"This... you heard all that?" Lauren murmured, somewhat dazed.
Sister Cipher nodded, then continued, "I'm a member of the Spark Team now, after all. You can't keep hiding things from me, can you? It's not like I can't help."
"Uh... alright... it's actually like this..."
Seeing that Cipher had said so much, Lauren couldn't keep it a secret any longer.
She first took out her spatial bracelet, and then a pair of metal gauntlets appeared on the table.
"These are the weapons Ethan uses when he fights. Although they look like metal gauntlets, they're not just ordinary metal gauntlets."
"Ethan, you introduce them."
Saying that, Lauren handed the gauntlets to Ethan.
Ethan took the gauntlets and immediately put them on his hands.
At this point, the metal plates on the back of the gauntlets automatically opened, revealing a small groove. Inside the groove was a small canister, and within the canister was a bit of translucent, cloudy liquid.
"It's not just my weapon, but also an auxiliary device used to activate my ability."
Then he pointed to the small canister in the groove and said, "This canister is called an energy storage canister, and the liquid inside is called a potential activation medium."
"The potential activation medium can temporarily enhance the user's body and ability level through the ability auxiliary device, which is these gauntlets. The purer the potential activation medium, the stronger the amplification it provides to the user, and mine is just the lowest grade medium."
"So, what you mean by... weapon maintenance, is referring to replenishing this stuff?" After hearing Ethan's explanation, Cipher pointed at the canister with a hint of curiosity.
"Exactly, that's it."
At this point, Lauren also chimed in, pointing at the canister and saying, "The stuff inside here is our team's trump card. It's precisely because this can enhance Ethan's ability level that we can turn dangerous situations into safe ones when unexpected circumstances arise during a mission, thanks to the ability boost Ethan gets. So, we always replenish it before every mission."
"But... this stuff is not only very expensive... but it also only lasts for a very short time..."
When she said this, Lauren's face showed a trace of sadness, as if she was recalling something unpleasant.
"How expensive exactly?"
"Five hundred credit points per canister, and it only lasts for one minute..."
"Five hundred per canister... then how many credit points do you get for one mission?"
"As little as twenty, as much as fifty, something like that..."
Suddenly, Cipher's gaze towards the item changed.
No wonder they said they were short on funds. At a consumption rate of five hundred per canister, if there were one or two unexpected incidents during a mission, it would be equivalent to them working for free on more than ten missions. This was too outrageous.
"And it's not just this consumption. Replenishing consumables like bullets also costs a lot of credit points. The price is one credit point for five bullets."
"I finally understand why you're short on funds..." After hearing Lauren's description, Cipher's eyes immediately became a little pitiful.
To earn money, they could only take on missions, but once something unexpected happened during a mission, they would lose several hundred credit points... The key was that these credit points couldn't be saved, otherwise, the only path left was severe injury or even sacrifice for the team members.
And besides this major expense, there were all sorts of smaller expenses. For example, bulletproof armor had to be bought, right? Guns and bullets had to be bought, right? Medicine after injuries also had to be bought, right? And there were daily consumables, such as energy bars and those energy compression batteries.
In such an environment, unless one's own strength was truly formidable, or if they didn't treat their team members as human beings, it would be genuinely difficult to make money. At most, they could only struggle to survive in this place, barely making ends meet... "Lauren, give me your personal terminal."
Hearing Cipher's words, Lauren was a bit puzzled, but she still took out her personal terminal and obediently handed it to Cipher.
After taking the terminal, Cipher took out quantum storage from her system backpack and inserted it into Lauren's terminal.
'I remember this can not only transfer credit points from the terminal to quantum storage but also transfer stored credit points from it to the terminal. Let's try it now.'
The digital phantom reappeared from the quantum storage. Immediately, with a thought from Cipher, the numbers on it rapidly changed from [100000 / 100000] to [90000 / 100000].
'I'll give her ten thousand for now; it should be enough for quite a while.'
Thinking this, Cipher put the quantum storage back into her system backpack, then returned the terminal to Lauren.
"Sister Cipher, what were you just doing?"
Lauren and the others watched Cipher's entire operation, but they had no idea what she was specifically doing.
She only knew that Cipher took out something that looked like a USB drive and inserted it into her terminal.
But after only one second, without her seeing any operations in between, Cipher pulled out the USB drive and then returned the terminal to her.
"You'll know if you check your account balance now."
However, Cipher didn't answer Lauren's question but instead winked at Lauren mysteriously and said.
"Account balance?"
Although Lauren was a bit confused, her body was honest and she opened her personal account.
Immediately, her eyes widened.
"One... ten thousand credit points?! Where did this come from?!"
"This is what I borrowed for you from xxxx... *cough, cough*... wrong channel, meow."
Cipher almost instinctively blurted out that somewhat outrageous online loan advertisement from her previous life, but then suddenly remembered that she was no longer on Earth, so she quickly corrected herself.
"These credit points I found in my storage space, in something that looks like a USB drive."
"Although that thing looks like a USB drive... it actually can't store data; instead, it stores a lot of credit points."
"I guess it must have been my property before I lost my memory, right?"
After hearing Cipher's explanation, Lauren immediately frowned, then pushed the terminal back into her hand.
"Although I don't know why a USB drive can hold credit points, that's not the point!"
"The point is, how can we use your money, Sister Cipher!"
"Why can't you use it?"
Cipher had already anticipated that such a scene might occur. After all, ten thousand credit points was an astronomical sum for them, so it was perfectly normal for them to be reluctant to accept it at first.
So, she crossed her arms and put on an angry expression.
"I lost my memory, and you took me in despite the risk of financial shortage. You not only gave me a place to live and food to eat, but also told me a lot about this world, allowing me to better reintegrate into it."
"I can feel that you treat me like family, so I also want to treat you like family..."
At this point, Cipher took a deep breath, then stared at Lauren, her tone gradually becoming a little aggrieved: "You're having financial problems, so I want to help you, but what's the result? Why do you refuse my help? Is it because I haven't known you for long enough, so you think I'm not worthy of being your family?"