Chapter 114: Is There Any Need to Plunder This Kind of Thing? |
'Plunder?'
'Right, I seem to have an ability like that.'
'The condition appears to be "killing an Anomalous Entity at close range."'
'So the abilities I Plundered are "Tranquilizer Secretion" and "Chocolate Mimicry".'
'Then why did such a prompt pop up?'
The next moment, Shi Rang thought of the correct answer and nearly choked to death.
He abruptly stopped chewing and dashed to the trash can. Just as he was about to open his mouth, he glanced at the Plunder prompt again.
Now he was caught in a dilemma—to swallow or to spit? His physiological revulsion and his curiosity about the Anomalous Effect began to wage war against each other.
With aching jaws, he decided to browse through the omnipotent Management Bureau Main Station.
[Description: CVA-C-1364 is a species of frog. Around... its breeding season, a single egg will grow from the back of the 1364 entity. The egg has a solid outer shell, composed of materials... identical to chocolate. Inside the egg is a cluster of jelly-like miniature frog eggs. A tranquilizer-like substance... has been found within the frog eggs... Any eggs that "survive being chewed" will hatch into tadpoles, developing into adults within the stomach... ultimately... prompting the host to expel them through a vomiting reflex.]
'So, this egg is essentially a frog egg with a crunchy chocolate shell and tranquilizing properties.'
Shi Rang stared at the phrase "survive being chewed" for a long time. In the spirit of experimentation, he made sure to thoroughly bite down on every single piece in his mouth that felt even remotely like an egg.
[Plunder successful]
[Plunder successful]
[Plunder suc...]
After a full dozen prompts scrolled past, and repeatedly confirming there were no more foreign objects in his mouth, he rushed to the toilet, spat everything out completely, and rinsed his mouth over and over again.
'To think that Umbrella Restaurant serves such dangerous food!'
'Could there be something wrong with the dishes I ate earlier too?!'
Belatedly, Shi Rang remembered the instruction manual that came with the box. He walked back to the edge of the hotel bed, picked it up, and read it carefully.
[...Every part from the shell to the nest is edible. The chocolate eggs are raw food. To ensure optimal flavor, they have not undergone liquid nitrogen freezing or inactivation treatments. Guests are requested to process them themselves before consumption.]
Well, it turned out he just hadn't read it clearly...
He had wrongly blamed the Umbrella Restaurant. They actually had quite a bit of professional integrity.
Shi Rang picked up another chocolate egg to examine it. Whether by its pattern or smell, it was impossible to discern its true nature. However, cracking the shell open revealed the frog eggs and egg whites packed tightly inside, resembling the interior of a passion fruit.
Such suspicious food would likely never pass border inspection, making it impossible to bring on a plane. He had to dispose of them immediately.
The tranquilizing effect from the previous egg gradually faded, and Shi Rang's emotional state returned to normal. He focused his mind and dragged ["Tranquilizer Secretion"] into his "Active Abilities" slot.
Suddenly, an unprecedented intuition rang in his mind, assuring him that this would not cause any "Tampering" to himself.
'Could it be that my abilities have grown stronger?'
He noticed that his Records had changed at some point: [Subject Rating: C].
Just as he thought. The Plunder ability had not only brought him new Anomalous Effects but had also upgraded him.
He tried writing a new "Faster-Than-Light Movement" ability. The intuition triggered again, exceptionally stronger than before, even sending a chill down his spine.
This would be a "Major Tampering," resulting in drastic and unpredictable changes.
It seemed he could now predict the magnitude of the Tampering.
Shi Rang deleted this fabricated ability, simply assigning the two new abilities to his active skills, and clicked save.
The text on his personal file flickered like an error message before stabilizing.
'Since "eliminating" these live frog eggs can provide me with "experience points" to help raise my Subject Rating, if I just ignore the psychological barrier, aren't these essentially a bunch of experience packs?'
However, he had only Plundered duplicates of these two abilities. The dozen or so ability descriptions from earlier were identical, essentially a pile of trash entries clogging up his "Pending" slot without budging.
'But is there a maximum limit to the number of Anomalous Effects I can hold?'
'Should I write a Synthesis function? Recycle these useless abilities?'
'Or maybe create a gacha pool?'
'What exactly is the principle behind "Tampering"?'
A flurry of wild ideas flashed through his mind. Shi Rang placed the chocolate egg back in its original spot, opened his hand, and imagined secreting some sort of medicine from his palm. Nothing happened. Finally, he resorted to a clumsy method. At the very bottom of the Command Window in his personal space, he followed the format of Rapid Regeneration and wrote a line:
["Tranquilizer Secretion" activated]
The next moment, he felt as if the entire world had brightened.
A wonderful sensation of defying gravity welled up in his heart.
He shed all burdens and stress, able to think without any hindrance. Experiencing the world with a clear and euphoric mind, even the messy streets of the Tenth District outside his window looked so vibrant and full of beauty.
Shi Rang's mouth curled up uncontrollably, and he let out a string of silly chuckles at the street outside.
However, a few dozen seconds later, his consciousness returned to his malnourished, frail body, and all his worries came flooding back.
'So tired, so annoying...'
He subconsciously opened the Command Window again and copied the previous command.
In the split second before sending it, Shi Rang punched himself hard in the leg.
"No!"
His legs and hands currently had no meat on them to act as a buffer. Bone struck sharply against bone, the intense pain causing him to roll straight onto the floor.
It took quite a while before Shi Rang managed to pull himself up using the edge of the bed, though he still couldn't help but miss that feeling of utter relaxation. Limping over to the bathroom, he stuck his head under the faucet and blasted himself with cold water. He hurriedly threw this fatal skill completely out of his Records.
'The tranquilizer secreted by this ability actually works directly on my own body!'
He absolutely refused to develop a drug addiction because of his own Anomalous Effect!
As for the other ability, ["Chocolate Mimicry"], Shi Rang heightened his vigilance and tested it. He watched as a patch of skin on his thumb turned dark brown, the discoloration continuing to spread. He actively halted the process, then brought his finger to his mouth and took a bite. The skin had transformed into the purest milk chocolate. It tasted great and contained no medicinal properties.
If he hadn't stopped the ability, he might have turned into a crunchy chocolate man.
'But what use is this?!'
He tossed the idea of "finding an opportunity to buy raw food from the Umbrella Restaurant to grind experience points and eat my way to becoming a super anomaly" straight into the trash and lay back on the hotel bed.
Programming was about translating human logic into machine logic. He didn't understand programming, but he could do the reverse—try using natural language to teach the Terminal Station an entirely new form of "Tampering".
He and the Terminal Station were highly likely a combined Anomaly. Sooner or later, they needed to improve their synergy.
Besides, trying it out didn't cost a dime.
Far away in the Second District, the Mobile Task Force unit known as the "Negative Review Jury" had already finished their mission. They had driven off the restaurant's manager and staff, and were currently securing evidence and sending the injured to the hospital.
Shi Rang left the audio feed playing on the side as background noise while he focused on coding a function to recycle his useless abilities.
"Did we arrive too late, or did they transfer the ingredients ahead of time?"
"It looks more like some big client gave the restaurant a difficult task. Look over here, check out this little mountain of chocolate and egg yolk crumbs. I'm guessing they were doing some kind of micro-carving, and wasted at least twenty eggs in the process."
"Micro-carving? That's not on the menu."
"Reporting in. The connecting door in the kitchen has been severed from the other side. It has lost its Anomalous Effect. They've made a run for it."
"Not surprising. Pinning this shop down was hard enough as it is. The ones in the downtown area are the real headache. They're always full of civilians sitting around, and the store names often use puns, making them incredibly difficult to identify."
'So this was the real reason the food took so long to arrive?'
'Because the kitchen couldn't produce chocolate eggs scaled down to the size of Mini-Humans?'
Shi Rang thought distractedly, though his hands never stopped moving.
His progress was much faster than he had anticipated.
Before long, he successfully wrote the [Synthesis] function.
He threw all the trash abilities obtained from the Chocolate Frog into it, but it wasn't enough to activate the function. The tadpoles in the frog eggs were simply too weak. Gritting his teeth, he popped the remaining chocolate eggs into his mouth one by one and crushed them. The Plunder prompts flooded his vision like spam, and he finally had enough abilities to perform a single Synthesis.
The magnitude of the "Tampering" was very faint, remaining well within what his intuition deemed the "safe zone."
Only then did he remember that he could have actually just smashed them to achieve a "kill."
'Whatever, I already bit them.'
[Selected "Tranquilizer Secretion 1... Chocolate Mimicry 98", initiating Synthesis]
[Synthesis complete]
[Obtained "Unnamed Anomalous Effect"]
Having learned his lesson from earlier, Shi Rang equipped this new skill and cautiously activated it. He remained ready to halt the ability at a moment's notice, yet he still harbored a sliver of anticipation, hoping for a miracle.
After a single breath, a chocolate bar materialized in his palm.
He tentatively picked it up and took a bite. Yep, just ordinary milk chocolate.
He activated it again after finishing the first one. This time, a square of dark chocolate appeared. The flavor was rich, with a distinctly bitter aftertaste.
He triggered it multiple times, confirming that he had to destroy or consume the previous piece of chocolate before he could create the next ordinary one.
It was an Anomalous Effect that required no energy consumption.
'But, it's still so utterly useless...!'
[Anomalous Effect has been named "Chocolate Manufacture"]
After tossing and turning for half the day, his biggest haul was an infinite supply of chocolate and a function to synthesize massive amounts of garbage.
'The future looks so bright.'
He could only comfort himself with the fact that, at the very least, he could provide his own sweets from now on.
Maybe when he met Ying Shang, he could even perform a little magic trick for her? Her eyes would definitely go wide, and she would grab his hand, turning it over and over, determined to figure out exactly how he did it.
Shi Rang lay flat on his bed, his thoughts returning to the matters at hand.
'Second District... Shi Shixin...'
'I'll be coming to meet you next.'