Chương 17: Redemption of Honour Points?

Biên tập viên: mjn0898

Little Four asked excitedly, "What is it?"

Ling Lan laughed and said, "After these ten thousand years, even if there are cloud drives and other sorts of storage methods, I don't think all books would have been preserved till now ... why don't you go look and see if there are any requests for old books on the internet?"

Little Four was a little hesitant — even if there were such requests, there wouldn't be many, which would only result in chump change. For his purpose of buying Ling Lan more gene stimulating agent, he would need a lot more money, the more the better, so this little amount would not even be a drop in the ocean.

Exasperated, Ling Lan flicked Little Four's forehead, saying, "Don't look down on this little bit of money. We just need to get started and collect some seed money first before looking for other ways to earn money. Otherwise, even if an opportunity appears, we won't be able to do anything."

With this, Little Four understood, and abruptly felt the weight on his shoulders grow exponentially. He stood up tall and thumped his chest, saying, "You can count on me." Looking at his seriously adorable 'believe-in-me-you-will-not-regret-it' face, Ling Lan couldn't help but snicker in her heart. She found herself thankful once again that she had Little Four at her side, who was willing to work hard for her benefit.

After some discussion, the two of them decided that Little Four would be fully responsible for all matters on the virtual network. That said, safety was the top priority — they'd rather take things slow and gradually accumulate their seed money, as long as they could keep things as covert as possible. Honestly, they really didn't need to rush. Even if they could buy the gene stimulating agents right now, who would be able to use them? Little Four was a virtual being, while Ling Lan was still a baby who could not even crawl properly yet.

After passing on the follow-up tasks to Little Four, Ling Lan happily went to bed without giving any further thought to the matter. Left alone, a fired-up Little Four rushed into the virtual world and started doing as Ling Lan said, slowly accumulating cash.

Ling Lan was someone capable of putting her full trust in others, so she did not pay any further attention to the matter after entrusting Little Four with it, not even asking for a progress report. Little Four was touched by this show of trust — oh how much faith did his lord have in him — so he decided he must do his best to serve her until his death.

A while back, Little Four had consumed several hundred thousand words of the entire Romance of the Three Kingdoms when fulfilling the request of a client. After that, he had become obsessed, and this was reflected in his method of addressing Ling Lan — instead of the original 'host', he now called her 'lord'. Every time Ling Lan heard that form of address, her head would throb — why did this silly child love cosplay so much?

It had to be said that Little Four was really very innocent. He had no idea that Ling Lan's 'show of trust' was actually just blithe unconcern. In Ling Lan's opinion, while it would be great if they could earn money, it was also fine even if they didn't manage to earn any. After all, Little Four was the one who was gung-ho about it, and it was a zero-cost business, so it really didn't matter whether the results were good or bad. She was just glad to see Little Four in high spirits, no longer looking as lonely as he was before.

Alright, to be honest, Ling Lan had assigned this task to Little Four as a way to distract him and cheer him up — and poor Little Four had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

********

Time passed by quickly, and Ling Lan finally became a toddler capable of moving about on two feet. During this time, she had received one more round of agent injections, and as discussed, they stopped absorbing at the tenth tube like before. As for the military people, it was the same group as before, and they seemed to have come mentally prepared this time, remaining calm throughout the whole procedure. In fact, they were even gaining the mistaken impression that absorbing ten tubes was a completely natural phenomenon, not deserving of any surprise whatsoever. It had to be said that the military was certainly made up of extraordinarily mentally resilient and adaptable people.

One day, during Ling Lan's sixteenth month of life, she was practising her bendy poses as usual, diligently going through all nine stances one at a time. She had actually managed to learn all nine stances by the time she was just a little over fifteen months old, and since then, she had made sure to practise all nine stances in order every day. Of course, there were still inconsistencies and mistakes, but Ling Lan would correct them as she progressed, gradually converting the nine stances into basic instinct.

This time, when Ling Lan completed the ninth stance, she suddenly felt a surge of heat run through her body. It was so comfortable that she couldn't help but moan in pleasure. This was something that had never happened before — although she would also feel slightly warm and her body would be loose and comfortable after finishing the nine stances, she had never felt this sort of euphoric floaty feeling before.

Ling Lan laid comfortably on her bed, still basking in the echoes of contentment, when she abruptly found that her consciousness had been drawn into the learning mind-space.

Before this, she had always chosen to enter actively — this passive access was new.

Before Ling Lan could protest the learning space's high-handedness, an aloof man had appeared out of thin air right in front of her.

Ling Lan jerked in surprise, but immediately straightened up to say, "Hello, Instructor Number One!" She definitely must not let this formidable man notice her annoyance. Ling Lan intuitively knew that if she angered him, she would lose a layer of skin even if she didn't die.

"Firstly, congratulations on your perfect completion of the foundation chapter of the advanced physical skills course," said Number One, his face as emotionless and tone as cold as ever.

Despite that, for some reason, Ling Lan just felt that Instructor Number One was actually in a very good mood.

"Now you shall receive your reward," continued Number One.

Ling Lan felt excitement stir within her — what kind of reward would Instructor Number One give?

At this moment, an extremely mechanical voice piped up beside Ling Lan's ear, "Reward: first item, time remaining from deadline: 49 days, awards 49 honour points; second item, assessment results: perfect, awards 100 honour points. Total of all items: 149 honour points. Please confirm receipt."

Facing Number One this time, Ling Lan finally realised that the mechanical voice she had heard before had not come from Number One, but seemed to be the voice of the learning space's system.

Ling Lan chuckled dryly. Hindsight is truly 20/20 — she only noticed now that although Number One's voice was very cold, it was also crisp and clear, with none of the mechanical inflections of the system's voice. It was a shame that Instructor Number One had appeared behind her that first time, causing her to mistakenly attribute the mechanical voice to him.

Instructor Number One's voice rang out once more, "Now I shall explain the usage of honour points. Other than the core compulsory courses, the learning space also provides many additional supplementary courses which require honour points to unlock, and of course there are also games and other types of entertainment available. You may freely choose how you would like to use these honour points."

"Use? Does this mean that honour points are not that easy to get?" asked Ling Lan calmly. She knew very well that Number One's words may have some hidden meaning – it could even be another test – so she couldn't just take things at face value.

Unfortunately, her questioning was not fruitful this time round. Number One did not answer, merely keeping his silence, though Ling Lan could sense a very light trace of humour in his eyes. Perhaps she had guessed correctly that honour points were indeed very precious. Or perhaps this first seemingly generous award of honour points was another trap, trying to fool people into thinking honour points were easy to get so they would spend them thoughtlessly.

A large screen suddenly appeared in front of Ling Lan. On the screen, there were many general category selections. It looked like these were the things that she could redeem with her honour points.

"Do I really have to choose right now?" Ling Lan asked doggedly. Since she already knew that honour points were important, she didn't want to use them recklessly.

Number One said, "You must. This is also one of your lessons." Number One smashed her hopeful plans, and continued, "You must choose within ten minutes, or else the system will enforce a random draw."

At these words, Ling Lan's heart thumped. Something niggled at her mind, so without wasting anymore time, she opened the redemption window.

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Chương 18: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Biên tập viên: mjn0898

Ling Lan flicked through the options on the screen. There really were all sorts of courses, from harp-playing to chess and various art and literature courses, even embroidery was included. Of course, there were also all sorts of martial combat skills, and even some really strange and bizarre courses she had never heard of before. The points to redeem these courses ranged from one point to several hundreds of points, while some even required up to one or two thousand points and perhaps even more.

The gaming and leisure options were noticeably more expensive, starting from a base redemption amount of 50 points, with the more expensive options reaching up to 5000 points to 10000 points. Of course, this section also had a smorgasbord of options. Take games for example — there were traditional games with retro designs, magic and sorcery games, futuristic apocalyptic games, galactic mecha games, martial combat games, and they actually even had dating simulation games ...

As for the other leisure options, anything you could think of as recreation could be found there. When she had tapped into that category, Ling Lan hadn't even known where to look. There were just too many options.

Hell, was this still a learning space meant for the cultivation of young talent? Why did she feel a corrupting influence emanating from these options?

Ling Lan decisively exited from the recreational categories, and opened up the learning courses. Time was counting down, so she did not have a moment to lose. Since she had to redeem something, she might as well use the honour points she had now to redeem something she needed most at present.

With a rough idea of what she wanted, Ling Lan clicked open the combat category, and then chose the subcategory of defence.

Countless defensive combat techniques and skills immediately popped up on the screen. Ling Lan selected the option to list the skills and techniques according to honour point requirement in ascending order, from the lowest to the highest.

The first skill she saw cost only 1 honour point — Iron Skin. The description below it explained that the skill could turn the skin of a person's entire body into iron, capable of withstanding heavy blows. With mastery, the practitioner's skin would become a metallic colour. Without any hesitation, Ling Lan immediately sent the option flying — how could a soft and delicate girl like her allow her skin to become metallic in colour? It's not like she wanted to become Iron Woman.

Next were the skills that required 10 honour points to redeem. There were a few more than those requiring 1 point, but when she counted them, there were only about 10 options. Ling Lan found that interesting — there was one skill which cost 1 honour point, and ten skills which cost 10 honour points ... did that mean that there would be fifty skills which cost 50 honour points?

Of course Ling Lan was just thinking about this idly; her full attention was actually upon these ten options before her. She only had ten minutes after all, there was no time to waste.

Eagle Claw? What, mastery meant having claw-like hands? No can do.

Iron Head? She needed to bang her head against hard objects every day? That was just asking for pain and suffering. Dismissed.

Golden finger? Practise by jabbing her fingers at trees every day? Ridiculous. Ignored.

Crippling Legs? Mastery meant legs with exposed veins? Dear god that would be terrifying. No way.

Long-ape Arms? What, mastery meant one's arms would become as long as an ape's? Dammit, even though she would have to live this life as a man, she still didn't want to live as an ape-man. That would be too tragic — no way in hell.

…

Why did all these skills either change a person's appearance or require self-mutilation to achieve mastery? Ling Lan complained internally. Just as Ling Lan was about to give up on redeeming any of the 10-point skills, she noticed the final skill on the list — Rabbit Sky Leap.

Rabbit Sky Leap: A conditional skill. Requires a high degree of body flexibility. Minimum requirement of B-rank flexibility, but A-rank and above flexibility recommended.

This skill does not change one's appearance after mastery, but will increase overall strength by three times or more. Precise increments will depend on practitioner's flexibility and intensity of practice. Please observe changes and adjust accordingly.

Practice method: ...

This Rabbit Sky Leap skill captured Ling Lan's heart immediately — it seemed like a perfectly normal skill, no torture or mutilation mentioned in its training method. Besides that, the condition seemed tailor-made for her. The basic nine stances she had been practicing had focused specifically on increasing a body's flexibility. Instructor Number Nine had clearly stated that once she mastered the nine stances, her body flexibility would be at A-rank.

In general, babies were born with a flexibility of B-rank, but if they didn't practise any sort of physical skill such as the nine stances, their flexibility would decline as they grew older. A regular adult would have a flexibility between D-rank to F-rank.

If one trained in offensive physical skills, flexibility would drop even more, perhaps not even reaching D-rank. Meanwhile, a practitioner of the Balanced Series of physical skills would at most be able to maintain a flexibility of C-rank, with exceptional cases being able to achieve B-rank.

As for the Defensive Series, there were two branches within the set itself — the Endurance Series and the Flexible Series. The Endurance Series focused on increasing a body's toughness, hardening it to increase defensive ability, thus reducing flexibility, which would result in a body flexibility similar to those practicing the Balanced Series. Only the Flexible Series, as its name implied, focused on training up a body's flexibility, and would allow practitioners to achieve a flexibility of A-rank and above.

The basic nine stances that Ling Lan learned were from the Flexible Series. The learning space had automatically assigned the Flexible Series to Ling Lan because she was a girl, and because her natural flexibility had already been very high.

It looked like the learning space also had some recognition of gender, and had been unwilling to produce an iron-muscled woman.

At this point, Ling Lan had already made her decision, but she still cautiously browsed through the skills which required 50 honour points. The quality of the skills naturally increased as the cost of the skills increased, but the associated restrictions and conditions also got increasingly tougher. Many of the skills required a certain level of body strength, resilience, or flexibility, as well as a certain level of physical skill. Ling Lan knew that even if she redeemed these skills now, she still wouldn't be able to practise them for three to five years. After all, her body was just not at that level yet, there was still much more training she had to do first.

Just then, Number One reminded, "There is not much time left, have you chosen?"

Ling Lan smiled and said, "Yes, I choose the Rabbit Sky Leap."

Number One warned her, "The Rabbit Sky Leap only requires 10 honour points. You still have 139 points, what else will you choose? Please choose immediately."

Ling Lan shook her head. "I only want this one. I don't need anything else right now."

Number One sniffed. "You still have so many honour points left. Do you really want to waste them?"

Ling Lan smirked like a little fox. "Will they really be wasted?"

Number One just stared at her placidly. His gaze was steady and indifferent, as if telling her that if she really chose only the Rabbit Sky Leap, all her remaining honour points would be cleared away.

Ling Lan's resolution started to waver under Number One's stare — should she just redeem all her honour points now, and just wait to learn those skills later on when she met their requirements?

But then that was also a problem ... Since she had no idea what the learning space would assign her next, if she redeemed her points now and chose something that was unsuitable for her later on, that would also be a waste.

Should she gamble now? Or gamble for the future? Ling Lan struggled over her decision. She lifted her head to look at Number One, hoping to get some sort of hint from him. After all, the reason she wanted to save her honour points to begin with was because of Number One's earlier words. Had she misunderstood what he was saying?

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