Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chen Ming nodded.

After He Gu left, he pressed the start button on the instrument.

A surge of Spiritual Energy Fluctuation immediately flowed out from inside the instrument, following the Spiritual Power and Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Chen Ming had left behind and wrapping around his body.

Two or three lines of text appeared on the instrument’s display.

The first line was the Spiritual Energy attribute that was compatible with Chen Ming.

The following lines were the locations of materials or equipment with that attribute, retrieved by the instrument’s chip from its database based on the Spiritual Energy attribute that matched Chen Ming.

Simply put, it was a database that would tell the user where to find recorded, suitable, and still obtainable Spiritual Materials.

Chen Ming was just about to take a closer look.

But in the next moment, the text on the display changed, turning into a new Spiritual Energy attribute.

Before Chen Ming could react, he saw the display change yet again.

And it kept going.

The results shown on the display kept changing, with each result staying on screen for no more than half a second, as if it just couldn’t stop.

”This...”

Did that mean it hadn’t found a Spiritual Energy attribute compatible with him? That couldn’t be right...

Still puzzled, Chen Ming waited another two minutes, but the situation did not change.

The content on the display was still constantly changing, not giving Chen Ming any reasonable result at all.

There was nothing Chen Ming could do; he pulled open the door of the reception room.

He Gu, who had been looking down at his terminal, immediately turned his head and asked, ”All done?”

”No.”

He Gu’s question was more of a formality; he really hadn’t expected that Chen Ming actually wouldn’t get it done.

”What happened?”

Chen Ming directly handed the instrument back and said, ”Take a look.”

He Gu took it, frowned as he watched the constantly flickering text on it.

Chen Ming asked, ”Does this mean the instrument didn’t find any Spiritual Energy attribute compatible with me?”

”Probably not.”

He Gu denied Chen Ming’s guess and said, ”Because back when the database was still incomplete, testing for Spiritual Energy attributes still turned up many suitable attributes that hadn’t been discovered yet.

”So when that happens, there will be a notification. Normally, several similar attributes are displayed together to make comparison and speculation easier.”

”Even if there aren’t any similar ones, it still shouldn’t be jumping around like this. This kind of situation... could the device be broken?”

”...”

In the silence, Chen Ming suddenly had a feeling—that the instrument wasn’t broken; the problem lay with him.

It was probably just like he’d guessed before.

As a Mind Breaking Entity, a chaotic existence, how could he possibly have a single compatible Spiritual Energy attribute?

And thinking about it carefully, since Psychics have one or several Spiritual Materials with good compatibility, then having Spiritual Materials with bad compatibility is perfectly normal.

But Chen Ming had come into contact with so many different attributes of Spiritual-energy-related things, and it really seemed like there wasn’t a single one that showed obvious bad compatibility with him.

That alone seemed enough to explain the problem to a certain extent.

Although Chen Ming had suspected before that it might be an issue with the prosthetic body.

But the Spiritual Power stored in the device was his, the Spiritual Energy Fluctuation was his, the blood was exactly the same as his original body’s, and as for the genes, that went without saying.

So he had ruled out the possibility that the prosthetic body was causing the instrument to malfunction.

Since that was the case, Chen Ming felt he could just go with whichever Spiritual Energy Fluctuation looked stronger and use that, without bothering to consider compatibility at all.

If he really had to find some kind of compatible affinity, maybe he’d have better luck in the Crimson Dimension.

Of course, that was just Chen Ming’s guess. His use of the Crimson Dimension was still focused on cutting off his senses and transmitting other things.

Under the premise of keeping his own consciousness, he could only stay in the Crimson Dimension for half a second. Doing anything there was obviously not something he could manage right now.

It was just something to think about.

In Chen Ming’s silence—

He Gu reached out and applied the standard universal fix for electronic devices to the instrument, that is, he gave it a few whacks.

But that method clearly didn’t work; the display on the instrument was still jumping between all kinds of results.

”It should be that the instrument is broken.”

He Gu said, ”I pulled this out of the warehouse. Those instruments and pieces of equipment might have been manufactured several years ago. They may have gone bad in storage. I’ll send word back to have another one prepared for you, and I’ll have them arrange compensation for the damaged device.”

”Compensation? Like a ’fake one, pay ten’ deal?”

”Haha...”

He Gu gave an awkward laugh and said, ”That we probably don’t have, but we can give you—”

Even though he knew it probably wasn’t the instrument’s problem, Chen Ming couldn’t exactly tell the truth, so he just quietly accepted the benefit.

The three thousand Contribution Points had already been credited earlier. Although there was a small hiccup in this transaction, the main deal was already done.

It didn’t matter if they couldn’t work out a result afterward.

He already had an answer in his heart.

The two of them didn’t dwell on the instrument for long. After He Gu handed the instrument to Chen Ming, and Chen Ming turned it into a piece of scrap metal right in front of him, they wrapped up the formal topics and chatted a bit about their own matters.

Although He Gu and Chen Ming hadn’t known each other for very long and hadn’t met that many times,

they were both researchers in certain technical fields and still had plenty of common ground when it came to research.

There was always something they could talk about.

After a few casual exchanges—

He Gu suddenly asked Chen Ming, ”Do you have any plans for what comes next?”

”Plans?”

Chen Ming did, of course, have plans.