[Landfill Site-A14 Deep Burial Zone]
The further you walked in, the earlier the burial date, with mounds of square wreckage buried under sand and blackened soil.
John estimated that he was the only visitor in recent years.
He opened the carbon fiber packing crate.
[Equipment: Hound Excavator-α Type]
[Module Slot 1: Jingke Level Six Motion Calculation]
[Module Slot 2: Jingke V8 Integrated System]
[Module Slot 3: [Idle]]
Its main structure was a black hexagonal prism.
Equipped with solar panels and control modules, multifunctional mechanical arms, it had strong mobility and was even claimed to be an all-terrain device.
Jingke Heavy Industry was a company focused on industry.
Clearly, these techno-capitalist bastards were quite bad at naming, as it resembled a mechanical spider more than a hound.
John entered the serial number to unlock it, offline mode.
The relevant information in his mind instantly surfaced, like an activated information library.
He inserted a data cable, and after some disturbances, text immediately appeared.
[Device detected matches inventory blueprint]
[Modify according to [T05] protocol?]
John selected confirm.
The black light in the depths of his consciousness began to flicker.
A data torrent shattered Jingke Heavy Industry's VI-level firewall, and before he could react, the original chip's data had already been overwritten.
"Damn, is the company's technology so fragile? What on earth is this black light!"
The clinic's firewall.
The device protection of Jingke Heavy Industry.
One was the life's savings of a prosthetic body doctor, the other was the complete protection technology mastered by countless company research teams.
There was no difference in the speed at which they were destroyed by the black light.
John quite intuitively felt his cyber psychosis...
A bit terrifying.
He took out materials, set up the equipment, and began to perform an external upgrade on it—decoupling modified component parameters, retuning interfaces, and rearranging the lines.
His thought processes were crystal clear.
His eyes seemed to penetrate the mechanical structure beneath the metal cover.
The series of actions flowed smoothly, as if repeated countless times, finally plugging in the control system's chip, announcing the completion of the transformation.
New text information popped up in front of John's eyes.
[—Please rename the device—]
"Uh, naming it?"
John scratched his head, examining his masterpiece:
A crawling machine, the infrared scanner in its metal shell lit up, six prosthetic limbs stretching out to climb, it agilely crawled among the rubble blocks, seemingly searching for something.
"Then let's call it Black Spider."
[Device: Black Spider]
[Status: Free exploration, not remotely connected]
The black mechanical creature continued crawling.
It spiraled upward along the cube-pressed column of rubble, strolling carelessly amidst the collapsed ruins and the steel jungle.
[Detecting available materials, collecting...]
John suddenly received a message.
He navigated through the labyrinth of garbage, approaching the signal source, he saw:
The Black Spider was hanging in mid-air, its cutting tool breaching compressed blocks of trash, hydraulic pliers prying open gaps, then...
Pulled out a broken, rusty mechanical arm.
John's eyebrows raised.
He urgently needed a special inhibitor now.
The most difficult material to handle among them was a prosthetic limb with residual biological data.
The Black Spider hovered momentarily, confirming John picked up the dropped item, then switched on its scanner to seek the next target.
A self-motivated work machine.
John took out a blank chip, the black light connected and transferred data.
"It's actually usable!"
Using the equipment he brought, he edited the chip and immediately created a new special inhibitor.
Without hesitation, he placed it into the slot!
"Hiss~ Ah!"
The familiar black light began to flicker again, fortunately this time his physical condition was better, only a slight dizziness completely cured him.
[Redundancy clearing, calibration complete.]
John spread his arms, feeling the revitalized body, he was about to praise the Black Spider's usefulness when suddenly a new signal arrived.
This time he intentionally watched from afar.
After the Black Spider cleaned up the spoils, seeing that John had no intention of approaching, it moved a segment of the remaining limb to a corner, even burying it under some stuff.
"Quite clever."
John went over and picked it up, finding it was a broken prosthetic hand.
The biological information port was surprisingly intact.
He hesitated for a moment, using his data to connect, after a brief flicker of black light, there was an unexpected increase in his account!
[Collection: Windfall]
[Description: There are accidents every day in Eden City, leaving behind accounts that might still have assets, better to not let the banks take advantage, but make the best use of them.]
John revealed an exuberant smile.
Although the money wasn't much, the numbers added to the account balance felt very gratifying.
If Black Spider continued its efforts, sooner or later, he could earn back the principal.
John thought that creating the blueprint was truly a brilliant plan.
He even started to imagine:
If he continued taking on jobs to earn money, and modified a few more Black Spiders, he might just live a happy life lying at home and counting money.
This No. 3 landfill site had been in use for decades, supplying waste to the entire Eden City.
Zone A alone had over thirty numbers, enough for the Black Spider to explore for quite some time, and even if it finished scanning here, there were zones B, C...
The landfills that others avoid like the plague had now become a gold mine!
"Phew~ This task reward is really hitting the jackpot!"
John's heart raced with excitement.
However, he celebrated a bit too early, as there were no new gains until dusk approached.
Striking gold in the garbage heap requires some luck.
[Detected wreckage, material extraction analysis in progress.]
[Biological information—Maya Weitz, resident database retrieval...]
A huge amount of text flashed by, resembling lines of loading code.
John hadn't had a chance to clearly see the specific content when it transformed into pure signals.
He stood up and looked over at the source.
The Black Spider was stationary inside a groove, protecting something.
"Is this, an old access card?"
The moment John picked it up, his vision started spinning.
A familiar dizziness.
Flash of black light, several images appeared.
"Again?"
When John triggered the task for the first time, he had a similar experience.
Club girl Tobecca's encounter flashed through his mind, as if playing with an immersion device and super sensing chip.
Broken host memories roared in.
This time the character was still a girl, seemingly arguing with a man, then suddenly a gunshot arose, messy footsteps, the sensation of falling sideways.
[Task: Rebellion]
[Reward: Reward Money (Variable)]
The task received a network address.
He took out a portable device, connected to Eden City's public network, and smoothly found a piece of missing persons information.
The protagonist of the incident was named Maya Weitz.
She disappeared in Eden City two years ago.
This kind of info is usually posted by family members, after all, a girl disappearing in this clamorous city didn't count as an exception.
John glanced at the reward content, immediately deciding to set off.
No choice, he was terribly short of money.