"Alright, I am off."
"To the scrap yard you mean?" Rach said, her perfectly curved eye brow raised in amusement.
"It's not as bad as you guys think." Michael replied offhandly.
Rach shook her head and continued mixing the drinks as though that was the only thing she was good at.
With large strides, Michael left the bar and headed deeper into the paint factory.
"You are back uhn?" A Scav going through a mountain of metal scraps saw Michael and immediately waved as he shouted.
Michael nodded his head and answered with a loud "Yeah."
The others Scavs also noticed him due to his voice and greeted. "What's good brother?"
Michael was neither humble nor was hew arrogant as he also greeted and held a couple seconds conversations with them.
They are the lowest gang members of Iron Clawz gang and Steelz only use them as hench men. Typically to collect protection fees, klept cyberware from rich people, go through scraps in the scrap yard in hopes to get good Iron or just to sell drugs, they do it all.
Typically, Michael was familiar with them because they were the ones who informed Steelz during that night two months ago.
And also, because he sometimes check through the scrapyard with them in hopes to get suitable irons, the ordinary gang members felt like Michael was more closer to them than the other cire gang members and was a good choom.
Michael continued walking deeper into the scrap yard. Here, there were larger mountains of scraps and rusty metals as well piled up like a building.
Michael headed towards a particularly large mountain. Arriving before it, a large 2-meters tall steel plate which was originally a part of a larger Aerial vehicle rested before the mountain of scraps.
Michael's muscles suddenly inflated as he grabbed the steel plate. In his hands, it was as though the 2 meters tall metal plate weigh nothing as he shifted it aside to reveal a hidden entrance.
"Finally." Michael heaved a sigh of relief as he entered the hidden entrance. Th inside of the mountain was finally revealed.
A small, cozy room with a bed, two chairs and an actual working Nutri Food-tap. There was an actual room within this mountain of scraps.
During the past few month, Michael had used his nanites/programmable cells to eat through the pile of iron like a swarm of metal eating bugs.
Although there wasn't much metal essence within the iron scraps as the molecular structure of the metal would collapse, turning to piles of fragmented iron ash, the quantity overruled the quality.
Furthermore, within 100 kilograms of scrap metal, Michael only gained 5 units of metal essence. When comparing it to High-grade metals, it really isn't worth mentioning.
He had only absorbed the chain cuffs from the NCED and that alone gave him 1500 units, which he in turn used to imitate the Sandevistan from the squad captain Enforcer's corpse during the critical Tim of meeting with that youth. If course it did little to help before the strange man.
Even after absorbing about 5 thousand kilograms of scrap metal thereby creating the large room within the scrap mountain, it only amounted to 250 unit of metal essence, and that took an entire day of absorbing.
To increase the speed of absorption, Michael could upgrade his nanites by purchasing other nanites but they were a little above his pay grade.
While collecting scraps of better quality from the surrounding iron mountains, he also found a few items to make his the space feel a little like home and here it was.
Gladly dispensing the Nutri-fluid into a cup, Michael drank it all and then muttered.
"Status."
❰Info❱
[Michael Therian]
[Specie: Human X machina]
[Rank: Street Runt]
[Credits: 50,090]
[Nanites: First Generation]
❰Cellular Diagnostics❱
[Strength: 1.9]
[Physique: 3.6]
[Reflex: 1.9]
[Intelligence: 2.2]
[Cell-biofuel: 300/1000J(9999)]
❰Cyber Wares❱
[Neuro-Morphic Interface]
[Type]: Prototype
[Bio-cell fuel]: 1j/per (Basic daily computations).
[Effect]: Your personal computer right before you
[Mod Slot]: two
[Outlaw Sandevistan]
[Type]: Prototype
[Bio-cell fuel]: 500J/sec (Upon activation).
[Requirements]: 2000j, 2 physique, 2 reflex.
[Effect]: Slows down time to 85% for 3 seconds.
[Limit]: 1500J
[Mod Slot]: Zero
❰Life-level❱
[Undefined]
❰Skill-ware❱
[Basic Brawl] (common) (lvl. 1)
[Cyberspace] (Common) (lvl. 1)
❰Resources❱
[Steel Essence Accumulated: 16,200]
[Gene Essence Accumulated: 0]
❰Cell-bots Abilities❱
[Devour: A certain part of the Nanite-cells become active (Usually Fingertips and palm). During this period, Nanite-cells devour items they touch, increasing attributes as well as upgrading Cyberware]
[Imitate: Nanites copies the structure of a piece of cyberware not lower higher than user life-level into the user body with enough steel essence (cooldown depending on level of cyberware imitated ]
[Upgrade: Utilizing absorbed resources, Nanite-cells can be upgraded. (Devour First-generation set of Nanites to upgrade).
(Devour Type-D genetic materials or to upgrade) ]
[ Merge: By using [Upgrade], three Cyberwares, bio-chips as well as data skills of the same level can be merged to form a single Upgraded item.]
[Overclock: Overcharging the cells of a particular attribute with intense energy puts them in an overloaded state (+1 attribute) {100J/sec} ] ;
⁅Strength Overclock: (Berserker) ⁆
⁅Physique Overclock: (Fortification) ⁆
⁅Reflex Overclock: (Flash) ⁆
⁅Intelligence: Overclock: (Time dilation) ⁆
The scrap yard was like his blessed land. Every single day, Michael earns at least 300 units of metal essence on a good day and on a bad day 250 units. He had used 20,000 metallic esscense just to. Increase his stats
This went in for an entirety of two month and now, it had accumulated to this amount. Michael couldn't help but feel a bit giddy.
Suddenly, his system sent him a notification.
[Report: Bio cell-fuel accumulated. Initiate regeneration process?]
This was the main reason the captain kept blackmailing him. The blue flames he had punched had shattered his arm from his finger.
The ripper doc had changed his left arm from his elbow, down to his finger tips with a Cybergenetic arm implant and then covered by synthetic flesh as his own flesh had been burnt to crisp by the blue fire.
The arm implant wasn't anything fancy, just something to keep him going. It's to be stated that the cyberware is a lot stronger than his normal arm which Michael found to be a plus.
But now, he had finally accumulated enough biocell fuel for his nanite to begin the regeneration process! Which means that, he would be able to completely heal his amputated arm!
"Imitate." Michael said. And he could feel his cell stirring up within his right arm as the nanites scanned and occupied the cyberware in his arm.
[-1000]
[Imitation completed]
After hearing this, he immediately gave the command to absorb the cyberware and build them to both his arms.
Instantly, Michael could feel a humming sounds similar to millions of ants biting through metals.
Firstly, he loss feeling of the cyberware and couldn't sense anything. Gradually, the cyberware began to collapse like powder, starting from his finger print, all the way to his elbow where his real flesh was.
Michael almost freaked out in fear as his face paled.
It was as though he had been amputated from the elbow all over again.
He could really see his bone, tissues and veins. If it weren't for the fact that the nanites had also merged with his blood cells he would certainly have certainly started bleeding from there.
In the blink of an eye, something extraordinary started place.