Legend of the Cyber Heroes-Chapter 35 - Reinforcement Again

35: Chapter 35: Reinforcement Again

35 -35: Reinforcement Again

“‘Colluding with bandits,’ ‘associating with thieves,’ such collusion with thieves would have been considered a serious crime in the Feudal Era.”

Even in modern society, ‘harboring and protecting criminals’ is still a criminal offense.

The right to harbor isn’t an unrestricted right.”

But in this era, any action that doesn’t contradict the Dyson Principle is permitted.

No power can prevent an ordinary person and a thug who has lost the protection of civilization from forming a close bond or even doing business together.

Ah, of course, providing information about an individual or a collective to a thug, in fact, aiding the thug’s violence, such actions are still regarded as an indirect infringement upon individual life and private property.

The victims are free to take revenge on the betrayer.

But this power is only limited to the victims and the agents they personally entrust.

Bystanders cannot intervene, and Lords have no need or right to interfere in such matters.

In short, ‘traitors’ will not lose the protection of civilization.

Enoch betrayed the town, but only the town’s residents have the right to retaliate against Enoch.

As for others, they are merely on good terms with the traitor and will not be subject to any punishment.

Xiang Shan, though he found this logic somewhat twisted, also believed that one should be responsible for one’s own actions, and even if the other party was an enemy, the consequences should not be too far-reaching.

Those friends of Enoch…

Even if the people of the town are convinced they were also involved in the betrayal, does it concern him at all?

“No, it was before that.” Doctor Schultz carefully chose his words, “Before the Tax Officer came, you were pushed onto the fighting stage…

I’m aware of that incident.

According to them, that event was also orchestrated by Enoch, and the man who acted was called Willy, a worker…

however, Willy is dead now.”

“Dead?” Xiang Shan showed some interest, “Not escaped?”

“Half a month ago, Willy and Enoch had entered the city together.

Then Enoch came back alone, saying that Willy was killed by a thug,” Doctor Schultz explained, “I’m afraid Enoch didn’t just betray us, he also betrayed his…

those.”

“I understand,” Xiang Shan nodded, “Enoch…

this guy, I’ll remember him.”

He didn’t say what he would do to Enoch, and Schultz didn’t dare to ask.

Xiang Shan thought this was quite strange.

It seemed like a part of his mind was reminding him that the act of judging others based on personal morality required caution.

Yet another part of him was saying that the existence of ‘Heroic Justice’ has special legal support.

Long ago, he…

and other friends…

seemed to have engaged in many debates over it…

——Who exactly are you people?

Every time he had such feelings, Xiang Shan would think to himself.

Why were Martial Arts, which were originally illusions, materialized into reality through technology?

Who exactly are he and his friends?

Forget it, if he couldn’t figure it out for now, he’d stop thinking about it.

Xiang Shan had regained some of his Internal Strength Cultivation.

Especially the “Three Dragon-Slaying Moves.” In a world filled with extensive surveillance, hunting someone down was not difficult—after all, Enoch was using an Industrial Prosthesis and knew no Martial Arts, unable to survive in the Wilderness.

He could only flee within a limited area.

Once things here have settled, he would finish this matter.

There were still more than ten days before Recycling Station Town would restore protection.

During these days, Xiang Shan planned to stay active around the small town.

Doctor Schultz bowed to Xiang Shan and was about to leave.

Xiang Shan called out to him, “Doctor, one more thing, how is Yuki doing now?”

“The heart, liver, and kidneys have been replaced, and the aorta is mostly replaced by artificial materials.

The ribs are quite sturdy, only slightly damaged, and will recover after some rest.

The medical fees are covered, Great Hero, you have already paid them.”

In the fight, Xiang Shan had obtained three metal-based spinal columns.

Considering body size, he kept the one belonging to Paulus and sold those from Lev and Ronconi to Doctor Schultz, covering the medical expenses and the cost of parts.

As a master, spending this much for his disciple wasn’t difficult.

Xiang Shan nodded, “That’s good then.”

He had indeed intended to personally check on his disciple’s condition.

But Yuki’s mother was now watching over Yuki.

When Xiang Shan came close, Yulia sounded a warning whistle.

Of course, Xiang Shan wasn’t afraid of Yulia, but that also ended his plans of visiting Yuki.

Xiang Shan took Yuki as his disciple partly because he felt that having Martial Arts would be more conducive to survival in this era, which was a way of “repaying kindness”, and also because he needed a trustworthy assistant to help with some operations on his brain chip.

And now, he already had multiple chips interfaced with his brain-machine connections and several backups, and the accuracy of his prosthetic hand had greatly improved.

The need for an “assistant” had become less pressing.

After all, Yulia was Yuki’s guardian and family.

I’m afraid in Yulia’s eyes, Xiang Shan was just bringing danger to his own son.

Apart from Yulia, the other townspeople also regarded Xiang Shan with a mixture of fear.

This feeling only grew stronger after Xiang Shan destroyed Ronconi’s biological brain.

Xiang Shan couldn’t even find a proper base of operations.

He eventually had to move all his belongings to an old parts recycling station.

It turned out that the only people in town who still treated Xiang Shan the same were the demented elderly and the disabled whose biological brains had deteriorated.

After Xiang Shan gave those folks some parts, they joyously welcomed him.

That’s where Xiang Shan did his recuperation.

Later, Doctor Schultz also came to help Xiang Shan.

However, Xiang Shan only let Doctor Schultz help with the maintenance of the prosthetic hand.

A powerful master of internal strength could implant numerous talismans and Gu in you while fitting a prosthetic body.

Heroes are extremely cautious when choosing a maintenance master.

To fight an enemy of the world with a mere individual’s strength, one must be this cautious.

After attaching the new prosthetic hand, Xiang Shan first used the secret technique of “Uncleaned House” to monitor the electronic devices inside the pair of hands, confirming whether there were any backdoors he knew about…

Ah, no, rather “exactly how many backdoors.”

Beyond his own eyes, since awakening, Xiang Shan had not seen any prosthetic bodies that didn’t have backdoors or vulnerabilities.

It had almost become standard in this era.

But…

——Speaking of which, the prosthetic body drive vulnerabilities I know of have even persisted to this day…

Did I really sleep for just a decade or so?

Xiang Shan had even thought about using Lev’s prosthetic body directly.

Lev’s prosthetic was of a high completion level, fully equipped with vector injectors, energy systems, power systems, and other devices, basically possessing most of the qualities required for External Martial Arts.

The awkward part was that Xiang Shan lacked the proper drives.

Lev’s own drive chip had been burned out, and the drive chips obtained from Paulus and Ronconi were incompatible with that highly efficient heavy prosthetic body.

This was an odd point.

The protocols used within Paulus and Ronconi’s chips were drastically different, with no chance of compatibility, and this was just at the hardware level.

In the era that Xiang Shan was familiar with, this was almost inconceivable.

If “data” is like vocabulary, then “protocol” is like grammar.

Only when vocabulary is arranged through grammar do you get meaningful “sentences” that a machine can properly understand.

A CPU and hard drive removed from one computer and plugged into another should mostly be usable.

Back in that time, the protocols used all over the world were roughly the same.

Intelligent devices all pursued “compatibility with more types of hardware.”

This also ensured that when users updated software or hardware, developers didn’t need to start from scratch to create applications for new devices or platforms; previous programs were still effective in new environments, and software from lower-end intelligent devices could also run on more advanced intelligent devices.

But it seemed like people from this era just didn’t care about that at all.

“Incomprehensible,” Xiang Shan shook his head about this.

To him, the development of technology should be moving towards “convenience” and “unification.” This kind of technical fragmentation would only increase the operational costs of the entire society.

No, there might not be much of a “society” to speak of in this era.

Doctor Schultz fled the recycling station as if escaping.

Xiang Shan walked out.

He saw the disabled people with the new parts happily dancing at the door.

They occasionally fell — that was the result of the extremely deteriorated brain often giving orders that conflicted with the balance system, which the system couldn’t process, ultimately prioritizing the user’s intent.

Four prosthetic bodies were piled up at the entrance.

One looked like a tractor burned to scrap by fire.

That belonged to the unnamed enemy.

Lev’s prosthetic body was stacked on top, and Paulus and Ronconi’s prosthetic bodies were leaning beside it.

Doctor Schultz had just removed Ronconi’s prosthetic hand.

Xiang Shan walked over and picked up Ronconi’s prosthetic body.

This headless, handless prosthetic body must still have many useful parts.

The time to maintain himself was now.

Xiang Shan had a vague premonition.

He would definitely face more enemies, more battles in the future.

This battle confirmed for Xiang Shan that he indeed had been fighting all along his journey.

Only through combat could he rediscover his past.

Although he didn’t know what exactly he had lost before or why he ended up in such a dire situation, Xiang Shan felt that since fate allowed him to escape death and awaken in this era, then there must be something in this era that needed him to do.

Xiang Shan placed the silver prosthetic body on the operating table.

He even found a suspected target.

——Yawgmoth.

The legendary figure who pioneered a new era, leading humanity out of the shackles of primal evolution and into a brand-new epoch.

Neither emperor nor deity, he held a completely different stature.

Undoubtedly, he was Xiang Shan’s enemy.