, did we?" the long haired young man smiled.

"O-Oh!" Maltese who realized how the words almost slipped through his lips quickly changed the topic, "Well, don’t worry about me, no big deal, I can settle it as fast as I knock things out. My problem aside, where are you guys going?" He nearly made a joke of himself. Imagine if these men were informed of his incident during his treasure-hunting online, the number of people in the market would be so going to get quadrupled, quintupled, squared, cubed and soon astronomical. It would be receipt-hunting for him by then. All the receipts of fluttering out from the crowds.

The trainees from the inside of Sanctuary were in a highly competitive environment. It might seemed to be all peaceful and silent on the outside, but in actuality everyday there had to be darkness brewing among the trainees. All of them kept secrets of a kind from each other, be it a certain type of technique or the latest information of something, though the Sanctuary authority was very delighted seeing this since they did prefer seeing their trainees being capable of protecting themselves the better way.

"So we heard that Monkslay managed to grab one skeleton parts from the market and we were going to check it out. Why don’t you come along?" invited the long haired young man.

"Skeleton parts?" It was the controversial issue in the market he had been hearing. His face was dumbfounded.