2: Devouring metal, reconstructing the Black Iron

Icy water clogged his lungs like liquid concrete, and the searing sensation of suffocation in his chest was devouring his last remaining consciousness.

Jiang Ran felt his body sinking continuously, drifting further and further away from that broken, noisy world.

Is this death?

Darkness, silence—it felt like a never-ending fall.

[System activation successful.]

[Host's vital signs are critical. Initiating emergency intervention procedure.]

[Distributing Newbie core reward...]

That cold, mechanical voice rang out again.

This time, it wasn't just in his mind; it felt as if even the crushing currents around him were vibrating with the sound.

In the pitch-black depths, a faint glimmer of ghostly blue light suddenly flickered to life.

The light didn't come from above; it appeared out of thin air directly in front of Jiang Ran's blurring vision.

What... is that?

Exerting the last shred of his strength, Jiang Ran forced his eyes wide open.

He saw a fist-sized mass of silver fluid suspended in the water before him.

It looked like a drop of living liquid mercury.

Its surface pulsed and surged rhythmically, reflecting a cold, eerie luster.

It emitted a sense of precision and a chilling aura that didn't belong to this dilapidated era at all.

[Item Name: mechanical heart (Primary Core)]

[Attributes: The source of all-thing reconstruction. Can devour and analyze metallic substances to manifest as mechanical vehicles.]

[Status: Awaiting Link.]

"Live..."

Survival instinct drove Jiang Ran to reach out his hand in the water.

His fingertips trembled as they touched the cold mass of silver fluid.

The moment they made contact...

The mass of "mercury" seemed to have found its host.

It instantly transformed into a streak of light, burrowing through Jiang Ran's fingertips into his palm and merging into his flesh and blood!

Boom!

A strange electric current instantly swept through his entire body.

Jiang Ran's stiff and numb limbs felt as if they had been injected with a high-concentration shot of adrenaline.

His heart contracted violently, pumping out powerful blood once again.

At the same time, a faint blue light membrane centered on his palm instantly expanded into a miniature force field half a meter in diameter.

It forcibly pushed away the suffocating, turbid silt and currents around him.

"Cough! Cough, cough!"

Jiang Ran coughed violently, greedily breathing in the tiny bit of rusty-smelling air within the light membrane.

He was alive.

He clenched his fist tightly, clearly feeling that mechanical heart thumping in his palm.

It was as if it had become one with his own pulse.

It was a sense of control akin to being connected by blood; it felt as though with a single thought, this thing could tear through any obstacle for him.

[Host's vital signs have stabilized.]

[Warning: Current environment is extremely dangerous. Water pressure is continuously rising. Conditions are not suitable for long-term survival.]

[Detected a large amount of high-density man-made waste in the vicinity...]

Jiang Ran snapped his head up.

With the help of the faint blue light emitted by the mechanical heart, he saw his surroundings clearly.

He hadn't sunk to the bottom of the sea; instead, he was caught on a giant billboard bracket about twenty meters deep on the building's exterior wall.

In the surrounding waters floated countless items that had just been washed down from the building—

Broken and twisted office desk frames, crushed tin filing cabinets, and computer towers scattered in the silt.

There were also countless thick cables tangled together like seaweed.

This industrial junk, worthless in the apocalypse...

Now, in Jiang Ran's eyes, each piece was overlaid with a pale green data tag:

[Damaged Low-Carbon Steel Desk Frame: 85% Iron Content, Extractable]

[Waterlogged Computer Tower: 5% Copper Content, 10% Aluminum Content, Trace Rare Metals, Extractable]

[Snapped Construction Rebar: 95% High-Strength Steel, Extractable]

The system's voice rang out again, carrying a seductive coldness: [Initiate first devour?]

[Target: Construct Level 0 Basic Vehicle.]

Jiang Ran looked up at the pitch-black, heavy surface of the water. Tiger's sneering face and the Man with Glasses' greedy gaze flashed through his mind.

A trace of violent, cold light flickered in his eyes.

"Devour."

He muttered fiercely in his heart.

Buzz—!

As the command filled with hostility was issued in Jiang Ran's mind, the mechanical heart in his palm jolted violently.

The originally fist-sized silver fluid expanded instantly, transforming into countless silver threads finer than hair.

Like a neural network exploding underwater, carrying ghostly blue electric arcs, they spread frantically in all directions.

A heavy, old-fashioned tin filing cabinet, half-buried in the mud nearby, was the first to be hit.

A dozen silver threads instantly coiled around it, like living vines, sinking deep into the metal surface.

A shocking scene unfolded.

There was no violent explosion or sound of shattering.

The moment the silver threads enveloped the hard filing cabinet, it was as if a candle had met high heat.

The rigid steel shell disintegrated into countless tiny particles flowing with a metallic luster.

These particles flowed back rapidly along the network of silver threads.

Like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, they continuously poured into the mechanical heart in Jiang Ran's palm.

[Notice: Captured scrap low-carbon steel... Purifying... Obtained 50kg of Standard Iron Ingots.]

As the system's cold notification sounded, Jiang Ran clearly felt the core in his hand grow a bit heavier.

This was nothing short of a miracle!

The chill in Jiang Ran's eyes intensified as he looked at the more floating junk around him, and the long-suppressed desire to survive completely erupted.

"Not enough... still not enough! Devour it all!"

The silver light net expanded its range again.

Water-soaked office desk frames, heavy computer tower shells, snapped aluminum window frames, and even thick copper-core cables tangled in rebar... any metal creation touched by the light net.

No matter how badly rusted or how twisted the shape, they were all violently dismantled and reverted in an instant.

It was as if a metallic storm had been whipped up underwater.

Useless wood chips and plastic shells were ruthlessly stripped away, turning into turbid dust that dispersed in the water.

But the truly valuable metallic elements—

Iron, copper, aluminum, and even the trace amounts of gold and silver in the circuit boards were precisely extracted.

They turned into brilliant metallic torrents, frantically surging into Jiang Ran's body.

The narrow stretch of water where Jiang Ran was located became extremely turbid due to the violent agitation of energy.

He was like a black hole in the eye of a storm, greedily plundering all the industrial wreckage around him.

Within just a few minutes.

The area around the billboard bracket, which had been packed with junk, was forcibly cleared out.

[Iron Resources Collected: 850kg]

[Copper Resources Collected: 20kg]

[Other Composite Metals: 150kg]

When the last piece of rebar turned into iron powder and flowed into his palm, the vibration of the mechanical heart finally reached its peak.

It was no longer liquid.

Instead, it condensed into a heavy, high-density cube emitting a cold metallic luster.

[Material collection complete.]

[Currently Available Blueprint: Level 0 · Black Iron Rowboat (Heavy Structure)]

[Begin reconstruction?]

Jiang Ran looked up at the pitch-black water surface above him.

He knew that up there, the people who had pushed him down were still there.

"Reconstruct."

He gritted his teeth and spat out those two words.

As the "reconstruct" command was issued, the metal cube in Jiang Ran's hand burst open.

There was no slow assembly of precision machinery as one might imagine.

This reconstruction was full of the brutality and wildness of the industrial age.

Countless black metallic fluids converged, stretched, and solidified frantically beneath his feet, like an instantaneous casting process.

The water was violently displaced, letting out a muffled roar.

Jiang Ran felt a massive buoyancy lifting his body rapidly toward the surface, as if he were being pushed up by a deep-sea behemoth.

Splash—!

Accompanied by a massive spray of water.

A large, pitch-black object burst through the surface, coming to a steady halt in the surging floodwaters.

Jiang Ran tumbled into the cabin in a mess, panting heavily.

When he finally calmed his breathing...

And looked up to survey his surroundings, even though he was mentally prepared, a flash of shock couldn't help but cross his eyes.

Floating beneath him was a small boat, about three meters long and one and a half meters wide.

It lacked any streamlined beauty; it could even be called ugly, like a steel coffin with its top shaved off.

Its entire body was recast from the desks and computer tower tin he had just devoured, presenting a dull, matte black color.

The surface had a rough metallic texture.

But its hull walls were extremely thick, with sharp, distinct edges. There wasn't a single rivet or welding seam.

The entire hull was a single piece, as if it had been carved directly from a block of high-strength alloy.

Raindrops hitting the boat didn't make a crisp pitter-patter, but a dull, heavy thud.

This was the [Level 0 Black Iron Rowboat].

Though it had no engine, no roof, and didn't even have a decent cushioned seat—

There was only a cold metal crossbeam beneath his rear.

But on this apocalyptic water surface where everything was wood planks, foam, and rubber tires...

This boat was a floating heavy tank.

Jiang Ran reached out to touch the gunwale; the cold, hard sensation gave him an unprecedented sense of security.

This was his only territory in this collapsing world.

[Current Vehicle Attributes]

Name: black iron (Infant Stage)

Tonnage: 0.8 tons

Armor Strength: Grade F (Integrated casting process, can resist conventional cold weapon strikes and minor impacts)

Power: None (Requires manual rowing)

Weapons: None. Special Ability: Devour (Can repair or upgrade by coming into contact with metallic wreckage)

"No power, huh..."

Jiang Ran glanced at the bottom of the boat, where two oars, also cast from black iron, lay quietly.

Though crude, they were enough.

He grabbed the two heavy metal oars; they felt extremely weighty and cold in his hands.

These weren't just oars; if swung, they could serve as blunt weapons capable of crushing a human skull.

He slowly pulled the oars, and the heavy hull cut through the waves.

Though it was slow to start, its momentum was massive; once it got moving, it was like a black cannonball, unstoppable.

Jiang Ran looked up through the vast curtain of rain toward the nearby building, of which only the very tip remained.

The water level was still rising; it would soon be completely submerged.

Tiger, that Man with Glasses, and those indifferent onlookers were probably struggling desperately in the water right now.

He didn't row back for revenge.

To the current him, those people were already dead.

Dead people weren't worth the effort to kill.

"In this life, I only trust myself and this boat."

Jiang Ran withdrew his gaze, his eyes as cold as iron.

He adjusted his sitting position.

Applying strength with his hands, he rowed this pitch-black steel Ark toward the unknown dark waters at the edge of the city.

The rain continued to fall, but the deadly flood had now become his thoroughfare.