CSMCDB - Chapter 36
Chapter 36
The turret really was a turret, standing half a person tall. Wen Yuncheng calculated that the Star Steel needed to make one turret was enough to make three or four C-01 Guardians. She bought three hundred thousand Star Stones’ worth of Star Iron in one go and then waited for it to be refined. She already had a total of 39 Guardians on hand. Wen Yuncheng planned to build one more to make it an even 40, then temporarily stop making Guardian blueprints and focus on making turrets once the Star Steel was refined.
She had spent a large sum of money in the past two months. After buying the Star Iron, Wen Yuncheng checked her Star Stone card and found she still had three hundred and forty thousand Star Stones.
The monthly dividends from the vice headmaster were enough to support her living and manufacturing expenses. Unfortunately, the blueprints for the Guardians and turrets couldn’t be sold. This was because the Guardians and turrets required 1947 to activate them with energy one by one, and also needed 1947 as a medium to transmit that energy.
The turrets contained a power core. According to 1947, for items like the power core that couldn’t possibly appear on the Starry Sky Continent, the System would automatically place a brand on them. If someone tried to dismantle a turret, the power core would self-destruct before it could be exposed, and the force of the explosion would depend on the amount of energy remaining in the core.
In other words, even if someone else obtained the blueprints for the turrets and Guardians, the items they produced would just be empty shells with no combat capability. Maybe they could be displayed at home as models?
Wen Yuncheng broke through on the 20th.
She broke through to Level 20, which was Star Warrior 1.
Like a bomb, it shattered the peace of the academy.
Host: Wen Yuncheng
Race: Human
Age: 16
Class: Mechanical Master
Level: 20
Experience: 175/7000
Points: 1097
She leveled up while sparring with Zhou Xuan and the others, nearly scaring them to death.
“Holy crap! Are you on drugs? You’re too damn fierce!”
Wen Yuncheng smiled sheepishly. After the last person finished sparring with her, she was dragged off-campus for a late-night meal. Zhou Xuan and the others clamored to drink, vowing not to go home until they were drunk. Knowing she couldn't hold her liquor, Wen Yuncheng didn't drink. She just watched them drink with a cheerful smile.
“Wuwuwu... You brat, you’re too much! We can't catch up to you at all... Damn it! Damn it! I'm so jealous of you...” A drunken Zhou Xuan complained while crying, looking just like a big baby. His words resonated with the other three, and the four of them ended up hugging each other and wailing.
Wen Yuncheng felt a bit helpless. After paying for the meal, she also got them four rooms, tucked them all into their hotel beds, and then returned to her own dorm.
It was so late, there was no need to assemble anything. However, Wen Yuncheng hadn't started assembling the turret parts in the last three days. The production template needed 72 hours—three days—to create the turret components. They were scheduled to be finished in the early hours of this morning, but Wen Yuncheng wasn't in a hurry to build the turret.
She returned to her dorm, washed off the smell of alcohol, and flopped onto her bed to check the skills and blueprints available to a Star Warrior.
G-1 Corona: Deploys the robot Corona behind the Mechanical Master, which can perform light-attribute magic attacks. Duration: 10 minutes. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
G-14 Grenade: Allows the user to throw a G-14 grenade, damaging all enemies within a certain range. Cooldown: 10 minutes. Storage Limit: 3.
X-6 Monitor: Places a micro-robot on a target for tracking. Maximum simultaneous units: 3.
M-84 Stun Grenade: Creates a massive sound upon detonation, causing nearby personnel to lose their sense of direction and hearing. Deals no other damage. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
Passive - Unyielding Will: A tenacious and unyielding will, an undefeated will. If attacked while casting a skill, there is a chance the cast will not be interrupted.
And, the blueprint for the Star Hand Cannon.
1947 said the Star Hand Cannon could be assembled onto her mechanical armguard. After she built it, the system would optimize it, allowing her to summon the Star Hand Cannon with a thought.
Of course, Wen Yuncheng had to aim it herself, and the hand cannon's energy would consume her MP.
Each cost 100 points, for a total of 600 points. This used up the 500 points she had earned three days ago and then some. Wen Yuncheng's points dropped back to 497.
After reaching Level 20, the experience required for each subsequent level was no longer an additional 500, but had increased to one thousand.
Her sparring mission only lasted for one year, meaning it would end when the school year concluded. However, Wen Yuncheng wasn't worried about that. After reaching Star Warrior 1, she began to ponder what to get Lin Jinyu for her birthday.
The Little Ice Mountain had given her a gift; she couldn't be too stingy in return.
“1947, when your system friends have birthdays, do you exchange gifts?”
[Not usually. We only send each other blessings once every hundred years on our creation anniversaries,] 1947 replied. It scrolled through its system database. [Want to try making something by hand?]
“Handmade... I'm not very good at it.” Knitting a scarf? But it was January... winter was almost over. Besides, she didn't know how to knit. Wen Yuncheng was troubled. In her heart, Lin Jinyu was truly, truly wonderful. So... such a wonderful person deserved the best gift.
“Argh! This is so frustrating! Why can't I do anything!”
1947 silently watched its host roll around on the bed, recalling its previous hosts. Ah, did the previous Long Aotians celebrate birthdays? Did they give gifts to their friends? It flipped through its records and found gifts that previous hosts had given to pursue female leads one, two, and three. [Are there precious gemstones on this continent?]
“Yes, but I can't afford them.”
[What about jewelry?]
“Does Lin Jinyu look like she has time to dress up?”
[A demonic beast pet?]
“Like that rabbit that can bite through steel in one go?”
Although she didn't know what to give, Wen Yuncheng could always find a suitable reason to reject others' suggestions. 1947 fell silent. It carefully thought about whether the previous Long Aotians had ever given gifts to their sworn brothers—alright, there was nothing useful to draw from there either.
Raising a cub is so hard. 1947 sighed silently, as if it were losing its hair from stress right alongside Wen Yuncheng.
Now that Wen Yuncheng had a stable income of points, she was no longer so hesitant about the food in the shop. Treating Zhou Xuan and the others to clear noodle soup once or twice a month didn't pain her anymore. She opened the shop and fell into a great internal struggle as she looked at the custom cake.
A twelve-inch custom cake for one hundred and fifty points. If she won eight times a day, even in the Dueling Arena, she could manage eight wins a day—okay, that was unlikely. She would have to go to the Star Warrior competition grounds now, and her win rate would probably be even more unstable. But even so, she should be able to earn one hundred and fifty points by Lin Jinyu's birthday.
That was almost a month's worth of point income. Was it worth it for a cake?
1947 couldn't bear to see Wen Yuncheng like this. It thought for a moment and tried to persuade her: [You don't have to get a cake. There's no rule in this world that you must eat a birthday cake on your birthday. Besides, cream cakes don't even exist in this world. Even if you give it to her, Lin Jinyu won't know what it is.]
Hearing 1947's advice, Wen Yuncheng gritted her teeth and placed the order directly.
“It's precisely because she's never even had it before that I want her to try it even more!” Wen Yuncheng filled out the cake request, picking and choosing from various pictures. Then, thinking of the ridiculously expensive fruits in the shop, she selected the one with the most fruit on top.
The weather on January 13th was so-so. The sun wasn't out, and it was quite cold. Wen Yuncheng bundled herself up tightly and set an alarm for five o'clock, planning to give Lin Jinyu a huge surprise.
She set out at six o'clock for Lin Jinyu's dorm. On the way, Wen Yuncheng cheerfully imagined the Little Ice Mountain's expression when she saw the gift, but she was stopped downstairs at the girls' dormitory.
“Which class are you from? Where are you going so early in the morning! If you're looking for someone, have her come down. Boys aren't allowed in the girls' dormitory building!”
Wen Yuncheng was dumbfounded. “But... but not even into the single dorms?”
“Are you a boy? If you are, you can't enter!”
“Then how come girls can enter the boys' dorms?!” Wen Yuncheng argued her case, thinking of how Lin Jinyu had delivered her gift at the door.
“How is that the same? It's not even light out and you're trying to rush into the dormitory. Do you think that's proper?”
Wen Yuncheng: ...
But she didn't want to give the gift downstairs! If someone saw, wouldn't it ruin Lin Jinyu's reputation?! Feeling wronged, Wen Yuncheng was about to try wheedling and begging the dorm manager one last time when someone called her name from behind.
“Wen Yuncheng?”
“!!” Wen Yuncheng froze. Seeing Lin Jinyu, who had clearly just returned from outside, she belatedly remembered that a cultivation maniac like Lin Jinyu didn't sleep.
“I... um, happy birthday.” Wen Yuncheng walked over. She glanced around; there was no one around at this hour, so she relaxed. “Could you come with me to a combat room? I have a gift for you.”
“Okay.”
Wen Yuncheng took Lin Jinyu's hand and led her toward the combat rooms. Even though they hadn't seen each other for a month, the Little Ice Mountain was still so agreeable.—it didn't matter that she looked so cold and aloof.
In truth, Lin Jinyu never celebrated her birthday. Or rather, when she was young, she dreaded the arrival of this day.
Because on this day every year, her father would become irritable and cold, and he wouldn't want to see her. This day every year was the anniversary of her mother's death. Her father would take her to pay respects to her mother, then make her kneel alone in the Lin family's ancestral hall for the entire day. It was also the only day she didn't have to cultivate, fight, or practice.
As a child, she would envy other children, but she later grew accustomed to it. An elder would occasionally bring her a bowl of noodles in the ancestral hall on her birthday, patting her head and telling her that her father did, in fact, love her.
When Lin Jinyu was little, she was very confused: So this is what love is like?
She only gradually came to understand later that everyone expresses love differently. Perhaps her father did love her, but that love made her increasingly silent, increasingly stoic, gradually turning her into the outstanding genius in others' eyes, and the most suitable next sect master.
Why did she give Wen Yuncheng a birthday gift? Because Lin Jinyu felt that her father's words might have deeply hurt Wen Yuncheng, but she couldn't change anything right now. She thought that Wen Yuncheng probably hadn't celebrated her birthday either. Looking at the information on the Wen family, a child who couldn't even get enough to eat would have no birthday to speak of.
And so, she had given Wen Yuncheng a birthday gift.
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