CHAPTER 132: CHAPTER 107: SCRAP KID

"Puchi~ (Delicious)"

Xiaoruan squinted his eyes, raised the barbecue skewer, and said.

The Dark Crow stood on his shoulder, nudging Li Cunxu’s cheek with its head.

"Caw~ (Another ten skewers of roasted fat cicadas.)"

"It’s just so-so! If only adding some poison, or roasting with venomous insects would be great."

The white spider, also an insect eater, curiously tasted a bite of the roasted fat cicada, then returned to its ragdoll form and stopped eating.

Li Cunxu laughed, "If you want to eat roasted poisonous insects, you have to go to a specialized barbecue place for poison-types. There’s no way they’ll roast poisonous insects here. If they accidentally touch other barbecues, it could cause a poisoning incident."

After eating and drinking their fill, Li Cunxu found a hotel near the Mechanical City junkyard to stay overnight.

The next day, at the break of dawn, Li Cunxu went out, heading to the junkyard in search of the Hammer Forger.

The search wasn’t going smoothly because the Mechanical City junkyard was simply too vast.

Mechanical City had only a junkyard for storing trash, not a waste-processing plant for cleaning it.

The majority of the junk in Mechanical City consisted of mechanical pet parts, most of which were made of heat-resistant alloys, making them extremely resistant to high temperatures. Melting and decomposing these high-temperature-resistant parts in a furnace requires an extremely high temperature, and maintaining such high temperatures needs a vast amount of Spiritual Energy.

Spiritual Energy can’t just appear out of thin air; it requires money to obtain.

The Mechanical Emperor calculated it, and it turns out processing mechanical waste costs dozens of times more than recycling the metal.

This means handling mechanical waste to recycle it is a losing business, so it’s better to just leave the mechanical waste pieces there.

It’s like digging a piece of iron from the ground costs only one yuan, but recovering a piece of iron from mechanical waste costs fifty yuan.

What’s more, the underground mineral resources in Divine Dominion are rich, so there’s no need to recycle and save.

Additionally, stacking mechanical waste pieces together has an advantage; there’s a chance of creating trash-related Scrap Kids.

Scrap Kid is a common representative among scrap mechanical pets, composed of various mechanical waste pieces. It has numerous evolution paths—currently, twenty-three known paths. They roam the junkyard daily, hoping to find better mechanical parts to replace their own.

As such, they value their territory highly, often engaging in territorial disputes.

Anyone trespassing their territory gets attacked and driven away, though there are exceptions, like garbage trucks delivering waste. They’re warmly welcomed and cunningly offer treasures found in the junkyard to bribe the truck drivers into delivering more waste to their territory.

On the tip of a trash mountain, a soda can-head pops up, and Li Cunxu notices, seeing a wrench being thrown at him.

Li Cunxu throws a scythe to knock the wrench down.

In the past, Li Cunxu’s scythe could have sliced the wrench in half, but not anymore, now it can only knock it down.

The Evil Scythe Scarecrow granted Li Cunxu its skill, Evil Thought Scythe, but after Li Xiao’e drew out the Evil God’s pollution, most of the power left by the Evil Scythe Scarecrow was also removed.

The current Evil Thought Scythe is much weaker; chopping down even a small tree trunk is difficult—it’s only good for cutting grass and doing odd jobs.

"It’s a Scrap Kid, Dark Crow, capture it for me."

The Dark Crow flew out, easily capturing the Scrap Kid and tossing it in front of Li Cunxu.

The Scrap Kid glared at Li Cunxu, emitting a voice like electric sound.

"This is the territory of my Green Scarf Gang. I warn you, human, you’d better leave."

Green Scarf Gang? Li Cunxu looked at the green scarf wrapped around its right wrist.

"You’re threatening (*￣︶￣), quite daring."

The Scrap Kid took out a flare gun from its waist and fired a signal into the sky, and a green flare shot upwards.

"My Green Scarf Gang is coming, better leave quickly."

In no time, rustling noises came from afar.

On the trash mountain, Scrap Kids popped up one by one. Some had soda cans the size of soccer balls on their heads, some wore discarded cowboy hats, and some wore stockings, resembling bandits.

The Scrap Kid wearing stockings was the most interesting; there were white silk, nude, black silk, red silk, fishnet...

White silk was less common since they easily got dirty in the junkyard.

Red silk was the most conspicuous.

Without exception, all these Scrap Kids had green scarves tied on their right arms.

"Human, leave this place; it’s the domain of the Scrap Green Scarf Gang. If you want to scavenge, go elsewhere."

A big Scrap Kid jumped out to speak.

Li Cunxu was amused; they mistook him for someone competing for their trash.

"I’m not here to steal trash; I’m here to find something."

The big Scrap Kid showed disdain on its screen face.

"I’ve heard that excuse so many times before. You won’t fool me by claiming to look for something when, in fact, you’re here to steal trash from my territory."

Li Cunxu rubbed his temples, why couldn’t they understand?

"Look at how I’m dressed; do I look like someone scavenging for trash?"

"Yes."

The big Scrap Kid answered in a flash.

Li Cunxu was exasperated, "In what way do I look like it? I ask you."

"Every way."

"Can I at least pass through, then?"

"No, under the guise of passing through, you are just here to steal trash from my territory; I’ve seen many like that."

Li Cunxu was speechless; is trash picking so competitive these days?

"If sweet words don’t work, then let’s use force! Xiaoruan, go, knock them all down."

If he let a group of Scrap Kids block his way and took a detour, would Li Cunxu still find the Hammer Forger? There are many Scrap Kid groups like this in the junkyard. He can’t take a detour every time he encounters one.

Not only would this waste time, but what if the territories are connected and a detour is impossible?

Additionally, what if the Hammer Forger is hiding in the Scrap Kid’s territory?

Xiaoruan launched a barrage of water balls, sending the big Scrap Kid flying into the trash mountain. The others, seemingly unafraid, all jumped out together to attack.

They had momentum, like thousands charging from the mountains in ambush.

The result... was pathetic.

A group of Scrap Kids, not even at a bronze level, couldn’t withstand Xiaoruan’s bombardment of water balls—they all took a cold shower.

Li Cunxu held his chin, contemplating whether to command the Scrap Kids to help him find the Hammer Forger.

If the Scrap Kids helped, the power of many could greatly increase the chances of finding what he’s looking for.

But after careful consideration, Li Cunxu dismissed the idea.

The Scrap Kids searching for the Hammer Forger would surely cause a big commotion, attracting the attention of others, which would be bad.

After all, no one is foolish; if someone is going to great lengths to find the Hammer Forger, it means this Hammer Forger must possess something special.

If someone intercepted them, Li Cunxu might not be able to get it back, especially if the other party was powerful. Once they discovered the Hammer Forger’s unique qualities, they would likely sell it before Li Cunxu could grow stronger, which would take too long.

It was better for him to quietly search alone, and once found, it would be his without competition.

Li Cunxu searched around the Green Scarf Gang’s territory, and seeing no other mechanical beings besides Scrap Kids, he left.

Next, the Scrap Kids from the Red Scarf Gang, Black Scarf Gang, White Scarf Gang appeared one after another. What impressed Li Cunxu the most was the Fishnet Gang, all wearing black fishnet stockings on their heads.