Aren't these just the Douluo Continent's external soul bones?

With the confidence of landing her first headshot, plus the beginner protection granted by the system, Ning Rongrong completely let herself loose.

With Lin Ye coaching from the sidelines, the pampered little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect somehow turned a stealth rescue mission into a berserker rampage.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Hahaha! Die, you ugly bastards! That's what you get for hitting me with a rifle butt!"

In the dim Scavenger hideout, Ning Rongrong held her Unity kinetic pistol and fired wildly with her eyes shut.

Reloading had gone from an awkward struggle to instinct, though she often forgot to disengage the safety afterward, wasting another two seconds cursing. Still, the Scavengers were terrified of this madwoman firing blind—they didn't know her eyes were closed, only that bullets were pouring toward them like rain.

Eight shots out of ten hit the walls, and of the remaining two, one whizzed past Jackie's ear.

Jackie swore and quietly shuffled two steps to the side.

Under that overwhelming suppressive fire, she and the NPC Jackie managed to wipe out the remaining Scavengers.

When Ning Rongrong pulled their target—the barely breathing girl, Sandra—out of the freezing bathtub, a deafening roar of engines suddenly came from outside.

An enormous armed aero car hovered beyond the balcony, its red and blue warning lights flashing.

Then several fully armed Trauma Team members in heavy green protective suits burst through the window, carrying large-caliber assault rifles.

With rough but efficient movements, they injected Sandra with various unidentified drugs and carried her away on a stretcher. Before leaving, they even pointed their guns at Ning Rongrong and coldly ordered her to stand back.

"Th-these are this world's support-type soul masters?!"

Ning Rongrong stared, dumbfounded, as the aero car flew away.

On the Douluo Continent, support-type soul masters, such as those of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, were usually the most vulnerable members of a team, requiring countless battle soul masters to risk their lives protecting them.

But Night City's "medical team" rode around in a flying steel beast and carried terrifyingly powerful hidden weapons. Their menacing demeanor was even more overbearing than that of power attack system soul masters!

"Support types can do that?" Cracks began to form in Ning Rongrong's worldview.

After completing the mission, Jackie drove Ning Rongrong to a place called Little China.

"V, you're getting pretty busy these days. Come on, I'll take you to see Vik and get you some good stuff." Jackie led her into a dim little clinic hidden in a basement.

Inside, a kindly-looking middle-aged man wearing glasses was tinkering with a pile of precision components.

This was Night City's legendary ripperdoc—Viktor.

"Mr. Lin..."

As Ning Rongrong curiously looked around in the game, she lifted one side of her headphones in the real world and couldn't resist asking, "What does this Vik guy do? Is he a blacksmith? Or does he research soul tools?"

"He's a doctor. A ripperdoc, to be precise."

Leaning against the counter, Lin Ye explained, "In this world, people replace their flesh and blood with machinery in pursuit of greater power. Those mechanical components are called cyberware."

"Replacing flesh and blood with hard chunks of metal? Wouldn't that make them monsters?!" Ning Rongrong shuddered.

But the next development in the game soon delivered a crushing blow to that notion.

Vik motioned for Ning Rongrong to lie down in the operating chair, then took out an eyeball-shaped metal object that glowed blue, its sleek design brimming with technological beauty.

"A Kiroshi optical eye. It lets you scan enemies for weaknesses, zoom in, and display bounty information directly on your retina. For mercs like you who live on the edge, it's a real lifesaver." As Vik spoke, he picked up a scalpel.

"Wait! What's he doing?!"

Watching the mechanical surgical arm draw closer on the screen, Ning Rongrong curled up in terror in the Internet Cafe's gaming chair. "He... he's going to dig out my eye and replace it with that lump of metal?!"

"Relax. It's just a game," Lin Ye reassured her casually.

With a faint sting—the pain having been reduced by the system—Ning Rongrong's vision briefly went dark. Then, as though creation itself had dawned, a whole new world unfolded before her!

Her vision became clearer than ever before.

When she looked at Jackie, a dense stream of data and information actually appeared out of thin air before her eyes!

Not only that, Vik implanted a tiny metal chip called a "personal link interface" beneath the skin of her palm, connecting her nervous system directly to her weapon. The recoil she had felt earlier instantly seemed to drop by well over half.

Ning Rongrong sat dazed in the operating chair, feeling the wondrous changes in her eye and palm as an unprecedented storm raged through her mind.

No need to cultivate!

No need to meditate endlessly to increase my soul power!

Just implant this stuff called "cyberware" into my body, and I can gain incredible abilities far beyond those of ordinary people!

Wait... implanting something inside the body, gaining special abilities, and strengthening yourself... why does that description sound so familiar?!

Ning Rongrong's eyes flew wide.

"Boss!!!"

She tore off the VR headset and rushed to the counter, her voice trembling with excitement. "Th-this stuff called cyberware—isn't it just our Douluo Continent's soul bones?!"

And not merely ordinary soul bones, either. Things implanted directly into the palms and eyes were clearly priceless "external soul bones"!

On the Douluo Continent, even the worst soul bone could drive countless soul masters to fight until blood ran.

The appearance of a head soul bone could even spark a war between the two great empires!

But in Night City?

"You caught on pretty quickly."

Seeing how utterly out of her depth Ning Rongrong looked, Lin Ye smiled faintly. "You can think of them as mechanical soul bones you can buy with money, without having to hunt soul beasts."

"You can buy them... as long as you have money?!"

"And this is only the most basic cyberware."

Lin Ye mercilessly dealt another blow to the Little Demoness's shattered worldview. "In Night City, there's the Sandevistan, which briefly makes you so fast you're practically teleporting. There are Mantis Blades, which extend polymer blades from your arms and slice through iron like butter. Some people even replace over ninety percent of their organs with machinery, turning themselves into walking killing machines."

"As long as you bring enough in-game currency, forget one set of soul bones—even if you wanted ten sets of 'hundred-thousand-year mechanical soul bones,' Vik could install them for you."

Ning Rongrong slumped onto a tall stool in front of the counter, as though all her strength had drained away.

As the little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, she knew exactly what a terrifying upheaval these mechanical soul bones, which let anyone grow stronger simply by spending money, would cause if they appeared on the Douluo Continent.

The exalted status of soul masters would suffer a devastating blow!

Even an ordinary person without any soul power could easily shoot dead a high-level soul master who had cultivated for decades, simply by installing advanced cyberware and picking up one of those "kinetic pistols"!

Times have changed... The absurd thought suddenly popped into Ning Rongrong's head.

The next instant, the wealthy young lady who had originally sneered at the Internet Cafe threw herself against the counter and grabbed Lin Ye's arm, her eyes shining with unprecedented eagerness to please.

"Dear boss! Dear Lin! Since you could create this illusion, does that mean you can bring its 'mechanical soul bones' and that Unity pistol into the real world too?!"

"Name your price! If you'll sell me those things, our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect is willing to pay... ten million gold soul coins! If that's not enough, I'll have my dad empty out the whole sect for you!"

Looking at the Little Demoness clinging to his arm like a koala, her eyes gleaming with greed, Lin Ye calmly pulled his arm free and pointed at the "Internet Cafe Rules" on the wall.

"House rules. All manifested game items must be drawn through luck and skill. None are sold directly."

Ning Rongrong narrowed her eyes slightly.

Having grown up seeing all kinds of rules and inside dealings in her sect, she understood exactly what Lin Ye meant—not that he wouldn't sell them, but that he couldn't sell them openly.

As for how these "draws through luck and skill" worked...

That was something she would coax out of him over time.

Lin Ye paused, then smiled faintly.

"However, as this establishment's only trainee attendant, if you perform well, clean up every day, and serve customers their tea and water on time... perhaps I'll consider applying for a few staff benefits for you."

She was the esteemed little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, the cherished jewel of the world's foremost support sect.

Yet hearing such humiliating demands as "cleaning up" and "serving tea and water," Ning Rongrong didn't get angry at all. Instead, she stood bolt upright.

"Consider it done! Boss, where's the rag? I'll go scrub the floor right now!"