novelraw Chapter 44 : League Preparation
Chapter 44 : League Preparation
"Student Chen Sui? Are you awake?"
A fluffy head peeked in, and seeing Chen Sui sitting on the bed, smiled happily, pushed open the door, and turned to look at the people following behind.
"Keep it down, okay."
"You are..." Chen Sui looked at the unfamiliar face with some confusion, shifting backward slightly, then looking at the string of people entering behind, with several familiar faces from the Combat System mixed in. "You all?"
The girl who entered first carried a bouquet, placing it beside Chen Sui's bed, and introduced herself: "Ah! We're from the Biology Department. When we heard from Senior He Lanxi that you were hospitalized, we thought we'd come see you. After all, you really saved our lives with the mid-term exam assignment."
In the crowd, several students nodded frantically, then approached one by one.
"Sister Sui, these are the cherry tomatoes I cultivated for my mid-term exam. Please try them!"
Chen Sui watched as he held up several round red fruits with both hands in an offering position, and she strategically leaned back.
She recalled that something like this had happened.
The plants at He Lanxi's place flourished under her care, and many Biology Department students had asked for her help.
Chen Sui thought she was just carrying a pot of plants, so she casually agreed.
Although the plants she took to the micro-energy field kept changing.
But...
Looking at the various plants gradually filling the small table beside her bed, Chen Sui marveled inwardly.
Goodness, I apparently helped nurture so many assignments.
"The Animal Husbandry students wanted to come too, but they had a sow production exam this morning, so they couldn't make it. They asked me to bring some Giant Rhinoceros Goat jerky."
The girl explained, clearing a space on the table to place the jerky.
Chen Sui could understand the earlier visitors, but the Animal Husbandry students were a bit confusing.
"I don't think I've had any interaction with the Animal Husbandry Department?"
The girl waved her hand dismissively: "It doesn't matter, Sister Sui. You're my goddess now, the only big sister in all of Zhu Jing Fu."
Chen Sui's pupils widened, looking somewhat surprised at another group of people.
Hemo'er and Zhang You raised their hands, grinning: "How could we not come see Sister Sui when she's hospitalized? You're our Combat System top student!"
"Ahem," a girl from the other side coughed a few times, "She's our Analyst Department's top student, don't claim her."
"Tsk."
Hemo'er rolled up his sleeves.
The girl glared back defiantly.
"Well, um," Chen Sui, seeing the tense atmosphere, hurriedly stepped between them, "Thank you all. I never expected so many people would visit me."
She gestured somewhat helplessly on the bed, her ear tips showing a rare redness, not yet able to accept such an enthusiastic scene.
Several girls in the middle, seeing her like this, immediately felt maternal instincts overflow. They bent down gently, their beautiful faces approaching Chen Sui, affectionately calling her: "Suisui, are you feeling better? We heard Mountain No. 2 was badly blown up. How many more days do you have to stay?"
At this, Chen Sui shook her head helplessly, "I'm already fine, no problems at all, but Teacher Yan won't let me out."
She spread her hands.
As her gaze fell on the crowd, she suddenly thought of something, her expression shifting, and she tentatively said:
"I have a bold idea. I might need to ask for your help."
Before Chen Sui could even start explaining her plan, the Biology Department immediately declared: "Don't worry, Suisui, just say it. I'll charge up mountains of knives and seas of fire for you!"
The Combat Department, not to be outdone: "Top student, at your command, we'll flatten Zhu Jing Fu!"
The Analyst Department scoffed at the Combat Department, then turned with a transformed face, speaking in a voice so gentle it could almost drip water: "Don't worry, top student, you just need to say the word, and we'll take care of the rest."
Chen Sui hadn't expected to have such influence. Her words caught in her throat repeatedly, hesitating to speak, hesitating to stop, but finally she slowly opened her mouth.
"It's like this: is there any way I can break out of this hospital room, surrounded by six medical robots?"
"Huh?" Hemo'er was the first to be shocked. "You want to leave the hospital? That's not good, is the energy impact injury healed?"
Others also looked at Chen Sui with some disapproval.
Chen Sui had to present various pieces of evidence proving she was absolutely healthy.
Only then did she gain everyone's trust, and they wrapped her in a long robe, surrounding her in the center of the crowd, with several layers of human walls encircling her, smuggling her out.
Outside the medical institute, finally breathing fresh air without the scent of disinfectant, Chen Sui felt as if reborn. She moved her limbs, expressing gratitude to everyone.
The visitors repeatedly urged her to go out for a while and then return to rest, not to exhaust herself.
Seeing Chen Sui nodding obediently each time, they escorted her to Seven Academy's repair room building, booked a room for her, and then left with peace of mind.
Having successfully infiltrated the repair room, Chen Sui began counting the materials in her spatial button.
Preparing to build a personalized mecha.
Before construction, the urgent task was to process the previous mecha waste properly.
Although her mecha had been reduced to a pile of fragments, after processing, it would be superior to many materials, and extremely compatible with mental power, enabling her agility and strength to reach another level.
She took out the mecha waste bought from Hundred-Day Star.
Chen Sui's mecha was similar to the Star Alliance's custom personalized mechas, but in the energy field, it had been etched with various traces by energy corrosion, covered with a layer of red rust.
She carefully examined it. This rust looked very much like metal oxidation, but for some reason, looking at the red rust, Chen Sui vaguely had a strange feeling. She tentatively prepared to polish it with mental power, but as she approached the red rust, she suddenly encountered a powerful energy sweeping her away.
An energy fluctuation probed into her spiritual threshold, her core crystal suddenly vibrating violently, then cutting off the invading energy.
Pain shot through Chen Sui's mind, her hand instinctively flinging away the mecha fragment. Looking at the red rust on it, her eyes flashed with surprise.
The energy had a familiar feeling. Chen Sui felt she had encountered it somewhere before but couldn't recall, guessing it might be related to her lost memories.
But what puzzled her most was that this material could trigger an energy attack.
The currently known method in the Star Alliance for battling energy bodies was the awakening of core crystals and summoning bodies, as both belonged to the energy system.
Other metal attacks and thermal weapons, as well as energy weapons, couldn't store energy particles. They could only manipulate energy through spiritual bodies to achieve an "enchantment" effect, or cause effects similar to reducing or enhancing energy particles through energy bombardment.
But now, Chen Sui discovered that this material could trigger and release energy attacks.
Could it produce energy particles itself, or could it store energy storms?
She pondered in her mind.
This was quite problematic.
Currently in the Star Alliance, weapons related to energy included energy cannons made with energy sources—energy sources and analyst energy both could attract energy bodies' attention, triggering their feeding desire—and energy metals, used to weaken or enhance energy storms while physically affecting mechas. But essentially, none could trigger energy attacks.
Only energy bodies within energy fields could trigger energy particles—this was the consensus across the Star Alliance.
Looking at the red rust adhering to the mecha, Chen Sui suddenly felt she might have discovered something extraordinary.
If a material could carry energy particles, achieving effects similar to spiritual body attacks.
Then, for unawakened individuals piloting mechas, this material would enable effective attacks against energy bodies, unaffected by regeneration effects.
This was undoubtedly a revolutionary discovery.
But an important issue now was that she still knew nothing about this material and had no concrete evidence.
Mere adherence to the mecha was insufficient to strongly support her hypothesis.
Additionally, the troublesome red rust caused Chen Sui to reach an impasse at the first step of designing her mecha.
She took out all the mecha waste for examination and found red rust traces on almost all of them, looking like a special type of metal.
Setting aside the red rust problem, Chen Sui used the repair room's machines to conduct value testing on the mecha waste, then turned to build the mecha framework.
One characteristic of custom personalized mechas was that they perfectly fit the pilot.
Her mental power tendrils formed a perfect fusion with the material components.
Her mecha had once been polished bit by bit with mental power; there would never be another mecha more compatible with her mental power than this one.
As the mecha framework's foundation was built, she vaguely felt a mental resonance with the emerging mecha form.
Reaching this point, Chen Sui finally stood up from among the materials, stepped down from the machine operating platform, and stretched her somewhat stiff wrists and neck.
The scan test results report for the mecha waste was presented.
Too many unknown values made Chen Sui furrow her brow.
Her finger tentatively touched the red rust, feeling the energy being triggered again, rushing toward her. Green light flashed around Chen Sui, her core crystal releasing energy to completely suppress it. The energy particles in the red rust scattered, like covered fireworks, muffled explosions occurring several times.
Watching the material being suppressed by energy, a bold idea flashed through Chen Sui's mind.
Since the red rust couldn't be completely separated, could it be melted together?
With this idea, her strong action drive quickly put it into practice.
Finding a fragment with relatively less red rust content among the mecha waste, Chen Sui activated the material processing equipment in the repair room.
To ensure suppression by the core crystal's energy, Chen Sui also used her school connections to obtain a small energy simulation device.
With everything prepared, she began polishing the mecha waste.
The energy particles released by the red rust seemingly didn't need an energy field as a carrier, incompatible with all current theories about energy bodies discovered by the Star Alliance.
Energy fields initially formed from rifts, abruptly appearing spatial gaps that brought powerful energy storms. Descending energy bodies, at the cost of their lives, opened up the first batch of energy fields on the territory of the Star Alliance.
Since then, energy particles had exploded and spread throughout the star sea, everywhere. Star beasts, influenced by energy particles, evolved to become energy bodies.
Humans, growing day by day in an environment of energy particles, entered a new era of spiritual awakening.
Energy particles were everywhere, but only in high-concentration energy fields formed by descent could energy bodies and spiritual bodies maintain their forms. Outside energy fields, extremely tiny energy particles couldn't support massive energy, instead causing dissipation.
But the red rust was an exception.
Did it carry an energy-locking property? Chen Sui pondered.
In the micro-energy field, Chen Sui's core crystal rotated in her spiritual domain, circles of green light rippling outward from her body. Invisible waves came from the red rust, and the refining device's scorching high temperature slowly melted the mecha metal.
In such intense heat, the red rust remained unchanged.
Chen Sui watched with a frown, finally attempting to use energy in the red rust's domain, trying to reshape it by changing the energy concentration of the red rust.
Seeing the red rust change with the energy, Chen Sui concealed her surprise, inwardly guessing that the red rust might not be a solid material like other materials, but an energy cluster formed by energy concentration.
Through some unknown means, it seemed to create its own world inside the material, isolated from the surrounding space.
The red rust contained a miniature energy field; no matter where it was placed, whether in an energy field or a non-energy field environment, the energy in the red rust was always in a dense field.
This hypothesis was fully confirmed when her energy tendrils probed into the red rust.
Chen Sui used energy to shape the red rust, and finding the plan feasible, quickly processed all the remaining mecha waste.
Time flowed by in busyness.
Meanwhile, the school team gathered at the medical institute, meeting with Yan Mingyu, who was holding her waist and helplessly covering her forehead in the corridor outside.
"Chen Sui ran away?"
Yan Mingyu sighed: "I knew she couldn't stay put, but I didn't expect her to find a way to sneak out so quickly."
She brought up the surveillance outside the ward, showing Chen Sui mixing with the crowd, smuggling herself out.
"Are these Analyst Department students who came to visit Chen Sui?" Zhou Chen looked at the recording thoughtfully. "She has pretty good relationships."
Yan Mingyu gave him a meaningful look. "Not just the Analyst Department; Combat System and Biology Department came too. Student Chen Sui's social circle is quite broad."
"Where is she now?"
Yan Mingyu laughed, pulling up a message notification from the teaching system.
"Look, she went to the repair room. She really can't stay idle for a moment."
The group chatted as they walked toward the repair room. Yan Mingyu submitted Chen Sui's discharge application on the medical system, while instructing Gu Qinxue:
"Threshold depletion and malnutrition are not minor issues. Since you live together, try to keep an eye on Chen Sui more often, don't let her stay up too late."
Gu Qinxue nodded. After this incident, even without Yan Mingyu's reminder, she wouldn't let Chen Sui exhaust herself like this again.
In the repair room, Chen Sui was fully focused on watching the smelting furnace. Every value jump required her precise control, and her hands hadn't stopped moving on the operating platform.
A visitor application suddenly popped up on the screen. Without time to look closely, she directly clicked to accept.
The repair room's main door opened, and Yan Mingyu and the school team members entered.
Upon entering, they first saw the design platform with holographic projection and printing device screens still lit. Behind a blast-proof wall was the inner room with a smelting platform and polishing equipment for processing components and materials.
In front of the smelting platform, a small figure hunched in a large leather chair. Through the small window in the blast-proof wall, only her serious expression could be seen.
Yan Mingyu closed the main door, bent down at the window with her hands in her coat pockets, and took a look.
"Just rested for a few days and already busy again, truly can't stop for a moment."
Xie Chunshi, looking at the mecha model in the holographic projection, showed a hint of a smile in his eyes, explaining: "The past few days while she was resting, she said she wanted to study materials, so I gave her the spatial button. I guess she calculated she could complete the mecha, and that's why she's so eager."
Hearing this, Yan Mingyu looked at them in surprise: "Is she making it independently? Didn't she apply to borrow from the Repair Technician Association?"
Xie Chunshi shook his head, discussing Chen Sui's combined weapons plan and mecha design with her.
After listening, Yan Mingyu showed a pleased expression, her tone appreciative: "Student Chen Sui is indeed exceptional."
No wonder teachers and students from both the Analyst Department and Combat System were so attentive to her.
Xie Chunshi's gaze vaguely settled on a point on the window, not responding to this statement.
The group found a clean spot in the repair room, sat down, and began reviewing the day's holographic competition.
After finishing the smelting of the mecha waste, Chen Sui felt both mentally and physically sore, her head feeling heavy. Having experienced depletion once, she no longer forced herself to continue.
She gathered all the smelted metals and returned them to the spatial button, preparing to exit the inner operating room.
The window split from the center into two, opening to both sides. Chen Sui, who had been looking down at the mecha fragment she initially experimented with, hadn't noticed the additional people in the room.
It wasn't until she walked out and sensed something unusual that she suddenly looked up.
Meeting several pairs of eyes face to face made her heart skip a beat. She stepped back, leaning against the closed door.
"Why are you all here?"
Her heart suddenly jumped, the rate sharply increasing. Chen Sui quickly steadied herself, looking at the school team and Yan Mingyu, somewhat guiltily hiding the mecha fragment behind her.
"Don't hide it, we've been watching all day."
Yan Mingyu, seeing her small movement, teased her with amused eyes.
Chen Sui lowered her head embarrassedly, her voice muffled: "I'm sorry, I was too bored, so I just wanted to find something to do."
She knew Yan Mingyu's enforced measures were for her own good, but Chen Sui simply couldn't stay idle.
Yan Mingyu, seeing her honestly admit her mistake but with a clearly unchanging attitude, laughed heartily.
"Alright, I've processed your discharge. Remember to complete the paperwork. In the future, be more mindful of your training intensity, don't exhaust yourself like this again."
Chen Sui nodded dutifully, her apologetic attitude very sincere.
Seeing her modifying the model, Yan Mingyu casually asked about her progress.
Chen Sui brought out the nascent mecha structure from her spatial button.
Designing a custom personalized mecha took far more time than other types, and building the structure was just the first step.
Chen Sui showed her the materials prepared for designing other components.
When they reached the defensive outer shell, Xie Chunshi suddenly noticed the special marks on that material.
"Wait."
He stopped Chen Sui's motion of sliding the spatial button.
Before them, the mecha fragments processed by Chen Sui were displayed.
The jade-green metal had red rust crawling all over its edges.
"What are those marks on it?"
Xie Chunshi asked gently.
His eyes showed slight tension, but Chen Sui, not making eye contact with him, didn't know that Xie Chunshi's pupils were flickering as he looked at the mecha fragment.
"This..." Chen Sui thought for a moment, unsure how to introduce the red rust. For a special material without any supporting data, she dared not define it carelessly, and cautiously said: "It should be some unknown material that I found in the waste area. I'm not quite clear about its function yet."
"You've already processed it?"
Seeing the clear patterns of the red rust, unlike the map-like chaos on the back of Black Chastisement, but instead shaped into special patterns, Xie Chunshi guessed.
Chen Sui nodded: "Yes, I tried smelting it, combining it with some processing techniques, and it integrates well with the mecha metal."
Chen Sui lowered her eyes, vaguely glossing over it, her gaze somewhat guilty. She wasn't good at lying; whenever she tried to conceal something, she had the small habit of lowering her eyes.
Her mecha in the original world had used a metal with remarkably high defense indices for its outer shell, incredibly lightweight, not hindering agility values at all—it was one of the first batch of synthetic materials researched by Professor Zhang Que.
Chen Sui had tested with Star Alliance materials; the mecha metal's properties would rank among the top even among Star Alliance materials.
In a sense, apart from hiding her special technique, Chen Sui wasn't exactly wrong.
Hearing her answer, Xie Chunshi seemed to be thinking about something. Not receiving a response, Chen Sui looked at him, seeing him staring at the mecha fragment with a somewhat strange look.
Xie Chunshi, rapidly thinking, came back to his senses and nodded to Chen Sui, indicating she could put it away.
After modifying the holographic model, Chen Sui left the repair room with the school team.
Her training plan underwent major changes after leaving the hospital.
With the end of the Star Ring selection, the subteam had secured a league competition spot. Xie Chunshi and Cheng Wei began exploring collaboration opportunities for the Star League Competition elimination match system.
Chen Sui also started putting mecha and weapon design on her schedule, while simultaneously pushing forward the progress of summoned body editing.
By the end of May, Chen Sui completed the design of her custom personalized mecha, naming the new mecha "Senro."