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"Alright. Look's like I have nothing much to maintain. This means the money that I have can be used solely for entertainment and booze." Li-Xin said to himself. He then changed into a fitting attire while preparing to go out.
But instead of going solely to grab a drink, Li-Xin headed straight to the black market he's been first. He aimed to look for the seller of this INGRAM Chip and made clear about it.
When he was there, he found the girl almost instantly, but her wares changed. It seems that her flexible job allowed her to have more than one supplier for her stuff. It appears that even she had no idea how to get in touch with them, let alone their identity.
It was a black market, after all, and not everything was as clear and conscience as he had thought.
The INGRAM Chip might not activate from the start to the end of his previous job, but Li-Xin knew that there was something odd about that chip. During his time looting the corpse, Li-Xin noticed that a small part, like a thousand or two of the Reactive Mycelium Bots, were uncontrollably attracted to his weapon instead.
It happened a few times before he noticed. And there's nothing much going on, except the gun's quality seems to be at its optimal condition. This made him curious about the activation requirement for this INGRAM Chip.
Since there's nothing much to do even after finding the young girl, Li-Xin thought he would just call it a day by grabbing a light meal and some drinks.
The overall cost for his meal was 300 Geass. It wasn't too expensive, but it was not too cheap either. Furthermore, in deep space like this, there's hardly a food choice to choose from. Almost everything came from the greenhouse used to sustain the growth of the vegetable, and the meat itself is an imitation produced using protein paste as its base.
They're nutritious but spell fake to someone that recently came out of the earth. He could choose to return at any time, but the life there would be more demanding, especially since he had so little Geass in hand.
To make sure he could enjoy his carefree day back on the earth for a month, he would need to have at least 50,000 Geass in his account. That was if he took entertainment out from the calculation.
Halfway through with his dinner, there was a brawl inside the pub. It didn't affect him initially, but the situation called for his participation when his table ended as the venue continued.
"Are the lot of you going to pay for my food?" Li-Xin grabbed one of the fighter's collars and yanked him down on the ground. Since the trio was tipsy when they started to fight, it was an easy fight for Li-Xin.
Furthermore, it was not like he was a weak soldier, to begin with. In terms of skills, Li-Xin was considered much better than many people here. However, they're still a distance between him and those known to be strong.
And this place was where weaklings gathered. That's also what gives Li-Xin the guts to overcome them. If it was in some decent restaurant that cost a thousand Geass for a single meal, he would be foolish to join a brawl there.
Because even the guards there might be some fantastic soldiers with multiple augmentations on their bodies.
He would consider the Augmentation, but that's in the future, not now.
After getting back to his room, Li-Xin was toying on his personal multimedia device before falling asleep. The recruitment offer from Lieutenant Kuang Lu has kept repeating itself in his mind since yesterday.
Feeling that he wouldn't be losing anything from it, he wrote back to the Lieutenant in the hope that he'd get a reply as soon as possible.
"Lieutenant Kuang Lu, I am very interested in the orientation you mentioned. Please provide me with the relevant details for participation." Li-Xin sent a text to her before falling asleep.
A few hours later, the reply came, and he woke up from his slumber. The response itself was a simple note on what the orientation is all about.
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Li-Xin came to the Assignment Office ten minutes before the appointed time. Guided by the Lieutenant to the private force room she reserved, eighteen other people were already inside. It seems that coming ten minutes before the time still made him ended up the last person to arrive.
"Everyone, I'm Li-Xin." he politely introduced himself to get rid of the awkwardness. Although he wasn't late, he does look like one as the last person to arrive.
"Take a seat. We're about to get started." Lieutenant Kuang Lu shows a different temperament from the cold and emotional assignment attendant outside this room. Since everyone here was someone she knew, her tone was friendlier than before.
"We can skip the self-introduction for later. But first of all, great work there to introduce yourself even though you're not late. This is the most basic mindset of a force, and I hope those here early will note it."
"You might be earlier today out of many deciding factors, but you won't be the earliest all the time. As for Cadet Li-Xin, making your attendance at least 30 minutes before the assignment is a sign of commitment. Remember that." the Lieutenant added.
"The way a private force operates varies, but it depends on the commanding officers too. Others might have their own rules too. Always take note that we're not as indisciplined as those outside this room."
"Here, everyone has your back, and you're expected to do the same to the eighteen people beside you. Do you get me?" Lieutenant Kuang Lu said.
"Yes, Maam!" they replied, but not everyone. Including Li-Xin, there are a total of eight people that responded to her words. This shows them who were the newbies in this force and who were the seniors.
"Sit. The briefing shall start now." Lieutenant Kuang Lu continued.