Chapter 14: Anger
The three roommates looked at Huai Boshe with hostile gazes.
Huai Boshe had never particularly liked Yun Yingzhi’s three roommates, who were so close to him, so he ignored them entirely throughout the encounter.
Yun Yingzhi was shocked. How did Huai Boshe have the nerve to say such things? He pulled a grumpy little pouty face and continued eating in silence, doing his best to ignore Huai Boshe.
Was a scumbag more important than “dry rice” time?
Huai Boshe spoke again, “Yingzhi, don’t be angry anymore. Iām leaving at the end of the month, and I might be gone for several months. Do you really want to keep acting like this?” He spoke with a tone that suggested Yun Yingzhi was merely being “unreasonably troublesome.”
Internally, Yun Yingzhi cursed three times: Trash! Stinking idiot! Get lost!
He thought for a moment. Huai Boshe was leaving at the end of the month, but he wasn’t sure exactly how long he would be gone.
Midterm exams were at the end of December, and there might be assignments in early January. If he was lucky, they would be group assignments; if not…
They would be individual ones.
The next semester would start in early March, so Huai Boshe and the others should be back from their mission by then.
With a few months away, it was reasonable to assume that the strength of Huai Boshe and his team might advance by leaps and bounds.
Yun Yingzhi thought that it would be incredibly difficult to snatch the Grade Valedictorian spot from Huai Boshe by the end of next June.
The pressure was immense; he had to work hard.
He felt that Huai Boshe was quite impressiveāmeeting him a few times today had given Yingzhi enough motivation to want to crush him.
He had to achieve good results in the Star Brilliance Contest first to earn a large sum of money, then use that money to make more money, and eventually forge a set of powerful equipment that would allow him to win against higher-level opponents.
Since his natural strength wasn’t enough, his only hope for defeating Huai Boshe lay in a set of equipment “borrowed” from future earnings that hadn’t even been created yet.
The three roommates continued to glare at Huai Boshe with warning looks, their eyes saying: We know you’re strong, but can you take on three at once? They didn’t count Yun Yingzhi’s combat power at all.
Huai Boshe sighed softly and said, “Yingzhi, I don’t want things to be like this before I leave. I hope you’ll contact me after you’ve calmed down in a few days.” After saying this, he turned and walked away.
Yun Yingzhi’s eyelid jumped. He still couldn’t believe how thick Huai Boshe’s skin was. After everything that had happened, how could he not be angry?
His roommate, Ji Xiaobo, asked curiously, “Yingzhi, what happened between you and Huai Boshe?”
Another roommate chimed in, “If you’re angry, it must be Huai Boshe’s fault.”
Yun Yingzhi shook his head, not wanting to continue this unpleasant topic. After a moment’s thought, he said seriously, “Huai Boshe is trash!”
The three roommates looked at each other and immediately formed a group to talk bad about Huai Boshe.
Instantly, the four of them felt refreshed after babbling a whole bunch of insults toward Huai Boshe.
Because of Yun Yingzhi, the three roommates didn’t like Huai Boshe, and Huai Boshe didn’t like the three roommates; the relationship between them had grown increasingly subtle.
After eating, Yun Yingzhi parted ways with his roommates and headed to the library.
In the interstellar era, although people were accustomed to electronic books, physical books had been preserved to this day, and each one was worth a fortune.
Fense Academy possessed a massive library, housing many precious volumes.
Many students were studying quietly in the library.
Some had the same goal as Yun Yingzhi, searching for specialized books, but many more were there for the library’s tranquil atmosphere.
Yun Yingzhi searched the shelves for books related to Source Weapon manufacturing and began his research.
As a disciple personally raised by Alvin, he had seen many treasure-tier notes that others couldn’t touch, but even so, he still found many parts he didn’t understand while flipping through the books.
He marked and organized the parts he couldn’t comprehend, planning to send a document to Alvin later. Once Alvin saw it, he would answer them one by one.
In the blink of an eye, two hours passed.
Yun Yingzhi put the books back, opened his personal terminal, and began designing a Source Weapon.
The preliminary requirements for the Star Brilliance Contest stated that participants must manufacture a Source Weapon of Level 4 or higher.
The price of a finished Level 4 Source Weapon ranged from 100,000 to 300,000 credits. Some had special pricing; for instance, weapons made by Grandmasters or famous manufacturers carried a premium with no upper limit.
Considering the cost, Yun Yingzhi currently had less than 10,000 Imperial credits in total savings. Earning money was one aspect, but he also needed to manufacture the Source Weapon with the lowest costāwhich meant a Level 4 weapon.
To make his weapon stand out among other Level 4 weapons, he definitely had to produce one of high quality.
The Star Brilliance Contest had a theme for every round from the preliminaries to the grand finale. Large themes included Defense, Attack, and Support types, or even composite Source Weapons that integrated all three.
Smaller themes were further divided into single-target, group skills, and so on.
To prepare for the different requirements of the contest, Yun Yingzhi planned to design several models. This was partly to control the price and partly to improve the performance of the weapons in various aspects.
In fact, the vast majority of participants made similar pre-contest preparations.
Yun Yingzhi’s fingers drew lines on his personal terminal, with rows of text as notes beside them.
If a knowledgeable Source Weapon manufacturer were to look over, they would discover that all the materials he selected were inexpensive but relatively difficult to control, which indirectly made the manufacturing process much harder.
Others might not understand, but Yun Yingzhi understood it all too well; this was the sorrow of poverty.
In a flash, several more hours passed.
The three roommates contacted Yun Yingzhi to go to dinner.
When the four met at the cafeteria, Yun Yingzhi discovered that two of his roommates were “decorated” with injuries. One had a black eye, while the other had been punched hard in the face, which was now swollen high.
It looked quite painful.
Yun Yingzhi looked at his two roommates with heartache and asked what had happened.
Actually, it wasn’t a big deal.
On one hand, the roster for Fense Academy’s participation in the annual Empire’s Top Ten Ranking War had come out. The selected students were excited, while those who were rejected were grief-stricken and indignant. The former went to celebrate, while the latter turned their grief into motivationāeveryone had rushed to the training hall.
Ji Xiaobo and Jing Haomiao had encountered these students whose grief was as vast as the mountains and seas. During their sparring, these students failed to control their strength and beat up the two roommates as a way to vent.
Like all students in the tail-end classes, Yun Yingzhi, being a “combat weakling,” almost never went to the training hall except during class. However, unlike him, the boys naturally loved fighting and scuffling, and the three roommates often ran to the training hall for competitive matches.
The three roommates were not “salty fish” at all.
Yu Feiwen comforted them, saying, “It’s fine. There’s a mixer in a few days. The injuries on your faces should be mostly healed by then.”
At this, the two roommates became even more indignant; they were afraid the injuries on their faces wouldn’t heal.
Jing Haomiao said with a wronged face, “Sigh, even though we’re students in the last class, the fact that we could enter Fense Academy through our own strength means our talent is actually very good.” As he spoke, he touched his face and let out a “hiss” of pain.
Ji Xiaobo touched his left eye, which had been beaten into a black eye, and also hissed, adding, “Even in the Yaoming Battle Arena, our strength would be considered very decent. The only ones who could beat us like this are fellow military school students.”
The Yaoming Battle Arena was invested in by the Yaoming Group and established together with the Royal Family. It was opened throughout the entire Los Empire and was divided into the Physical Zone and the Inner World.
Nowadays, virtual Inner World technology was very powerful, with realism reaching 99%, but even so, Ability Warriors still preferred real-life combat.
The two roommates were trying to save face for themselves.
Yu Feiwen nodded in agreement, “True.”
Just as Yun Yingzhi was about to agree with his three roommates, a student who had overheard their entire conversation carried a meal tray over, looked at them, and said, “Mainly, the Yaoming Battle Arena has no restrictions. All sorts of people can enter. The powerful warriors are very strong, but the weak ones are truly weak. Since we military students usually don’t have much time to go there, we don’t have many match records, so the ones we encounter are mostly quite weak too.”
The roommates’ attempt to save face failed, and the scene became quite awkward for a moment.
The student smiled at Yun Yingzhi, then happily carried his tray away, leaving the four of them to stare at each other.
The atmosphere was a bit awkward.
Jing Haomiao cleared his throat and stiffly changed the subject.
Yun Yingzhi was very tactful and didn’t continue the topic, following along to talk about other things.
As they spoke, their conversation shifted back to the Yaoming Battle Arena. Jing Haomiao said, “However, as military students, it’s true that any random student could get a fairly good result in the Yaoming Battle Arena.”
This was the pride of being a military student.
Yu Feiwen said with a smile, “Speaking of which, every time my younger brother’s allowance isn’t enough, he goes to the Yaoming Battle Arena. He can earn some pocket change just by fighting a few matches.”
Yun Yingzhi’s spirit jolted.
He was very short on money right now, to the point where he couldn’t even afford the materials to manufacture a Level 4 Source Weapon for the Star Brilliance Contest.
According to his roommates, the threshold for the Yaoming Battle Arena was very low, and one could earn money there.
Yun Yingzhi looked at Yu Feiwen and said, “Feiwen, I remember your brother is only eleven this year?”
Yu Feiwen nodded, “Yes.” After a moment, he asked, “Why the sudden question?”
Yun Yingzhi asked, “He goes to the Yaoming Battle Arena to… earn money?”
Yu Feiwen replied, “Yeah. A few years ago, when I went there on a whim, that little guy insisted on coming along. After trying it out, he developed an interest.”
A few years ago? Yun Yingzhi thought. He was only eleven now, so he must have been even younger a few years ago.
Yu Feiwen said, “Yeah, it was probably four or five years ago? The little guy is quite impressive; he has very strong talent in combat.”
Yun Yingzhi blinked, his large black eyes looking at his three roommates. He asked seriously, “Do you think… I can do it?”
The three roommates didn’t understand what Yun Yingzhi meant for a moment.
Yun Yingzhi continued, “What kind of results do you think someone like me could get if I went to the Yaoming Battle Arena?”
Most of the time, Yun Yingzhi, who attended the Empire’s First Military Academy, was very self-aware of his own combat power, but…
No matter how much self-awareness he had, after hearing his three roommates say that any random military student could get good results at the arena, and adding the fact that even a child could do well, he suddenly felt confident.
He felt that if a child could do it, he definitely could too.
Yun Yingzhi, who had entered Fense Academy through the back door, lumped himself together with “any random military student.”
Following Yun Yingzhi’s words, the gazes of the three roommates suddenly became subtle.
Speaking of which, although they were students in the tail-end class, there were actually fewer than three students in the entire sophomore year who had entered Fense Academy with absolutely no talentāand Yun Yingzhi was one of them.
Furthermore, Yun Yingzhi was the universally recognized weakest existence in the Fense Academy Combat Department.
After all, the worst Second Form among the others consisted of tigers, leopards, bears, lions, and wolves; there wasn’t even a little kitty in the entire department, yet Yun Yingzhi’s Second Form was a little white rabbit that was even weaker than a kitty.
Additionally, as Yun Yingzhi’s classmates, they knew better than anyone else exactly how he had successfully advanced to the sophomore year last year.
He relied on “clinging to thighs” for group exams and on his classmates going easy on him for individual practical exams…
They felt that Yun Yingzhi wanting to go to the Yaoming Battle Arena to get good results was simply a pipe dream.
It had to be saidāYun Yingzhi was definitely a rare outlier in Fense Academy.
Yun Yingzhi received the meaningful gazes of his three roommates. His eyelid jumped as he asked, “…Why are you looking at me like that?”
Translator’s Note:Ā
The term “Dry Rice” (ä¹¾é£Æ – GÄn fĆ n) is a very popular Chinese internet slang term. It basically means “to eat,” but with a sense of passion, speed, and focusālike a dedicated foodie who prioritizes their meal above all else!
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