Chapter 18: Doing Things Irrelevant to the Job

What left Yang Bo speechless was that there were things in the Fish Pond. It was a bunch of colorful shrimp, which looked like some kind of protected species. The client added 500 to the budget.

“Working on a Saturday is actually quite satisfying.” Yang Bo returned home after work and carefully calculated his earnings for the day: 4,200 credit points.

“Let’s test it out. After exhausting light energy, will recharging work?” Yang Bo thought about it today. What does Light Energy Control and Electric Power Control actually consume? Is it one’s own ‘power’? In the bathroom, Yang Bo’s palm emitted a sizzling sound in the bathtub. Cooking fish with his palm was no longer just a dream.

After half an hour, Yang Bo felt a little weak. He got up and put on a bathrobe. This was the feeling of over-exhaustion. Then, he directly placed his hand on the positive terminal of a battery.

A numb, tingling sensation traveled up his palm and arm, spreading through his entire body. He didn’t test it in the bathtub to avoid unnecessary trouble, like an electrical short or a circuit breaker trip.

Twenty minutes later, Yang Bo was full of energy again. He looked at himself in the mirror: “Will I have to carry around such a big battery from now on when I go out?”

Feeling energized, he dived into the mecha game. The key to mecha piloting skills is reaction time. The top mecha warriors can fight at speeds of up to 15 times the speed of sound.

Battling at that speed is practically invincible.

However, in the game, Yang Bo’s combat training only required him to reach supersonic speeds.

Of course, the Razor Mecha Yang Bo was piloting in the game could not reach 15 times the speed of sound either.

Razor: Third-gen humanoid mecha, 8.2 meters tall, weighing 115 tons, equipped with a Jetpack. Its top speed is five times the speed of sound, with a maximum full-power runtime of 20 minutes. It is armed with a plasma cutting blade and energy shield.

Most mechas are designed for close-quarter combat. Long-range combat is quite rare.

Why? If long-range combat were truly needed, it would be better to summon a space battleship with a laser cannon. Hitting objects moving at several times the speed of sound from kilometers away is incredibly difficult.

Of course, it’s not impossible. You would just need someone with special Gene Evolution abilities, otherwise, ordinary people wouldn’t be able to react in time.

Yang Bo was now very familiar with controlling his mecha. His left hand executed a series of quick actions. A squat, a roll, all to dodge an attack from another mecha.

Accelerate! Then, in a flurry of movements, Yang Bo’s mecha kicked off with its left foot. The Jetpack roared to life, and in an instant, his mecha charged toward the opponent at twice the speed of sound, the plasma cutting blade in his hand shining with a blinding light, vibrating at 180,000 times per second.

“Congratulations, Gabber-Eighty, for completing the basic combat training. You may now enter the game.” A pleasant voice rang out as Yang Bo watched his opponent’s mecha get sliced into disrepair.

The game’s background involved a virus outbreak in a human anti-species laboratory. Some people mutated, gaining all sorts of unimaginable powers, and even wild beasts mutated.

Yang Bo briefly skimmed the lore of the game but didn’t pay much attention to the rest. After all, he was just here to experience it. After all, it’s just a legend, isn’t it?

“Damn, it’s ridiculously expensive! An hour costs 300 credit points for information services!” Yang Bo gazed at the beautiful scenery in front of him.

A massive steel fortress stood proudly atop the mountain. To the right was an endless plain, and to the left, towering mountain ranges stretched out of sight. The starting location of the game was Base 16.

Information service fees… What exactly does this cover? It seems kind of like a prepaid game card.

“Forget it, I’ll just play for an hour and log off. This damn game must be making a fortune.” Yang Bo noticed there were plenty of players. At least a few hundred were visible within his line of sight.

Checking the mini-map, the game’s developers had divided areas based on players’ skill levels—safe zones and dangerous zones. It was advised not to venture into the dangerous zones marked by the developers.

Yang Bo followed the signs leading out of the steel fortress. The giant laser cannons mounted on the fortress were incredibly realistic.

He glanced up at the sky. It was a murky gray.

Outside the base, the path split in two. The mountain side was the dangerous zone, and since Yang Bo was someone who listened to advice, he headed towards the plains.

Yang Bo controlled his mecha, performing all sorts of actions, like swinging the plasma cutting blade. It was like a toy in a child’s hand.

Occasionally, he’d speed up, experiencing the thrill of motion. Unfortunately, there was no physical sensation, only a visual one.

Ahead, there was a large tree. Yang Bo grinned, then launched forward. The Jetpack kicked in, propelling the mecha at supersonic speed. His plasma cutting blade sliced through the tree in an instant.

Flight +1!

Flight +1!

Flight +1!

Yang Bo was startled. What was going on? He stopped his mecha and examined the half-cut tree then looked back and saw a bird’s nest in the branches, with three birds lying on the ground.

“What just happened?”

“Is this planet real?”

“Could those mutants and anti-human organizations be real too?”

“No wonder you can’t see the stars.”

A flood of thoughts ran through Yang Bo’s mind, and he wondered if his enhanced abilities were causing this. He felt incredibly sharp mentally.

Yang Bo silently activated a skill, quickly seeing that his flight ability had reached ‘Beginner (3/10)’.

“What the hell? Could this skill allow me to fly without the mecha?” Filled with excitement, Yang Bo activated the mecha radar to scan for more of these birds.

Soon, numerous bird signals popped up on the radar. This was cutting-edge technology. Every plant and animal had its unique structure and genes, and the radar detected them by analyzing the reflected waves, identifying different types of creatures.

Simply put, with this radar, finding mushrooms would be easy. Just scan the mountain, and if it’s in the database, you’d know exactly where they are.

And so many players witnessed a strange scene: A beginner mecha wielding a plasma blade, hopping around, occasionally leaping with a burst of propulsion, and… slicing a bird that weighed less than two kilograms clean in half. The players who saw this began talking.

“Is this guy nuts?”

“Probably a noob.”

“He’s killing small animals! Quick, report him!”

“This idiot is wasting 300 credits an hour just to kill birds?”

“There’s something wrong with this guy. Wait until he has to repair his mecha. Then he’ll know how expensive it is.”

“Maybe he’s practicing, right?”

“What the heck? Practicing on small animals? Why not head to the plains and hunt mutated beasts?”

“Maybe he’s some coward who got bullied in real life and is now taking it out in-game.”

Yang Bo couldn’t care less about the players around him. He was already regretting his choice: “Had I known, I should’ve picked a mecha with a Laser Gun.””