Jiang Qi was not obsessed with collecting cardboard because he truly wanted to become the King of Cardboard.
It was simply the business that suited him best at the moment.
First of all, cardboard had all kinds of uses.
It could be made into containers such as boxes, but it was also a decent insulating filler. It could be laid out as bedding, stuffed into cushions, or even used as an insulating layer in walls.
In extreme circumstances, it could even serve as emergency fuel.
The problem was that good-quality cardboard was actually hard to come by. The garbage mountain was not exactly a dry place, and most waste paper was damp, torn, and half-rotted.
For Jiang Qi, however, that was not much of a problem.
As long as he had two objects of similar size and material, he could use Synthesis to merge and restore them.
And if he had three, he could go even further—upgrading them, and to a certain extent reshaping their form and quality according to his own intentions.
Paper, of course, could be torn into as many pieces as one liked.
If he divided a sheet of discarded paper into three equal parts and synthesized them, he could produce a perfectly intact piece of cardboard.
And if he felt the finished piece was too small or not thick enough, he only needed to find two more pieces of cardboard of roughly the same size and synthesize those together. Naturally, that would produce a larger, sturdier, higher-quality sheet.
Of course, cardboard in good condition was not exactly common. But if one was willing to spend the time searching specifically for it, it was still possible to gather quite a bit in a day.
Jiang Qi had calculated this carefully, making sure the amount he brought back each day stayed within a reasonable range.
In theory, with his Synthesis ability, he could collect far more cardboard than he did.
But he would never do that.
Every Chinese person understood the principle that a man is condemned by the wealth he carries. Jiang Qi knew very well how important it was to keep his abilities hidden.
The last thing he wanted was to be captured and used as some kind of human synthesis machine—or worse, dissected for study.
That said, he did not waste his ability either.
Other people thought those piles of cardboard took him an entire day to collect. In reality, he only spent a few hours on it.
As for the rest of his time, Jiang Qi spent it exploring the edges of the garbage mountain whenever he could, searching for unusual finds.
Something more valuable.
Something that might change his circumstances.
And a month ago, his efforts had finally paid off.
Inside a depression on the garbage mountain, he had found a helmet—cold to the touch, battered, and in terrible condition.
To anyone else, it would probably have looked like nothing more than a slightly unusual piece of junk.
But Jiang Qi's Appraisal ability told him otherwise.
It told him that this might very well be the hope he needed to change his situation.
At the time, the helmet's integrity had been below fifty percent.
Jiang Qi had spent a full month repairing it piece by piece, synthesizing the necessary components until he finally restored it completely.
Turning the helmet over in his hands—a helmet now looking as pristine as if it had just left the factory—Jiang Qi once again carefully read the appraisal information displayed before his eyes.
[Model: Gelong D3.2 Multifunctional Industrial Helmet]
Gelong sounded like a brand name.
Presumably, one from Tiangong.
D3.2 model...
Well, he had no idea whether it was an old model or a new one, but for the Wasteland, it absolutely counted as high-tech.
According to the appraisal data, leaving aside its modest protective capability, the helmet had two primary functions.
Air filtration.
And night vision.
The usefulness of the former hardly needed explanation. The foul air around the garbage mountain was not merely unpleasant to smell. The bacteria, viruses, and harmful substances floating in it were no joke.
Scavengers usually wrapped cloth around their faces before entering, but such crude homemade masks obviously offered limited protection.
As a result, most scavengers did not dare venture too deep into the garbage mountain. Even when picking through the outer edges, they still had to pay attention to the wind.
With this helmet, however, the situation changed dramatically.
As long as he replaced the filter element on time, that putrid air would no longer be much of an obstacle.
The night vision function was just as powerful.
It gave Jiang Qi the ability to explore the garbage mountain at night.
And that was no small advantage.
Tiangong dumped its trash every day between two and four in the morning. If he could search the garbage mountain at night, that meant he could be among the first to get in after a fresh dump and sweep up the best finds.
A few scavengers did indeed do that.
They would wait near the garbage mountain ahead of time, carrying flashlights or miner's lamps, then rush in the moment the dumping period began, sifting through trash overnight.
But that was obviously dangerous.
A flashlight occupied one hand. A miner's lamp was somewhat better, but its illumination was still limited, and it was all too easy to get injured while rummaging through heaps of garbage.
As for a night-vision helmet...
Jiang Qi had figured that, at the very least, it had to be better than a miner's lamp.
As it turned out, he had underestimated Tiangong's technology.
Even though it was only a civilian helmet, the moment the night vision came online, Jiang Qi was stunned.
The world became black and white, yes—but the clarity and smoothness of the image were incredible. Even when he turned his head quickly, there was no obvious lag. There was almost no visual noise in his field of vision, and both distant and nearby objects appeared with remarkable sharpness.
The lack of color did affect visual judgment somewhat, but it still far exceeded Jiang Qi's expectations.
And the air filtration was even better than he had imagined.
Whenever he came to the garbage mountain before, he would wrap several layers of cloth around his face and wear protective goggles, yet that was never enough to keep out the nauseating stench.
But today, standing beneath the garbage mountain, he could smell nothing at all.
It was as if he had lost his sense of smell entirely.
That might sound a little strange.
But only someone who had spent years under this mountain of filth could understand just how wonderful that felt.
After all, the horrifying thought of I wish I could just cut off my nose crossed a scavenger's mind several times a day—even if they all knew it would not actually help.
Jiang Qi glanced at the old electronic watch on his wrist.
It was already 1:52 a.m.
He looked up at the sky.
If all went as expected, the dumping could begin at any moment.
Hmm...
Maybe he should stand a little farther back.
This was, after all, an industrial-scale case of throwing things from high altitude. If some massive chunk of metal came down on his head, Jiang Qi suspected he would transmigrate a second time on the spot.
With that thought, he hurried back a bit farther and crouched behind a large rock for cover. Only then did he feel somewhat safe.
A few minutes later, accompanied by the dull rumble of machinery, a huge mass of unidentified objects rained down from the sky, crashing onto the garbage mountain in a deafening clatter.
The cacophony lasted for several minutes before gradually subsiding, signaling the end of the first wave of dumping.
According to the information Jiang Qi had gathered from other scavengers, the garbage mountain received four dumping waves each night.
The first began at two in the morning, and the last at four. The timing of the other two was less certain.
Each wave used a different dumping outlet, landing on one of the four sides of the mountain.
And the side Jiang Qi was on happened to be the one facing the first dumping outlet.
This was not actually the side closest to Deadwood Town. The reason Jiang Qi had come here was because he had been waiting specifically for this first wave.
The distance between the four dumping outlets was fairly large, so once the first wave was over, there was little risk of being affected by operations at the other outlets.
That meant Jiang Qi could explore this area freely for the next stretch of time.
His plan was simple: search this side first for anything valuable, then after four o'clock head to the side nearest Deadwood Town, search there for a while, and make it back before dawn.
Just as Jiang Qi was working through his plan, a sudden rustling crash rang out nearby.
A heap of trash not far from him collapsed.
Then came a loud metallic clang as something heavy rolled down from high up on the pile and, with uncanny precision, dropped straight into the garbage pit in front of Jiang Qi.
Join here to read ahead.
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Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 100)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter89)
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I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter75)
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Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 57
From Junkman to Wasteland 35
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