☕
This chapter is sponsored by
✨ Kiwiaroha ✨
" Thank you so much for the ko-fi! Your support matters so much. Stay safe and warm~ "
Part 2
Wait a minute.
Today was the preliminaries. The requirement was just to manufacture one weapon, and a Grade Four weapon was generally enough. What was this suspicious participant planning to do with so many Grade Five and Six materials?
Everyone looked at Yun Yingzhi with expressions of utter shock.
According to the rules, if there was waste, one would be disqualified and forced to pay the price difference.
Even if he bought all these materials now, if he couldn’t turn them into source weapons, he would eventually have to return them to the organizers.
If the “wool” were that easy to pull, the Source Weapon Association and the Yaoming Group would have gone bankrupt long ago.
Under the speechless gazes of the crowd, Yun Yingzhi moved all the materials one by one to his workbench.
His attention was entirely focused on milking the system. He glanced at his purchased materials from time to time, completely ignoring the stares of others.
As he moved the materials, he thought about what kind of source weapons he should make.
He also thought that his human strength was a bit lacking; it couldn’t compare to his second form at all.
If it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t transform into a little white rabbit in public for fear of someone recognizing him, he really would have liked to switch forms to carry these materials to the workbench with ease.
Just as Yun Yingzhi thought this, a student from Cangfeng Academy spoke up with deep feeling, “His strength is so high. He’s moving so many materials back and forth without looking tired at all; it looks so easy for him.”
Yun Yingzhi: “…”
Because of that sentence, the source weapon design in Yun Yingzhi’s mind snapped. He looked at the student from Cangfeng Academy with a complex expression.
They were a student from one of the Ten Great Military Academies, yet they said something like that.
On second thought, it seemed there was nothing wrong with it, since the person speaking was a student from the Source Weapon Manufacturing Department.
Unlike the Combat Department, the Manufacturing Department often had students with particularly weak constitutions who couldn’t even carry a small weight. They were truly weak.
Yun Yingzhi thought that in the Academy’s Combat Department, he was the recognized weakest existence.
He had always been self-conscious about his weakness, but now he suddenly felt that if some students from the Manufacturing Department entered the Combat Department, they would become the weakest ones instead.
Yun Yingzhi shook his head and stopped thinking about it. With a hint of regret that students from the Manufacturing Department wouldn’t enter the Combat Department, he continued hauling materials.
Then, he heard another student say, “I’m already quite strong, but I feel like his strength is even greater than mine.” After a pause, he added, “And I’ve compared my strength with students from the Combat Department before—I was actually stronger.”
Yun Yingzhi: “…”
Yun Yingzhi couldn’t help but glance at the student wearing the Cangfeng Academy uniform. He thought: Classmate, you might have some misunderstanding about the students in the Combat Department.
With that thought, he withdrew his gaze and continued hauling his “big money.”
Soon, Yun Yingzhi had moved all the source materials to his work area.
Looking at the dazzling array of materials, he immediately rolled up his sleeves and began to work.
He had already decided: he would manufacture Grade Five and Six weapons in batches.
The mandatory inscription would be the optimized Space-Limited Ability, which could effectively cut off the connection between the Zerg and the Zerg Queen.
After the primary inscription, the passive inscriptions would include a “Prevent Harm to Allies” inscription and an “Escape” inscription.
These three were mandatory.
After those three, he would add single-target or area-of-effect attack inscriptions depending on the situation.
Thus, the spectators saw Yun Yingzhi, who was working alone, begin to process materials like a one-man mass production line.
The other participants were shocked.
A small commotion broke out in the crowd. Those near Yun Yingzhi currently had no desire to start their own work.
They had plenty of time. Even subtracting the two hours of breaks, they still had ten hours left, which was more than enough to make a single weapon to pass the preliminaries.
They all gathered to watch the entire process of Yun Yingzhi attempting to process materials in an assembly-line fashion.
Someone whispered, “Doing it like this, won’t there be a lot of waste?”
“I think so.”
Up until this moment, no one had high hopes for Yun Yingzhi.
Because so many people had gathered near him, participants further away couldn’t help their curiosity and walked over to see what was happening, joining the ranks of the onlookers.
Next, Master Tang, who was in the distance, was also alerted and walked over out of curiosity.
The participants near Master Tang silently made way for him.
Thanks to their tactful behavior, Master Tang was able to step forward and observe the entire material-processing stage at close range.
Master Tang had a very deep impression of Yun Yingzhi.
Partly it was because his attire was particularly to his liking. Young people nowadays didn’t pay attention to keeping warm; people like him were rare. On the other hand, he felt that the questions Yun Yingzhi asked during the Q&A session were very subtle. Now, looking at how he handled the materials…
Master Tang’s eyelids jumped as he scanned the area.
In his sight were all sorts of source materials surrounding Yun Yingzhi.
He felt that Yun Yingzhi had come here specifically to milk the system.
In his view, Yun Yingzhi’s material processing was incredibly proficient; every step was exactly right. With such skill, even if he couldn’t manufacture high-grade weapons, he should have been able to live very comfortably just by processing materials.
So, the question was: why would such a participant be so diligently trying to pull wool?
Moreover, Master Tang noticed that, perhaps in order to pull more wool, the speed at which Yun Yingzhi processed materials was actually increasing.
Most remarkably, even at this speed, he maintained a zero-error rate.
In this regard, he was exceptionally skilled.
It was truly impressive.
Master Tang’s attention was completely fixed on Yun Yingzhi.
Because Master Tang was a Source Weapon Grandmaster, the little demon-shaped live-stream drone naturally shifted its focus to him.
The Source Weapon Competition was conducted via live stream.
Although it was only the preliminaries, many people were already waiting in the various Star Brilliance Competition stream rooms.
They watched the participants and began discussing who they favored, with the students from the Ten Great Military Academies being mentioned most frequently.
When Master Tang turned his gaze toward Yun Yingzhi, following his line of sight, the camera for that section gave Yun Yingzhi a close-up.
Immediately, rows of comments flashed across the screen.
[I remember this guy! That three-piece outfit is so unique. My grandparents would love that style!]
[He’s the one who just asked Master Tang if all the materials used during the competition were at the discount price.]
[He wants to pull wool.]
[The Great Emperor of Wool-Pulling!]
…
Meanwhile.
At the front line, Military Base.
After handing over a portion of his work, Yun Yinghui had a brief period of rest.
Suddenly, he heard someone mention that today was December 1st, the start of the Star Brilliance Competition. There were ninety-nine arenas for the first day of preliminaries, and almost all the students from the Ten Great Military Academies were assigned to the First Arena.
Hearing their conversation, Yun Yinghui remembered that Yun Yingzhi had said he would also participate.
Out of concern for his brother, Yun Yinghui opened his terminal during his break, intending to check the live stream channels. He might be able to spot Yun Yingzhi.
Upon opening the stream, the first thing he saw was a person wearing a black jacket with large red peonies…
A man whose age was impossible to tell.
The person was wearing far too much padding to discern their build, and with a hat and mask, their features were hidden.
At this moment, even Yun Yinghui, who was very familiar with Yun Yingzhi, didn’t guess that this person was him.
Yun Yinghui thought to himself that, generally, the participants in the First Arena were students from various academies and should be quite young, yet this young man’s tastes were rather… unique.
Thinking this, he continued to look elsewhere, trying to find his brother.
Suddenly, his terminal chimed with a notification.
It was a private message from one of his friends.
Yesterday, after Yun Yingzhi had asked Yun Yinghui to introduce him to some strong ability warriors to help test the weapons he made during the competition, Yun Yinghui had immediately contacted some friends.
Over the years, Yun Yinghui had always known that Yun Yingzhi was studying source weapon manufacturing under Alvin.
However, he didn’t know exactly how far his brother’s skills had progressed.
Mainly, Yun Yingzhi would often express his apologies to him, constantly troubled that he couldn’t manufacture a source weapon suitable for his brother.
Yun Yinghui didn’t want to hurt his brother’s feelings, so he hadn’t asked much.
However, he would occasionally ask Grandmaster Alvin about his brother’s status. Every time, Alvin would praise him without hesitation, saying he worked very hard.
Combining the two accounts, Yun Yinghui had formed an idea: Yun Yingzhi’s talent in source weapon manufacturing was…
Well, passable.
Just passable. Not great, but decent.
By a stroke of coincidence, Yun Yinghui had no idea that Yun Yingzhi was actually “Star” from Alvin’s studio.
Mostly, it was because Grandmaster Alvin’s disciple, Star, was simply too mysterious.
Moreover, Star had become famous seven years ago. At that time, Yun Yingzhi was only twelve years old. Therefore, it had never crossed Yun Yinghui’s mind that his brother could be Alvin’s mysterious disciple.
It wasn’t just him; because of his young age, most people would never even consider that possibility.
Yun Yinghui thought that since his brother had finally decided to compete, he would support him to the end, regardless of the outcome.
Especially since the boy suddenly had two children; his emotions must be quite unstable. At a time like this, he needed to pamper him even more.
On the other end of the communication, his friend told him he was willing to help.
The person then asked: who was the brother participating in the Star Brilliance Competition? And what was his serial number?
This friend obviously knew that Yun Yinghui had a brother, but he never imagined it would be Yun Yingzhi. He assumed the participant might be a cousin or even a close friend.
Yun Yinghui replied that he didn’t know yet, then turned his gaze back to the live stream.
He tried once more to find his brother among the participants but failed. He felt again that among the many students wearing academy uniforms, the participant A13167 in the three-piece padded suit was particularly eye-catching.
Because of Proctor Tang, this participant was getting an especially large amount of screen time.
After watching the stream for a short while, his break ended. Yun Yinghui turned off his terminal and got back to work.
In the blink of an eye, it was the lunch break.
Yun Yinghui entered the cafeteria with several other officers.
They ate in silence.
After the meal, they had their most relaxing time of the day. Some gathered to chat.
Yun Yinghui sent a private message to Yun Yingzhi: [Zhi-zhi, which arena are you in, and what is your serial number?]
Just then, he heard some soldiers talking.
“I watched the preliminaries of the Star Brilliance Competition today.”
“That A13167 really cracked me up! While other participants are thinking about making the strongest weapon, A13167 is clearly just thinking about fleecing the organizers’ materials, haha!”
“Right, right! He’s practically the Great Emperor of Wool-Pulling!”
As soon as he heard that, Yun Yinghui knew they were talking about the participant in the black-and-red peony padded suit.
At that moment, his terminal chimed. Through the specially set ringtone, he knew it was a reply from his brother.
Opening his terminal, he saw these lines:
Yun Yingzhi: [In the First Arena, A13167.]
Yun Yingzhi: [Hee hee hee.]
Yun Yingzhi: [Brother, wait for my surprise!]
Yun Yinghui: “…”
His eyelids jumped as he heard another soldier say, “Did you see Master Tang’s expression? It seemed like it was his first time seeing someone pull wool like that. His face nearly cracked while watching A13167!”
“Exactly! Master Tang was watching A13167 with a shocked face the whole time, that expression, haha! It was hilarious. But who is A13167? He should still be a student, right?”
Yun Yinghui: “…” Oh, it was his precious little brother.
Meanwhile.
Yun Yinghui received private messages from several more friends.
Without exception, they all asked the same question: what was the serial number of the participant they might need to help test weapons for in the Star Brilliance Competition?
Yun Yinghui: “…”
He paused for a moment. Considering that they would likely be helping his brother test weapons soon, he silently replied.
Yun Yinghui: [A13167.]
Recommended Reads
