Welcome to the Ability Shop!

Chapter 47: Let the world descend into chaos? No, let power be in high demand!
"It's 8:21 p.m. now, recording is normal," Lin Qing said, turning on her phone's camera. "Then, the first meeting on the strategy for the salvation operation begins. Participants: Lin Qing and Mr. Manager."

"Is this really necessary?" Chen Xuan rubbed his forehead. It was supposed to be a meeting, but there were only two of them sitting around the coffee table, no different from a casual chat. And that phone was still his; if it leaked, what would become of his reputation as the store manager?

“It is imperative. We are undertaking an important and serious undertaking, and archiving is absolutely necessary. Even if we both pass away halfway through, our successors can inherit our work through these records.”

"Stop! What do you mean by 'died halfway through'? If you can't speak properly, then don't speak!"

Chen Xuan felt a little heartbroken when he thought about the store manager's ability to "still survive".

“That’s right, this is a responsibility I should have shouldered.” Lin Qing’s eyes dimmed slightly, but quickly returned to normal. “Don’t worry, if we encounter any major risks in the future, I will do my best to protect you.”

Chen Xuan rubbed his forehead, deciding not to delve into the issue further. "Let me go over it from the beginning. The world will be destroyed by the nanobug plague, and the cause of this disaster is the Dimensional Authority and the financial backer company behind it. Considering that this technological revolution will occur in thirty years, you have to stop the Dimensional Authority, right?"

Lin Qing thought for a moment, “The general logic is fine, but it would be more appropriate to use ‘we’ in the last sentence. The agency is dedicated to controlling and sealing all abilities, and it makes no difference to them whether they are acquired through bribery, trade, or plunder. You haven’t been exposed yet, so you don’t think the agency is much of a hindrance, but once they find out, it will be a war.”

"War? I thought you meant one-sided crushing." Chen Xuan opened a bag of potato chips for himself.

Even if you've just eaten dinner, you should have something in your mouth while chatting.

“That would be underestimating you. Mr. Manager, your abilities are far greater than you imagine. Customers you’ve helped will become your potential allies, so this is not a battle between one and many, but a war between two forces,” Lin Qing said seriously.

Chen Xuan felt a little uncomfortable with the praise. "But my name isn't on the intrusion list."

“I’ve been thinking about this too.” She shifted her position, moving from facing him to sitting side by side. Then she reached over and slipped her hand into the bag of potato chips. “Maybe you were a variable, or maybe the threat you posed was too great, belonging to a higher level of secrecy, so you were eliminated without leaving any information.”

"Hmm... then why didn't I join the organization and become one of them? You said yourself that the information of the organization's members has never been leaked, right?"

Click.

Lin Qing had a potato chip in her mouth, and her forehead was sweating.

"Mr. Store Manager...would you be willing to hand over all your abilities and be managed by them?"

"They probably wouldn't want to."

“That’s right.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “I also don’t think you’re that kind of person. The Limitation Agency can’t bring you any benefits, at least they will never pay for abilities.”

Chen Xuan didn't bother to figure out which situation he was in that led to his name not being recorded. "Do you have any specific plans? If you want to stop the mechanism?"

Lin Qing coughed twice and sat up straight.

"No."

Chen Xuan nearly choked. "Not even a little bit?"

“I used to be a combatant, and I’m proficient in everything from armed spaceships to Gauss rifles, but when it comes to coming up with ideas…” she said somewhat embarrassedly, “In the past, our strategic plans were provided by the intelligence department and supercomputers.”

Well... when I met her, she was indeed fighting a fierce battle against the armed mechs all by herself.

“However, it’s not entirely impossible.” Lin Qing added, “When the Limitation Agency split, there was a key figure. Judging from her age, she should still be alive in 2025. She would rather break with the original agency than lose her independence. At first, I thought that if we could find her, we might find an ally who could work with us from the inside.”

After she finished speaking, she sent a photo.

Chen Xuan picked up his phone and glanced at it. It showed an old woman wearing heavy protective clothing, with a city in ruins in the background.

"Do you have a name?"

"Her codename was Red Lotus, but her supporters at the time preferred to call her the Leader."

"Nothing else?" he muttered to himself, wondering why the photo made her look like a refugee. "No, her personal information was strictly protected. At the time, the authorities were determined to kill her."

“This idea won’t work,” Chen Xuan said bluntly. “The enemy is in the dark, and so are we. We’re still on equal footing. If you take the initiative to find out their secrets, then we’ll be in the open, and we could be exposed if we’re not careful.”

Even though she was once a member of the Maintenance Agency, the two agencies, separated by a century, were simply not comparable.

In this day and age, few people even know that the organization exists, let alone want to uncover the identity of one of its members.

"Let me think..." Chen Xuan pondered for a moment, "Even without the dimensional limit mechanism, the world won't get any worse, right?"

“That’s without a doubt,” Lin Qing affirmed. “Many intrusion points are indeed quite dangerous. Leaving them unattended could even cause city-wide destruction. Expanding the intrusion would also lead to more serious problems with ability-based crimes, but that’s not even in the same league as the complete destruction of the Earth’s ecosystem. You could say that the organization’s initial intention was good, but the final result was contrary to their wishes.”

“I met Joan of Arc in another world,” he pondered. “According to historical inertia, she should have died at the age of nineteen, but I helped her change her fate. Won’t this have any impact on history?”

“Good question. Early agencies were very worried about this issue, even considering such intrusion points as pollution,” Lin Qing said while munching on potato chips. “However, that was a misjudgment caused by insufficient technology. Later, the research department was able to accurately measure the gravitational fluctuation coefficient of each world, proving that a world cannot invade itself. Therefore, some seemingly similar histories are actually very different.”

"So the parallel universe theory was proven in the future?"

“Cosmological models are very complex things. We can only proceed step by step and are far from being able to draw conclusions.” She nodded and then shook her head. “Actually, you can already observe ‘non-existent weight’ now, which accounts for up to 90% of the mass. Researchers call it dark matter, but it is very likely the weight of other worlds.”

Wow, publishing this conclusion should guarantee a Nobel Prize, right?

"Wait a minute, according to your logic, the timeline is unique, so no matter what you do, it won't change the future where that ecosystem is destroyed, right?" Chen Xuan discovered a bug.

“That’s the key point!” Lin Qing’s tone brightened. “Yes, it’s theoretically impossible, but you actually did it!” She raised her hand and shook the wristwatch—it was indeed a bit strange that she was still wearing a digital watch despite her highly cybernetic body. “This thing is a miniature gravitational wave detector. When there’s a change in the wave coefficient, it issues a warning, which is why I was so surprised when I saw that Earth was still intact. You didn’t travel to other worlds by crossing intrusion points, but by relying on your own special abilities. Perhaps that’s the key to breaking the theory of impossibility!”

Chen Xuan narrowed his eyes, feeling that the other person was involved in a pyramid scheme.

If she didn't mention these things, she would be a genuine cyberpunk beauty.

“You’re doubting me.” Lin Qing keenly sensed his distraction. “But I can understand. Human development is like the blind men and the elephant; we can only observe what we can see. Under this premise, all theories can be overturned.”

"You're quite open-minded."

"It's not about being open-minded, it's about being realistic," she corrected.

“Alright… Since intrusion and abilities aren’t things that need to be blocked, we can’t let the Dimensional Agency hide so comfortably underwater.” Chen Xuan thought for a moment. “We need to muddy the waters, the muddier the better, and expose it to the public eye. That way, it will have to spend most of its energy dealing with public opinion, making it easier to find people or its weaknesses.”

"You mean, reveal the existence of the otherworldly invasion and its abilities?" Lin Qing immediately understood his meaning.

“Indeed, it’s incredible to me that the Limitation Agency could keep this information hidden for so long. But in any case, their underhanded practices against ability users will definitely ignite public opinion, and everyone will be very interested in this matter.”

"...That's a great idea!" The girl couldn't help but clap her hands. "In the end, people get their abilities from the influence of the intrusion point, which is not something they can control. Forcibly depriving them is equivalent to infringing on a person's basic rights. This way, we don't need to take direct action, and everyone will spontaneously resist the maintenance agency."

As for whether to boycott or join... it's too early to say, Chen Xuan thought to himself.

But one thing is certain: when these secrets surface, they will definitely cause a huge uproar in society. Unlike Area 52 across the street, which is researching aliens, alien corpses and UFOs are just legends with no concrete evidence, abilities are something that can be seen and touched.

Moreover, this tactic is not very risky, making it perfect for testing the waters.

Regardless of the impact this exposure will have on law enforcement agencies, at least they can now openly discuss their capabilities. Ordinary people without such capabilities will naturally begin to envy the "lucky ones" who have acquired them, creating demand out of thin air.

Where there is demand, there will be supply.

This is definitely a profitable deal for the ability shop.

(End of this chapter)