"This isn't addictive at all!" Chu Yunyi stared wide-eyed, baffled.
But soon,
Chu Yunyi remembered a short video he'd once watched.
Sugar really did seem to be addictive...
Caffeine, cigarettes, and alcohol were addictive right away, but sugar's addictive effects gradually increased over time.
People could give up coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes, but giving up sugar for life was still difficult.
To some extent,
sugar was pretty addictive...
After all, once sweetness was perceived, it could be transmitted directly through the nerves, giving people a feeling of pleasure.
It also stimulated the brain to release dopamine, making people crave and depend on sweets all over again.
People could go their whole lives without ever eating sugar.
But once they got a taste of it, they'd never be able to let it go.
"That's freaking ridiculous." Chu Yunyi realized belatedly that it was actually true.
Even at that moment,
even if it was only the ability of the white billiard ball, a passive effect would keep activating nonstop.
NO.5 [Eidetic Memory], NO.7 [Perfect Order].
In an instant,
Chu Yunyi thought of something and immediately searched his memory for the earlier encounter with the thugs.
One of those two thugs had seemed to have something dangling from his mouth.
Later, a bullet had blown his head apart, and the thing in his mouth had gone flying too.
If Chu Yunyi's guess was right,
it hadn't been a cigarette...
It had been... a lollipop...
"Fuck."
"What the hell is going on with this world?"
For some reason, Chu Yunyi felt a tiny bit guilty.
He had no qualms about killing a thug who got in his way.
But if the guy had been sucking on a lollipop, Chu Yunyi would instinctively have classified him as a kid, and killing a kid made him feel a little uneasy.
Chu Yunyi was just like that.
"I'll observe three seconds of silence for you two brothers." He closed his eyes, lamenting this fucked-up world.
Watching the burly man eat, everyone around him swallowed.
One after another, they all ordered a serving!
"Boss, I'll have a red velvet cake too! With frosting!"
"Me too!"
Listening to the noisy but remarkably harmonious atmosphere, Chu Yunyi could only think how utterly fucked up this was.
"Wait, didn't Old Jin say this was a bar?"
"Where's the booze?!"
As he thought about it, Chu Yunyi understood.
His NO.6 [Words of All Spirits] automatically matched meanings. What Old Jin had called a "bar" might simply have meant a place for entertainment and leisure, along with other things.
It was more or less the kind of place Chu Yunyi understood, so the word had registered automatically.
With all these burly men, people with cybernetic augmentations, and the noisy atmosphere, Chu Yunyi would never have accepted it as a dessert shop.
Thinking about it that way,
the ability hadn't misunderstood completely. It had been half right.
Looking at the bizarre atmosphere, Chu Yunyi didn't want to stay. A bar with no cigarettes or alcohol, where everyone ordered red velvet cake, was just too weird...
Just as he was about to leave,
someone nearby spoke up:
"I hunted twelve mutated creatures yesterday. Are there more and more of those things?"
"I think you're just bragging about your Credit Points!"
"Give it a rest. There really do seem to be a lot more lately. It's strange."
"Who cares? If one shows up, we kill one. If two show up, we kill both!"
Hearing them talk about it, Chu Yunyi perked up.
Credit Points?
Mutated creatures?
Those were exactly the two things he wanted to find out about.
But soon,
the nearby table moved on to another topic, and Chu Yunyi lost interest.
Thinking it over,
Chu Yunyi went straight over to their table, dragged over a chair, and started asking questions.
He'd expected someone to say, "You looking for trouble, kid?!" or "You think you're good enough to sit here, youngster?" and then put him in his place physically.
But to his surprise, the men were quite accommodating toward Chu Yunyi, an outsider.
"I just heard you say you could earn Credit Points by hunting mutated creatures?"
At that, the burly men around the table all froze for a moment.
Then they burst out laughing.
It was as though they'd heard something completely ignorant.
As if someone had asked, "Are cucumbers green?" or "Is rice only called rice once it's cooked?" The question sounded absurd to them.
But soon,
one of the burly men glanced at Chu Yunyi, and his personal terminal failed to detect a neural terminal in Chu Yunyi's brain.
"Wait, why don't you have a personal terminal?"
"Holy shit, he really doesn't!"
"Some young master who ran away from home in the Upper City? Or a poor orphan who was never registered..."
At the mention of the latter, the men around the table fell silent. They looked at Chu Yunyi with pity.
The burly man at the head of the table slammed his fist down, then shouted:
"This damned world!"
"Go ahead and ask, kid. If there's anything we can do to help, we will." The burly man looked at Chu Yunyi, his gaze earnest.
Chu Yunyi felt a little embarrassed under that look.
"I'm from another world... Never mind."
"So if I kill mutated creatures, I can earn Credit Points?"
"And where are these mutated creatures? Outside the city?"
Hearing the questions, the burly men exchanged glances, then quickly answered Chu Yunyi:
"You need a personal terminal. Oh... you've got a portable one on your wrist. An old model."
"They're not outside the city, but 'beyond the domain.' There are plenty of mutated creatures beyond the domain."
"There are lots of different types. The hardest to deal with are the 'tumors' that can grow endlessly. The rest depend on how strong they are."
"If you're lucky, you might kill a few of the weakest 'skeleton' mutants, and the trip won't have been a waste."
"If you're going, take your uncle's advice and find a team."
At that, Chu Yunyi grew curious. "A team?"
"Right. You have to go in a group for this kind of thing."
"If you don't have anywhere to go, the Wild Dog House should be here soon, judging by the time. They love bringing new people along, and they're decent folks."
Chu Yunyi took their advice to heart and waited quietly for the Wild Dog House to arrive.
Suddenly,
the metal doors of the bar were shoved open again, with a loud bang.
"Hey, hey, hey! Get me a serving of syrup toast, old man! I never want to eat liquid nutrient meals again!"
"Quit yelling. Keep it down."
"One Bavarois, with eighty percent sugar."
"I want crème caramel."
Five people came in, all dressed differently.
The man in front was tall, his cybernetic augmentations mostly black. But his mechanical arms stood out even more; each one was nearly half his height.
Another was a guy with curly hair—the one who'd shouted the loudest.
He looked normal otherwise, but the augmentations on his hands were obvious. They looked like articulated, interlocking structures.
There was also a short, thin man who stood out the most.
Both his legs were cybernetic, mechanical limbs connected to a mechanical spine along his back. It was a terrifying sight.
Last came a stocky, honest-looking man and a young woman.
The stocky man's augmentations were fairly basic, but he'd still had quite a bit of work done. He carried a huge backpack, making him look like a pack moose.
At first glance, the young woman looked ordinary, but metal wire sealed several of her joints. It seemed her entire body's skin had been replaced with cybernetic material.
Looking at the group, Chu Yunyi pondered.
Was this the Wild Dog House everyone had mentioned?
He wondered
how much stronger these so-called cybernetic augmentations made them than ordinary humans.
But Chu Yunyi knew one thing.
Since he'd made his request to the Void Gate, his chance to improve might not come from cybernetic augmentations, but from the seemingly endless mutated creatures outside the city!
As long as he kept killing them, he could keep gaining new abilities!
By then,
if Chu Yunyi could draw an ability like Space Slash, what would he have to fear from Xia Tian?
He'd send Xia Tian's brain into outer space, his torso into lava, and his lower half into the water to feed the fish!
Besides,
the more abilities, the better. Even if they were all passive skills, stacking them together would still take him beyond the limits of ordinary humanity!
Thinking about it,
Chu Yunyi walked right up to the Wild Dog House and explained what he wanted.
To his surprise, nothing went wrong. The people in this bar all seemed friendly—almost unbelievably welcoming.
That sort of thing would've been fine in a peaceful world.
But in a world full of mutated creatures where everyone was capable of fighting, it was truly hard to believe.
It wasn't until he'd spent a while longer in the bar that Chu Yunyi understood.
As it turned out,
it wasn't that there were no conflicts. A whole social class stood between everyone and every source of conflict and division.
The people of the Lower City loathed the Upper City, cursing it ten times a day if they could.
But when it came to their own people in the Lower City, they were willing to help however they could, especially someone like Chu Yunyi, a Native Human.
It was understandable,
but it still felt a little strange.
At one point, Chu Yunyi even started to feel as if he'd become one of the few bad people in this world.
Before you continue