Chapter 122: Spirit-Sucking Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle

Chapter 122: Chapter 122: Spirit-Sucking Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle

Xiang Yi opened his terminal.

The fake card he’d gotten from the robot already had seven million Federation Coins loaded onto it.

He transferred everything into his new card — that included what he’d had left over before, plus the two million the robot had just handed him.

Total assets: nine point seven million Federation Coins.

That should be more than enough to cover his expenses for a while — learning new tech, buying equipment, the usual.

He also took a moment to look over the technical files Ning Ye had sent him, decrypted using the program she’d included.

What looked like a simple needle-and-tube setup turned out to be a maze of complex engineering underneath. Some of it was over his head right now, but a bit of time spent on the prerequisite knowledge and he’d be fine.

"Thanks."

The tech was in hand, the money was in hand — there was no way Xiang Yi wasn’t happy about this.

Still, the thought of five million Federation Coins just to view the blueprints for a single component of a Living Iron Extraction Device made him wince. This money wasn’t going to last long.

"I should be the one thanking you. In the past few days I’ve had more things worth researching than I did in the last several months combined."

Ning Ye’s voice carried unmistakable excitement, an eagerness she couldn’t quite contain. She was dying to know what else Xiang Yi might bring her — things she’d never even dared to dream about before.

"By the way, how long do you think it’ll take you to learn that technique? Half a month? Is that even enough time?"

"No rush on that." Xiang Yi didn’t answer right away. Instead, he had Shi Tie set the backpack down on the floor and started going through everything he’d brought back.

Ning Ye crouched down beside him, peering at the pile. "What’s all this? Rewards from your main quest?"

"The reward’s something else. This stuff is mostly loot — dropped it off the enemies."

Lu Qi’s crew had come loaded for bear specifically to take him down, and most of what they’d brought was versatile enough to be useful in other situations. Plenty of it could come in handy down the line.

The haul included several sets of protective suits, a handful of absorbers, a few Silent Alloy Iron Nets, an EMP Rocket Launcher, and various explosives like grenades. The two small robots Xiang Yi had built on the spot at the hardware store could arguably count as loot too.

He’d also grabbed one of the plastic guns while he was at it. The mechanism itself wasn’t anything special, but the high-grade plastic it was made from had some value — might come in useful someday.

The protective suits Lu Qi’s crew had been wearing were something else. Silent Alloy, purpose-built to counter Spiritual Energy — that went without saying.

On top of that, the suits themselves appeared to have been designed along the lines of space suits, complete with an internal circulation system.

These could easily replace the suit Xiang Yi had lifted from the scavenging team earlier, and there were several to spare.

Every single one of them had bullet holes and other damage here and there, but Xiang Yi had put his hands to work on the way back — he’d stripped the suits down, pulled the undamaged components from each one, and reassembled them into a single intact suit.

They were all the same size, so piecing them back together was straightforward enough.

Xiang Yi held out one of the finished suits along with a bulletproof vest he’d had the robot prepare, and handed them to Ning Ye. "These are for you."

"I get some too?"

Ning Ye had only been curious about what Xiang Yi had brought back — trying to piece together what this so-called "main quest" of his had actually involved.

She hadn’t expected him to just push two things into her hands out of nowhere.

The faint smell of blood clinging to the protective suit made it pretty clear that whatever his main quest had been, it was no easy job.

"This material..."

"Silent Alloy. If you’re going to keep heading outside, you should wear it. It should help a little against Abnormalities — but honestly, I’d recommend going out as little as possible."

"Thank you..."

Ning Ye murmured a quiet reply and accepted the suit and vest, a subdued look settling over her face.

Xiang Yi caught her reaction and immediately understood — she was still planning to go out again.

Black Stone’s emergence period was coming up. Abnormalities were going to be everywhere. Why would she still want to go outside?

He sighed inwardly. Ning Ye was too important to him right now. If she got herself killed out there, that would be a disaster.

Then again, he had a legitimate identity now. He might as well just tag along next time she went out.

It would also give him a chance to follow through on the promise he’d made her — capturing an Abnormality.

With the vest and suit handed off, Xiang Yi’s attention shifted back to the absorbers laid out on the floor.

There was only one large absorber, but there were five small ones, and the launcher from the sniper’s absorber rig had also been retrieved — he’d had his robot pick it up during the fight.

The things worked basically like tranquilizer guns, except purpose-built for taking down Abnormalities.

Both types had a basic mechanical structure — designed to deploy a small set of barbs after piercing an Abnormality to keep the device locked in place. That meant Spiritual Energy could open their panels, and by extension, they could be upgraded through his Spiritual Enhancement.

"Ning Ye, help me log some data."

"What kind of data?"

"Data on my Spiritual Energy usage. Might come in handy later. Speaking of which — any word back from that partner of yours?"

Ning Ye looked a little embarrassed. "She’s been filled in, but she said if Anka Star were in a more normal state right now she’d already be on her way. Things on Anka aren’t exactly stable at the moment, so she’s weighing the risks."

"And she stays pretty busy in general, so... give it another day or two."

"Works for me."

Xiang Yi’s easy patience put Ning Ye at ease.

She quickly got the data-logging equipment ready and set herself up to record.

She hadn’t done much research on Spiritual Ability Users specifically, but she was formally trained — she knew what needed to be done and when.

Xiang Yi opened three panels simultaneously and began applying Spiritual Enhancement to the small absorber, the large absorber, and the launcher all at once.

Since the point of all three wasn’t raw damage but the effect they delivered, they were, in a sense, specialized tools more than weapons.

So for the two absorbers he selected the tool-oriented enhancement: Potency. For the launcher, he went with the weapon-oriented enhancement: Precision.

The small absorber’s appearance didn’t change much — it had always been a slender, spike-like shape, and now it just looked a bit more streamlined.

But the moment Xiang Yi reached out and wrapped his hand around it, he felt his Spiritual Fluctuation draining out of him rapidly.

He had to actively push back with his Spiritual Power to suppress the flow and stop it from continuing.

Impressive. This wouldn’t just be effective against Abnormalities — it would work on Spiritual Ability Users just as well.

The large absorber looked similarly unchanged on the outside, but the effect it had on draining Spiritual Fluctuation was a significant step above the smaller version.

Even a brief, light touch made Xiang Yi feel distinctly uncomfortable. If something actually got stabbed with this thing, he was pretty sure even a Class-C Flesh Beast would be left paralyzed for a while.

The Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Absorber launcher, on the other hand — the one he’d chosen the Weapon · Precision path for — was a completely different story.

What had been a slightly dated, clunky tranquilizer gun layout was now sleek and balanced, transformed into a sniper rifle straight out of a sci-fi film.

It came with a built-in scope that could toggle between magnification levels. The muzzle and barrel showed clear electromagnetic-launch structures, and it had a magazine that held five rounds.

Xiang Yi had been wondering whether he’d need to manually resize the small absorbers to fit as ammunition.

Turns out they were a perfect fit already.

Spiritual Enhancement really didn’t bother playing by the rules.

Xiang Yi also noticed that the modified launcher wasn’t limited to firing the modified small absorbers — any metal round of the right caliber that could fit in the magazine would work just fine.

The name on the launcher’s panel hadn’t changed much from the original — it still read ["Weapon · Precision" Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Absorber Launcher].

But as far as Xiang Yi was concerned, there was only one name for it now: the Spirit-Sucking Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle.