Chapter 59: The Biggest Change
Chapter 59: Chapter 59: The Biggest Change
Right at that moment, from the corner of his eye, Yang Bo caught sight of several pillars of light crashing down in the far distance. It didn’t look like they were landing in his city.
Some poor bastard had just been struck by a Rail Cannon.
Then, he saw a Laser firing from the ground into the sky, likely from a surface-to-air Laser Cannon. The sight made him instinctively shrink his neck in fear.
DING-DONG. The doorbell rang. Yang Bo went to the door and checked the video feed, finding a property manager standing downstairs.
Yang Bo headed down. The manager pulled out a paper document and handed it over. "Sir, this is the new community notice. The neighborhood will be undergoing renovations soon to upgrade the security alert system."
Yang Bo nodded. "Thank you."
"You’re very welcome, sir."
Shortly after, Yang Bo noticed two new residents in the dormitory building. Both were unsmiling. One had blonde hair, black eyes, pale skin, and a cold expression. The other had black hair, black eyes, yellow skin, and a face as stiff as a board. The property manager handed them notices as well.
None of the three greeted one another. The two newcomers lived upstairs.
"Looks like the fat boss is about to make a run for it," Yang Bo thought, rubbing his chin after returning to his room.
He read the notice carefully. It detailed the upgrade to the community’s security alert system and required any Superpower User to register. Even if someone hadn’t registered before, they were now required to do so voluntarily.
If they failed to register, and the alert system detected any abnormal behavior in the community’s public areas, they would have to bear the consequences.
"This is starting to give off a certain vibe," he mused. It reminded him of the Mei bases on Earth. In the past, if a vehicle ignored orders and approached a base, they would at least issue a warning. Later on, if they saw a vehicle trying to ram through, it was just straight-up RAT-TAT-TAT. They wouldn’t even care if you were actually there to cause trouble or not.
Metal Control: Advanced (103/1000)
Looking at this Skill, Yang Bo focused his mind silently. The skin on his fingers slowly turned into black Metal, followed by his entire hand, and then his arm.
He watched in the mirror as the skin on his body underwent Skin Metalization bit by bit. Even his hair underwent Metalization.
Once his entire body was covered in metallic skin, he stared at his pitch-black appearance.
"Damn it, if I had this body in my past life, I would never have had to worry about food or drink," he muttered, observing his current state. Since his skin was black, his eyes remained the same as always, and his teeth were still white.
With a thought, Yang Bo summoned his Skill panel, only to be left dumbfounded.
???: 5%!
All of his Skills were gone. There were only three question marks, followed by a 5%. That was it. Everything else had vanished.
"Holy crap," Yang Bo cursed, hastily deactivating the transformation.
When he checked his panel again, everything was back to normal, and his Skills were fully displayed.
"My internal Energy Consumption hit 30%." He quickly realized something was wrong. If just Skin Metalization caused such a massive Energy Consumption, how much Energy would it take to metalize his entire body?
Earlier, Yang Bo’s idea wasn’t to use Metal Control to attack enemies, summon Swords, or create some kind of Weapon. Under the might of modern technology, such Weapons were useless.
His crazy idea was to undergo complete Metalization and treat himself as a Humanoid Mecha. Since he had Electric Energy Control, he could charge himself up—acting as the Mecha’s battery—and even discharge electricity.
Skills like Dynamic Field of View and Sound Wave Control could act as radar. He just never expected that once Skin Metalization was active, his other Skills would disappear.
Yang Bo activated his Skin Metalization again and let out a whistle.
"Holy shit." He discovered that under the effects of Skin Metalization, the mental image fed back to his brain had expanded tenfold. The level of detail was practically pushed to a hundred-megapixel resolution.
"Could it be that under Skin Metalization, the returning Sound Waves are received as stronger signals? Like a sonar antenna?" Yang Bo knew his Sound Wave Control worked just like sonar. To others, it sounded like a normal whistle, but to him, it was completely different.
Submarines on Earth worked the exact same way. Unless you had their acoustic signature, which made them easy to detect, you wouldn’t know they were there. Without the signature, as long as the submarine’s noise was masked by the ambient sounds of the ocean, you couldn’t tell if the noise contained emissions from an enemy sub.
It was just like bats. Why didn’t a large swarm of bats collide with one another mid-flight? It was because the passive sonar each one received could only be understood by the bat that emitted it. It was useless to the others. Otherwise, if a whole flock of bats could intercept each other’s signals, they would have crashed into one another long ago.
"Something’s not right here," he murmured. While still in this state, he launched an attack using Sound Wave Control. The Power of the strike was actually ten times greater as well, turning a Metal ornament into absolute dust.
After reverting to normal, Yang Bo noticed that his Energy Consumption was much higher than when he performed the same action in his flesh-and-blood body.
"So, Skin Metalization doesn’t mean my base strength has leveled up. It means my body’s explosive Power has increased. It acts like a buff," Yang Bo quickly deduced.
His current body’s Superpower output just wasn’t as strong as it was during Skin Metalization.
"Does this mean I can fly after Skin Metalization?" A wild thought flashed through his mind.
However, he immediately squashed the idea. If he tried to fly right now, there was a high probability he’d be blasted into ash by Laser Weapons. They wouldn’t even be able to extract DNA from the remains, and he’d just be listed as an unfortunate missing person.
"It seems that when I killed those Mutants before, their Superpowers just weren’t suitable for me. This time, the Mutant actually gave me a Superpower." Through this incident, Yang Bo had found the answer to another lingering question.
Right now, Yang Bo just wanted to work peacefully and steadily. He aimed to grind all his Skills up to Grandmaster level. That way, he could easily flee to any other place and still live a good life.
"Don’t get cocky!" he warned himself. With his current level of Power, he couldn’t even defeat a single Air-Ground Combat Aircraft.
Of course, over 90% of Mechas wouldn’t win in a one-on-one fight against an aircraft either. In the hierarchy of warfare, Mechas were at the very bottom. Advanced Mechas made entirely of Energy Metal were incredibly rare.
However, Mechas were also the most crucial asset because securing many resources required deploying them for combat. There were even times when a faction’s Warship won the space battle, but they still lost the war because their Mechas lost the ground fight for resources. After all, you couldn’t exactly fire the Warship Main Cannon and destroy the very resources you were trying to capture.
He continued to train his body’s Metalization. His speed grew faster and faster. Initially, Skin Metalization took an entire minute, but now he could do it in just two seconds.
"Tsk, tsk. The durability of this Metal skin is insanely high," Yang Bo remarked. Being under Skin Metalization felt just like wearing a suit of Battle Armor.
"I wonder if that Battle Armor from the Energy Weapon shop is still there. If I wore that and then used Skin Metalization, wouldn’t that be like having two layers of armor? And if I piloted a Mecha on top of that, it would be three layers!
"It’s a pity I don’t have a place to take the Mecha out for a spin. Sigh, should I just leave with the fat boss?
"If I don’t leave, I need to buy a house as soon as possible and build a basement with Energy shielding. That way, I could not only train my Superpowers but also operate the Mecha."
However, since the fat boss hadn’t sent an email or called to ask, Yang Bo was determined not to bring it up first.
"Forget it. I’ll just log into the game." The only thing Yang Bo could do right now was enter the game and start grinding his Skills.
"This freaking game company is so greedy. Repairing the Mecha actually cost me 1.8 million Credit Points." Upon entering the game, Yang Bo looked at the deducted amount and grumbled internally. Nothing related to Mechas was ever cheap, as the market was monopolized by a few massive corporations. Take this Blade Mecha, for instance. You couldn’t even buy it in reality; it was strictly supplied to the military. If a private collector wanted one, the price would be ten times what the military paid—and even then, it couldn’t be booted up. It could only serve as a display piece.