Welcome to the Ability Shop!

Chapter 153 "Substitute"

Lin Qing suddenly turned around and ran upstairs!

Chen Xuan was somewhat puzzled by this action.

Half a minute later, she returned to the first floor with a slight disappointment, "The door still won't open."

It turns out she went to open the back door of the room.

"What...is this a moment of great historical change?"

Upon hearing this, the slight disappointment on Lin Qing's face quickly vanished. "That's right! The original Limitation Agency never publicly recruited anyone. After the split, they did replenish their manpower, but that wasn't recruiting employees; it was hiring ability users as their henchmen—basically, outsourced mercenaries for the company. Even so, there's at least a fifty-year difference between the two timelines!"

When the government was forced to go public before, they mentioned that they would participate in the operation of society and assume some obligations and responsibilities. Now it seems that they intend to implement this.

I never expected Jiangcheng to be the first to try this.

Will history be changed because of this?

Chen Xuan switched to another channel and found the same content—heaven knows how much traffic the other party bought; almost every TV station was reporting on this, and they were even changing the way they reported on it.

“They’ve been bought off by the authorities,” Lin Qing said sarcastically. “The propaganda channels are one of the most important things for the authorities; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to hide until now.”

"So, the continued online discussion about the TV station case is partly due to government intervention?"

“Of course, they’d love for as much attention as possible to crimes of power.” Lin Qing paced back and forth between the shelves. “That way they’ll have a legitimate reason to act… History will definitely change from here on out, and the records of major events in my database probably won’t be able to match anymore… This won’t do…”

"What are you muttering about?" Chen Xuan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I want to apply for the job too!" Lin Qing suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Huh?" He momentarily doubted whether he had misheard. Traveling through a century, starting from the bottom and returning to the top? "You want to go back to the government?"

“This might be an opportunity…” She walked to the bar and stared intently at Chen Xuan. “If the Weixian Agency makes some major decision or changes its strategic policy, we may miss a good chance to defeat it. Forcing it to show itself was definitely a good move, but if we can’t get inside information, it is still essentially opaque. In a battle between two armies, information and intelligence are always the most important things.”

"No way," Chen Xuan rejected outright. "Intelligence can be obtained through other means. If you want to apply for the job, you'll have to undergo their testing. Who knows what methods they use to detect abilities? What if they scan your prosthetic body? Or do you think the agency's inspection methods aren't much more advanced than an X-ray machine?"

Lin Qing had actually started considering these things. "...A routine scan shouldn't be a problem, but I can't weigh myself, and I need to prepare in advance for the blood test. As for abilities...from their perspective, they should be abilityless. Manager, why don't you lend me an ability..."

"Don't even think about it!" Chen Xuan wasn't unwilling to part with his abilities; he had a whole bunch in stock. But sending Lin Qing to do something like this was, in his view, no different from throwing a lamb to the slaughter. What if there was an ability user with X-ray vision? Or an ability user who could force people to tell the truth? These kinds of things were impossible to guard against. "You haven't been fully armed yet. If you're discovered, you'll be like meat on a chopping block. Even if you manage to escape, your futuristic cybernetic body will make them even more vigilant. It's a losing proposition no matter how you look at it."

“Hmm…” Lin Qing scratched her head in distress. She knew the other person was right. “But we really need firsthand intelligence from inside the organization. Especially recently, a new infiltration point is about to emerge.”

"What, another wanderer to deal with?"

“The Wanderer is not important; what is important is the intrusion point itself,” Lin Qing said. “As far as I know, the world connected to this intrusion point is extremely important to the Dimensional Organization. It is a more advanced future world than the present one, and the organization’s war prosthetic technology has made great strides, which is largely due to it.”

"Is it that powerful?" Chen Xuan picked up his phone and looked at the intrusion records. "Why isn't it written there?"

"Because it is a top secret matter of the Security Agency, there are no public records. Even after the agency split up, it remains a mystery... Our high command knows of its existence, but does not know its exact location or when it was activated."

"In other words, the authorities have guarded it at every level."

“That’s right, but we are the ones who can foresee the future, while the mechanisms are not. So there must have been a time gap between when they detected the intrusion fluctuations and when they realized that this intrusion point was extremely important!”

Chen Xuan understood what Lin Qing was trying to say… Erasing the records and strictly sealing them off—those were things that happened later. Initially, it might have just been an ordinary intrusion incident, dealt with only by a certain execution team. This gave them an opportunity.

"You want to be the first to enter that world?"

“Yes.” Lin Qing said frankly, “They have the repair tools, neurosurgical equipment, and even advanced prosthetics that I need most over there. Miss Liu’s memory storage and assistive thinking chip should also be available there. With your branch store function, we can quietly establish a base in the new world.”

No wonder she was so eager to join the Security Agency.

"Why didn't you mention something this important to me before?" Chen Xuan asked, puzzled.

“Because I never had any hope for this at all in the first place,” Lin Qing said, her eyes sparkling. “From a future perspective, this intrusion point has always been under the control of the agency. Outsiders would find it difficult to even gather intelligence, let alone get in. But history is different now! The closed dimensional agency has opened a gap to the outside world. This is their first weakness. If I can infiltrate the execution team, there will be just enough time!”

“I understand… This is indeed quite important.” Chen Xuan nodded, indicating his agreement with the other party’s analysis.

"You agree to let me go?" Lin Qing opened her arms, about to hug him.

"Stop! That's a different matter!" he interrupted immediately. "You absolutely cannot go. The reasons are the same as before. If you expose yourself, you will not only alert the enemy, but you may also implicate the ability shop. And we have no means to prevent exposure. We are simply handing the initiative over to the enemy."

"Ugh..." Lin Qing said dejectedly.

Chen Xuan couldn't help but laugh when he saw her pouting. "But infiltrating the enemy is indeed a good strategy. We can support a few people to apply for jobs."

"Isn't it even less reliable to hire someone else than me?"

“These people are definitely not as reliable as you, but we don’t need to get too involved with them, right?” Chen Xuan roughly explained his thoughts.

What is the biggest advantage of the ability shop? It's that it can provide a sufficiently competitive range of abilities.

With their outstanding abilities, those who would otherwise be eliminated can be transformed and regain the opportunity to perform on stage.

Would someone like that betray him?
Of course, this possibility cannot be ruled out, but thanks to the secret transaction function, even if the other party betrays them, it will not pose any threat to the store; at most, it will just be a waste of an ability.

Moreover, Chen Xuan didn't need the other party to risk their life for him; he only needed some inside information from the organization. If such informants were planted properly, they could undoubtedly be used for a considerable period of time, while also allowing him and Lin Qing to extricate themselves from the situation.

"That... seems like it could work." After listening for a while, she finally spoke, "But choosing the right people is crucial. Do you have any good candidates?"

"Actually, it already exists."

Chen Xuan opened his phone and sent her a video.

Lin Qing's eyes flashed with blue light—she saw a woman livestreaming on a screen, with a large number of comments scrolling by, looking quite lively. But a closer look revealed that the subtitles were all insults and mockery.

"You dare call yourself an 'Ability User'?"

"It's better to have one by the roadside."

"Get lost! Your skills are only good for acrobatics. Stop bragging about how great you are!"

"I just want to ask, did you wet your pants back then?"

Lin Qing was slightly taken aback. She suddenly remembered that this girl named Si Tian was one of the participants in the Ability Showdown program.
(End of this chapter)