Li-Xin's question caught her by surprise. Perhaps she thought that Li-Xin was the same as those mindlessly walking, sex-hungry hooligans that came and went through the street.
"Give - Give me a moment." the young girl quickly make a call as this was not a decision she can easily make. This also confirmed Li-Xin's earlier speculation that she's not the owner of all these goods.
Deep inside, he's hoping that the seller could give him at least a 10% discount from the 2,000 Geass asking price. That would be just good enough for him. Even if this piece of override chip is second-hand goods or malfunctioned, he can just try to repair it before using it.
And just like its name, this Merciless Override Chip would be a great addition to his firepower in his next mission. With this, he won't even need to be afraid if he encountered a Shooter Lifeform in his next assignment.
Li-Xin waited for her reply. It took her a minute and a half to come up with an answer.
"My seller says that I can sell it to you for the price of 1,500 Geass, but for your information... This chip is a malfunctioning piece. There's an issue with the welding inside that even my seller finds it challenging to repair."
"If you're OK with this, then we can make a deal with just 1,500 Geass," she added.
"Deal!" Li-Xin immediately accepted. Malfunction or not, a 50% discount on a chip like this is a steal. Furthermore, he's confident with his skills in repairing the chip.
He might not look like one, but he excels in the engineering class during his time at the United Nations Space University. As long he's given some time to work with them, he's confident he can do many things others couldn't.
Until...
"AARGH! Did I get conned or something? This shouldn't be happening!" Li-Xin was scratching his head from all the problems he's facing while trying to repair the chip he bought.
There's no question about the legitness of the chip itself, but the work on this chip was a complete mess. Although it works, the issue on the chip itself means there's a 50/50 chance it would work or won't.
Even the arrival of the RMB for his armor does not get his mood back on track. With barely 300 Geass in his account, he would have to go for a mission to get his account filled with money to spend again.
"FUCK!" Li-Xin threw a fit in his room. But everything he tossed around was things that won't get broken even if he tried. He was quite a conscious fool because he knew he'd have to pay to get them replaced if it's broken.
"I'll go to sleep. Let's see what I can do with the chip tomorrow." Li-Xin went to bed with a belly full of anger from being unable to get the chip repaired. It was a blatant provocation on his skills because something like this should be easy.
Indeed, a chip like this can only be bought from the system's interface. That was because the parts and the operating system were only manufactured by the military division. Still, that doesn't mean that the public couldn't make it themselves.
It would just be pricier or less dependable, depending on the maker's skill. Some people would take a side-job like this as their income, but few would earn from this craft. Those that do exceptionally well in this would charge double compared to the price on the system's interface.
That's because their tinkering would practically make this item went from good to sick. It's like adding more steroids into a steroid medication.
By the time he was soundly asleep, something had happened secretly in his room.
A red light popped out from the ventilation shaft and ran around the room silently like it was searching for something. As for a reason and what it was looking for, it was unknown.
This process continues until the red light found the Merciless Override Chip left on top of the table. The red light shines brighter like it found its other half. The red light then tinkered with the chip, and the two eventually combined into one entity.
The initial coloring on the Merciless Override Chip also got a makeover. But to hide the fact it was something else entirely, a casing of its previous appearance was left loosen, as if a different case were used on a wrong chip.
The next day morning, Li-Xin woke up and groggily went to prepare himself for the mission later. Remembered that he's yet to grab a mission, he knew that it won't be a great day for him.
Because a good mission with good pay like the previous one needed to be accepted a day earlier. He was supposed to do it yesterday but completely forgotten because he was too absorbed in repairing the malfunctioned chip.
'Hmm? Did this get fall off yesterday after I went amok and throw my stuff around?' Li-Xin noticed that the casing with a serial number and the MOC tag has fallen off.
This allowed him to take another good look at the chip he bought yesterday.
'What is this chip? Don't tell me that I'm really getting conned?' Li-Xin inspects the chip and finds there's not a single problem with it. But through his limited knowledge, he had no idea what this chip does.
Since there's plenty of Collection or Extraction Missions posted on the Mission Office, he's not in a rush to grab a mission. Li-Xin quickly puts the chip into the reader and inspects the program written in the chip.
Noticing that there's nothing wrong with it, and the program is identical to the Merciless Override Chip, he took a deep breath and exhaled all his worries.
'Maybe this chip is something custom-made by one of the experts in this mothership...' Li-Xin made a rough guess.
To be honest, he's a little attracted to the color of the original casing after the one with MOC and serial number got taken off. But it was puzzling to him because he couldn't understand why the maker would name this chip like this.
[INGRAM]
It never came across his mind that by sheer luck, he collected one of the 9,999 pieces of fragments that belonged to a legendary Knight-Mare, known as IGNIS.
But the truth... It would only come to his knowledge later.