054. Beware of Fraud

  After some iation and haggling, Li Aozhi purchased two ordinary pieces of jewelry from Dmitry.

  "Mid-to-low-quality equipment is always the rgest market." Li Aozhi put oueel ring and bone a pendant, his mind active.

  In "Abyss of Stars," equipment quality is divided into:

  Shabby Inferih failure rate, poor fort, ugly appearance, very lonomics.

  Ordinary Durable—tolerable failure rate, withstand regur wear and tear, still usable, lonomics.

  Exquisite Craftsmanship—extremely low failure rate, still usable in harsh enviros, high ergonomics, aesthetically pleasing.

  Fwless Perfe—no operational failures, maintains excellent and stable performan various harsh enviros, perfect ergonomics, delicate aiful, no fws.

  Transdent—tinuously self-optimizes acc to the enviro during use, retains full funality as long as it's not pletely destroyed, matches and adapts to the user's habits.

  Masterpiece—accumutes past experiences and memories, tinuously self-strengthens, difficult to pletely destroy, capable of passing accumuted experiences and styles to the user.

  Mythical Artifact—possesses indepe sciousness and powerful intelligence, almost iructible, autonomously selects a suitable host, and instantly tras abilities and experieo the host, mutually enhang each other.

  However, iy, due to different equipment types, overly pursuing quality is not very cost-effective.

  A mythical artifact screw might not be as effective and useful as a shabby inferior double-barrel shotgun.

  In actual bat, pyers find that durable and practical equipment is the most cost-effective.

  In one-on-one enviros, it’s best to stack divine equipment if possible, even wanting to repe's brain with a mythical artifact.

  There are also some special equipment tiers, like miracle armaments and social institutions, but in Li Aozhi's experience, only the four precision families of the "Demonieics" pursue such special equipment.

  The Dominion fa has a low relian equipment, partly because all attributes other than 【Charisma】 are loartly due to the venience of Are abilities.

  Therefore, jewelry-type equipment without equipment ditions, in Li Aozhi's view, is easy to monopolize. For 【Dominion】 pyers, jewelry, which already has the nature of "luxury items," is expected to be priced high.

  Li Aozhi just o observe the forums for market trends and public opinion, thehe method of small profits but quick turo quickly capture the market.

  Speaking of the pyer forum—Li Aozhi takes a gnce whenever he has time, trying to blend in and chat with other pyers.

  However, as soon as he tried to speak, the forum showed his at status as abnormal—Li Aozhi opened his at homepage, and a bold red message romily dispyed:

  【Due to viotion of ws aions, your at has been permaly banned】

  "What did I d to get permaly banned—what, is time travel illegal now?"

  Li Aozhi was both amused and helpless. He still wao see what his official at status was.

  Well, now there’s o check, he no longer exists.

  But it wasirely fruitless. Li Aozhi found that although his at was banned, he could still download files attached to forum posts and open various video links.

  Although he couldn’t post, his information-gathering ability wasn’t diminished. Soon, Li Aozhi discovered something strange.

  "Why are the times of the two worlds not synized?"

  Acc to the frequend timing of pyer posts, one day on Blue Star passed, but not much time passed on the pyers’ side.

  Roughly, 30 natural days in the game world equate to one day on the pyer forum.

  This was obviously different from his past pyer experience.

  "When I yer, I remember the timing of various events was synized."

  Li Aozhi pondered for a moment, at one point recalling the spiracy theory that "Abyss of Stars" was developed to explore eleic ies.

  Did he actually travel into the game, being a piece of data, or was this inally a living world?

  Could it be that the govers discovered aronic world and used the game port to trick pyers into invading and occupying it... that's too fantastical!

  Li Aozhi found it hard to believe this hypothesis.

  After all, after the advent of the optical brain, the real world had resolved most flicts. Although the wealth gap wasn’t resolved, people could live and work in pea the virtual world.

  There were no longer flicts in the real world, teology was advanced, war was impossible, let alone mobilizing half of society's forces and popution to invade aronic world—it made no sehey weren’t g resources.

  Li Aozhi shook his head, deg not to sider this issue for now.

  As an NPC tempte now, with only one life, he had to cherish it.

  "Now realizing life's preciousness seems a bit te..."

  Li Aozhi mocked himself, then tinued chatting with Dmitry’s family.

  There were few craftsmen who mastered the ented manufacturing teique ier world, and even fewer literate people.

  Talents like Dmitry were rare and hard to avoid suspi of provoking big figures or fearing revenge.

  Li Aozhi didn’t ask these questions because he knew Dmitry's true identity: the old man was a long-lived species.

  The main intelligent species on Blue Star was the new geion Homo sapiens, but if Dmitry's panel could be seen, it would show his species as [A1 Kolton-type an].

  A1 Kolton, B2 Maya, C3 Luka, these were the three most on carbon-based human evolutionary trends in the universe.

  A1 Kolton was known for loy and innate Are awakening, living seven ht hundred years wasn’t a big deal;

  B2 Maya were particurly good at trade and mathematics, fewer in number, known as the universe’s middlemen;

  C3 Luka were special, with strong bat potential and adaptability.

  Dmitry was a successful evolution into an A1 Kolton-type an.

  Despite his low level, he truly was a 200-year-old sly old fox.

  There was no point in pursuing the thoughts of such long-lived species. For them, they might be thinking about how to die with dignity every day.

  After chatting with the old man for a while, Li Aozhi suddenly ged the topid asked:

  "Old Dmitry, do you know Siqi?"

  "You mean Dr. ? They say she came from the Abyss Humanitarian Relief anization—I don't quite believe it. That pce is where they eat people and spit out bones. Personally, I think she escaped from the Frost-Pted Republic." Dmitry rambled.

  Qiu Ran asked awkwardly, "Is the Abyss Humanitarian... that notorious?"

  "Iire northern outer world, everyone knows the cruelty and terror of the Abyss."

  Kaa, holding her child, seriously told them:

  "You have to be careful. The Abyss Humanitarian Relief anization transforms living people into killing maes, they capture people with Are potential everywhere, saying they are ied, then take them away for various experiments."

  "Those doctors draw blood from the ied, extract their bone marrow, slice their brains, pce them between gss ptes, aedly pare them with normal humans." Dmitry said in a deep voice.

  "That's not the worst. People say the Four Nations have been cooperating with the Abyss, aiming to develop super soldiers and es adapted to the outer world. Eventually, they want t the war to us."

  Kaa spoke with anger and hatred:

  "The Four Nations have takehing from us, enjoying sunlight we have never seen, why are they not satisfied! The Four Nations are bastards, bloodsug vampires. If it weren't for their persecution, especially the hounds of Law IV, Xiao would have been a very happy person in the Frost-Pted Republic..."

  "In Frost-Pted?" Li Aozhi was surprised.

  Kaa's face showed a mix of recolle and sadness. She said softly:

  "Xiao, my husband, ran a small business in Frost-Pted, an ho a man. One day he was falsely accused by his employee of assaulting a female employee."

  She paused and said:

  "It was a scam. Xiao was a devout believer, a virgin before meetihe female employee framed him for money."

  "Xiao galntly fave her, then hired a wyer, collected eviderying to maintain his reputation and prove his innoce."

  "But it was useless."

  "No matter how he proved his innoce, befoing to court, his shop was shut down, Law IV agents severely injured him, tortured him with cold water aric shocks, preparing to prosecute him. Before the prosecutor's evidence resehe judge sentenced him to life impriso and fiscated his property."

  "He was a tough man. Fag unjust judgment, he found the bck market, impnted bat prosthetics, killed seves and the judge, then drove across the border, esg to the outer world."

  Kaa, holding Sirich, spoke with pride.

  "This is my husband, Sirich's father, Xiao."

  Li Aozhi nodded, sighing:

  "No one is breat, but he died a legend for no reason."

  "Xiao is our eternal love, but back to the topic—I see Dr. has a strong dislike for the Four Nations. She probably has no e to the Abyss."

  Dmitry thought for a moment:

  "I don't know much about her. She only came to the Sikkim settlement i two years. Her medical skills are good, but she's not easy to get along with. I bought penicillin from her, and she directly threw it at me with her prosthetic, tellio get lost."

  "Dad, that was when you caught her ging her underwear." Kaa said distentedly. "Dr. is very kind; she cured Sirich's diphtheria."

  "Maybe..." Dmitry hesitated. "ging her underwear? I only remember seeing a metal device..."

  Two years ago.

  Li Aozhi nodded slightly.

  Bck market mert Ze Qi told him that this cided with the outbreak of the ZX-102 i and the transformation of Head Nurse Nordley.

  Sure enough, after getting this information, 《Unremembered》 quest progressed to 34%.

  FAL