The last time he felt this speechless was… the last time.
Hao Fan stared at the special ability he'd just pulled and felt his entire mood crater.
Eat rocks?
What the hell kind of name was that? It was so stupid.
Hao Fan raised his middle finger at the virtual panel. At this point, he was convinced the "super-strong ability system" was, in essence, a meme machine.
And here he'd been, actually having high hopes for it.
"Ugh… that makes five times now. Feels like this system can only roll these dumb, shitpost-style abilities… but this one does seem pretty useful."
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Swallow Originium to master Originium Arts—this "eat-rocks" power honestly sounded like it fit the Doktah too well.
But the description this time was annoyingly vague.
It didn't say what kind of Originium Arts he'd gain, and it didn't explain what those "side effects" even were.
How to put it… it felt like a scam.
Hao Fan grumbled internally.
Still, even if his system was goofy, he didn't think it would deliberately screw him over.
So, after a brief hesitation, he casually took out a chunk of Originium ore.
He'd picked it up earlier in the integrated core area. Now was a perfect time to test the ability.
Which raised an immediate, very practical question.
"How am I supposed to eat this?"
He looked down at the fist-sized ore and fell into deep thought.
There was no way he could swallow that in one bite.
"…Alright. Let's try it. For the sake of mastering Originium Arts."
After thinking it through, his desire to gain Originium Arts outweighed his caution toward the unknown.
He took a bite.
And to his surprise—he actually bit through it. Easily. Like biting into bread.
That had to be a bonus effect of the "eat rocks" ability.
Because a normal human absolutely couldn't do that.
"This texture… kinda like black bread."
Hao Fan tore through the whole chunk in a few quick bites, then immediately realized he'd discovered one good thing and one bad thing.
The good news: the taste wasn't bad at all.
The bad news: after just one fist-sized lump of ore, he already felt full.
But that was expected.
After all, it was a chunk of mineral—way more filling than real food, like eating clay.
Which also meant: his "rock-eating" capacity was limited. He couldn't binge a ton of Originium in a short time—basically an inbuilt restriction.
As for whether it actually worked…
"My stomach feels warm… like the ore's releasing energy, and I'm 'absorbing' it?"
Hao Fan pressed a hand to his abdomen, muttering uncertainly.
It didn't seem unreasonable.
Originium was an energy-bearing crystalline mineral in the first place—Terra's people could already guide its energy outward to produce Originium Arts.
Hao Fan's "guidance method" just happened to be: eat it, digest it, absorb it.
So what did that translate to in actual effects?
He started experimenting.
Then he realized his physical performance seemed to be temporarily boosted by the Originium energy.
Not wildly—more like he'd been raised to the level of an average adult Terran.
Besides that…
He seemed to be able to use a hand cannon normally now.
Everyone knew that unlike Earth firearms, Terra's "guns" were essentially specialized Originium staves. The prerequisite for using them was mastering Originium Arts.
They might look similar. The barrel structure might be similar.
But guns used gunpowder inside bullets as their power source—pressure from combustion launched the projectile down the barrel to create long-range lethality.
Meanwhile, Terra's guns, despite having a similar barrel, relied on Arts as the power source to pressurize the internal structure, producing an effect comparable to conventional firearms.
On paper it sounded close—but in practice the skill barrier was enormous:
Originium Arts.
And not just any Originium Arts—precise Originium Arts.
If your Arts control destabilized, you could misfire… or even damage the gun.
That was basically the foundational rule of operating a gun: your arm had to connect into the gun's internal structure, precisely sense how the ammunition was being pushed, then activate the gun core to fire—maintaining that delicate, continuous Arts trigger the whole time.
High difficulty. Not especially high payoff.
Which was why, outside of the Sankta, few Terrans chose to use guns.
Because why bother when you could just use Originium Arts directly?
And the reason Hao Fan had been able to use his hand cannon before was because of the bullets.
Normally, guns used etched bullets.
According to the setting, every etched bullet contained a micro casting unit, matched to the structure of Laterano guns.
Firing a gun was essentially: the casting unit received and encoded the caster's neural activity, then released energy in different forms.
That energy transmitted through the gun's physical system and acted on a target—from a specific object down to the fundamental particles of matter—producing an effect aligned with the caster's intent.
In other words: using a gun was, in essence, no different from casting Originium Arts.
So on Talos-II, Snipers were categorized as part of the Caster branch.
A gunslinger? A mage.
But the bullets Hao Fan had used earlier weren't micro casting units—they were Originium powder that Endfield had specially stabilized using protocol tech.
Plus, tech advancement meant the guns themselves had been improved to some extent—so even without Originium Arts, he could still use a hand cannon.
Just… those powder rounds couldn't produce the various special effects that expensive etched bullets could.
Pros and cons.
So Hao Fan turned around, went back to the armory, and—under Semyon's baffled stare—bought a batch of etched bullets, dropping a painful amount of money.
As for the "extremely precise Originium Arts" needed to properly run a gun—
No idea.
Even Hao Fan couldn't explain why he suddenly understood an operation that high-level.
It was like… he wanted to get stronger, so somehow he just did.
"Ork-style 'I think, therefore it works' power?"
Hao Fan felt like he might have caught a glimpse of his own Originium Arts uniqueness.
But he wasn't sure yet. He'd need time to explore it.
Beyond that, he suspected the effectiveness of "eat rocks" probably depended on Originium quality.
The ore he'd just eaten—raw, crudely mined—was likely the lowest tier in terms of Arts strength.
Which made sense.
Fist-picked ore like that was everywhere in Valley No. 4. No difficulty to obtain.
As for higher-grade Originium…
His first thought was pure Originium from Arknights.
A high-purity, refined product—hard to extract, but also Terra's primary energy source and the very foundation for Originium Arts.
Simply put: dangerous, indispensable, versatile, and valuable.
Even with the risk of Oripathy, not many people could resist it.
Still, even then—
The difference between pure Originium and trash ore was basically just purity.
If he wanted a qualitative leap, he probably needed…
"Protocol Originium?"
Hao Fan looked down at the protocol synchronizer on his wrist, which contained pre-prepared protocol Originium.
Somehow… it looked weirdly appetizing.
He swallowed reflexively—but he had no intention of actually eating it.
Because the "eat rocks" buff clearly had a time limit: he could only "master" Originium Arts until the Originium was fully digested.
And something as precious as protocol Originium—every Endfield operator only got one—once you ate it, it was gone forever.
So, as a compromise, maybe he should consider another kind of Originium—
Derivative Originium.
A derivative product of protocol Originium.
It could only be synthesized under extremely strict conditions—hard to obtain, special Originium.
Like pure Originium: valuable, versatile.
And the silent Emperor's vessel, the Dijiang, gazed down on Talos-II, mourning the suffering on the ground—so some Endfield operators believed, and thus called derivative Originium "Protocol Teardrops."
"Fat-bird should be able to get this stuff, right? I'll ask him later… and if he can't, pure Originium will do."
Hao Fan muttered to himself as he prepared to set out.
One more thing—
He figured he should be immune to Oripathy.
Otherwise, voluntarily eating Originium and catching rock cancer would be peak stupidity.
Besides, if he could digest Originium, there was no reason he could still be infected by it.
Yeah. That had to be how it worked.
Hao Fan convinced himself completely.
As for those "side effects"…
Uh… he didn't feel anything bad yet.
Aside from some mental fatigue…
Probably just his imagination.
Still thinking all that, Hao Fan left—completely unaware that, in the distance, a dragon girl who happened to be passing by had just witnessed him eating Originium ore raw.
"…Oh my god. OAO."
Chen Qianyu stood there, stunned into a blank stare.
"The Doktah who likes eating Originium!"
....
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