BXBX NOVEL Chapter 370: Selection
“Certainly not, sir!” Little Locke s face was white with fear as he hastily waved his hands, “The boss may be a miserly…goblin, but he would never stoop to deceiving a customer. Whatever he promises, you can indeed find inside these mechanical boxes. However, the odds are extremely low, and each type only holds a single piece…”
Among the hundreds of boxes, only a few contained good items. The odds were just a few percent, making the chances of obtaining something valuable extremely slim.
Little Locke may have thought his boss was unscrupulous, but Song Jian had seen such tactics many times before. In the real world, anyone selling items would use similar methods to promote sales, though instead of mechanical boxes, they might use raffles or lucky draws.
After hearing Little Locke’s words, Song Jian naturally shifted his attention from the mechanical boxes to the actual items for sale in the shop.
“Rocket Boots?” He spotted the item Xi Locke had mentioned earlier, one of the treasures potentially hidden within the mechanical boxes. Currently, a pair of bulky-looking red boots sat on the counter.
“Dark Gold Quality?” Song Jian glanced at them and couldn’t help but whistle. The boots were a level-thirty piece of Dark Gold quality equipment, with potent attributes ideal for either pursuit or escape. However, the price was staggering – one million Doomsday Coins!
“Are you saying your boss actually put a pair of Rocket Boots in a mechanical box?” Song Jian pointed at the boots on the counter and asked with a smile.
He couldn’t possibly believe that if you bought an item worth a thousand Doomsday Coins, you could have a chance to win a product worth a million Doomsday Coins, even if the odds were only a few percent.
“The boss did put a pair of Rocket Boots in there, but they are just a level-fifteen piece of green quality gear…a failed prototype he made,” Little Locke nervously explained in a low voice.
Song Jian shrugged, his faint hope immediately dashed. But he quickly started to mock himself. If the goblin really had placed a pair of boots worth a million Doomsday Coins into one of the boxes, he’d probably have exhausted the last coin in his pocket. After all, each box only cost a thousand Doomsday coins to open. With around a hundred boxes in sight, it would only cost him tens of thousands of Doomsday Coins to open them all, which seemed like a worthwhile gamble.
However, spending such a hefty sum for a level-fifteen piece of green quality gear was obviously out of the question.
“Sir, would you be interested in this? It’s a cardiac pacemaker. It activates thirty seconds after your Vitality Points reach zero, giving you a 15% chance of coming back to life!” Little Locke led Song Jian to another counter, pointing at a palm-sized device resembling a pocket watch.
“Is this…a gamble on life?” Song Jian asked, laughing somewhat incredulously at the contraption before him.
This item had no attributes, but offered a 15% chance of resurrection after your Vitality Points hit zero. The catch was that it took up one accessory slot and only worked when equipped.
Sure, you could swap it in when nearing death for the same effect, but amidst intense combat, it was questionable how many would have the chance to do so;
“Kind of useless, isn’t it? Il get a few anyway – they’re not too expensive.” Song Jian hesitated, but ultimately decided to buy a few. Each cardiac pacemaker cost a thousand Doomsday Coins, thus providing him a few chances to open the mechanical boxes.
Seeing Song Jian buy the items, Little Locke was overjoyed and began enthusiastically introducing the various goods available in the engineering shop, hoping Song Jian would buy more.
Song Jian discovered that the engineering shop indeed held lots of interesting items. For instance, there was a device called a “Frost Bomb”; though not made from Magic Flame, its creator had cleverly utilised other technology to create similar effects. Upon detonation, the bomb could freeze all living things within a five-meter radius. However, its damage output was somewhat underwhelming, inflicting only 45 points, and if the target had high Ice Resistance, it might not freeze them at all.
However, for average adventurers, it was considered a very effective gadget and could save their lives if used correctly. Hence, the “Frost Bomb” wasn’t exactly cheap, costing three thousand Doomsday Coins – almost the price of a level-ten green quality equipment piece.
Song Jian thought for a while and decided to purchase a few. He was quite interested in the “Frost Bomb,” and he wondered if peering inside its casing might give him insight into its construction method.
However, the chances of this were very slim; many engineering masters incorporate anti-dismantling mechanisms into their items. Normal use wouldn’t trigger them, but any attempt to disassemble the item would result in its self-destruction, leaving you with nothing.
Xi Locke, being a master engineer himself, would definitely have installed such a mechanism in his products. Regardless, Song Jian thought it might be worth taking the device back to Dr. Ebsiting to see whether they could disable the self-destruct mechanism.
If Song Jian could obtain the blueprint for making the “Frost Bomb,” it would be an easy task for him, with his third-tier Demon Flame, to modify it into an even more potent explosive.
“Sir, take a look at this! It’s a mechanical squirrel, proficient in over a hundred types of dances and can produce exquisite music. If you gifted this to your girlfriend, she’d definitely love it!” Little Locke gushed. Seeing that Song Jian had purchased over ten thousand Doomsday Coins of goods, he was thrilled. The commission would be enough to buy him a fresh loaf of black bread, which made him even more eager to sell.
Unfortunately, despite the many potentially useful items in the engineering shop, Song Jian was only interested in the high-end ones that cost hundreds of thousands of Doomsday Coins. The more affordable items failed to catch his eye. In the end, despite Little Locke’s efforts, Song Jian didn’t purchase any more items.
“Well, that’s it for now. How much do I owe you?” After another look around and finding no more items of interest, Song Jian shook his head and declined Little Locke’s further sales pitches.
“That will be fifteen thousand Doomsday Coins, sir. This gives you fifteen chances to open the mechanical boxes,” Little Locke quickly replied.
After paying the bill, Song Jian stowed a few “Cardiac Pacemakers” and “Frost Bombs” into his bag and followed Little Locke to the other side of the shop.
Hundreds of mechanical boxes lay before Song Jian, attracting the curious gaze of the nearby customers.
Song Jian casually pointed at one of the boxes and said, “That one!”