Chapter 5: Time is Running Out – Aside from working hard, what else can I do?
Yu Xia’s assembly work went quite smoothly. Toward the end, he even became fully immersed in it, failing to notice when Dr. Yu arrived to check on him.
As Yu Xia’s attending physician, Dr. Yu was naturally relieved to hear from Xiao Jin that Yu Xia had spontaneously started exercising. However, out of a sense of responsibility toward his patient, he still came to the hospital’s fitness center to see the situation for himself.
The first thing Dr. Yu saw upon entering the fitness center was a regular, Mo Wen.
At that moment, Mo Wen was sitting cross-legged on the floor with interest. One hand rested on his thigh, while the other propped up his chin with an elbow as he watched Yu Xia assemble the small robot.
Dr. Yu frowned as he walked over to Mo Wen. “What’s going on? Xiao Jin clearly told me Yu Xia came to exercise. What is he doing now?”
Seeing someone who could make decisions, Xiao Jin rolled its base over to Dr. Yu and reported with righteous indignation: “Dr. Yu, Dr. Yu! It’s him! He tore apart and broke Xiao Jin’s colleague, and then he tried to make Yu Xia put the robot back together for him! He’s trying to cover up the fact that he dismantled a robot!”
Dr. Yu looked at Mo Wen with a face full of speechlessness. “You dismantled another robot!”
Hearing Dr. Yu’s voice, Yu Xia looked up curiously at the two men facing off.
Mo Wen leisurely changed his posture, not taking Dr. Yu’s accusation to heart. By comparison, he was much more interested in the progress of Yu Xia’s work. “It’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t dismantled a couple before. Your hospital’s robots are just too annoying. Didn’t I find someone to help you put it back together? How is Yu Xia’s assembly coming along?”
Dr. Yu didn’t initially pay much attention to Yu Xia’s assembly. He knew Yu Xia; even if the boy were talented, trying to fully assemble an entire robot without any professional or systematic training would be like a fantasy.
Sure enough, Yu Xia puffed out his cheeks and said somewhat reluctantly, “I can’t continue. The robot’s limbs were simple and are already finished, but the internal contents of the head and torso are quite complex. I can’t put those together.”
Hearing this, Dr. Yu looked over in surprise. “The limbs are finished?”
Compared to the head and torso, the limbs were indeed simpler and didn’t require complex programming, but for someone who had never touched such things before, this was still an extremely difficult task.
Yu Xia picked up one of the robot hands he had assembled and tested its flexibility in front of Dr. Yu. He nodded with satisfaction. “It should be considered assembled. At least according to the video Xiao Jin gave me, the hands and feet can be successfully calibrated. But the head and torso are truly beyond me.”
Dr. Yu walked to Yu Xia’s side. Seeing with his own eyes that the robot had been partially assembled was even more shocking. He picked up the robot’s base to examine it, then looked at the fully functional Xiao Jin and couldn’t help but ask, “Mo Wen, did you just not dismantle it completely?”
Mo Wen snorted. “Who are you looking down on? I either don’t dismantle things, or if I do, I dismantle it down to the robot’s last wheel. Not grinding the parts into powder was my final act of kindness toward your hospital.”
Dr. Yu turned back to Yu Xia. “Did you really assemble this?”
Yu Xia nodded.
This time, Dr. Yu truly used a gaze of sincere admiration to look at the components Yu Xia had put together. “Then your talent in mechanics must be quite high!”
Mo Wen chimed in: “More than just ‘quite high,’ it’s exceptionally high! This is a robot even I couldn’t put back together.”
Yu Xia shook his head. “Not necessarily. Since you were able to dismantle all these parts without damaging them, putting them back shouldn’t be that hard. At least the parts I just put together shouldn’t be difficult for you.”
Mo Wen shrugged. “Not quite. Assembling the chip in the robot’s head requires extremely high mental power, or else the chip is easily damaged. I couldn’t guarantee I’d return a complete robot to the hospital, and since I couldn’t finish the whole thing, I didn’t feel like putting the other parts back either.”
Dr. Yu curled his lip. “Just slacking off. Go pay the fine!”
Mo Wen didn’t care. Clearly, this had happened many times before. He ignored Dr. Yu’s nagging and said to Yu Xia instead: “But really, your talent in mechanics is truly high. With your current mental power, getting into Imperial Star Academy shouldn’t be hard. You should choose the Department of Mechanics then; you’ll definitely shine. Although this year’s exams are over, Old Xie should be able to get a spot for a makeup exam. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
Dr. Yu also encouraged him: “Besides, don’t you need to exercise? Imperial Star Academy is semi-military in nature. Their physical training is much more intense than other schools. If you enter Imperial Star Academy, even if you don’t want to exercise, someone will force you to. You’re eighteen now; time is running out.”
Yu Xia blinked, looking at Dr. Yu in confusion. “What do you mean ‘time is running out’?”
Why is my time running out again? Yu Xia wanted to roar.
Dr. Yu explained: “The body’s growth period. Mental power is fixed after differentiation unless you encounter something that stimulates the brain nerves later—though if that happens, you’re more likely to become a vegetable. Physical constitution, however, can be improved through exercise, but not indefinitely. Generally, it’s easier to improve during the growth period. Once you pass that period, you can still improve, but you might spend your whole life just to raise it by half a level. During the growth period, however, there are infinite possibilities.”
Yu Xia murmured the words: “Growth period…”
Dr. Yu explained with a smile: “Before you turn twenty-five, you still have seven years. During this time, you need to raise your constitution to at least B-rank to barely keep up with your mental power.”
Mo Wen added: “I suggest setting your goal higher—A-rank or above. The last person to recover from Mental Power Disorder was Dr. Lu Yao. She was also an Omega with off-the-charts mental power. It’s said she eventually trained her constitution to B+. That level was only barely enough to keep up with her mental power so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in daily life, but she still needed to release mental power occasionally to balance the discordance. This means if you want to fully match mental power above SSS+ rank, you need at least an A-rank constitution.”
Dr. Yu did some mental math and patted Yu Xia’s shoulder. “You’re at D-rank now. You’re only three major ranks away from A-rank. Work hard! There are infinite possibilities during the growth period. You still have seven years!”
Yu Xia: “…”
Aside from working hard, what else can I do?
At the same time, Ye Zhichen and Yun Shaocheng rushed back and finally arrived at the orphanage.
The mentor leading the group from Imperial Star Academy looked at the two of them returning together and immediately massaged his temples, feeling a headache coming on.
He was just a mentor from Imperial Star Academy leading students on some necessary summer activities. He never expected such a thing to happen.
This orphanage actually housed a patient with Mental Power Disorder.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a huge issue. Director Xie had warned them in advance. Furthermore, Mental Power Disorder was so rare that the mentor had intended to use the opportunity to educate the students on what the condition was like. Although it was unlikely the other students would ever encounter it, but… but…
Ye Zhichen, who had come with him, frequently abandoned the main group to act on his own—that was one thing—but he was also constantly hanging around an Omega from the orphanage.
Initially, they hadn’t opposed the two being together. Even though one was an Alpha and the other an Omega, this wasn’t the distant past where an Alpha and Omega couldn’t even walk together without gossip. As the son of a high-ranking official from the Capital Star, Ye Zhichen was indeed more knowledgeable and experienced than most, so it was normal for an Omega to want to walk with him.
Even the Omegas from Imperial Star Academy were more than willing to be around him. Upon hearing that Yun Shaocheng had also been accepted into Imperial Star Academy this year, it seemed only natural that the two would grow closer recently. As for anything else, it was their private business, and others couldn’t say much.
But later, things became increasingly wrong.
Ye Zhichen had actually gone with Yun Shaocheng to provoke the patient with Mental Power Disorder. Was that something a human would do?
Despite several warnings, he didn’t listen, arrogantly claiming, “Yu Xia just can’t stand seeing Shaocheng doing well.”
Whether Yu Xia could stand it or not, the mentor didn’t know, but as a teacher responsible for so many students, he himself couldn’t stand these two anymore.
If you two don’t want to live, can you not drag others down with you? Didn’t I tell the students what would happen if they spoke recklessly in front of a Mental Power Disorder patient when we first arrived?
Oh, right. Ye Zhichen had been absent that day.
Hmph!
Recommended Reads
