After Shi Lei left, the workshop fell silent again.
But this time, the silence was not accompanied by fear. The food his friend had left and the heavy weight of his trust were like a warm foundation, finally giving Ling Feng's adrift heart a place to land.
He didn't waste time on regret or confusion. The pressure to survive was an invisible hand, pushing him to think about his next move immediately.
Run? Impossible. The Rust Belt was only so big, and the Iron Fist Gang were the local tyrants. He would be found sooner or later.
Hide? Even worse. He would run out of resources. Without an income, he couldn't even afford next month's energy lattices.
The only way out was not to evade, but to advance.
To understand what had happened to him yesterday, and to turn that fleeting "miracle" into a "power" he could control.
His gaze fell upon the jade pendant, lying quietly on the workbench.
But he knew that before he could study the pendant, he had to solve a more fundamental puzzle—himself.
"Spiritual energy..."
Ling Feng leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and sank his consciousness deep into his mind. He forced himself to recall the feeling he'd had since childhood, something he had always called "intuition" or a "knack."
Whenever he repaired complex machinery, he would enter a strange state of "flow." In that state, it was as if he could "hear" the resonance between parts, "see" the trajectory of energy flowing through circuits. He didn't even need blueprints; he could find the core of a problem by feel alone.
In the past, he thought it was just the result of practice.
But his experience at the Ash Market led him to a groundbreaking hypothesis.
This wasn't a "knack," this was "spiritual energy"!
A raw, untamed power that existed within him, even without a formal "awakening ceremony"!
The hypothesis made his heart beat uncontrollably faster. He needed proof.
He stood up and rummaged through a pile of scrap, pulling out a completely sealed metal box. Based on its weight and texture, he guessed it might be some kind of small, civilian-grade signal booster, but its internal structure was a complete mystery.
It was the perfect test subject.
Ling Feng placed the box in front of him, took a deep breath, and tried to enter the same state of concentration he used when repairing machines. He pushed all distracting thoughts from his mind, his eyes and his focus fixed solely on the cold metal object before him.
It was difficult.
Forcing his mind to "perceive" without using his hands put an immense strain on his brain. His temples throbbed as if a drill were boring into them.
But he gritted his teeth and persevered.
Gradually, a familiar feeling emerged. In his "mind's eye," the hard metal shell of the box began to look like frosted glass that had been soaked in water—blurry, but vaguely transparent. He could "see" a complex shadow formed by wires, chips, and energy conduits.
This "blueprint" was very crude, devoid of detail, and extremely unstable. It lasted for only a few seconds before his vision went black, and he nearly collapsed.
Ling Feng steadied himself on the table, panting heavily, but his eyes were shining with an intense light.
He grabbed his tools and disassembled the metal box as quickly as he could.
The intricate structure inside was a seventy to eighty percent match for the blurry blueprint he had just "seen"!
A wave of immense joy, mixed with shock, washed over his soul.
The hypothesis was confirmed!
He, Ling Feng, a scavenger from the Rust Belt, was a natural-born, unawakened wielder of spiritual energy!
This discovery shook his entire perception of the world. He felt like a colorblind person who had suddenly discovered he could see the entire spectrum.
He suppressed his excitement and turned his attention to the jade pendant.
Now that his own power had been verified, what role did the pendant play in all this?
He rested for a long while. Once his mind had recovered slightly, he held the pendant in his palm. He picked up another, equally complex piece of scrap, closed his eyes, and repeated the experiment.
The moment he focused his mind, a faint coolness emanated from the pendant in his hand.
This coolness was like a drop of clear spring water seeping into his brain, which was throbbing from the exertion of his spiritual energy. It brought significant relief.
And this time, his "mind's eye" underwent a startling transformation!
The outer shell of the component was no longer like blurry, frosted glass. It was now like a clean, transparent crystal. He could clearly "see" the path of every wire, the flaws in every solder joint. He could even "feel" the faint aura of "death" emanating from one of the chips, caused by a burnt-out energy circuit!
The clarity and stability were at least ten times stronger than when he had tried on his own!
Ling Feng's eyes shot open, his mind crystal clear.
He understood everything.
If his own spiritual energy was a light bulb—one with a naturally high wattage but no lampshade, its light scattered and wasted—
Then this jade pendant was the most efficient, perfect focusing lens! It could take his scattered spiritual energy and focus it, amplify it, and stabilize it into an unstoppable laser beam!
With this analysis, the path forward was clear.
He possessed a potential far beyond that of an ordinary person, and he had a heaven-defying tool to aid him. But he was missing the most crucial piece—an "instruction manual."
A systematic body of knowledge about the levels of spiritual energy, methods of cultivation, and techniques for its use.
Without this manual, he would forever be a reckless amateur, relying on instinct, and would sooner or later meet his doom due to his own ignorance.
He had to find this manual.
In a ruin of civilization like the Rust Belt, knowledge, like scrap parts, could be "scavenged." And at the top of this particular food chain, there was only one name, a name that lived in legend—
"The Echo."
Ling Feng gathered the credit chip and the jade pendant from the table into his hand.
The former was his "key" to acquiring knowledge.
The latter was his "ace," the foundation of his future survival.
For the first time, his gaze shed its youthful naivety and confusion. It became as sharp, calm, and focused as the screwdriver in his hand.