Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Taking advantage of the opponent's wide-open defense, Mo Chengzi launched a fierce counterattack, but he managed to ensure that the punch did not leave any obvious marks. The punch landed on the cheek, but it was just right to ensure that the skin would not break and there would be no swelling in a short time, but the pain was real.

Seeing that his opponent hadn't suffered much damage after taking that punch and was even trying to retaliate, Mo Chengzi's expression darkened slightly.

The two men holding David down were also preparing to make their move, seemingly intending to outnumber him.

He couldn't afford to pay compensation right now, and if he really injured someone, he might have to have his organs harvested. So he was hesitant to act, but luckily he had made some preparations before coming. He had brought some self-defense tools.

It wasn't some powerful weapon. With his skills, he wouldn't need any weapons to beat up a few ordinary high school students. The so-called self-defense tools were actually things that could inflict maximum pain without causing actual harm.

There aren't many similar items available in daily life, and most would leave obvious scars. However, he still found a convenient tool on hand: three paperclips. He inserted the three paperclips into a plastic pen tube, making a knuckle duster that could be held in the palm of his hand. The needles protruded from the gaps between the fingers, but only less than 2cm. Even if they were all inserted into the other person's body, they would hardly cause any harm. After being pulled out, the wound would be difficult to detect and would likely heal completely within a few hours. Even if a professional doctor examined the wound, it wouldn't really be considered an injury.

However, the distribution of nerves in the human body is very regular. Even a seemingly small wound, if it hits the nerve that transmits pain, can cause excruciating pain.

The needle, less than half a millimeter in diameter, was held tightly in his fist, so fine that the other person didn't even notice it.

They couldn't even see him, let alone defend against him. Feeling that his punches were weak and powerless, the three of them became even bolder. They planned to pin this meddlesome guy to the ground and give him a good humiliation, and hopefully extort some money from him, since none of them were exactly well-off.

But as soon as they got closer, they felt their paths were blocked by each other and hindered by various obstacles in the classroom.

Mo Chengzi is a super soldier with over 50,000 hours of combat training. This training did not even include the use of killing moves; it was purely training for a mortal body.

In particular, he also learned the Furniture City Battle Strategy, personally written by Lanno. This is a martial art widely circulated in the Mountain and River Republic, emphasizing the philosophy of martial arts, which is to make the most of the surrounding environment to create favorable combat conditions for oneself.

In the mortal stage, this technique is even more effective, as the more complex the surrounding environment and the more tools one can utilize, the greater its power. Legend has it that this technique was created by the supreme commander after observing a furniture factory's war god. As for who exactly was capable of being invincible in the furniture factory, no one has yet figured it out.

Mo Chengzi had also learned this martial art in its entirety. Although compared to those who had mastered it, he had only scratched the surface, it was more than enough to deal with the guys in front of him.

He only took a few steps around the classroom. His movements weren't particularly fast, but they created an obstruction between the desk and his opponent's body, so that only one person could reach him at a time.

To avoid paying compensation, he was extremely cautious when he hit the man. The other man threw a punch at his face with all his might. He narrowly dodged the punch, and as the other man tripped over the chair, he landed several more punches on his side and back. Because of the speed, each punch was actually quite light; the force of the blows was so great that one might mistake them for a back massage. Yet, the needles pierced through the clothes and into the body precisely at the right moment.

The needle was so fine that almost no blood was drawn, but the person who was hit screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground, curled up like a shrimp, as if they had been kicked in the groin. They couldn't get up for a moment, their entire body drenched in cold sweat. The sensation of alternating hot and cold was like a hand cramp, only now it spread throughout their body, making them feel cold, hot, and numb, even though there were no visible wounds. They were paralyzed on the ground, unable to move.

Before the two people behind him could react, Mo Chengzi had already walked towards them. In the instant they were stunned, he had already landed two consecutive jabs on them, the whole process unusually calm and collected. But by the time he reached them, the two were already squatting on the ground, convulsing. The cramping sensation made them wonder if their foreign bodies were having a severe rejection reaction.

"Are you alright?" Mo Chengzi pulled up David, whose face was bruised and swollen. He watched as David was kicked repeatedly like a dog being beaten down, and it took him a lot of effort to pull him back.

"Don't get agitated. If you get injured by these guys, you'll have to pay compensation. Judging from your outfit, your family isn't well-off, is it? Apart from the government-mandated drug injection interface and neural connection interface, you don't have any prosthetics. Your family isn't rich either, is it?"

These words immediately calmed David down. His mother had worked very hard to support his schooling, always busy at the company, and he rarely saw her at home. Thinking that he had probably to pay compensation for damaging the school's network, he finally stopped. If he injured these people, he would probably be extorted for even more money.

"Thanks, I'll send you the latest exciting movies as soon as I find them."

Mo Chengzi was stunned for a moment, then quickly recalled the original owner's memories. He then remembered that the guy in front of him not only sold pirated equipment, but also pirated and prohibited videos. He earned some extra money at school through this. As for what kind of videos he sold, that was rather indescribable.

In the cyber world, neural connections are possible. Even without buying expensive suits, connecting all the nerves in the body, just controlling vision, hearing, and a portion of touch, along with some external auxiliary tools, can already simulate extremely realistic tactile sensations. One can imagine how excellent the effects of these technologies would be when applied to some unspeakable industries.

However, due to reasons related to public order and morality, most of these videos are not allowed to be sold publicly. The real reason is that large companies want to sell their official videos and charge high viewing fees. But frankly, the technical barrier to entry is very low; shooting these immersive experience videos doesn't require expensive equipment, so there are many private, unlicensed workshops. Even without licenses, the videos still leak out through clandestine channels. These things are very difficult to investigate and prosecute.

"Good heavens, no wonder you were online all the time. The whole school's system was hacked. It wasn't the pirated device that was the problem. It was probably a virus on the card you were watching when you were watching pirated videos, right?"

David was actually aware of the problem. In his pursuit of thrills and to earn some extra money, he'd had his share of these kinds of things. And it was all too common for them to carry viruses. Stealing users' personal data and locating their real-time positions were basic operations; using users as stepping stones to hack into places with physically disconnected networks was an even more frequent tactic.

David might simply be unlucky, or he might be being used by malicious individuals as a means to attack the school. The school also possesses some highly confidential data. The campus network is isolated from the outside internet. Without student status, connecting to this network is quite difficult.

However, Mo Chengzi leaned towards the idea that this guy was simply unlucky. Their high school wasn't some prestigious, top-tier institution. You could tell just by looking at the poor students there. Students at top universities are generally quite wealthy. Those without money simply can't get in. Naturally, people like them had no chance of getting in.

A small school like theirs has virtually no value for hacking. Mo Chengzi considered the guy's current dire financial situation and decided to temporarily abandon the idea of ​​sourcing pirated equipment from him. Even if he sold his own stock secondhand, it wouldn't fetch much money. He might even lose money on the trip; he needed to find other ways to make money.

After an afternoon of wrangling, almost all the students were left with no choice but to study on their own. The school didn't provide evening classes. They weren't one of those top-tier high schools that would arrange evening study sessions; if they wanted to learn more, they had to go out for tutoring. Mo Chengzi used to take tutoring classes, but now he couldn't afford to pay for them anymore. He was worried about the medicine he needed for tomorrow's injection, which he didn't have the money for. On his way home, he had a headache. The little money he earned from part-time jobs was barely enough to cover rent, utilities, and food. It was just enough, but if he didn't attend any tutoring classes or buy any medicine, his grades would quickly drop. Everyone else was secretly taking extra classes and injecting themselves with medicine at night. If he didn't keep up, he really wouldn't be able to stay in class.

Right now, he can still use his skill advantage to punish the bullies in the class. But by the time everyone gets their bodies cybernetically replaced in their junior and senior years, he might lose even this limited advantage in physical strength.

If he could gain an advantage over those upperclassmen who had undergone prosthetic body replacements simply by using his flesh and blood, he wouldn't be so afraid of debt collection agencies coming to his door.

These debt collection companies hire local gangsters. And the modifications these guys have undergone are far beyond what his current physical body can handle.

Gang fights in the downtown area often involve the use of large-caliber firearms. They consider 7.62mm too thin, and this level of equipment is several grades below military equipment. Soldiers who have undergone spinal and nervous system transplants are even capable of dodging most bullets in such intense firepower simply by using their speed. This kind of ability cannot be countered by flesh and blood.

The gangsters collecting debts might not be that powerful. But those who operate in the underworld all need to have some kind of powerful cybernetic implants, and Mo Chengzi didn't know what to do for a moment.

He was on the subway during rush hour, struggling to maintain a high level of concentration and continue typing to earn money, when a rather primitive-looking pop-up window suddenly appeared in his field of vision, somewhat resembling the command-line interface of the earliest internet.

The top part uses the simplest characters to draw a flame icon, and the bottom part has a line of text: "Your cheat has arrived, do you want to receive it?"

Mo Chengzi's connection with the memories of this world had become increasingly close, making him quite familiar with the scheme before him. Wasn't this a common tactic used by fraudulent companies? Sending links like viruses to make users believe they'd actually received a cheat program. In reality, there was no cheat program at all; clicking the link would directly steal user privileges, steal their private information, and even trigger bank transfers.

He simply didn't click anything, instead physically closing the visual interface. He then restarted the system. Normally, this would allow the built-in firewall to perform a self-check and eliminate any potential viruses. But something unexpected happened. The restart did proceed smoothly, but even after the computer was completely shut down, that interface was still there in front of him.

The system detected no abnormalities after restarting. He then realized the seriousness of the problem and quickly shut it down again. This time, he even unplugged his prosthetic eye, disconnecting even the most basic visual module. He only had one eye transplanted. Partly because it was cheaper, and partly because human vision could be useful sometimes, like when he didn't want to watch ads.

But when he turned off his prosthetic eye, and even the internet connection, and shut down all electronic devices on his body, he was astonished to find that the line of letters still appeared before his eyes. What kind of technology was this that was completely beyond his comprehension?

The interface before him changed constantly in response to his consciousness. Even without granting his body permission, he was still able to operate the interface.

"Looks like this thing has stuck with me. Since I can't get rid of it, I'll have to figure out what it is first." Mo Chengzi initially thought it might be some kind of advanced technology. He remembered reading a science fiction novel called *The Three-Body Problem*, which featured something called a "sophon." It could travel at high speed across the human retina and directly create images, which remained even when the eyes were closed.

From this perspective, this thing in front of us might indeed be a technological product, but since he says it's a cheat code, we might as well accept it for now and see what use it is. After all, his current condition doesn't seem to be any worse. If things continue like this, it's probably only a matter of time before debt collection companies come knocking and forcibly harvest his organs.

[To be continued]

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