After Shi Lei left, the workshop fell into silence once again.
But this time, the silence was not accompanied by fear. The food his friend had left and the heavy weight of his trust were like a warm cornerstone, finally giving Ling Feng's drifting heart a place to land.
He wasted no time on lingering fear or confusion. The pressure to survive was like an invisible hand, pushing him to immediately consider his next move.
Run? Impossible. The Rust Belt was only so big, and the Iron Fist Gang were the local tyrants. He would be found sooner or later.
Hide? Even worse. He would be a sitting duck. With no source of income, he wouldn't even be able to afford energy lattices for the next month.
The only way out was not to "avoid," but to "advance."
It was to figure out everything that had happened to him yesterday, to turn that fleeting "miracle" into a "power" that he could control.
His gaze fell upon the jade pendant lying quietly on the workbench.
But he knew that before studying the pendant, he had to solve a more fundamental puzzle—himself.
"Mental power..."
Ling Feng leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and sank his entire consciousness into his mind. He forced himself to recall the feeling he had possessed since childhood, something he had always called "intuition" or "talent."
Whenever he repaired complex machinery, he would always enter a wondrous "flow state." In that state, it was as if he could "hear" the resonance between parts and "see" the path of energy flowing through the circuits. He didn't even need blueprints; he could find the core of a malfunction by feel alone.
In the past, he had assumed this was just a skill born from practice.
But his experience at the Ash Market had led him to a subversive hypothesis—
This wasn't "talent," this was "mental power"!
A primitive and wild force that had existed in his body all along, without ever having undergone an "Awakening Ceremony"!
This hypothesis made his heart beat uncontrollably faster. He needed proof.
He stood up and, from a pile of scrap waiting to be processed, pulled out a completely sealed metal box. Based on its weight and texture, he guessed it might be some kind of small, civilian-grade signal amplifier, but its internal structure was a complete unknown.
It was the perfect test subject.
Ling Feng placed the box in front of him, took a deep breath, and tried to enter the same state of concentration he used when repairing machinery. He cast all distracting thoughts from his mind, his eyes and his heart focused solely on the cold, metal object before him.
It was difficult.
Forcing his mind to "perceive" without using his hands was an immense strain on his brain. His temples throbbed painfully, as if an awl was stirring inside them.
But he gritted his teeth and persisted.
Gradually, a familiar feeling emerged. In his "mental vision," the hard outer shell of the metal box began to look like frosted glass soaked in water—blurry, yet faintly transparent. He could "see" a complex shadow composed of wires, chips, and energy tubes.
This "blueprint" was very rough, devoid of detail, and extremely unstable. It lasted for only a few short seconds before his vision went black and he nearly collapsed.
Ling Feng steadied himself on the table, breathing heavily, but his eyes were shining with a frightening intensity.
He picked up his tools and disassembled the metal box with the utmost speed.
The intricate structure inside was a seventy to eighty percent match for the blurry blueprint he had just "seen"!
An immense joy, mixed with shock, struck his soul.
The hypothesis was confirmed!
He, Ling Feng, a scavenger from the Rust Belt, was an unawakened, natural-born wielder of mental power!
This discovery shook his very perception of the world. He felt like someone who had always believed he was colorblind and had suddenly discovered he could see the entire light spectrum.
He suppressed his excitement and turned his attention to the jade pendant.
Now that his own power had been verified, what role did the pendant play in all of this?
He rested for a long time. Once his mind had recovered slightly, he held the pendant in his palm. He picked up another, equally complex piece of scrap, closed his eyes, and repeated the experiment.
The moment he focused his mind, a faint coolness emanated from the pendant in his palm.
This coolness was like a drop from a clear spring, seeping into his brain which ached from the exertion of his mental power, bringing significant relief.
And this time, his "mental vision" underwent an astonishing change!
The outer shell of the part was no longer like blurry, frosted glass, but had become like a clean, transparent crystal. He could clearly "see" the path of every wire inside, the flaws in every solder joint, and could even "feel" the faint aura of "dead silence" emanating from a chip whose energy circuit had burned out!
This level of clarity and stability was at least ten times stronger than when he had tried on his own!
Ling Feng's eyes snapped open, his mind crystal clear.
He understood completely.
If his own mental power was a lightbulb, one that was naturally high-wattage but lacked a lampshade, its light would be scattered and wasted.
Then this jade pendant was the most efficient, perfect focusing lens! It could focus, amplify, and stabilize his scattered mental power into an unstoppable laser beam!
With his analysis reaching this point, the path forward was clear.
He possessed potential far beyond that of an ordinary person, and he had a heaven-defying tool to aid him. But he was missing the most critical piece—an "instruction manual."
A manual containing systematic knowledge about mental power levels, training methods, and application techniques.
Without this manual, he would forever be an amateur operating on instinct, doomed to meet his end because of his own ignorance.
He had to find this instruction manual.
In the ruins of civilization like the Rust Belt, knowledge, just like parts, could be "scavenged." And perched at the top of this food chain was a name that lived only in legends—
"Echo."
Ling Feng gathered the credit chip and the jade pendant from the table into his palm.
The former was his "key to knock on the door" to acquire knowledge.
The latter was his "trump card" for survival in the future.
For the first time, his gaze shed its youthful immaturity and confusion, becoming as sharp, calm, and focused as the screwdriver in his hand.