PS: How embarrassing, I set the scheduled publishing time wrong. My apologies.
What rendered Yang Bo speechless was that there was something else in the fish pond—a swarm of shrimp. They were Five-Colored shrimp, which appeared to be protected animals as well. The client had increased the budget by five hundred.
"Working on Saturday is indeed quite satisfying," Yang Bo said after returning home from work. He did the math and realized he had earned 4,200 Credit Points today.
"Let me test this out to see if charging can replenish Light Energy after it's consumed," he muttered. Yang Bo had been wondering all day: what exactly did Light Energy Control and Electric Energy Control consume? Was it his own Power?
In the bathroom, Yang Bo placed his palm into the bathtub. A loud SIZZLE emanated from the water. Frying a fish in the palm of his hand was no longer an impossible dream.
After maintaining this for half an hour, his body began to feel weak. He stood up and put on his bathrobe, familiar with the sensation of excessive consumption. Then, he placed his hand directly on the positive terminal of a battery. A tingling, warm sensation traveled up his palm and arm before spreading throughout his entire body. The reason he didn't test this in the bathtub was out of fear that electrical leakage might cause unnecessary trouble, such as tripping a circuit breaker.
Twenty minutes later, Yang Bo was completely refreshed. He looked at himself in the mirror. "Does this mean I have to carry such a massive battery whenever I go out from now on?"
Full of energy, he logged into the Mecha game. Mecha Pilot tests were entirely based on reaction speed. The strongest Mecha Warrior could fight at 15 times the speed of sound. Fighting at such a speed made one virtually invincible. However, the combat training Yang Bo was currently undergoing in the game only required him to reach supersonic speed.
Of course, the Blade Mecha he was piloting couldn't reach 15 times the speed of sound anyway. Blade: A third-generation Humanoid Mecha. Height: 8.2 meters. Weight: 115 tons. Equipped with a Rocket Backpack. Maximum speed: 5 times the speed of sound. Maximum operating time at full power: 20 minutes. Armed with a Plasma Cutting Saber and an Energy Shield.
Most Mechas were designed for close-quarters combat. Ranged variants were exceedingly rare. Why? If long-range firepower was truly necessary, one might as well call in a Space Battleship Laser Cannon. After all, locking onto and hitting an object moving at several times the speed of sound from thousands of meters away was incredibly difficult. That didn't mean ranged Mechas didn't exist, but they required Genetic Evolvers with special abilities to pilot them; otherwise, normal humans simply wouldn't have the reaction time.
Yang Bo controlled his Mecha. Having familiarized himself with the controls, his left hand executed a rapid series of movements. The Mecha ducked and rolled, evading an attack from an opposing unit.
Accelerate!
With another string of commands, the Mecha kicked off with its left foot. The Rocket Backpack behind it erupted with a loud BOOM. In an instant, Yang Bo's Mecha charged toward its opponent at twice the speed of sound. At the same time, the Plasma Cutting Saber in its hand flared with a blinding light, oscillating at a staggering 180,000 times per second.
"Congratulations, Long-Winded Eighth Lord. You have completed the Basic combat training and may now enter the game." As he watched the enemy Mecha get sliced into a crippled heap, a pleasant voice chimed in.
He entered the game. The setting was based on a viral outbreak caused by an anti-human laboratory. A portion of humanity had turned into Mutants with incredible abilities, and even wild beasts had become mutated. Yang Bo briefly skimmed the background lore but didn't pay much attention to the rest. He was just here for the experience; after all, this was the stuff of legends.
"Greedy, so damn greedy. How can they charge an information service fee of three hundred Credit Points an hour?" Yang Bo grumbled, though the scenery unfolding before him was truly breathtaking. A massive steel fortress stood at the peak of a mountain. To his right lay an endless plain, and to his left, boundless rugged mountain ranges. His spawn point was a location known as Base 16. As for the information service fee... it functioned similarly to a prepaid game time card.
"Whatever, I'll just play for an hour and log off. This shitty game must be raking in money," he muttered. He noticed quite a few players around; there were at least several hundred within his line of sight alone. Checking the minimap, he saw that the developers had divided the map into safe and dangerous zones based on player skill levels. The system strongly advised against venturing into designated danger zones.
Following the signs, Yang Bo walked out of the steel fortress. The massive Laser Cannons mounted on its walls looked incredibly realistic. He glanced up at the sky, which was a hazy, dismal gray. Beyond the base, the path split in two. The rugged mountains led to the danger zone. Knowing better than to ignore a warning, Yang Bo chose the path toward the plains.
As he piloted the Mecha, he tested out various movements. He drew the Plasma Cutting Saber and swung it around like a child playing with a toy. He occasionally accelerated to experience the thrill of speed. Unfortunately, there was no physical sensation—it was purely visual. Spotting a large tree ahead, Yang Bo chuckled. He initiated a charge, rapidly activating the Rocket Backpack. The Mecha launched forward at supersonic speed, and the Plasma Cutting Saber in its hand instantly sliced right through the trunk.
Flying +1!
Flying +1!
Flying +1!
Yang Bo froze. What was going on? Bringing the Mecha to a halt, he stared at the severed canopy. He turned back to inspect the foliage and quickly spotted a bird's nest. Three dead birds were scattered on the ground.
"What's going on?" he wondered. "Could this planet actually exist in reality? Are the so-called Mutants and anti-human organizations real too? Is that why I can't see the starry sky?" Countless thoughts flashed through his mind. Whether it was due to his newly awakened abilities or not, he felt his thoughts moving with remarkable agility.
He silently summoned his Skill panel and quickly found the entry: Flying: Basic (3/10).
"Holy crap, does this mean I'll eventually be able to fly with my own physical body?" Thrilled by the prospect, he activated the Mecha's radar to scan for more of these birds. The radar quickly picked up numerous avian trails. This was an advanced futuristic technology. Since every plant and animal possessed a distinct physical structure and genetic makeup, the search radar could emit waves and analyze the returning frequencies to distinguish between different organisms.
To put it simply, with a radar like this, foraging for wild mushrooms would be a breeze. You could just go up a mountain, scan for the specific mushrooms you wanted—or any listed in the database—and instantly know exactly where they were.
As a result, many players bore witness to a bizarre spectacle: a Basic Mecha, wielding a Plasma Saber, jumping and darting around frantically. Occasionally, it would catapult into the air and use a five-meter-long Plasma Saber to slash at a bird weighing no more than two kilograms. Naturally, the bird was effortlessly cleaved in half. The onlookers began to gossip.
"Is this guy sick in the head?"
"Probably a noob."
"He's slaughtering small animals. Let's report him."
"What the hell is this idiot doing? Paying an information service fee of 300 an hour just to kill little critters?"
"There are weirdos every year. He'll learn his lesson when he goes back and sees the maintenance bill for his Mecha."
"Maybe he's honing his techniques?"
"What the heck? If he wanted to hone his techniques on small animals, he should at least go to the plains to hunt Mutant Animals, right?"
"He's probably some coward who gets bullied in real life and came to the game to vent."
Yang Bo couldn't care less about their chatter. In fact, he was starting to feel a pang of regret. "If I had known this would happen, I would've chosen a different Mecha equipped with Laser Weapons."