Professor Smith gave Ryan Lincoln a thorough full-body examination before finally opening Ryan Lincoln's portable refrigerator.

When he saw what was inside, his expression froze for a moment. “It’s actually Tianlan Corporation’s ‘Divine Thunder Skyflame’? No wonder—”

A look of realization appeared in Professor Smith’s eyes. He thought to himself, no wonder Tianlan Corporation would pay a high price to have him perform the meridian implantation surgery for Ryan Lincoln.

Ever since becoming a doctoral advisor, it had been a long time since he personally performed such a low-level implant surgery.

Ryan Lincoln had already been fully disinfected and was lying in the specialized implant adjustment pod.

This was a fully enclosed surgical pod, with completely transparent glass on the outside, but Ryan Lincoln could still hear the surgeon professor’s voice.

He asked in surprise, “Divine Thunder Skyflame? Professor, what model is that?”

Ryan Lincoln had never heard of this name before. As he asked, he opened his personal terminal and searched online for information about ‘Divine Thunder Skyflame’.

However, after entering the keywords, he still found nothing.

“You won’t find it online. This is a government-regulated model, still under confidentiality. Its prototype is the powerful bloodline ability ‘Radiant Thunder Sacred Body’ from the Celestials. Although it has already passed safety tests, currently only military officers at the rank of major or above are eligible to obtain it. It’s said you also need to have mastered a thunder-fire stake technique, or a similar thunder-fire body art, to the grandmaster level to withstand it.”

Professor Smith glanced at Ryan Lincoln. “Are you sure you want to replace your meridians with this set? Its power is indeed great, surpassing the vast majority of premium products on the market. However, if your thunder-fire body art isn’t up to standard, the mental and physical burden will be heavy in the future. In severe cases, it could lead to mental disorders, or even loss of control, turning you into a madman.”

Upon hearing this, Ryan Lincoln was overjoyed. He finally understood that the ‘little surprise’ Brian Grant mentioned was actually this.

As far as Ryan Lincoln knew, all artificial meridians currently for sale on the market were issued with government approval.

In addition, some special models of implants, either because they were too powerful or had extremely high thresholds, were under government ‘regulation’.

These were the top-tier products that implant warriors dreamed of.

As for those models under government confidentiality orders, they were the best of the best!

Although these meridians were also labeled as premium, their value far exceeded that of normal premium artificial meridians.

Ryan Lincoln’s eyes sparkled, thinking this surprise was anything but small. “I’m sure! Please help me replace them, Professor. My thunder-fire stake technique has already reached the required level.”

For implant warriors, there were prerequisites for implanting various devices. For example, when Ryan Lincoln previously implanted a level-two ‘artificial meridian’, his mental strength had to reach thirty, and he needed to have at least an entry-level stake technique. Otherwise, he would experience severe rejection reactions, and his brainwaves would be seriously disrupted.

However, Ryan Lincoln’s current mental strength had already reached 153, and his thunder-fire stake technique was at the grandmaster level. He should be able to withstand this ‘Divine Thunder Skyflame’ set.

“Oh?” A look of surprise flashed in Professor Smith’s eyes.

At Ryan Lincoln’s age, he had already cultivated the thunder-fire stake technique to the grandmaster level? But it made sense—if this kid could be valued so highly by the assistant to the chairman of Tianlan Biotech Group, he must have something special.

He nodded, then began to carefully review all of Ryan Lincoln’s test data.

“I’ll also help you adjust your artificial dantian. From the holographic scan, the doctor who implanted your dantian wasn’t very skilled—there are many flaws. The fact that you’ve managed to accumulate so much thunder-fire true energy in your dantian is practically a miracle. After the adjustment, your true energy circulation efficiency and accumulation speed should both improve greatly.

By the way, after implanting this ‘Divine Thunder Skyflame’ meridian model, there will be very few ‘artificial wheel meridian’ models that are compatible with it. Those are all top-tier artificial wheel meridians, almost all regulated models, and extremely expensive. The cheapest set here costs as much as 300,000 federal credits. Also, these regulated models have very high requirements for both body and mind, so you need to be mentally prepared.”

When Ryan Lincoln heard the last sentence, he couldn’t help but twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Currently, a set of premium wheel meridians on the market only costs about 100,000 federal credits. 300,000 federal credits is already equivalent to the total salary of a mid-level blue-collar worker for six years in this era.

Ryan Lincoln then said firmly, “I understand!”

Such top-tier artificial meridians were absolutely out of his reach under normal circumstances. He could not afford to miss this opportunity.

※※※※

The meridian implantation surgery lasted an hour. When Ryan Lincoln woke up, there wasn’t a single wound on his body.

Federation biomedical technology was highly advanced. With the help of drugs and instruments, human cells could heal rapidly, so hospitals in this era only had intensive care units, not inpatient wards.

The moment Ryan Lincoln regained consciousness, he sensed the changes within his body.

That feeling was hard to describe—in a word, it was incredibly smooth.

If his previous level-two artificial meridians were like a two-lane country road, now it was a five-lane expressway in both directions.

Moreover, the connection between his artificial meridians and artificial dantian was now extremely solid and tight, and highly integrated with his physical body.