The moment Wang Yiyang learned that the two Avengers owed their combat prowess to their mechanized suits, he set his sights on them.
They could turn two teenagers into powerful Avengers in one fell swoop.
The power of those mechanized suits spoke for itself.
And the Yanhu Sect was an organization with extremely complicated roots, whose influence even reached as far as outer space.
There was a good chance they could get their hands on mechanized suits, so he asked outright.
"Mechanized suits?" Meat Arhat Peijia's expression immediately stiffened.
"Those aren't something you can buy just by having money..." he said meaningfully. "Besides, I don't have any suits here. I do have a few component modules, but they're all low-grade.
"You know how it is these days. Module Makers are in high demand. Unless they've gotten into serious trouble, why would they hide out in our Yanhu Sect?"
"Module Makers..." Wang Yiyang had never heard of that profession. The information and memories he'd inherited had given him only a rough outline, without much detail.
So he wasn't familiar with a lot of things.
But judging by the name alone, it was clear that Module Makers made mechanized modules.
"What low-grade modules do you have? I need a few for both offense and defense. What would they cost?" Wang Yiyang thought for a moment, then asked.
"They're a little pricey. The local Yanhu Sect doesn't have a Module Maker, so we have to contact the Module Makers at our headquarters on a neighboring planet. The communications and shipping fees for the round trip add up..." Peijia's eyes crinkled with a smile.
Whenever a customer came along, he was in a very good mood.
Especially when it was a big deal.
"What if I wanted something on the level of the Avengers' suits? How much would that cost?" Wang Yiyang asked suddenly.
He was certain that the Yanhu Sect knew about the predicament he was facing, and that they knew of the Avengers' impressive record.
So he didn't beat around the bush. He asked outright.
"This much." Peijia held up five fingers and chuckled.
"Five hundred million?" Wang Yiyang's expression shifted slightly.
"Five billion," Peijia corrected him.
"...I'll stick to the component modules, then... Could you give me a list? Which modules can be custom-made?" Wang Yiyang's face twitched as he asked.
"Of course. I love doing business with straightforward people like Minister Wang." Peijia waved a hand, and a seductive female attendant stepped forward. She carefully set the tray in her hands down in front of Wang Yiyang.
A glowing electronic tablet rested on the tray.
Wang Yiyang picked it up and turned on the screen. There were only a few options listed.
"White Light No. 139: ranged attack module."
"Four-Winged Bird Gen 3: force-field defense shield module."
"Basic Ejection: mobility module."
"Basic Bulletproof: defense module."
"Basic Pacemaker: enhancement module."
Wang Yiyang looked at the prices beside them. Even the cheapest one cost more than ten million...
He'd had a little over two hundred million in savings to begin with. After spending heavily over and over, he had only a little more than forty million left in his account.
He could claim a lot of expenses through the company, but that had been before. Xiwan, the new chairman of the Board of Directors, certainly wouldn't approve his reimbursements so easily now.
"What do you think?" Peijia asked with a smile.
"...There's so little to choose from... It's pointless." Wang Yiyang did his best to keep his face from twitching, then set the tablet down as if nothing were wrong.
"Forget it. Tell me how much support you can offer." He pressed on.
He didn't know how many disabled Limit Martial Artists the Yanhu Sect had. Using Source Silver's Bio-Mechanization technology, they could repair the bodies of those martial artists, or even other important personnel.
And Source Silver wasn't expensive. It only cost a few tens of thousands to prepare a large batch.
That meant Wang Yiyang would have a steady source of income.
Peijia had clearly thought of that, too.
He considered it for a moment.
"I can't speak for the rest of the Yanhu Sect, but for my own subordinates, how about charging the going rate for repairing organs and limbs?"
"Sure." Wang Yiyang nodded. At the going rate, replacing a hand cost around three million, even at an ordinary hospital.
For three million, they'd quickly recover to a condition better than before. No matter how you looked at it, the Yanhu Sect came out ahead. And that didn't even include the cost of follow-up maintenance.
Of course, Wang Yiyang didn't care about that expense. If they had no money, they could pay with their lives. Ten years of service to him would earn them one disability-repair surgery.
After all, Sect Master Peijia was only willing to pay for his own direct forces. He wouldn't cover anyone else. Wang Yiyang could always make loyalty to him a condition when negotiating with other talented people.
The Yanhu Sect was a vast, loosely organized group. Joining it didn't mean you had to obey Peijia.
Many talented people could join or leave whenever they wanted. It was little more than a platform akin to a chaotic black market.
After discussing the details with Peijia, Wang Yiyang left the Yanhu Sect, satisfied, about half an hour later.
The Black Tooth Tiger Squad Peijia had assigned to him left with him.
The Black Tooth Tiger Squad had thirty members, half martial artists and half other elite professionals.
Among them were even long-range snipers, demolition experts, defense-system designers, hackers, and codebreakers.
They covered nearly every field of security. They were the strongest protective squad under Peijia.
With the Black Tooth Tiger Squad guarding him, Wang Yiyang had gained another layer of protection.
He'd also achieved the immediate goal of his trip.
Although he hadn't bought many modules during this visit to the Yanhu Sect, he had bought a large number of ordinary mechanical components and various implantable devices that fell short of being modules.
Since these weren't modular, implanting them in a human body meant poor compatibility. The machinery remained machinery, and the person remained a person, making them difficult to control.
At best, they were like external attachments.
But Wang Yiyang had Source Silver. He wanted to see what would happen if he used it to fleshify these ordinary implanted devices.
While Wang Yiyang was busy increasing his own strength,
the two Avengers, Kong Ping and Gu Fu, were picking up their other two companions from the outskirts.
The Avengers weren't just the two of them.
There were four Avengers in total.
But the other two hadn't had suits implanted. They had other modules implanted instead, and were specialists in different fields.
So although the two additional members were weak in combat, they were far more helpful to Kong Ping and Gu Fu than anyone else could be.
Screech.
Gu Fu slammed on the brakes, bringing the beat-up secondhand van to a stop in front of the new residential complex Wang Yiyang had arranged for them.
"We're here. Everyone, get out. This is our new place for the time being."
He turned to the three people behind him and grinned.
"We're staying here?! Gu Fu, you're not joking, are you?" The two boys in the back looked doubtful as they gazed out the windows at row after row of detached villas.
Look at the guards at the gate. Look at the luxury cars coming and going. Look at those beautiful white villas inside.
The three poor boys in the van fell silent.
"I... I don't know either, but this is the address on my phone... It's right." Gu Fu let out an awkward laugh.
"How much does it cost per day? We barely have any money left. Can we afford to stay here?" one of the companions in the back asked quietly.
Apart from Kong Ping, the other two companions were He Yuntao and Han Feng. They were both survivors who had climbed out of that Abyss with them.
They'd endured all kinds of hardship along the way. They'd once stayed outdoors to avoid paying a few hundred yuan for a room, and washed dishes for an eighty-yuan fried chicken meal.
They'd had neither the time nor the energy to work regular jobs for long, not with revenge on their minds. They could only stay in the worst inns, and because they had no identification, they'd been forced to work under the table for low wages.
But now...
"I'm not sure... but they said earlier that it wouldn't cost anything..." Gu Fu was a little nervous, too.
He and Kong Ping got out of the van with their two companions. Someone was already waiting for them at the entrance to the villa complex.
Two soldiers under Jian's command had changed into civilian clothes and came over to greet them.
"Mr. Gu? You're finally here. The rooms have all been cleaned and are ready for you to move in. We've also stocked all the daily necessities," a man with a small mustache said with a smile.
"Um... did Minister Wang arrange all this?" Gu Fu asked in a lowered voice.
Compared with the residents coming and going, the clothes they wore stood out all the more.
The jackets they hadn't thought much of before looked shabby and dirty by comparison.
If it had only been the glances of other men, they wouldn't have minded. But the disdainful looks from so many pretty young women made the four innocent boys blush.
"Yes. Villa No. 11 has been set aside for you. We can also arrange for a mechanic to come by and maintain your suit modules," the man with the small mustache explained with a smile.
"Um... show us the way first." Gu Fu glanced at the silent Kong Ping and spoke up.
"Of course. Follow me." The man led the four through a small gate on the right and registered their fingerprints one by one. After entering and turning left, they didn't have to walk far before reaching the villa assigned to them.
The man with the small mustache didn't linger. Once he'd shown them the way, he turned to leave.
"Wait a moment. Could you help us buy some energy blocks?" Gu Fu called out quickly when he saw him leaving.
The man with the small mustache smiled.
"How many do you need?"
"Um... twelve Third-Grade Energy Blocks. Three for each of us!" Gu Fu calculated how much of the fifty thousand yuan they had left, then gritted his teeth.
Mechanized suits required a great deal of energy, so they avoided using their modules unless they had to.
The weakest energy blocks they could use were Third-Grade, and they were quite expensive.
That was why they'd been scrimping and saving all the way here, hoping to spend most of their funds on keeping their suits powered.
"Third-Grade Energy Blocks? Please wait a moment." The man nodded and quickly left.
The four entered with the keys he'd left behind. As soon as they stepped inside, He Yuntao let out a gasp.
"Wow, it's huge!" Standing in the doorway, he could see that the first floor alone was at least three hundred square meters.
This place didn't look like a home. It looked more like a small exhibition hall. All kinds of oil paintings and ink paintings hung on the walls.
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