The violent roar kicked up a blast of air. Even from over a hundred meters away, Feng Xue could feel its force. Sand, stones, and dust whipped up by the gale struck his Scavenger Set with a faint patter. He raised an arm to shield his face, carefully watching the direction of the roar as he backed away from the danger zone.
About a hundred and fifty meters from Feng Xue, a young man was laughing wildly. A strange mechanical sleeve covered his right hand, and his whole being radiated an air of arrogance.
"Hahahaha... It's actually a Thor v3 Impact Arm! I'll never have to care what anyone else thinks again!"
He strode forward, shouting arrogantly, heading straight for the garbage dump's outer wall. Arcs of electricity coiled around his arm, splitting into fine streams that flowed over his body in flashes, making him look like the God of Thunder.
"What the hell?" Feng Xue gaped at the young man, who looked as if he'd found some peerless Divine Weapon. For a moment, his mind went blank. This dump really did have everything!
Still, he didn't think the young man could change the Landfill Area's power structure with a mere mechanical arm. No matter how powerful it was, it was only a False Thing. Whether it housed a nuclear reactor or a Perpetual Motion Machine, unless it became a Phantom Object, it could only be activated by burning [Shi].
And a weapon of this power clearly wasn't something that young man could afford to use.
As the roar in the distance gradually faded, Feng Xue shook his head and continued scavenging. He'd seen all sorts of things on the way here, and gained a deeper understanding of this "Trash Dump of All Worlds."
To put it this way, just a moment ago, he'd even seen half of an EVA Entry Plug.
Time passed slowly, and Feng Xue's backpack grew heavier. It held an hourglass with the [Time] Element, a nebulizer with the [Mist] Element, and even a silver fork, probably from some fantasy world, with the [Restrain Undead] Element.
But feeling the weight of the pack on his back, Feng Xue began to worry. He suddenly realized he might not have enough money to buy everything.
If he activated his Golden Finger right there in the dump and Smelted the items with special [Elements], he could save a great deal of money. But there were too many people around, and almost no cover to hide behind. Using his Golden Finger might attract attention.
After weighing his options, Feng Xue reluctantly sorted through the items in his backpack, dividing them into three groups: "must-have," "can give up," and "could try for if I have the money." Only then did he turn and head for the entrance.
He had a bit of a hoarding problem. If he kept looking around, he was worried he wouldn't be able to make himself leave.
"There'll be plenty of chances!" Feng Xue told himself, walking toward the distant wall while looking back every few steps. Notably, he thought he saw the young man who'd looked like the God of Thunder getting beaten up by a crowd of bystanders?
It was just past twelve. Only three hours had passed since the dump officially opened, and most people were still doing their best to search for more valuable items. As a result, most of the appraisal windows were unoccupied.
In Feng Xue's Tag-vision, every appraiser at the windows had the occupation [Appraiser], but only one or two of them had condensed the [Appraiser] Tag.
Feng Xue chose a middle-aged appraiser with no Tag and hurried over, dumping everything from his backpack onto the appraisal counter.
His main reason for choosing someone without a Tag was to avoid having an overly professional appraiser figure out something from the items he'd picked. After all, the [Appraiser] Tag sounded like the special Tag Old Li had mentioned—the one that let its holder see Elements.
The middle-aged man seated at the counter saw a customer and flexed his fingers. He began picking up Feng Xue's salvaged items one by one, calling out a price for each. Beside him, his assistant stuck price tags on the corresponding items.
They weren't especially quick, but they were careful and practiced. Once the last item had been appraised—the Ghillie Suit, folded up and stuffed at the bottom of the backpack, valued at 50 Tower Coins—the assistant finished calculating the total.
"The total value is 84,700 Tower Coins. You can exchange them for 8,470 Tower Coins, or pay 1.5 times the quoted price in [Shi] to buy the corresponding items."
"Just as I thought, it's quite a bit over." Feng Xue checked his savings of twenty thousand Tower Coins. Following the priorities he'd already decided on, he set aside the hourglass, nebulizer, and Ghillie Suit first, then picked a few weapons with lower quoted prices.
"You've selected items worth 13,200 Tower Coins. At the 1.5-times markup, after deducting the price of the items you're leaving behind, you still need to pay 12,650 Tower Coins." The assistant tapped on a calculator and gave him the figure. Feng Xue nodded, pulled out his work badge, and took out one 10,000-denomination bill, two 2,000-denomination bills, six 100-value coins, and one 50-value coin. He set them all on the table.
Seeing Feng Xue take out his work badge, the wary staff member relaxed. After counting the Tower Coins and confirming they were correct, he handed Feng Xue the selected items along with a receipt, then sent the rest to the warehouse.
Carrying a bag of miscellaneous items, Feng Xue passed through the armed checkpoint and finally stepped out of the dump. He let out a long breath of relief. At least the thing he'd feared—that they'd accuse him of stealing, arrest him, and execute him—hadn't happened.
Of course, he might have been worrying over nothing. A little over ten thousand Tower Coins could be worth half a year of life to an ordinary pauper, but to the people in charge, it wasn't a figure worth paying attention to.
Whatever anyone else thought, Feng Xue felt like a kid whose new game console had finally arrived. He didn't even change clothes. He stuffed the Assassin Set into his backpack, then ran all the way home in his Scavenger Set. There, he dumped everything he'd found onto the table and, following the plan he'd made earlier, paired off the items.
The first things he took out were an hourglass and a road sign bearing a prohibition symbol.
With a mischievous grin, Feng Xue opened his Golden Finger panel and selected the Smelt button.
"Smelting this item will cost 5 Tower Coins. Confirm?"
At his confirmation, the hourglass quickly broke down and disappeared. A line of text appeared in its place—
[Smelting successful. You obtained the [Time] Element.]
"Awesome!" Feng Xue let out the breath he'd been holding, suddenly overcome with joy. He hadn't Smelted [Shi], but who cared, with the [Time] Element in hand!
"Let's keep this going! Next!"
[Smelting successful. You obtained the [Stop] Element.]
"Wahahahahahaha..."
Regarding Element weapons, False Things may have Elements, but they can't use their special abilities—unless the target is a Phantom Object, Weird Tale, or Omen.
For example, a False Thing spear with the [Ignore Defense] Element can't pierce an ordinary shield, but it can pierce a Phantom Object shield.
But that's because Phantom Objects have the property of being "defeated by [Ignore Defense]," not because the [Ignore Defense] Element activates and breaks through the defense.
In short, False Things and True Things still follow the normal laws of physics. Elements only come into play when Phantom Objects are involved.
Before you continue