Chapter 86

"Three star coins per hour? What kind of job is that?" After a long silence, the voice in the darkness asked again.

Batarian lowered his head and quickly flipped through the PDA in his hand, reporting, "In the commercial district, the Asari Harlot hired him as a new branch salesperson." Then he added, "Well, although it's just a very basic and simple job, this wage level is too low, about half of the normal market rate. I think there's something not right about it..."

"Hmm, this is normal. Do you think Shepard would recruit a real shop assistant? Do you think a team member chosen by the Citadel Spectre would really care whether they earn 3 star coins or 30 star coins per hour? He must have some purpose for coming to Omega... Regardless, keep a close eye on him. Also, send a message to Shepard that her team member has been found... For now, I'll keep an eye on him. But if she doesn't come to take him over soon, I can't guarantee his safety. This is Omega, she knows..."

...

Qifeng, sitting in the store, had no idea that within an hour of setting foot on this territory, he had already caught the attention of Omega's highest ruler. If he knew his reputation had reached such heights, he would have gone straight to build connections and get closer. Why bother working here to earn a multi-tool? It would be better to put a high-end multi-tool on Sister Xue's tab, right?

But he had no other thoughts at the moment, focusing entirely on how to use this new translation tool to decipher the *Nine Yang Manual*. He first scanned the entire text of the *Nine Yang Manual* into the multi-tool.

It's worth praising the multi-tool's information archiving capabilities. With just a light scan, the entire *Nine Yang Manual* was fully recorded and formatted. Before this, Qifeng thought he would have to scan each page and then convert the text and image formats, which would be a tedious process.

Since the original text of the *Nine Yang Manual* was entirely in Chinese, and Chinese is one of the standard built-in languages of the multi-tool, and the multi-tool also determined from his neural reactions that Qifeng's thought patterns were constructed using Chinese, it did not translate the text in any form.

However, Qifeng did not give up. He directly clicked on the text to switch to the translation function, defined the *Nine Yang Manual* as an "unknown language," set the target language to Chinese, and pressed confirm. The multi-tool began to break down the entire text of the *Nine Yang Manual* into individual characters, combining them in various ways, and using an exhaustive method to analyze and judge...

Qifeng watched as a progress bar appeared on the multi-tool's display, feeling excited for a long time. If this experiment succeeded, it would save him a lot of time in learning any secret manual in the future! But after a long time, the progress was still at 0. Qifeng began to suspect that his multi-tool had frozen, and only then did the progress jump to 1%. This immediately deflated his spirits.

But then he thought, it's better not to be too greedy. If this task were given to a supercomputer from the 21st century, it would probably be impossible. The so-called artificial intelligence of his time was almost a joke. For a civilian-grade multi-tool to be able to perform such an operation was simply amazing. It just takes more time, and I can wait!

At this point, Qifeng remembered to pay attention to his work environment. Of course, he wasn't particularly concerned about the 3 star coins per hour job. However, this environment was quite beneficial for him to adapt to the *Mass Effect* world.

Here, all sorts of people mixed together, and no one would be interested in his background or check his temporary residence permit. Although it was chaotic, it wasn't a war zone. With his top-tier equipment from the Xianxia realm, he could probably handle street thugs, making it much safer than Sister Xue's side. In the game, Sister Xue faced constant battles and bloodshed, and her teammates kept dying. In a critical battle, she had to sacrifice an important team member. Qifeng didn't want to meet such a fate so soon.

"Hmm..." Qifeng stretched and stood up, walking around the store. The shop was small and there wasn't much to see, so he could only study the sales terminal. The terminal was similar to a touchscreen computer from the 21st century, listing some second-hand technology or parts.

After a quick browse, he found that he could barely understand a few things like bullet reinforcement technology and kinetic barrier recharge time reduction. The prices, however, made Qifeng look at this small, shabby store in a new light. The selling price of any technology was over 5,000 star coins, and some even exceeded 10,000. Some unknown parts were cheaper, ranging from dozens to hundreds of star coins.

"Hmm... How to make money in this realm is also a big problem."

Qifeng knew that with his 3 star coins per hour wage, he couldn't expect to get anything good. But with his second-year undergraduate knowledge of electronics from the 21st century, he could probably only do manual labor here. Should he do some side jobs in this store, like setting up a stall to sell some interdimensional goods? Yes, this could be considered. He had heard the boss Harlot mention mercenaries, and selling healing potions might have some market.

"However... it's been half a day, and not a single customer has come into this shop. It's so quiet..." Qifeng had been in the store for a while and found it strange. He checked his multi-tool, and after more than an hour, the decryption of the *Nine Yang Manual* had only reached 10%, and the shop still hadn't opened for business.

Sitting for too long was boring, so Qifeng got up, closed the shop, and decided to go for a walk. The multi-tool's communication function immediately came into play, and the display showed the angry-looking face of the boss Harlot (Qifeng still couldn't quite read alien expressions): "...You've only worked for an hour and you're closing the shop?!"

Perhaps because he was using someone else's multi-tool without paying, Qifeng felt a bit guilty and scratched his head, "Ah, this, let me explain..."

Harlot snorted on the other end of the communication: "No need to explain! I won't pay you for the part of the hour you worked! You'll only get 3 star coins as payment! The wage clock will reset to zero when you return." Then, without waiting for Qifeng to respond, he hung up abruptly.

Huh? Just like that? Is that it? Qifeng couldn't help but feel that this was a cultural difference. He had seen many workplace posts online where people lost half a month's salary for being late a few times. If this elephant were in the real world, he could be considered a good boss in China. ...

Qifeng felt that, at least, he should take the store's business seriously, at least to not let the multi-tool go to waste. "Alright, I'll take a couple of laps first..."

As soon as he stepped out of the shop, he saw several Volus at the street corner. They looked familiar, like the ones he had encountered earlier. Why were they back?

"Hissss...! Human... We heard that you are not Harlot's official employee..." The leader of the Volus grinned, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.

"So what?..." Qifeng pretended to be unconcerned, scratching his ear while secretly taking something from his inventory.

"Since you've left Harlot's store... it's none of his business anymore." The Volus laughed together, their voices like metal scraping on metal.

Qifeng shrugged and said casually, "OK, are you here to rob me? I don't have any money, oh, I can check, I wonder if my first hour's wage, 3 star coins, has arrived."

The leader of the Volus pulled out a knife with a hiss and licked the blade with his disgusting long tongue, "I heard human blood tastes good... Ahaha... Ha..."

Qifeng laughed along, "But I'm not interested in grilled Volus. I'll count to three, if you turn around and leave..."

The Volus started counting themselves, "One, two, three!"

Qifeng snapped his fingers, and then... boom, boom, boom! Several loud explosions, and each Volus's head burst into a huge fireball...

"If you turn around and leave... you're still dead. I can only release the explosive parasites, I haven't learned how to retract them yet..." (To be continued. Please search for Piaowen for better and faster updates!)