Chapter 99: Hand of Walrider |
"Never mind then," he murmured.
Listening to Yan Yu's explanation instantly dispelled Bai Mu's thoughts of reselling.
As expected, acquiring Points was still incredibly difficult for Players.
If he bought the gun but couldn't sell it right away, it would essentially mean taking a loss of 1,000 Points. More importantly, the profit margin for selling it was simply too low.
Bai Mu did not think much of the remaining four items either. Normal-grade goods could be afforded by Players simply by clearing a Script. Naturally, there wouldn't be much of a market for such things.
If you threw them onto the market, you still had to find a way to make a profit.
However, the drop rate for these items was simply too high. Nobody wanted to buy them at a premium, and selling them at a discount meant losing money. The only exception would be completely useless props pulled from missions or Script chests—like the bloodstained cleaver Bai Mu had just obtained from a normal Script chest. He could hang that up for a hundred or two Points and see if some lucky buyer happened to stumble upon it.
Finding nothing appealing on this page, Bai Mu refreshed the shop.
The second page still only had one rare item. It was a permanent active skill card, and the price was a staggering 1,800
[Skill Name: Hand of Walrider (Degraded Version)]
[Skill Category: Active Skill]
[Effect: Summons a degraded version of the Hand of Walrider under your control. It possesses 10 points of Strength, can pass through tiny crevices, cannot be targeted, and cannot be directly observed. For every point your Spirit attribute exceeds 10, its operation radius increases by one meter.]
[Cost: Consumes 1% Stamina per second.]
[Requirement: Spirit attribute of 15 or higher.]
[Note: Wernicke has yet to discover what kind of substance or entity the Walrider truly is. He publicly claims it to be a nanobot swarm developed during the war, but many questions remain unanswered. For instance, where does the robots' energy come from? How could they master nanoscale technology in an era where fighter planes still had open cockpits? In short, they attempted to replicate the original conditions multiple times, but regrettably, they never successfully created a second Walrider.]
"Isn't this basically telekinesis?" Bai Mu pondered the skill's effects.
Since it was a degraded version, its strength was far inferior to the original. However, the rest of its characteristics remained completely unchanged. Learning this skill was tantamount to gaining an invisible third hand.
The range of movement was quite large. Bai Mu had a Spirit attribute of 20, which meant the hand could fly to a radius of ten meters away—roughly the height of a three-story building.
Priced at 1,800 Points, it was a bit expensive, but the cost was justified.
"I'll buy it," Bai Mu decided, immediately purchasing the skill card. His Spirit attribute was high enough to learn it, meaning he could use it right away.
[You have learned the skill: Hand of Walrider (Degraded Version).]
An indescribable sensation welled up from within his body. It felt as though he had suddenly grown an extra organ—no, rather, it felt as though that organ had been inside him since the day he was born.
Bai Mu tried to control the Hand of Walrider, wanting to fly it outside his body to turn on the bathroom faucet, but Paradise restricted the action.
[This active skill's level is too high. It can only be unleashed within a Script or the Training Room.]
That ready-to-burst sensation was instantly suppressed. He could feel that the Hand of Walrider was still there, yet he simply could not summon it.
The feeling was somewhat uncomfortable, like being choked by an ill-fitting sweater. The coarse wool constantly rubbed against his skin, creating a nagging itch that made him desperately want to find a changing room and strip it off immediately.
He really wanted to test it out, but he still had two roulette spins remaining. Suppressing that phantom itch, he quickly spun the wheel.
For the first spin, the effect of the Medal of Honor provided two options: a "Tranquilizer" and a pair of "Night Vision Goggles."
Both were normal-grade items. The former induced calmness and clarity, while the latter allowed one to see clearly in the dark.
The effect of the tranquilizer was not much different from a quick sugar rush, making it practically useless. The goggles, on the other hand, might actually come in handy, so Bai Mu chose them.
On the second spin, a rare-grade prop appeared among the two options. The choices were a pair of normal-grade prison shoes and "Billy's Memory."
The prison shoes had the effect of slightly lowering the wearer's presence, but aside from that, they possessed no other special traits. They were far inferior to the combat boots Bai Mu was currently wearing.
Billy's Memory was a consumable item. After selecting it, Bai Mu took it out and placed it on the table.
It was a palm-sized glass jar filled with a translucent, pale-yellow liquid. Numerous bubbles clung to the sides of the glass, and within those tiny spheres, fleeting images occasionally flashed by—sharp needles, researchers in blue scrubs, scalpels, intense bursts of light, and more.
[Name: Billy's Memory]
[Type: Consumable]
[Quality: Rare]
[Effect: Upon use, you will observe Billy's memories and undergo a search process. Based on the results of the search, your Spirit attribute will randomly increase by 1 to 5 points.]
[Note: Pain, hunger, fear, and cold—none of these could make Billy submit. The only thing that could truly hurt him was his own love.]
Spirit was exactly the attribute Bai Mu currently lacked. Both the special effects of the Night Vision Camcorder and the Hand of Walrider required Spirit as a triggering condition. He felt that many items from the same Script were meant to be used as a set; the more missions he completed and the more rewards he obtained, the more synergies would likely appear.
The way to use this item was simply to drink it. Bai Mu unscrewed the lid and chugged it down. It was completely tasteless and odorless. The moment he swallowed the memory, countless random images burst into his vision, flashing wildly.
The life of Billy Hope sped by in a blur. Bai Mu saw scenes of him being beaten by orphanage staff as a child, followed by him being purchased by Murkoff personnel and sent to Mount Massive.
After that came the endless torture. Injecting him with drugs, suffocating him with a burlap sack over his nose and mouth, subjecting him to water dripping, plunging him into a freezing water dungeon, bringing in goats to lick the soles of his feet, locking him in a pitch-black soundproof room, and forcing him to be surrounded and stared at by crowds of people while completely naked and stripped of all dignity...
His only moments of respite were when Waylon spoke to him, and the brief periods when he was brought before Wernicke. Yet, these moments were incredibly fleeting, occupying not even a tenth of a percent of Billy's total memories.
The sheer sight of such torture was chilling. As these memories flashed past, that profound sense of fear and despair bled directly into Bai Mu's own mind.
At the very end of the memories was a scene of Billy going completely berserk. Bai Mu finally realized what that gore-filled room he and Stephen had walked through actually was. It was Billy's personal laboratory, the very place where the vast majority of the fear experiments had been conducted.
It was the place he feared, loathed, and hated the most, which was why he had destroyed it beyond recognition.
[Search completed. Your Spirit has increased by 5 points.]
After that final scene, the memory came to an abrupt end.
Bai Mu snapped back to reality and glanced at the clock in his room. Only a few seconds had passed, yet he felt as if he had just sat through an entire movie.
Yes, an undeniably "terrible" movie.
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