Chapter 361: Puzzled
"Miss, should I go and investigate?"
"No. They bid discreetly, which means they don't want to be known. There's no need to alert them and cause any unnecessary misunderstandings."
Helorin said calmly.
"I understand."
Antonde replied respectfully.
...
At that moment, Long Ming arrived at the back hall of Auction House 1. He saw it was partitioned into individual rooms.
Following the prompt on his bracelet, he entered Room 3.
Inside the room sat a machine.
Long Ming walked up to the machine and aimed his bracelet at the scanning port. With a BEEP, the machine opened a transfer hatch, and his three auctioned items were dispensed.
He immediately used his bracelet to store the three items in his safe.
CLICK!
Just then, a hidden passage opened on the other side of the room.
Slightly surprised, Long Ming stepped into the passage.
Before long, he emerged from a side door of the auction house.
Long Ming glanced back at the auction house behind him, then hurried away.
...
-----------------------------
Inside Room H4562.
Long Ming raised his bracelet and retrieved the unopened mechanical box and cryo-case from his safe.
He first picked up the mechanical box and examined it. There was nothing special about its appearance.
Long Ming opened the box, and a crystal shimmering with blue starlight immediately came into view.
"Holy crap, a blue crystal!"
Long Ming was quite surprised. He quickly scanned the blue crystal with his bracelet.
Blue Crystal.
Quality: Advanced.
A smile crept onto Long Ming's face as he read the prompt. Although it wasn't 'Rare' quality, this 'Advanced' Blue Crystal was still priced in the 1 to 2 million range.
'That guy Siel would probably be kicking himself if he knew this was inside the box.'
Although the contents of an unopened mechanical box were random, there were still clues. You could make an educated guess based on its civilization of origin and where it was found.
'Siel must have gotten some inside information, but he couldn't have been completely sure.'
In a cheerful mood, Long Ming put the blue crystal away and turned his gaze to the cryo-case.
Suppressing his excitement, he opened the cryo-case. A blast of cold air billowed out, revealing an injector filled with blue liquid.
Long Ming raised his bracelet and scanned it.
Type II Genetic Potion · SDL All-Purpose Genetic Injector (Perfect)
Effect: Unknown.
Producer: Rekaente Empire.
A brilliant smile spread across Long Ming's face as he looked at the information displayed on his bracelet. He couldn't believe he had actually bought a Type II Genetic Potion.
He remembered how he had nearly lost his life for that Type I Genetic Potion.
Long Ming took a deep breath. 'Now that I have what I need, I just have to wait until all my stats reach 19 before I can inject it.'
When it came to Genetic Potions, Long Ming had figured a few things out.
If you trained your stats to their limit before injecting, you would receive the highest growth values.
Of course, if you injected it without maxing out your training, not only would the effect be diminished, but it would also weaken your foundation.
Thinking of this, Long Ming put the genetic injector away and opened his character panel to see if his stats had grown at all.
Template One.
Name: Long Ming (Genetic Defect) (Symbiotic State)
Race: Carbon-based Human
Genetic Level: Type I
Profession: None
Power: 19
Agility: 19
Physical Strength: 19
Intelligence: 19
Note: Genetic Defect status. Stamina reduced by 25%. Susceptible to infection.
Long Ming stared at the values on his bracelet, stunned. He then raised his hand, rubbed his eyes, and took a closer look.
He took a deep breath, closed the character interface, and then immediately opened it again.
Long Ming fell silent as he looked at the displayed values. He then repeatedly closed and opened the character interface.
But the numbers on it never changed.
"What the hell!"
Long Ming immediately walked over to the neural link pod nearby.
He opened the neural link pod and lay down inside.
SWOOSH!
When Long Ming opened his eyes, he found himself in an empty Starry City.
He immediately raised his bracelet to open his character interface, but the stats displayed were still all 19.
Completely bewildered, Long Ming muttered to himself nonstop.
"What's going on? Why did all my stats jump to 19?"
He clearly remembered that when he checked a few days ago, his Agility was 17, and all his other stats were only 16!
Long Ming's expression kept changing. The more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong.
'Although stat growth is a good thing, I'm worried this is a data error and the numbers are wrong.'
'If I inject the Genetic Potion without my stats being truly maxed out, I'm screwed. It'll be too late for regrets then.'
Just then, Long Ming thought of something. He opened the character interface again to check on Hilic's status.
He found that its status was completely unchanged.
Long Ming was silent for a moment, then used his bracelet to log out of Starry City, opened the neural link pod, and got out.
"Phew~"
He let out a long breath and decided to get some rest and see what was what in the morning.
With that thought, Long Ming headed for the bathroom.
...
「The next morning.」
Long Ming's eyes snapped open, and he sat up in bed.
The first thing he did was raise his bracelet to check his character interface. The values were still unchanged.
'This is so weird!'
Long Ming couldn't for the life of him figure out where the problem was.
He then called Wang Yang.
BEEP BEEP~
"What the hell, are you crazy? What do you want calling me at five in the morning?"
Wang Yang's disgruntled voice quickly came through the phone.
"Wang Yang, you can see the stats on your own character interface, right?"
"Duh, who can't?!"
"Take a screenshot and send it to me."
Long Ming told Wang Yang.
"You really are crazy. Hold on!"
Though he was complaining, Wang Yang still took a screenshot and sent it to Long Ming right away.
Long Ming immediately opened the image to look.
Name: Wang Yang
Race: Carbon-based Human
Genetic Level: 0
Profession: None
Power: 5
Agility: 6
Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 7
Looking at these stats, Long Ming asked thoughtfully.
"Wang Yang, are these stats of yours correct?"
"What do you mean, 'correct'?"
"I mean, have they changed recently?"
"No, they've always been like this!"
Wang Yang replied with certainty.
"Alright, I'll let you go then."
"Wait!"
"What's up?"
"I'm not finished."
"Go ahead."
"Seven days from now, the Haiyun is holding a retro Festival of Lights. I happen to have the day off. Want to hang out?"
"Isn't that a festival for couples on dates? What are two guys like us going to do there?"
"Cut the crap. Are you coming or not!"
"Fine."
"Then it's settled. I'm going back to sleep."
With that, Wang Yang hung up.
Long Ming looked down at the stats displayed on his bracelet's character interface. 'Since Wang Yang's stats have never been messed up, there's a high probability that mine are real.'
'Logically, an entity as formidable as Civilization Paradise shouldn't have low-level problems like data errors.'
But Long Ming still couldn't understand how his stats could have suddenly maxed out.