48: Chapter 48, Second Sequence: Geng Metal Secret Marrow!

The wind blew from the depths of the Ash Belt.

It carried the stench of scorched earth and rust.

Shen Qingci did not speak immediately.

The silence itself was already the answer.

"How do you know about Source Metal?"

She sized up Su Ming.

Her gaze shifted from astonishment to scrutiny.

Finally, it settled into a complex silence.

The files on Source Metal cannot be found in the Federation's public system at all.

Not even the top students at the Military University, or even most of the instructors.

Have heard this name in their entire lives.

"Read more books, read more newspapers, eat fewer snacks, and sleep more."

Su Ming shrugged, his tone casual.

"The Federal high school theory textbooks certainly didn't teach it."

"But who let the place where I work part-time be so good?"

He pointed to his own head.

As the theory prodigy who has topped the charts for three consecutive years.

He knew best what was inside that shell.

"The day before yesterday, when I was dismantling a scrapped military special mech at the Scrap Yard."

"I found half a page of a top-secret ordnance appraisal report that hadn't been completely burned in the crevice of the armor lining."

Su Ming stared at the blade in Shen Qingci's hand.

Like he was reciting test questions, he spat out a string of academic terms, word by word.

"Extremely active metallic state Source Energy crystal."

"Accompanied by ultra-high-frequency microscopic oscillation, it possesses terrifying material deconstruction and barrier-breaking capabilities."

"Theoretically, it only exists within the bone marrow cavity of specific Source Beasts."

"Currently, no Awakened can stably extract it from their own talent."

He raised an eyebrow.

"When you instantly killed that exotic beast just now."

"There was an extremely minute air refraction around the blade."

"The visual distortion caused by high-frequency oscillation lasted less than half a second."

"Combined with the morphological characteristics of the golden liquid metal..."

Su Ming spread his hands.

"Is this question really that hard to guess?"

Shen Qingci did not speak.

If it could be said that Su Ming slapped a Tier 3 Beast King into an explosion.

It was relying on unreasonable pure violence;

Then him relying on half a scrap page and one glance at the battlefield.

To accurately reconstruct the technical details of top-secret materials.

This matter made her even more alarmed than before.

She retracted the cold edge back into her finger bones.

"You are quite smart."

She paused.

"However, those old pedants in the top-secret files only know the first part, not the second."

Shen Qingci looked at her own hand.

Her eyes held an absolute pride.

"The outside world calls it Source Metal."

"But here with me, it has its own name."

"It is called [Geng Metal Secret Marrow]."

Su Ming raised an eyebrow: "Secret Marrow?"

"Theoretically, this extremely active substance of Source Metal."

"Once it leaves the body, it will violently vaporize and cannot exist stably at all."

Shen Qingci did not hide it.

Since the other party had recognized it, she didn't mind showing off her true trump card.

"But what if it uses the Awakened's own bone marrow as an incubator and is raised bit by bit through extremely harsh means?"

Su Ming's pupils constricted slightly.

Raising metal in bone marrow?

This is a death-defying technique.

And the "harsh means" that could break the Federation's theoretical barriers.

Could never be provided by the Military University's curriculum system.

He didn't dare to think about who was standing behind this.

"So, this is not an external object at all."

Su Ming smacked his lips, thoughts turning quickly in his head.

"It is your second talent sequence. And... it is specifically used to add buffs to the first sequence."

The corners of Shen Qingci's mouth moved slightly.

Being able to shock this guy.

Was indeed worth being happy about.

Su Ming clapped twice.

Putting the previous shock away.

With an expression of admiration and envy:

"Using bone marrow as a furnace to raise active metal, feeding back into the blade bones."

"Perfectly solving the theoretical problem that Source Metal cannot be stably generated."

"The diversity of talent awakening is truly unreasonable!"

"Being able to make slaughter and amplification form a perfect complementary closed loop."

"God is chasing you to feed you, even shoving it into the back of your head..."

Shen Qingci glanced at him somewhat smugly: "Cheeky! So, are we even?"

"We are even." Su Ming nodded.

"You have your secrets, I have my secrets, keep them to ourselves and let them rot in our stomachs."

"Deal."

Exchanging secrets was also a kind of contract.

When Shen Qingci turned around, a little redness that hadn't faded remained on the tips of her ears.

Swept by the wind of the Ash Belt, it became even more obvious.

The two people and one dog began to clean up the battlefield and organize the spoils.

...

On the other side, deep in the Source Abyss.

"Did you find it?"

Lu Beiyuan's voice was calm, but he was gripping the communicator a bit tightly.

"Speak, who exactly is this Mr. Shen?"

On the other end of the communicator, there was silence for a full three seconds.

The intelligence director finally spoke, his voice sounding wrong.

It was as if he was forcing himself to read a report he couldn't believe himself:

"Lu... Chief Engineer Lu, I found it..."

"Read."

"The superficial information shows—"

"Shen Hongyuan, fifty years old, owner of the Jiangcheng Xinghuo Scrap Processing Plant."

"Main business, recycling second-hand metal and scrapped machinery..."

"A junk collector?"

Lu Beiyuan sneered.

The gaze behind his lenses became increasingly sinister.

"Commander Huangfu Jing is using a junk collector to pressure me?"

"What on earth is Beichen doing to get entangled with such a bottom-feeder?"

"Chief Engineer, please let me finish!"

The intelligence director suddenly raised his voice, his voice cracking.

"I felt something was wrong, so I used your S-level authority."

"Trying to enter the Federation intranet to retrieve the underlying land deeds and personnel change records of the 'Xinghuo Scrap Processing Plant'."

"The result..."

He paused for a moment.

"Your S-level authority was rejected."

The communicator in Lu Beiyuan's hand paused.

He was the youngest Chief Engineer of the Federal Research Institute.

S-level authority.

Enough to access all Federal data except for top-secret ones.

A Scrap Yard in a D-level satellite city rejected his authority?!

"Not only was it rejected..."

The intelligence director's voice began to tremble, and his teeth were chattering.

"The system popped up a red [SSS-level Highest Warning]."

"Just ten seconds ago, the Central AI locked onto my terminal, warning me that I was spying..."

He swallowed his saliva and read out those words, word by word:

"[Federation Extremely Dangerous Target]."

"Chief Engineer... we seem to have... provoked someone we shouldn't have."

Lu Beiyuan's brain went "buzz".

A layer of cold sweat seeped out from his back.

SSS-level warning?

Extremely dangerous target?

A junk collector?

These three pieces of information put together.

No matter how he arranged them in his mind.

He couldn't put together a reasonable answer.

"Beichen... what on earth did Beichen do?"

His voice finally lost its original composure.

Carrying a trace of uncontrollable trembling.

"The Second Young Master... he seems to have... while being a guest..."

"Relying on his talent, he privately hacked into a security robot in Mr. Shen's home..."

Lu Beiyuan's vision went black.

He almost spat a mouthful of old blood onto the console.

In the home of an SSS-level dangerous target, hacking into their security system?

This isn't just digging dirt on the head of Tai Sui anymore!

This is dancing on the King of Hell's Book of Life and Death!