Iron-Skinned Toad

Huang Yuanli had most likely run into trouble.

It probably wasn't that she'd been killed, but there was a good chance she'd been grounded.

Once Gao Gong returned to the old metal recycling station, he quickly put the matter out of his mind and focused on work.

The Mechanical Hunter was one of the stronger basic classes in combat.

The main reason was a class skill—Mechanical Hunting Modification.

Mechanical Hunting Modification Lv. 5 (Class): Allows a certain degree of modification to one's own combat body, increasing the odds of successfully killing prey.

"Prey" didn't just mean radiation beasts. It could mean people too.

Although Mechanical Hunters couldn't manufacture cybernetic bodies, they could perform secondary modifications on cybernetics according to their own circumstances, making them even more dangerous.

Back when Gao Gong had still been a newbie in his previous life, a high-level player who followed the Mechanical Hunter route had shared many methods of "Hunting Modification" on the forums.

Because of the formidable combat power of "Hunting Modification," that high-level player had once broken into the top ten of the player rankings during the early stages of the game.

Everyone had thought that was only the beginning, but it had actually been his peak.

That high-level player was the unlucky bastard who had finally managed to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Knights, only to have his account deleted by an artificial intelligence.

He also had an unforgettable name—Rainy Night Carries a Blade but No Umbrella.

Soon, the sound of welding rang out in the recycling station once more.

He embedded a launcher into the metal material, installed a combat battery, adjusted the circuitry, and added a monomolecular wire...

Monomolecular wire was a specialty of Nightless City. It was an extremely sharp and exceptionally durable high-grade material, difficult to detect and capable of cutting through metal.

Generally speaking, it was a weapon assassins favored.

However, the "basic load-bearing model" Gao Gong had chosen was a construction material.

A monomolecular wire as thin as a strand of hair could bear a ton.

Although this "load-bearing model" wasn't sharp, that was only relative. How to prevent it from damaging the modified equipment while preserving its function was the difficult part.

Fortunately, after Sister Rose had taken Gao Gong "street racing," she had sent him quite a few valuable materials.

After roughly three hours, a new hunting device was complete.

Its shape resembled a "metal bracer," consisting of a metal shell and a leather lining, extending from the forearm all the way to the palm.

Its switch was a tactile neural flow regulator, for which Gao Gong had tuned a special frequency.

Embedded in the surface of the bracer was a tiny metal claw. It was about the size of a chicken's foot, and its material was titanium-steel alloy. This alloy was even harder than the material of the Red Unicorn and was scrap left over from the gloves Sister Rose had made.

As for what it did—kid, have you ever played Sekiro?

Gao Gong flicked his hand backward. The launcher activated, sending the alloy claw flying across more than twenty meters before it sank into a thick steel plate.

The next instant, a powerful pulling force yanked him straight off his feet.

"Holy—what the hell!"

Caught off guard, Gao Gong landed face-first and was dragged more than ten meters as if someone were hauling away a corpse. Finally, with a clang, his head slammed hard into the steel plate.

If his skull hadn't been modified too, a second-degree concussion would have been unavoidable.

The worst part was how damn humiliating it was.

"Blegh, blegh, blegh!"

Gao Gong rubbed his head while spitting the dirt from his mouth.

Fortunately, no one had seen him. Otherwise, his titles of "Lone Wolf of the Wasteland," "Reaper Slayer," and "Rich Lady's Little Wolfdog" would have been ruined.

"The launcher's force needs to be reduced. It's too fast. The enemy won't be able to react—but the key problem is that I can't react either."

Then came a series of trial and error, adjustments, more trial and error, and more adjustments.

Two hours later, Gao Gong held an ordinary steel bar in his left hand—the Red Unicorn was still being repaired—and whipped his right hand out like lightning. The alloy claw once again embedded itself in the wall. Gao Gong dropped into a sliding tackle, and after crossing more than ten meters, he exerted force through his palm and calf at the same time. Borrowing the momentum of the alloy claw, he leaped high into the air, swung his arm again, and shifted the alloy claw into "retraction mode." At the same time, he pulled out the steel bar and brought it down hard on the top of the wall.

Four bricks shattered beneath his blow.

His landing was somewhat unsteady, but at least he had succeeded.

"Not bad. The 'Sliding Tackle Feeds the Tiger' technique worked. Let's try the 'Hanging Collision with the Wall' technique next."

Although that Rainy Night big shot had called this fighting style the "Rainy Night Carries a Blade Killing People Mode" and treated it as an advanced school, showing off all kinds of techniques on the forums, the idiot players soon began imitating him in droves, creating two different ecosystems: "high-level matches" and "public matches."

Then the "public matches" successfully proved that, apart from the Mechanical Hunter class, no other class could handle these suicidal stunts, such as "Spider Cracks His Balls," "Hero Ruins His Knees," "Sliding Tackle Feeds the Dog," "Hook Rope Hangs Himself," and "Flying Suicide."

A perfectly serious technical post had been turned into a comedy post.

Back then, Gao Gong had still been quietly developing along the path of face customization. He couldn't perform any flashy stunts and could only watch enviously from the sidelines.

But after beginning to practice his skills in this life, Gao Gong discovered that it really was difficult. For example, with the same pulling force, a sliding tackle worked, but hooking onto a tree did not.

As a result, Gao Gong began practicing in the "jumping off a building to commit suicide" style again.

Fortunately, this body's attributes were decent. Falling from the third floor would at most cost him some health; it wouldn't actually kill him.

He practiced until midnight before slapping his forehead and suddenly figuring it out. He didn't need to practice sliding tackles and hooking trees with the same pulling force at all.

He could adjust the frequency of the "tactile neural flow regulator" to create two different pulling-force modes.

Expanding his thinking further, he could also adjust the gripping force of the alloy claw. Whether gripping walls, trees, weapons, or even radiation beasts, he could set it to the most suitable force.

However, this kind of modification couldn't rely on adjusting "tactile feedback" alone. It would be best to install a "combat chip," inputting various combat modes into it and continuously updating them.

Gao Gong finally understood why only Mechanical Hunters could enter the "high-level matches." It was because only Mechanical Hunting Modification could constantly fine-tune the grappling claw and coordinate it with the parameter settings of the other cybernetics on his body, forming the most suitable force-exertion system for himself.

Unfortunately, Mechanical Hunting Modification was a class skill. Its skill level couldn't advance in rank, nor could it exceed the class level.

Otherwise, it would be far too broken.

Before that Rainy Night big shot had shown off his techniques, he must have endured a miserable period of painstaking training.

Practicing with the "monomolecular grappling claw" for one day even felt more exhausting to Gao Gong than hunting for an entire day.

There are still two days. By tomorrow, my teammate should be here too—but what was his name again?

In a storage room in the public cargo hold, Iron-Skinned Toad stood seriously in front of a mirror, squeezing his face into a fawning smile.

"Ahem, Brother Gao, I'm here."

"No, this won't do. A master like that definitely won't like someone who only knows how to flatter. I should act a little aloof."

"Little Gao, I'll be your teammate from now on. I'll protect you."

"Would that be too pretentious? Being too arrogant wouldn't be good either. I'd get smacked across the face."

His roommate in the same storage room yawned.

"She's one of the strongest Mechanical Hunters in Car City. Do you think she'll take a liking to you? I advise you to wash up and go to sleep."

"Bullshit! Brother Gao specifically sent someone to invite me. What do you mean, what kind of prestige? This is prestige!"

"Then what does she want from you? Is it because you don't bathe, because you love taking advantage of people, or because you refuse to replace your cybernetics?"

Iron-Skinned Toad flew into a rage and kicked his roommate under the bed.

"There has to be a reason! I must have some advantage I haven't even discovered myself!"

The next morning, Iron-Skinned Toad got up early. He even oiled his mechanical body before standing in the street, gazing around expectantly.

Quite a few people had heard that the famous Mechanical Hunter had invited Iron-Skinned Toad to form a team, so they came over to watch the excitement.

"Toad, don't do anything stupid. I heard that experiencing hallucinations involving prosthetic limbs is a symptom of cyberpsychosis."

"He's not having prosthetic-limb hallucinations. His brain is clearly hallucinating."

"What kind of illness causes hallucinations in the brain?"

"I've always said that human-body modifications shouldn't touch the brain. Look at him—the modifications messed up his thinking too. He's just like those AIs infected with viruses."

"That's called a brain crash."

Iron-Skinned Toad ground his teeth and waited beneath a steady stream of mockery. Perhaps because the crowd was jeering at him, time seemed to pass especially slowly. After waiting for a long while, the appointed time finally arrived.

At the end of the street, two black dots appeared.

Soon, two vehicles came into view.

One was a large-displacement off-road vehicle commonly seen in the desert. The other was a full twice its size. From a distance, it looked like a steel fortress.

"Holy crap, a military armored vehicle!"

The Security Corps' armored combat vehicles and the military armored vehicles of the old civilization era were completely different species. To prevent attacks by high-level beasts, their armor was so thick that even some rockets couldn't penetrate it. Their power source was a special energy board, and with eight tires, they could reach 230 kilometers per hour at full speed.

Under the dumbfounded gazes of the crowd, the armored vehicle's door opened. Little Finger yawned, swept his gaze around, and casually asked, "Who's Iron-Skinned Toad?"

"I am."

"Get in."

Seeing that Iron-Skinned Toad was still dazed, Little Finger glanced at him. "What, do you need me to invite you?"

Iron-Skinned Toad jolted to his senses and hurriedly scrambled inside. Even then, he didn't forget to flip the onlookers off.

The vehicle sped away, leaving behind a crowd of stunned spectators.

Little Finger wasn't driving. He sat in the passenger seat, yawning repeatedly. No one knew what he had been busy with the previous night.

Iron-Skinned Toad, meanwhile, eagerly introduced himself. "Hello, Brother Finger. My name is Iron-Skinned Toad, and my nickname is Iron-Skinned Toad. You can call me Little Iron."

"Um, you know me?"

"Of course I do. These days, anyone involved in smuggling—ah, no, I mean small business—who doesn't know you?"

Little Finger removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He studied the other man through the rearview mirror, then let out a soft exclamation.

"So you're the Toad. Your modifications are pretty interesting. Only people in the city have the means to undergo a bionic brain modification. And that mechanical body of yours—holy crap, what kind of junk is this? Can this stuff even still work?"

Iron-Skinned Toad looked down at the exposed wire conduits and battered organs on his body and said aggrievedly, "Brother Finger, I was cheated too."