Chapter 3: This thing is impossible to cut!

Excruciating pain! Unspeakable, excruciating pain!

Lin Yuan felt as if his head was about to explode, gold stars dancing before his eyes, and his ears filled with a buzzing sound.

He curled up on the ground, clutching his head tightly with both hands, his body twitching uncontrollably.

Is this mental backlash?

It hurts like hell!

Just now in the Cosmic Graveyard, the drone was caught in the gravitational field of a Void Devourer. Although it managed to escape, the body sustained damage, and that damage was fed back 100% to his mind.

He felt as if someone had hammered his temples hundreds of times; it hurt so much he couldn't even scream.

Cold sweat soaked his undershirt instantly. He lay on the cold concrete floor, gasping for air, feeling as if he might pass out at any moment.

"Damn it... barely... made it back..."

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to lose consciousness. He knew that if he fainted now, he might never wake up.

After several minutes, the tearing pain slowly receded, turning into a dull, persistent headache, like meat being cut with a blunt knife.

Lin Yuan wobbly climbed up from the ground, leaning against a pile of old tires to steady himself.

He felt as if he hadn't slept for three days and nights and had just run a marathon; he was completely drained, his spirit withered to the extreme.

He subconsciously looked at the system interface in his mind.

【 host: Lin Yuan 】

【 Mental Strength: 8 】

【 Status: Severe Mental Backlash (Recovering) 】

【 Salvage Drone - "scavenger no. 1" 】

【 Status: Severely Damaged (Repair requires 100 energy points) 】

【 Energy Reserves: 5 / 100 】

Seeing this status, Lin Yuan felt a lingering fear.

Only 5 points of energy left! The drone was severely damaged!

If he had been even a tenth of a second slower, the drone would have been completely destroyed, and he would probably be a brain-dead vegetable by now.

"This business... the risk is fucking huge." Lin Yuan cursed with lingering fear.

Before, he only thought about getting rich, but now he truly understood what "death risk" in the system prompt meant. That thing was no joke.

The Void Devourer... that thing was the embodiment of a nightmare.

He shook his dizzy head, trying hard to drive that terrifying shadow out of his mind, and then his gaze fell in front of him.

Right where he had collapsed, a half-meter square, pitch-black metal plate was lying there quietly.

Its surface was smooth as a mirror but reflected no light, as if it could absorb all the surrounding light.

The strange, flowing patterns on it appeared even more mysterious under the light of the real world.

"Salvaged... it back?"

Lin Yuan's breathing became rapid, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

He stepped forward, carefully reaching out to touch the metal plate.

It felt cold to the touch, the texture extremely delicate, unlike any metal he knew.

He tried knocking on it, and it made a dull "thud, thud" sound; the sound was solid, indicating high density.

He tried to move it.

"Hey!"

Lin Yuan used all his strength, only managing to lift one corner.

"Damn, so heavy?"

He estimated this thing was only half a square meter and palm-thick; logically, even if it were solid steel, it would weigh at most a hundred pounds or so.

But this thing felt like it was at least three hundred pounds! The density was absurd!

His mind immediately brought up the scan results from the system.

【 Unknown Alloy Armor (Fragment) 】

【 Structural Integrity: Extremely High 】

【 Suspected outer armor of a "God's Oracle" level interstellar predator ship... 】

Lin Yuan's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He was going to be rich! This time he was really going to be rich!

He suppressed his inner ecstasy, forcing himself to calm down. Now was not the time to be happy; he had to verify how tough this thing actually was.

He looked around, his gaze falling on the plasma cutting gun lying on the ground.

That was the top-tier "gear" in his scrapyard, an imported item that cost him nearly twenty thousand.

It could cut through twenty-centimeter-thick special steel plates like tofu. He didn't believe this thing could be harder than his bread and butter.

Lin Yuan picked up the cutting gun and restarted it.

"Hum—"

The blue-white arc lit up again, carrying a temperature of over ten thousand degrees.

He took a deep breath, put on his goggles, and aimed the nozzle of the cutting gun at the edge of the black armor plate.

"Zzzzz—"

The harsh sound rang out, and the high-temperature arc instantly slammed into the armor plate.

However, a scene that left Lin Yuan dumbfounded occurred.

The plasma arc, which was enough to melt steel, didn't even spark when it touched the black armor plate, as if it had disappeared into a bottomless pit!

The surface of the armor plate didn't even change color; it remained that deep, black color that seemed to devour everything.

"How is this possible?!"

Lin Yuan was stunned.

He increased the power, turning the energy output of the cutting gun to the maximum.

"Hum hum hum—!"

The cutting gun roared under the strain, and the arc at the front of the nozzle became thicker and more dazzling.

He pressed the cutting gun down hard, continuously cutting at the same spot.

One second.

Two seconds.

Ten seconds.

"Bang!"

A muffled sound—not the armor plate being cut, but his plasma cutting gun, due to long-term overload, had its internal components burn out, emitting a puff of black smoke and completely quitting.

The entire scrapyard fell silent instantly.

Lin Yuan stared blankly at the ruined cutting gun in his hand, then looked at the black armor plate on the ground, which was intact and didn't even show a hint of temperature change.

He stepped forward and touched the spot that had been cut.

Cold.

Not even a hint of warmth.

"I... fuck..."

Lin Yuan's mouth opened wide, the words squeezed out through his teeth.

The principle of his cutting gun was to use high-temperature plasma to gasify metal. Never mind steel, even the most heat-resistant material on Earth—Hafnium Carbide (HfC4Ta4)—with a melting point close to 4000 degrees Celsius, wouldn't last a few seconds in front of this thing.

But this black plate, after being sprayed by ten thousand degrees of heat for ten seconds, didn't even get hot?

This wasn't science fiction anymore; this was theology!

Lin Yuan was completely dumbfounded.

He stood there stunned for a full half-minute, then, like a madman, rushed into the tool room and brought out all his belongings.

Big sledgehammer, hydraulic shears, oxy-acetylene torch, angle grinder...

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

He swung the twelve-pound sledgehammer, using all his strength to smash down on the armor plate.

The result: the hammer bounced high, numbing his hand, while not even a white mark was left on the armor plate.

"Crack—"

He used all his strength, trying to cut off a corner with the largest hydraulic shears. The result: the blade of the hydraulic shears snapped, and the armor plate was still completely fine.

"Hoo—"

The blue flame of the oxy-acetylene torch sprayed on it, equally sinking like a stone, with no reaction.

"Zzzzz—"

He switched to the hardest diamond grinding disc, and the angle grinder spun with sparks flying, but the grinding disc went blunt, and not even a scratch could be seen on the armor plate.

After messing around for over half an hour, Lin Yuan was as tired as a dead dog, collapsing on the ground, looking at the black armor plate lying quietly there, his eyes filled with shock, ecstasy, and a hint of... fear.

He was finally 100% certain.

What he brought back was something that completely exceeded the existing technological level of Earth.

This thing, let alone his small scrapyard, probably even the country's top material laboratories wouldn't be able to do anything about it for a while.