From Cybernetics Repairman to God of Machines

As you move around, a simple panel immediately appears before your eyes!

[Divinity Interface]

[Mastering Skills: Anchor of Faith]

When a target individual experiences strong emotional fluctuations (such as extreme fear, awe, fanatical worship, desperate pleading, or cognitive upheaval) due to your presence, words, actions, or the power you demonstrate, you can actively guide this emotion to imprint a "faith mark" on their soul.

[Mark Takes Effect]

Anchoring your faith: Once the imprint is formed, the goal will become your "faith anchor".

Deepening of Faith: The level of faith gradually increases ("shallow believer" → "deep believer" → "fanatic").

Real-world applicability: This ability has the same effect in the real world as it does in the game.

[Note: Fear is the most direct form of conversion, and worship is the sweetest offering.]

Gu Cheng was genuinely surprised when he saw the ability panel.

"This works?"

"Isn't this forcing me to become a charlatan?"

You should know that in this area, being a charlatan is a high-risk profession!

Despair breeds churches, and the saying "the wasteland is the birthplace of churches" couldn't be more fitting. But in Rusty City, faith is absolutely forbidden. For the lords living in the upper city, there is no chance for any lower city residents to band together.

After more than a century of church attempts to recruit believers and overthrow the ruling class, the spread of faith has been taboo!

The rebels outside the city were accepting of everything. However, compared to their miserable lives, life in the city, though tougher, offered at least a basic level of safety.

What needs to be done now is to find a way to give back rewards after the believers offer their offerings.

"A technologically backward tribe?"

After much deliberation, Gu Cheng realized that to change their miserable lives, he clearly needed to help them accelerate into the process of modernization!

……

The next day.

Gu Cheng was leaning over the operating table, his tweezers holding an eyeball that gleamed with a cold blue light.

He then suspended his eyeballs above the operating table.

Looking directly at the customer's eye sockets, a mixture of flesh and metal, he said in a dry voice, "Neural bundle alignment!"

"Don't blink, Old Scar. If you blink now, you'll see the world with one eye for the rest of your life."

Old Scar let out a soft "hmm" in response.

Gu Cheng was already used to similar surgeries, and muttered to himself:

"Visual cortex connection in progress... impedance normal."

"Start uploading driver".

Old Scar's body tensed up suddenly.

A sharp sting came from deep within the new eyeball, which then turned into a strange tingling sensation.

After a moment, Gu Cheng straightened up: "All done."

Old Scar sat up, and the newly installed eyeballs began to slowly rotate, emitting an almost inaudible mechanical hum from within.

With the enhanced vision from that new eye, he could even see the fine hairs on Gu Cheng's face!

Old Scar grinned, revealing a set of uneven metal teeth: "This clarity is fucking awesome."

"Ten times better than those vampire clinics in the upper city, and only one-fifth the price."

Gu Cheng had no intention of exchanging pleasantries with the other party; he had already turned around and started cleaning up his tools: "Thank you, please pay the fee."

Old Scar chuckled twice: "Kid, not bad. Your dad back in the day..."

Gu Cheng interrupted him, his tone unchanged: "Pay!"

To Gu Cheng, any attempt to get close to him was tantamount to defaulting on a debt!

Gu Cheng never gave these parasites a kind look!

Old Scar shrugged, pulled a metal capsule from his pocket, and pressed a button.

"Click."

The capsule split open in the middle, and a lump of something popped out and landed on Gu Cheng's oil-stained workbench.

Technology made breakthroughs long ago, which may be the main reason why this land has been destroyed and is now in its current state.

Space compression technology has become widespread in the lives of downtown residents.

Most of the time, this is used for smuggling activities.

That was a piece of meat.

Gu Cheng raised one eyebrow.

The meat chunks weighed about two pounds, were bright red, had clear muscle texture, and evenly distributed fat.

Clearly, this is also a piece of meat that has not been contaminated!

If it were yesterday, Gu Cheng might have accepted it readily, but now, in his storage capsule, there was a full half ton of similar flesh and blood.

Meat no longer held any appeal for Gu Cheng, but with sudden wealth, arrogance was his original sin, and he always had to put on a show of saving face.

Gu Cheng asked the old scar, "Where did you come from?"

"The meat in the city has long been monopolized by the 'Iron Jaw Gang' and the 'Scavengers,' so small-time traders like you have no chance of getting your hands on this kind of meat."

Old Scar lowered his voice and said, "They changed it from where the rebels were."

Gu Cheng was taken aback for a moment, then looked at Old Scar and frowned, saying, "Are you out of your mind?"

Old Scar reverted to his nonchalant expression: "Do you know the price of a standard protein bar on the black market right now? It's double what it was three months ago!"

"The Iron Jaw Gang and the Cleaners control the channels, taking a cut right to our bones. Those of us struggling to survive in the cracks, if we didn't draw water from that 'dark river' of the rebels, we'd be dried-up corpses long ago!"

After saying that, Old Scar pointed to the meat in front of him: "How about that? Enough to pay for the replacement fee, right?"

Gu Cheng stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head. "Not enough."

Old Scar was stunned: "What?!"

Gu Cheng listed them one by one, speaking slowly: "Surgery fee, material fee, calibration fee for the neural adapter."

"There's also a risk fee. You used meat from an unknown source to pay, which might cause me some trouble, so it's not enough!"

Old Scar cursed under his breath, then rummaged in his pocket for a while, pulled out three "pebbles" of different sizes, some with mottled impurities, and threw them on the worktable: "That's all. If you don't like them, gouge your eyeballs back in."

Gu Cheng picked up the crystal and nodded in satisfaction, saying, "It's a pleasure doing business with you!"

Old Scar cursed and turned to leave. Gu Cheng was already used to this. Don't expect the people of the lower city to have high moral character, let alone desperate criminals who risk their lives.

As for owing money? Or even outright robbery, these guys wouldn't dare.

After all, the protection money that Gu Cheng paid to the "cleaners" wasn't given away for nothing.

【Ding! 】

Just then, a crisp notification sound rang in Gu Cheng's mind.

[The initial altar (mechanical faith) has been preliminarily repaired by believers.]

[Altar feature unlocked: Daily Faith value increase increased by 5%]

[Unlock special interactive ability: Divine Descent (Beginner)]

Gu Cheng's gaze was immediately drawn to the newly unlocked [Divine Descent] option.

[Divine Descent (Beginner): Consumes 100 Faith Points. Allows your will to transcend barriers and temporarily descend into the material world. Requires a "Compatible Vessel" to achieve this.]

[During dimensional traversal, the strength of the carrier will differ, and different levels of Faith Points will be consumed!]

[Suitable vessel: Possesses a high degree of devout faith (deeply devout or above) or the vessel is an inanimate object without any conscious obstruction!]

[Divine nature suitable carriers: mechanical, flesh-and-blood]

Now, Gu Cheng is completely alone, and compared to living beings, he is obviously left with only the option of choosing dead beings.

Almost instinctively, Gu Cheng focused his gaze on the corner of the shop, where different models of robots were piled up, all of them defective. Their only value was to provide him with repair services and to disassemble them for material use.

Now that the altar has been successfully repaired, Gu Cheng may be able to use divine intervention to accomplish some secret tasks!

After thinking about it all night, Gu Cheng knew very well that, apart from mechanical knowledge, the most important reward for the believers was a large number of modern weapons!

After all, the main problem now is survival!

However, it would be too conspicuous for a repair shop owner to suddenly purchase a large amount of weapons and equipment.

In this region, once suspicion arises, there's no need for further verification; physical destruction is sufficient.

Rebelling against gangs, challenging the city, and amassing power—any one of these crimes could be punishable by death.

With the power of divine intervention, Gu Cheng could easily use the machines to purchase anything he wanted, such as...

arms!