Free Web NovelChapter 14: Chapter 14: Purchasing Armor
The public chat room instantly blew up after Ye Yun posted his message, erupting with all sorts of discussions.
[Anything from the great Ye Yun is bound to be top-quality! I’ll definitely support it!]
[Great Ye Yun, what’s the effective range of this communication wristband? If it’s only for short-range communication, it doesn’t seem very useful.]
[Even bionic people can use them? Isn’t that incredible?]
[Great Ye Yun, how much are these communication wristbands? If they’re too expensive, I’m afraid not many people will be able to afford them.]
[I support the great Ye Yun! I’m all set to grab one!]
Ye Yun watched the discussions in the chat room. He didn’t reply immediately, instead waiting a few minutes for the chatter to build before slowly typing his response.
[First, regarding the effective range of the communication wristbands: based on my tests, it’s more than enough for an eight-hour exploration.]
[I’ll only be charging for the cost of materials, plus a small fee for labor.]
[Also, all managers who purchase a wristband, please add me as a friend. I will add all buyers to a private chat room to make it easier to organize and consolidate important information.]
After posting this, Ye Yun stopped looking at the public chat and opened the Exchange directly, listing all the wristbands.
Thanks to his earlier announcement, all the wristbands sold out in less than ten seconds.
Ye Yun opened his friend requests, and in the next moment, he was once again flooded with over 99 friend requests.
Just like before, Ye Yun accepted all the requests, then carefully went through the list, picking out the managers who had purchased a wristband and adding them one by one to the new private chat room.
Once the last manager was added, Ye Yun changed the private chat room’s name to "Information Collection & Analysis Group 1."
[Everyone, first of all, thank you for your trust and support.]
[I’m well aware that your resources are hard-won, so I will absolutely not waste your trust.]
[As the creator of this private chat room, let me start by laying out the current situation.]
[As you’ve all probably noticed, with each passing day, more and more of the bionic people we send out are getting injured or going missing.]
[Before, since we had no way of scouting the outside world, I couldn’t be sure.]
[However, based on the information my bionic people brought back today, there is a mutated cockroach nest right near my shelter. I suspect the nest has already reached a considerable size and is continuously expanding.]
[One person alone is very weak. It’s nearly impossible for a single individual to handle all the information gathering, which is why I hope all of you will participate.]
[I’m not asking you to disclose every single detail you gather. However, if we can share essential information with each other, it should greatly increase everyone’s chances of survival.]
After a moment of silence, the 25-person chat room erupted with activity.
[I’m in, I’m absolutely in!] freeweɓnovel.cѳm
[Brother Ye is right. One person’s strength is truly too limited!]
[I’ve already equipped two of my bionic people. As soon as they gather any information, I’ll report it here in the chat room immediately!]
[I’ll do my best to share the information I gather as well!]
...
Seeing everyone’s responses, Ye Yun nodded in satisfaction.
He knew full well that most of these people would never reveal the truly critical information they discovered during exploration.
Of course, he never needed them to reveal everything anyway. Just by providing some basic information, he could already deduce the general situation.
Closing the chat room, Ye Yun began to arrange his next tasks.
The number of simple communication wristbands was still too low; the two construction robots needed to work at full capacity to manufacture more.
After setting the production tasks, Ye Yun turned to his two bionic people.
Although No. 1 and No. 2 had returned to the shelter safely, Ye Yun keenly observed that their durability had decreased much faster than before.
Normally, an hour of exploration would consume 0.1% of their durability, meaning an eight-hour mission should only cost 0.8%.
However, after this return, No. 1 and No. 2 had lost 1.7% and 1.8% of their durability, respectively—more than double the normal rate.
Clearly, even when equipped with weapons, a bionic person’s durability would drop rapidly after engaging in combat of a certain intensity.
Ye Yun also noticed that some bite marks and tears had appeared on their synthetic skin, most likely left behind from their fight with the mutated cockroaches.
Ye Yun stroked his chin. ’Looks like the weapons they’re carrying are still too weak.’
’Of course, it could also be an armor issue. Equipping them with only weapons increases their attack power, but does nothing to improve their defensive capabilities.’
The thought of armor immediately brought to mind the [Fortress T101 Ballistic Armor (Blue) Crafting Blueprint].
The next moment, he shook his head and decisively pushed the thought to the back of his mind.
’Blue-rarity armor is great, of course, but it’s completely beyond my reach right now.’
Ye Yun habitually opened the Exchange to see if there was anything good.
Soon, two pieces of armor appeared before him.
Offer:
[Leather Baseball Uniform (White)]
[Defense: 3]
[Provides extra protection against impact and piercing]
[Required Stat: Strength 3]
[Durability: 100%]
Demand:
[Damaged Battery Coil (White)] x170
Offer:
[Leather Baseball Uniform (White)]
[Defense: 4]
[Provides extra protection against impact and piercing]
[Required Stat: Strength 3]
[Durability: 100%]
Demand: [Damaged Battery Coil (White)] x210
Seeing these two armor pieces, Ye Yun instantly understood: someone now had access to the [Leather Baseball Uniform (White)].
Looking at the prices for the two items, Ye Yun hesitated for only a moment before buying them both.
The price for these two pieces of white-rarity armor was even higher than the white-rarity weapons he had bought before.
However, he didn’t feel it was a bad deal.
So far, no one had found a way to repair bionic people.
Of course, it was also possible that someone had found a method but simply wasn’t sharing the information.
But either way, it meant that for the foreseeable future, a bionic person’s durability was an exceptionally precious resource.
Ye Yun had No. 1 and No. 2 each put on a baseball uniform, then issued another exploration task.
[You have issued a new task]
[Assessment Type: External Exploration]
[Assessing operational risk...]
[This mission is an 8-hour random exploration]
[Assessment: White Item Drop Rate 84%, Green Item Drop Rate 14.61%, Blue Item Drop Rate: 1.39%, Risk Factor: 0.0003%]
’Good. The risk factor dropped even further.’
Seeing the risk factor drop to 0.0003%, an idea struck Ye Yun.
[Assessment Type: External Exploration]
[Assessing operational risk...]
[This mission is a 12-hour random exploration]
[Assessment: White Item Drop Rate 74%, Green Item Drop Rate 22.55%, Blue Item Drop Rate: 3.45%, Risk Factor: 9.55%]
