Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 271 - 271 51 Legacy

271: Chapter 51 Legacy 271: Chapter 51 Legacy Yuki carried the little girl on his back, scavenging through piles of garbage.

His limbs had been replaced with Martial Artist Prostheses, and even though his torso hadn’t fully developed, resulting in some incongruity, he still possessed a certain degree of deterrent power.

Ordinary scavengers would not trouble him.

At the same time, since he still retained a considerable part of his flesh, he wasn’t seen as a Jianghu Hero, and the government’s Houndhawks didn’t spare him a second glance.

Not to mention he was carrying a child with him.

That was one of the most common sights of this era.

He had always made a living by scavenging in Recycling Station Town.

This was work he was accustomed to.

However, this garbage dump was about to transform into a residential area.

The local residents had sifted through the scrap metal like a comb, time and again.

There weren’t many items of real recyclable value left.

Fortunately, there were still some resources left on Xiang Shan’s side.

Those alloys that the refugees were unable to process could sometimes be dealt with by Xiang Shan.

Yuki had also learned some skills in identifying materials, so he still managed to find some worthwhile items.

At least these pieces of metal plates, after being crushed and recast, could be turned into Iron Dust.

Most of the hard-to-recycle alloys could be processed this way.

Since he was not fully cybernetically enhanced, Yuki was still limited in the weight he could carry.

He weighed it, only a few dozen kilograms, which was quite good by his standards.

The young hero, with his findings and leading a little girl, started making his way back.

The layout of Domingo City was a lot more chaotic than that of Pine Eagle City and was even worse than Recycling Station Town.

Yuki only knew of these two places.

The garbage heap community barely had any straight roads longer than five meters, paths meandering every which way.

Yuki returned to the “Mule” and knocked on the door several times as agreed.

Yuan Wenren was surfing the net.

Hearing the noise, she immediately grabbed her gun and opened the door.

Seeing it was Yuki, the Jianghu Hero put down her gun.

Yuki set down his findings, took a bottle of Copper Candy to drink, and then handed a small piece of Protein Gel to the little one.

Yuan Wenren and Xiang Shan, being fully cyberized, had very little need for these things.

These supplies were prepared for the two of them.

Yuki drank most of the bottle, then handed the rest to the little one.

The child who had recently acquired a complete oral cavity was struggling with the gel in her mouth.

Though she had no sense of taste, she was utterly fascinated with the sensation of “chewing.”

Yuan Wenren said, “Good work.”

Yuki wiped his mouth, “It’s nothing, this is all I can do for now.”

Yuan Wenren pulled over the metal frame that Yuki had been carrying and checked the alloys inside: “This piece is still good…

There are one or two usable ones.

The majority can only be turned to Iron Dust.

Oh, by the way, little brother, our senior has just woken up.”

Yuki, who had been holding a simple computer, intending to practice his Internal Strength Cultivation, was overjoyed at this news, and tossed the computer aside heedlessly: “Master has woken up.”

Yuan Wenren deftly caught the simple computer and looked at Yuki, “It wasn’t a serious injury to begin with, right?

Don’t you think your reaction is a bit excessive?”

Yuki shrank his neck a little.

He was actually quite worried about his master.

He wasn’t afraid that his master would die, but rather that his master would suddenly sleep for many years.

Yuki believed firmly that the one he had unearthed was “Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan,” an old monster who had been in slumber for two hundred years.

Think about it, sleeping for two hundred years, so it’s only reasonable to sleep for ten years to heal!

“Sister Yuan, what is master doing now?

Can I visit him?”

“The senior said he had a head injury and needs to rest peacefully, so he’s not doing anything right now.

It would be good for you to go and see him.”

Yuki immediately leaped out of the “Mule” and went up to the “Mule.”

Xiang Shan was sitting cross-legged on the ground, facing a box in the corner.

His hands were casually spread out, with a USB stick plugged into one wrist.

Yuki closed the door and then suppressed his excitement, calling out softly, “Master!”

Xiang Shan turned around slowly.

Yuki, having spent a long time with Xiang Shan, knew that his master had once again fallen into a mode of reflection and depression, so he asked, “Master, are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine…” Seeing it was Yuki, Xiang Shan pulled out the junk data from his hand, “I have a head injury, and although it’s not serious, I need to stop and sort out my Internal Strength Cultivation.” He lifted a hand and pointed at the box: “Waiting for these microbes to ferment.”

That box had a constant-temperature case on top, with several transparent culture dishes inside, and a fermentation tank below.

It was a rudimentary setup.

Xiang Shan could estimate the state of the microbial community in the fermentation tank based on the growth rate of the colonies in the culture dishes above.

Before Jader and Xiang Shan broke into the encirclement, Xiang Shan had left the design drawings in the 3D printer.

Now that there was an isotope battery in the vehicle, the energy supply, while not abundant, at least wasn’t going to run out.

During the time that Yuan Wenren was waiting for Tao Enhai, the 3D printer had been working on this.

The selection cultures in the dishes were initiated to prevent a crash.

The spores preserved within artificial amber sprang back to life in the culture dishes.

There were too many versions of the Jade Cauldron Fungus, so Xiang Shan was not sure about the specific parameters of the version in the piece of amber he had, and did not know the exact optimal growth conditions, making it difficult to perform meticulous selective culturing.

But just then, he thought of something very important—the version of Jade Cauldron Fungus he had actually was not that fearful of contamination.

Horizontal gene transfer at the level of microbial genetics doesn’t even require a “virus” as a medium.

Many microbes inherently have this ability, and this trait of the Jade Cauldron Fungus magnified this characteristic once again.

Even if a small number of other bacteria were mixed in, those bacteria would mostly be infused with a large amount of Jade Cauldron Fungus genetics, then either obediently metabolize the Restoring Enzyme or their life systems would bug out and directly die.

Earth’s native bacteria basically couldn’t escape this fate.

In the Old Era, the technique of using a complete set of gene toolkits to modulate microorganisms for drug production was called… the Yawill Extraction Method.

Xiang Shan had just remembered this.

This technology had almost reduced the cost of drug production to a “negligible” level.

Most drugs could be obtained in exchange for carbohydrates and inorganic salts, and the environmental requirements had been lowered to a considerable extent.

Carbohydrate substances… After the centralization of agriculture, such substances were somewhat in surplus in developed regions.

This was a technology of countless living people.

Unless there was “contamination by non-Earth native bacteria”—meaning modified biochemical weapons—Xiang Shan basically didn’t need to worry about contamination.

However, in this era itself, there was hardly any microorganisms surviving, so those specifically designed for contamination, biochemical weapons with optimal growth conditions very close to that of Jade Cauldron Fungus, naturally found it quite difficult to survive in the wild.

Moreover, Xiang Shan’s vessels were used immediately after printing, and almost no bacteria could survive the laser melting the glass, so judging from the colony’s appearance, the mycelium in Xiang Shan’s petri dishes was still very pure.

And these pure colonies were then transferred into fermentation tanks for mass production.

At the same time, Xiang Shan also made another batch of petri dishes.

“It’s a pity those Heroes left while I was still unconscious.

Otherwise, I would have definitely had those people take some Jade Cauldron Fungus spores with them,” Xiang Shan murmured, continuing to watch the fermentation tanks in front of him.

“Master, can that ‘Restoring Enzyme’ be used soon?” Yuki sat down next to Xiang Shan, her tone tinged with eagerness.

“Even if it’s ready, it’s not for you to use.

The realm of command, the Linguistic Realm, doesn’t need this stuff,” Xiang Shan pushed her away a bit: “Focus on practicing your basic moves…

Ugh, headache.”

As he spoke, Xiang Shan once again inserted junk data into his data port.

He was truly in pain and relied on those junk data to alleviate it.

Of course, at the same time, his mood was genuinely terrible.

Although he had recovered more memories… To be precise, “Xiang Shan’s history” had been pieced together more and more completely, he couldn’t feel happy about it at all.

Moreover, the message Yuan Wenren had left him was indeed making him agitated.

Yuki pressed on with a few questions, but Xiang Shan didn’t explain and instead asked about Yuki’s progress.

A bit later, Yuki returned to ‘Mule’ with a USB drive full of exercises.

The youth sank into deep contemplation.

Yuan Wenren asked, “How is the senior doing now?”

Yuki shook her head and said, “Sister Wen, it seems Master is really unhappy right now.

Even though we managed to save Great Hero Tao.”

“Concussion, it might affect his mood,” Yuan Wenren said.

“But the senior’s spirits are indeed low right now.

Earlier, the Underground Pixiu fellow told me that the place where the Eighth Martial God met his end is not far from here, and if we have free time, we can go search for the legend of that senior.

It seems he doesn’t want to stir at all…”

Yuan Wenren didn’t know about the relationship between “this senior” and “Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan.” The Heroes who had made it out of the encirclement alive hadn’t told her about the unusual performance between the Nameless Hero and Tao Enhai.

She just took it as some kind of introduction to “the local customs and culture” of this place.

Yuki fell into thought again: “The legend of the Eighth Martial God… What is it?”

“Ah, before his sacrifice, the Eighth Martial God said that one day, someone would inherit my mantle and so on,” Yuan Wenren said.

“Some say he left some kind of secret treasure around here, but few believe it.

Heroes, even if they have a legacy or backup, exist in the cloud of the blockchain.

Besides, the Eighth Martial God himself was killed by the ‘Divine King of the Firewall’ before his skills could mature.

If you really want to search for the legacy of a Martial God, other Martial Gods would likely be better targets—probably, just my guess.

In reality, ‘searching for the legend of the Eighth Martial God’ in the Jianghu is just another way of saying ‘paying respect to the Eighth Martial God.'”

Yuki sighed.

He probably understood part of why Xiang Shan was so irritable.

He knew Xiang Shan’s attitude towards the Martial Gods.

His master didn’t like the existence known as “Martial Gods.” Asking him to pay respects to a Martial God would probably be harder than killing him.

Even if he himself might have been a Martial God at some point.