Work Prophet
Chapter 150 - 66: Gaming Sunglasses and the Eco-friendly Frog

Chapter 150: Chapter 66: Gaming Sunglasses and the Eco-friendly Frog

Li Yu followed Hephaestus to the Equipment Department, which was probably the most chaotic place in the entire company.

The floor, the corners, and even the ceiling were cluttered with all sorts of messy items, along with a variety of gadgets and equipment, most of which had been modified.

Li Yu had heard from Xu Mengyuan that the Equipment Department had two BSL-4 level biological laboratories, a top-notch physics laboratory, and two comprehensive laboratories, located in North America, Iceland, and Saudi Arabia, among other places.

If Hephaestus and his team ever had significant experiments to conduct, they would generally be carried out at those locations, while this place was primarily used for office work.

However, since Li Yu had been at the Third Era for quite some time, he had never seen Hephaestus go on a business trip, so he guessed they must have some unconventional means of transportation.

The Equipment Department was also Xu Mengyuan’s least favorite place to go. She had requested Hephaestus and the others more than a dozen times to clean up the place, to at least clear a pathway that regular people could walk through.

Every time, Hephaestus agreed very readily, but the Equipment Department never seemed to take action.

When pressed, they would come up with excuses like chaos being a form of beauty, and that too neat a space would disturb inspiration.

By now, Xu Mengyuan had essentially given up trying to convince these guys.

Hephaestus’s own workstation naturally adhered to his usual aesthetic style, so chaotic that if a cell phone were placed on it, one probably wouldn’t find it within fifteen minutes.

His desk was equipped with a top-of-the-line 3090 gaming computer plus two high-refresh-rate 4k monitors, along with some literature and reference books on physics and mathematics, documents marked with various dates, no less than ten external hard drives, a large collection of game and anime figures, water bottles, takeout, and various other trinkets.

Li Yu took a quick glance; the guy wasn’t lying—the figures included half consisting of furries, and the most outrageous was a wearable bunny suit that was more than life-size.

As Hephaestus rummaged through boxes and drawers for the prize he was to give Li Yu, he cautioned, "Don’t touch that bunny suit. The person who made it clearly confused some important concepts. Anyone who wears it has to eat grass every day for a week... It was a complete disaster."

Hephaestus searched for a good while, muttering, "Strange, it was here just last night. Could it have walked away? Never mind, I’ll give you something else first."

The handsome half-blood lay on the floor, rifling through the drawers, and finally, beneath a pile of game cartridges, he unearthed a sunglasses case.

"Found it—the ’Gaming Sunglasses’. Try them on to find out the effects for yourself."

Li Yu took the sunglasses case, noting the Ray-Ban logo on it, and upon opening it, he found a pair of the classic Ray-Ban Aviator series.

Not a bad style.

After putting on the sunglasses, Li Yu noticed the world instantly changed.

Taking Hephaestus in front of him as an example, the name of the handsome half-blood appeared above his head: Hephaestus (lv4), and below his name, a red health bar.

Li Yu was surprised, "Can these sunglasses show a person’s strength and health?"

"No," Hephaestus answered succinctly, "They simply make the world appear game-like, not actually turning the world into a game... You can see the level displayed above my head, right? But that’s not really my strength, it’s just what you think my strength is. The ’Gaming Sunglasses’ simply show it in a gamified way, that’s all."

"The health bar works the same way. If you think some creature is tough to handle, its health bar will appear really long, but if you actually hit its weak spot or something, you can still drain its health to zero in an instant."

"This thing is... well, it’s kind of a white elephant. When we developed it, we thought, if a talented gamer who is afraid of interacting with anyone but NPCs joins the business department, they could put on these sunglasses and become a gaming expert again."

"So, has the company never managed to recruit any gaming experts?" Li Yu asked.

"Not exactly, but the guy who heard about these sunglasses felt that it was deadly serious for the system to provide misleading information that didn’t reflect reality, so he refused to buy them. We had them listed in the official store for a year and nobody showed any interest." The handsome mixed-race guy scratched his head, "So we ended up just using them for a lottery draw."

"However, the gaming features aren’t entirely useless." Hephaestus paused, then added, "For instance, there’s a mini-map function. Places you’ve been are recorded and turned into a mini-map, which can be brought up and used for one-click navigation."

"A navigation function?"

"Pretty much, but that’s not all." The handsome mixed-race guy said as he walked behind the desk and crouched down, "Now you can’t see me, right?"

"Mhm."

"But you can still see the name above my head, right?"

"......"

"The position of this name display is fixed. That means if someone is hiding somewhere and isn’t crouched down low enough, you could possibly see the name and level above their head. This could to some extent prevent ambushes.

"As for other small features, I’ll leave them for you to explore. This thing may be a bit of a white elephant, but there’s a reason it was rated 2 stars."

Hephaestus’s mind was clearly not on the "Gaming Sunglasses"; although he patiently explained their functions to Li Yu, his eyes occasionally glanced under his own desk.

As if sensing its master’s call, a mouse suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and lying on the mouse was a small green frog.

By its appearance, it should be a tree frog, with big eyes, green skin, and suction cups on its toes, and it began to croak the moment it arrived.

"Ah, Xiao Lu’s back!" The handsome mixed-race guy’s face lit up with joy, "Let’s see what trash you’ve brought back for daddy, tsk tsk, it’s a mouse, a Double Flying Swallow one at that. The model’s a bit old, but it works just fine."

Hephaestus stroked Xiao Wa’s head, picked up the mouse, plugged it into his computer, and moved it around a bit; he clicked the left and right buttons, and everything seemed fine.

The handsome mixed-race guy then turned to Li Yu and said, "This is the ’Eco-friendly Frog.’ Once you become its master, you can specify an area as its territory, build it a little nest, and as long as you prepare food and water each day, after it has eaten, it will go to the designated area to find discarded trash."

"Sure, it’s trash, but it tends to bring back the good stuff. Most are still usable. During our tests, it’s found iPads, kitchen knives, even motorcycles nobody wanted, and it’s also picked up cardboard boxes, cans, and the like... It’s mostly about luck.

"The important thing is, this little frog can move between different universes! You kept asking me if there was any equipment that could increase the weight of items you can carry when you arrive, and I told you there was, but those things are too expensive, not something you can afford right now.

"However, now you can try your luck with the ’Eco-friendly Frog.’ You can set its territory to our universe, then build it a little nest on the other side, and every day it can bring things from here to there for you. It’s just trash, but with a bit of luck, it could even bring you an abandoned nuclear warhead."