Chapter 227 - 209 The Magical Pocket of Lille

Traffic jam.

Still traffic jam.

The traffic network seemed to be against Lille and the others; from the moment they entered the city, there had been a traffic jam. After a long while, the three finally made it back to Old Vic’s clinic.

Jack eagerly ran to Misty’s spirit shop, while V kicked open the wire gate leading to the back alley and rushed straight to Old Vic’s clinic.

"Old Vic!" V plopped down on the chair, "Get your prosthetics ready. I have money now! Plenty of money!"

Old Vic had been watching a boxing match and was momentarily stunned by V’s voice—

It had been a long time since he last saw V and the others.

"V? Lille? You’re back? Where’s Jack?"

Lille pointed behind him, "Of course, he’s off to relax."

Old Vic stood up from the chair, looking at Lille and V with relief, and then pinched Lille’s arm—

"So sturdy? Did you solve the problem?"

Lille shrugged, "Halfway solved. We no longer need to scrimp on expenses, so we came here to check things out."

Holding a bunch of cash in their hands, they could finally spend it.

Old Vic smiled and switched on all the instruments in his clinic, putting on surgical gloves for prosthetic surgery, "Alright—let’s see the purchasing power of the three bosses of Night City."

V smiled mysteriously, "Old Vic, I’m afraid you might faint when you see my account balance. Do you need a shot of stimulant first?"

"I’ve seen it all... Who’s first?"

...

The first to undergo the implantation was Jack—Lille needed to observe Jack’s condition in detail in real time.

His bones and muscles, their structure and composition had already undergone some changes. A detailed physical examination would reveal these changes.

The metallic element content in his bones had increased significantly, the structure had changed, and the density far exceeded that of a normal person. This abnormally strong bone structure extended near the tailbone.

His muscle fibers had also undergone some changes. Old Vic found something inside that was quite different from human muscle fibers.

The genetically modified lizard muscle fibers were more suitable for providing strong and lasting power, but relatively, they would make Jack less flexible.

However... speed was related to many factors, but it was generally positively correlated with strength.

The increase in strength was much smaller compared to the growth in body size and weight. Jack moved more like a fully-loaded truck.

You could say a truck wasn’t flexible, but it wasn’t slow, at least faster than a person running.

Old Vic raised his glasses, questioning the observed phenomenon: this technology was something he had never seen in his career as a prosthetics doctor.

Jack’s shinbone strength was on par with a standard titanium skeleton, yet there was no immune response at all.

Not to mention those strange muscle fibers, their strength was off the charts. Though their content wasn’t high, the strength per unit volume of nanomuscle fibers still lagged behind these fibers.

"... What kind of prosthetic is this? An experimental company product?"

"No." Lille shook his head, "This is a prosthetic I made myself, considered a kind of berserk component."

Receiving the answer, Old Vic didn’t feel the problem was solved; instead, more questions arose!

What did "a prosthetic I made myself" mean?!

Did you handcraft a set of berserk components?!

"Well... you can explain what you want to modify." Old Vic said, glancing at Lille’s coat, "Take off your coat; it feels odd."

Old Vic directly deferred: let someone who understands handle the inexplicable things.

"It’s fine wearing it—for starters, I need a more detailed biological monitor."

"That is a bit tricky. Advanced biological monitors usually have surveillance, too many backdoors."

"As good as possible."

"Well, there’s... BioSync Pro-X5, the best I can handle now. I just have one unit.

Blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose levels... It basically has everything needed. It’s just a bit pricey, 56,000 Euros."

"Buy it!"

With a biological monitoring device, Jack’s biological condition could be better observed, and then the effects of the lizard potion had to be balanced.

Jack’s bone density, structure, and composition fluctuated greatly, as did his muscles.

According to Lille’s conceived model, the influence of the lizard potion diminished from the bottom up, not deviating too much.

This required the use of a molecular sieve, using it along with joints and biological plastic blood vessels to control the flow.

And the molecular sieve needed to link with a cell adapter.

Old Vic found it difficult, "Biological plastic blood vessels and such are easy to deal with, but molecular sieves and cell adapters...

are found only in big companies and large prosthetic clinics. A place like mine, which deals with black market goods, doesn’t have access to such high-quality stuff."

"I have it."

Lille took a black plastic bag out of his pocket, with all the materials inside.

[Cross-dimensional Material Transmission: Cell Adaptation Plugin, Biological Molecular Sieve]

[Technology Points -200]

[Current Technology Points: 3300]

Old Vic rubbed his eyes, "Where did you get this? Never mind... let me scan it.

One more problem. For cell adaptation within the body, a nano-surgery station is needed to adjust the prosthetics.

which I don’t have—Haywood doesn’t have many people who can afford this kind of surgery."

"Buy it! Old Vic, it’s time you upgraded your equipment."

Biological components, especially high-end ones, require nano-surgical robots.

Note, advanced prosthetics usually come with built-in nano-installation equipment. Most of these prosthetics are neuro-components, like the Krensky.

The basic modules attach to the spine, then the device releases a stream of nano-machines along the spinal column, which bridge the central nervous system, connecting nerve endings to neural processors.

The fewer the prosthetics, the simpler the installation, and the less prone to problems, but for people like V and Jack, it’s best not to rely solely on the basic nano modules.

Old Vic fell into deep thought: nano-surgery station... to his knowledge, the cheapest ones still cost upwards of half a million, even in the second-hand black market.

"... Lille, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but can you show me the account balance?"

Jack, lying on the operating table, chuckled and sent Old Vic an account balance with credit certification.

"So much money?" Old Vic was shocked—over six hundred thousand!

V smirked wickedly and also sent Old Vic an account balance with credit certification.

"Hiss—"

Old Vic took a sharp breath—over 1.3 million!

He had imagined the three were quite wealthy, but... he had never seen anything like this!

Lille hadn’t even showcased his account yet, and Jack and V’s combined assets totaled two million!

Two million Euros!

That amount could easily sustain an ordinary person to live a decent lower-middle-class life for a lifetime!

Most mercenaries were heavily in debt, covered in old wounds, with haphazard prosthetics—high-end and inferior goods running simultaneously—and their finances were even more burdened due to medical needs.

But these three!

Old Vic could only say: Unbelievable!

"Well... alright, I am indeed interested in a nano-surgical component, but I won’t exploit you; once I buy it, it’s still yours. I’ll just rent it."

"Nah~" V waved his hand, "We’re friends; talking money is too formal. Now that we have money, you should get wealthy too!"

"You’re quite generous..." Old Vic sighed.

Jack and V were his old friends. Who would have thought that two street punks could one day come up with two million?

Then he looked at Lille, "Aren’t you going to flaunt it to this old man?"

Lille shook his head, "The surgery is urgent; showing off money has never been my thing..."

"Haha, some people can only show off cyber debts!" V put an arm around Lille, "Ah, when will we ever pay it off..."

"Get off! You’re pressing on my neural link! Jack, your turn. Get off; you lie down."

"Tsk, show more respect to your creditor!"

"Alright, alright, I beg you, get on there."

...

Overall, Jack’s modification plan aimed primarily to perfect the lizard berserk component, filling in some structurally significant materials to enhance overall body strength, then adding some defensive prosthetics.

Like heavy subdermal armor and fire-resistant coating.

However, it required the arrival of the equipment to be perfected.

V’s issues were much more intricate. Old Vic’s examination was more comprehensive than that of the Wanderer, revealing that the central nervous system issues were worse than Lille had thought. The nano-surgery component was used only for installing and adjusting prosthetics, not for repairing nerves.

Lille had to explore options at Kantao first.

So, the neuro-components, including the Si Anweisitan and Krensky repairs, needed to be addressed later.

The primary goal remained the standard enhancement: upgrading the Achilles tendon to a better model, filling with nano-muscle fibers, dense bone marrow fillers, and better light subdermal armor.

In addition to combat power enhancement, there would be implants for the metabolic editor, adrenaline enhancement component, auxiliary heart, blood pump, and biological plastic blood vessels in the circulatory system.

These modification projects seemed many, but indeed, there were quite a few.

At one point, it worried Old Vic about V’s ability to withstand it—too many implants at once could cause adverse immune reactions.

Until Lille took out another tube of mysterious green pharmaceutical and pushed it into the blood pump.

[Cross-dimensional Transmission: Genetically Transformed Biliverdin Immunosuppressant, Lizard Potion]

[Technology Points -100]

This time, Lille brought over quite a bit of pharmaceutical, and V just needed a small amount.

The inflammation response induced by the surgery quickly subsided...

Old Vic was still a bit worried, fearing Lille might be filling the blood pump with immunosuppressant instead of synthetic blood plasma—this usually led to drug dependency and effect decline, not a long-term solution.

However, the instrument showed no issues, and the overall immune capacity decreased only minimally, with no visible side effects.

This immunosuppressant had a highly targeted effect and was very effective.

Clearly another high-quality product, different from what street clinics gave to desperados.

Old Vic turned his gaze to Lille’s pocket, even patting it.

Lille looked puzzled, "Old Vic? What are you doing?"

"Uh... I’m just curious how much more stuff you have in there... Okay, let’s continue."

It seemed there was no more.

"Focus—We need to replace the Mantis Blade."

"Alright." Old Vic brought up his inventory and available blades on the interface, "I’d recommend Arasaka’s blades, probably the best on the market."

"No, we’ll use our own."

[Cross-dimensional Transmission: Data Knife (Mantis Blade Modification)]

[Technology Points -1000]

[Current Technology Points: 2300]

Old Vic was stunned again, then saw Lille pull out two blades from inside his coat.

What...?

He hadn’t felt anything there earlier?

"Lille," Old Vic slowly spoke, "Take off the coat, or I won’t be able to focus."