"Hiss... no, seriously, this is way too tragic, isn't it?" Jiang Qi carefully inspected Glaxia's condition, and the more he checked, the more alarmed he became.
He could not even imagine what a top-tier combat model like this must have gone through to end up in such a state.
From what he could tell so far, some of the damaged mechanical-structure components could be repaired.
But that would require a large amount of metal parts as support.
And judging from the materials used...
With the metal components he currently had access to, he could probably only manage the bare minimum of repairs.
Most of the metals used in this machine were materials Jiang Qi had never even heard of before—special alloys of every imaginable kind, clearly not something one could find out in the Wasteland.
Temporarily patching things up with ordinary metal might still be possible, but the machine's performance and structural strength would inevitably suffer.
As for the more complex functional systems, those would not be nearly so easy to fix.
The technology involved in those parts was just too advanced. Even with his cheat ability, Jiang Qi could not simply make them from scratch with his bare hands. If he wanted to repair them, he would probably need to find suitable replacement parts.
At present, the only systems that seemed directly repairable were the visual and auditory ones.
The receivers for the visual system were mechanical prosthetic eyes. Although both of Glaxia's eyes were currently damaged, Jiang Qi could use his Synthesis ability to perform a two-into-one repair.
The auditory system worked on the same principle.
After all, there were two ears as well.
Granted, the end result would be one eye and one ear, but at least they would function.
Still, Jiang Qi did not dare repair them rashly.
Judging from her condition, whatever she had experienced before this had clearly not been pleasant. If he suddenly restored her sight and she mistook him for an enemy...
Jiang Qi glanced at the single-soldier firepower system mounted on her arm.
Yeah.
As a carbon-based life-form, he did not believe he could survive even the weakest weapon in that system.
"No matter how you look at it, this thing is still a robot, right?" Jiang Qi muttered, stroking his chin.
In that case, directly connecting to her program—or rather, her AI—and inputting information to communicate ought to be possible, shouldn't it?
The question was: how, exactly, was he supposed to do that?
Did this thing have a USB port somewhere on it?
Would plugging a phone into it do anything?
Jiang Qi rummaged all around his shack, then circled the ruined humanoid machine several more times before sinking into thought.
He actually did find a data port.
The problem was that it was a custom interface—at the very least, not a model he had ever seen anywhere in the wasteland.
Fortunately, he had Synthesis.
Using three or more data cables in a synthesis, Jiang Qi could directly modify the cable itself and its connector.
Then came the problem of a terminal for inputting information...
Hm. Maybe an ordinary tablet computer would work?
Because Tiangong's technology was so advanced, electronic devices of that type were not actually all that rare. People sometimes found them in the garbage mountain. But since the Wasteland had no network, the functions of such devices were extremely limited, and Jiang Qi did not happen to have one on hand.
"Looks like I'll have to make a trip to the 'bookstore' today," Jiang Qi thought.
The bookstore was a rather unusual shop in town.
As far as Jiang Qi knew, the owner had close ties with the Flying Crow Gang, yet did not usually act alongside them.
Apparently, the shopkeeper had been around for a very long time, and seemed to be an expert in mechanics and electronics. Officially, he was retired now, but in practice, he still appeared to be the Flying Crow Gang's chief technical specialist.
In the Wasteland, the value of a technical expert like that hardly needed explaining.
Anyone in the gang with even a little status understood how important he was to them.
Only the occasional half-grown hothead failed to take him seriously and thought of him as nothing more than some decrepit old man with one foot in the grave.
And the "bookstore" he ran was equally unusual.
There really were some physical books inside—paper books collected by scavengers—but very few of them.
What the shop truly sold were "e-books."
Or more accurately, all kinds of data.
One could find all sorts of electronic devices discarded by Tiangong in the dump. Some still worked. Some were completely ruined.
And a large number fell somewhere in between: the device itself was broken, but the internal storage unit remained intact.
The bookstore owner collected those storage units, extracted the data from them, and preserved anything useful.
And for wastelanders, the range of what counted as "useful" was extremely broad.
Beyond technical documents, data containing novels, music, films, television dramas, and games was also highly valuable.
There was, of course, also a certain kind of content especially beloved by young men—one of the bookstore's bestselling products.
The Wasteland did not produce entertainment content like that.
For wastelanders, data from Tiangong was practically the only way to obtain anything of the sort.
In fact, to most gang members, the sale of that kind of material was the bookstore's main value.
They could not make heads or tails of technical manuals.
Entertainment was what they really cared about.
Especially the sort of thing young men loved most—even the cockiest fools who looked down on the old shopkeeper would lower their proud heads when buying that stuff.
As the only place providing those digital materials, the amount of profit the bookstore could generate was obvious to anyone with eyes.
And it was absolutely the kind of business that made money hand over fist. The only real costs were a small amount of electricity and the expense of buying storage units.
For a business that lucrative, the fact that White-Claw Crow had not kept it in his own hands, but instead entrusted it to this bookstore owner, said enough about the old man's standing in his eyes—even before considering the technical side of things.
Jiang Qi opened the box where he kept his metal odds and ends and began sorting through it.
If he was going to the bookstore to buy something, he would need to bring a little more "money."
On the surface, Jiang Qi seemed just as strapped for cash as any other scavenger.
But thanks to his Synthesis ability, he was not actually short on money at all.
He picked out ten larger metal chunks of roughly similar size and set them on the table.
At present, Jiang Qi's Synthesis ability could handle at most five similar objects at once.
If synthesizing three similar items was what he called making an item "level up," then synthesizing five was essentially "leveling it up twice."
Of course, that whole notion of "leveling up" was just Jiang Qi's own way of describing it. There was no precise metric behind it.
In any case, if he synthesized three metal fragments, he could produce a high-quality metal block.
But if he used five, he could produce a much more valuable block of high-strength alloy.
That kind of alloy was worth quite a lot around here.
A single piece the size of a palm could be traded for dozens of kilograms of metal scrap.
And while it was valuable, it was not especially rare, either. Many scavengers had seen it before, and anyone lucky enough to find some would usually keep one or two pieces hidden away as emergency money.
For Jiang Qi, though, he could make as much as he wanted.
As long as he made sure the synthesized pieces were not too regular in shape—so that they looked like fragments broken off some large machine—they would not arouse suspicion.
The only thing he had to watch out for was bringing out too much at once.
Otherwise, people might start coveting what he had.
Glancing at the time on his watch, Jiang Qi figured the breakfast stall in town should be opening soon.
If he grabbed breakfast first, then headed to the bookstore after that, the timing would be perfect.
With that in mind, he tucked away the alloy chunks he had just synthesized, casually grabbed a handful of metal scrap and stuffed it into his bag, then cast one last glance at the damaged android lying on the table before stepping out of the house.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 120)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 100)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 100)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter89)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter86)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter63)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter75)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 53
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 57
From Junkman to Wasteland 35
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