novelraw Chapter 49 : League Preparation
Chapter 49 : League Preparation
Having received the ticket, Chen Sui enthusiastically invited the school team, who had no training scheduled, to watch her first auction.
Upon learning she had submitted a summoned body blueprint to the auction, Zhou Chen's first reaction was surprise.
"Your online store reached the auction turnover threshold so quickly?"
Chen Sui nodded. In a good mood, she even kindly explained about the Maintenance Engineer Association invitation.
This prompted Zhou Chen to scan her up and down several times.
Chen Sui, feeling somewhat annoyed, looked back at him: "What exactly are you trying to see?"
Zhou Chen: "Trying to see what kind of monster you are."
"I only knew your mecha and weapons were good, but I didn't realize they weren't just ordinarily good."
Zhou Chen's tone was complex.
"Just like I only knew your mental threshold was high, but I didn't expect you to even produce analysis instruments."
Chen Sui scratched her head, asking in confusion: "Is that so difficult?"
Gu Qinxue looked at the chat records on her Light Brain, filled with frantic harassment from He Lanqi:
[He Lanqi: Damn analysis instruments! I'll kill you, why can't I make them?!]
On the other side was her teammate's soul-searching question.
Chen Sui's sincere gaze showed she was genuinely confused.
She had learned how to make mental instruments from books, and apart from Star Academy Seven's holographic password-protected online courses, she hadn't seen anything else.
The courses from her teacher were all meticulously edited, removing idle chat and filled entirely with knowledge points.
Gu Qinxue smiled, feeling relaxed as she saw the opponent analyst's frenzy and her own teammate's nonchalance.
"Seven PM, right? Holographic ticket purchased."
Seeing her buy a ticket, Zhou Chen also hurriedly entered the ticket purchase page, "It's so popular, thirteen thousand people have already bought tickets."
He suppressed his surprise, glancing at Chen Sui's matter-of-fact expression. After purchasing his ticket, he found her online store and took a look. The purchase comments were tearful, deifying her, with the title "Grass God" already becoming the nickname in the comment section.
Zhou Chen had finally progressed from disliking Chen Sui, to accepting her, to admiring her, and now, to complete submission.
What virtue or ability did he have to be teammates with such a genius?
"It's settled, it's settled," Zhou Chen muttered.
As the school team was leaving, Gu Qinxue heard his mumbling and turned to look: "What's settled?"
Zhou Chen replied naturally: "The league competition is settled."
"With an analyst configuration like this, it would be hard to lose."
Gu Qinxue snorted, thoroughly mocking his changing attitude toward Chen Sui.
Zhou Chen touched his hair, "I'm going to the StarNet forum right now to counter her haters."
Gu Qinxue raised her chin proudly: "Do we even need you? Guess what the students from the Soldier System, Biology Department, and Analyst System were doing as they passed by today, all looking at their Light Brain interfaces?"
Zhou Chen hadn't expected that even his attempt to show loyalty would be put down. An arrow struck him squarely in the heart.
Gu Qinxue ignored him and quickly caught up with Chen Sui.
After completing the afternoon mecha maintenance tasks, Chen Sui and the school team members entered the Star Ring Banquet auction site directly from the holographic pod in the training room.
The Star Ring Banquet holographic auction venue had been modeled 1:1 after the real environment. White iron gates opened to both sides, with ticket scanning at the entrance, and options to select virtual holographic avatars.
Chen Sui selected a black and white panda form with green grass on its head from a collection of virtual avatars.
Her teammates mostly chose forms related to or similar to their spiritual bodies. Puluo's holographic avatar was a huge mushroom, bumping left and right as he walked. Zhou Chen, topped with a giant ostrich body, was bounced away when hit, then pulled back by Xie Chunshi who appeared as a blue liquid-like form.
"Ouch, Puluo," he placed his ostrich wing on the mushroom's umbrella handle, "almost bumped into someone."
Chen Sui glanced at those entering with them.
A long-tailed, thick, pure black mamba snake slowly passed through the crowd. Several people followed him, keeping a great distance, looking like separate individuals with no indication they had entered together.
The man walked far ahead, but the snake head at the top suddenly turned back toward Chen Sui's direction. The eerie snake eyes stared at her intently, slowly extending a blood-like forked tongue.
There was a hint of provocation.
"This person------"
Chen Sui slightly furrowed her brows, feeling he seemed to harbor some formless hostility, yet she had no memory of him.
Gu Qinxue looked at the white swan in the crowd, proudly raising its head. The other party, keeping eyes straight ahead, walked elegantly toward the inner venue without noticing them on the other side.
"Seems to be Na Luo River."
Seeing the black mamba turn its head, Gu Qinxue said to Xie Chunshi: "Their Team Leader is glaring at our analyst."
Xie Chunshi seemed to laugh softly, speaking in a familiar tone: "Little You? His personality is a bit awkward. He probably just wants to check out the analyst's situation."
"Na Luo River?" Chen Sui thought about the league personnel information. "Their Team Leader Xie You?"
After saying this, she recalled the complex relationships between the participating personnel from several academies.
"Oh, the Team Leader's brother."
Gu Qinxue nodded, speaking unreservedly with Chen Sui: "Xie You, spiritual body black mamba. He has a strange temperament, gloomy, looking at people as if everyone owes him money."
Chen Sui nodded, no longer concerned with the other's strange stare.
In the inner hall of the holographic auction, a central columnar structure formed the auction platform. Light pillars extending from above could broadcast the auction precision in real-time on each level. The venue expanded outward from the center, layer by layer, with densely packed seats.
Chen Sui took her seat according to her ticket, with other team members in rows before and behind her.
"There are 3,575 items being auctioned tonight."
Zhou Chen looked at the auction information scanned at the entrance, scrolling to find Chen Sui's item: "Your item is at position 1221, middle of the lineup."
Chen Sui opened her Light Brain to look, suddenly noticing a small red dot in the upper right corner. She first checked the message.
"Huh? The Star Ring Banquet organizers sent me a message."
She casually browsed through it, which was a receipt for her summoned body blueprint.
Chen Sui's expression suddenly turned strange when she reached the end. Gu Qinxue glanced over and asked curiously: "What happened?"
Chen Sui shook her head, suddenly laughing: "The Analyst Association's suggestion, saying......"
"My summoned body blueprint is drawn too strangely?"
"Huh?"
The school team members looked at each other, unanimously showing puzzled expressions, even Xie Chunshi lowered his gaze to look.
"Let me see," Zhou Chen leaned forward from the back row.
Chen Sui pulled up the holographic model in her Light Brain, looking at it in confusion: "What's strange about this?"
Zhou Chen was about to say some comforting words when he saw the summoned body form Chen Sui had drawn. His lips opened and closed, then closed and opened again.
Seeing this, Gu Qinxue turned her head to look, her pupils contracting as if receiving a shock, then she silently sat up straight, blinked her eyes, and looked at Chen Sui.
"Actually, sometimes I think, one should take other people's opinions into consideration more often."
Zhou Chen patted Chen Sui meaningfully.
He disliked meddlesome pointing, but at present, he sincerely hoped Chen Sui would listen to the advice from the Analyst Association.
Chen Sui understood his meaning from these words and propped her chin up, looking at Gu Qinxue: "What do you think?"
Gu Qinxue took a light breath, flicking her white hair, her tone diplomatic: "It's just slightly shocking at first glance."
Zhou Chen added faintly from the side: "You only looked once. Try looking a second time, the shock gets even bigger."
Chen Sui understood.
She turned to look at Puluo, who smiled subtly, lowering his head.
Xie Chunshi lightly coughed, avoiding eye contact with her.
"Fine."
Chen Sui regretfully withdrew her gaze, landing on the blueprint, looking left and right: "What's strange about it? Every value is used just right."
Zhou Chen and Gu Qinxue exchanged a glance, covering their eyes with their hands.
On the holographic image, a mass like dismembered corpse meat was assembled into a mud-like shape. Countless hands extended from the mud-like substance, and when the palms opened, they revealed fanged mouths. Wind swirls blew out from the innumerable palms. Transparent bubbles like edema swelled on the mud-like body, bursting to release wind spikes shooting in all directions.
Chen Sui reached out and pressed, causing a small indentation where she touched on the holographic projection.
In others' eyes, the peculiar meat cluster, somewhat human yet not human, was extremely ugly, even spine-chilling. It easily evoked images of dismembered corpses sewn together with black thread, chopped meat reassembled inside flayed skin, forming this kind of still-wriggling mud monster.
The indentation quickly rebounded. Chen Sui squeezed it a few times, sighing slightly: "The pet form can even relieve stress, isn't that good?"
Zhou Chen silently pressed his lips together, thinking that this image was more likely to cause critical damage—one look felt like your brain would explode. Forget stress relief, it was more like direct transcendence.
With a puzzled heart, waiting for her blueprint to be brought to the auction platform, Chen Sui heard the Star Ring Banquet's introduction.
First, they praised the values, then presented the Analyst Association's damage level test, displaying a series of certifications.
The perfect damage level and value utilization immediately made those around restless.
"Completely undamaged S-level?"
"And it's an unrecorded energy body. Though of course it's recorded now, haha, but the values and other aspects are unknown."
"The value utilization is very high, let's look at the design floor plan."
After this voice spoke, Chen Sui noticed the surrounding discussions gradually disappearing.
The viewing stand fell into silence.
On the auction platform, an enthusiastic voice called out: "Starting price 500,000 star coins, minimum increment 10,000 per bid, auction begins."
Chen Sui nervously watched the light screen before her. After seconds of complete silence in the stands, bids gradually began appearing on the viewing platform.
She gently sighed in relief.
"This summoned body is good in every way, except it's just too ugly."
"I strongly recommend the Analyst Association offer an aesthetics course to all analysts. I've tolerated previous monstrosities, but this time it's beyond ugly—this is a mental attack."
She self-consciously lowered her eyes. Was it really that serious?
She had just considered an alien structure during the design, without setting up a skeleton, letting it crawl in darkness for movement, which was more beneficial for the energy crystal's value performance. If changed to something else, the effect might not be as good.
"It's ugly, yes, but with 95% value utilization and zero damage, this summoned body's combat power is much stronger than those edited from regular S-level energy crystals."
"Plus, this auctioneer also has a highly compatible energy crystal. Double the price to complete both the energy crystal and summoned body editing, that's quite a bargain."
As viewers emerged from the shock of the summoned body's form, more and more people pressed the bidding button.
Chen Sui watched the price soar, finally closing at 810,000.
"No wonder so many people scramble to get on the auction exhibition platform," Chen Sui remarked, looking at the transaction agreement being signed after the successful auction, and the account balance immediately transferred. "One deal covers a year's expenses."
Zhou Chen watched her preciously stroke her StarNet balance, adding: "For such an auction, the Commercial Department's daily cash flow can reach several billion. And the Star Ring Banquet isn't just an auction."
"It really is profitable."
Chen Sui marveled.
The school team stayed to watch the next few auctions. Seeing an SSS-level energy crystal fetch an astronomical price, Chen Sui looked around in amazement, tracking the direction of the illuminated bid buttons.
"It's that black mamba."
She knew Xie You's name, but upon seeing his virtual avatar, instinctively referred to him by his form.
Xie Chunshi scanned the position competing with Na Luo River: "The one on the other side is Qing Song Tower."
The rest of the school team looked in that direction.
Gu Qinxue understood: "So they're all after this energy crystal."
"SSS-level, rare attribute, 9% damage level—hard not to be tempted," Zhou Chen said.
A thoughtful look appeared in Xie Chunshi's eyes.
Gu Qinxue and Chen Sui speculated: "Could it be they don't have suitable energy crystals in their school reserves?"
Their summoned body editing was mostly provided internally by Zhu Jing Fu. To match attributes and values, they had searched for a long time, using many Border Army connections before finally finding suitable energy crystals.
Thinking of this, Gu Qinxue looked toward Chen Sui: "Have you selected your energy crystal?"
Chen Sui's spiritual body was only A-level. In the analyst field, summoned body levels couldn't exceed spiritual body levels, otherwise the core crystal couldn't suppress the energy crystal, causing energy backlash—unless using a suppression lock from analysis instruments, which could allow an awakened person to barely use a summoned body of a slightly higher level.
"Yes, I want to try fusing with an S-level energy crystal. The school team has an S-level fire attribute energy crystal with 35% damage. Once I finish making the suppression lock, I might try during the preparation period."
Chen Sui answered.
The July league competition would begin with a ten-day preparation period.
She continued watching the energy crystal attributes on the auction platform: "If it's SSS-level, Na Luo River's Commander Xie You and aggressive attacker Simos could both potentially use it. But for fire attributes, Qing Song Tower's Commander Xin Yan probably wouldn't choose the same attribute. So it's between strong attacker Tang You, and those three."
"For fire attributes, it should be Simos," Xie Chunshi joined the discussion. "Little You prefers water, wind, lightning, and other attributes. Simos is wind attribute, using fire attribute would enhance him."
Chen Sui nodded, "So it's either Simos or Tang You."
Her expression grew somewhat grave. Xie Chunshi noticed: "They probably won't choose to use summoned bodies for the elimination matches. The seven direct schools are very wary of each other. They'd rather spend more time than reveal their arrangements in advance."
Hearing this, Chen Sui suddenly had an idea: "We have tactics too, and," she considered, "since they won't use them, we'll use ours first, then change for the league competition."
Editing SS-level and SSS-level energy crystal summoned bodies, both separation and fusion were very difficult.
But she was only A-level!
Whether A-level or S-level summoned bodies, she could complete the adaptation process quickly.
Xie Chunshi suddenly understood her meaning.
"Will there be enough time?"
Chen Sui's eyes were full of confidence: "Of course, we can complete it during the preparation period."
"The mecha modifications will be completed by the end of the month, summoned body design during the preparation period. The rest periods and preparation periods of the two elimination matches will be enough time to edit your summoned bodies."
Xie Chunshi looked at the others. The three other school team members all seemed excited: "Alright, you'll bring a summoned body for the elimination matches, and everyone will have dual forms for the official league competition."
This was exactly Chen Sui's arrangement.
The first elimination match's surprise would be the analyst's summoned body. With her, an A-level live target, anyone wanting to eliminate Zhu Jing Fu would make her their first attack target.
As for the second elimination match, that would let everyone witness the cooperation level of their "three cripples, one waste, and one idiot" combination.
Thinking of this, Chen Sui's gaze darkened.
As for that Gu family------
If they dared to cause trouble, they should be prepared to be kicked out of the competition.
She looked up, her thin face revealing a cold expression, with a hint of violence suppressed in her eyes.
The wind attribute SSS-level energy crystal was finally won by Na Luo River.
The auction would continue for a long time. With no exhibits of interest, the school team left after the SSS-level energy crystal auction, as did personnel from several other academies.
As Chen Sui followed the others out, at the device for exiting the holographic auction venue outside the door, she saw the black mamba's figure.
The long snake dragged its huge tail, slowly crawling on the golden floor.
Hearing familiar conversation, he stopped, twisting his snake body to look in their direction.
Chen Sui noticed that his snake eyes fell on Xie Chunshi at the front.
The vertical pupils seemed to contain some struggling emotion, but after the snake tongue flicked in and out, he ultimately didn't say a word.
Before he entered the exit device, Xie Chunshi nodded to him. Chen Sui didn't know if the black mamba saw clearly, but judging by his happily wagging tail in the second before he left, he probably did.
She recalled Xie Chunshi's assessment of the Na Luo River Team Leader.
Awkward.
It did seem that way.
After the auction ended, Xie You emerged from the holographic pod. The energy crystal would be delivered through the Star Ring Banquet channel.
As he went out, other members of the Na Luo River school team opened their doors simultaneously.
When the five met, except for the flamboyantly dressed Simos, who gathered the long cape of his military-style coat and elegantly waved greetings left and right, no one spoke a word. The four simply stared at each other.
"Hi? Handsome guys and beautiful ladies, any plans tonight?"
"If not, this little mouse is going on a date, OK?"
He Lanqi tossed her curly hair behind her head, glancing at him impatiently: "With which department's beauty this time?"
Simos's movements paused as he turned with a pitiful expression: "No way, Sister Qi. Mouse's true heart for you is as evident as the sun and moon. I'm not flirting around outside. Jipuna gave me concert tickets, it would be a waste not to go!"
He Lanqi smiled, knowing his habit of joking around, but seeing the others acting on their own, she still felt relieved at Simos's attempt to break the ice.
She gave Simos a "well done" look. He secretly made a heart gesture with his hands. Learning there were no other arrangements, he immediately ran off to have fun with Jipuna, who was already waiting at Na Luo River.
He Lanqi and Lu Ting walked behind, observing the atmosphere between the Commander and strong attacker ahead, who showed no desire to communicate.
Lu Ting was examining her new manicure, peacock tail feathers gorgeously dazzling, appearing extremely luxurious under the lights.
Her skin was deep black, but she dyed her hair white. The exaggerated accessories didn't look out of place on her at all, and due to her confident aura and haughty attitude, she appeared very unapproachable.
But He Lanqi just slightly lowered her head, and Lu Ting immediately leaned in to listen: "How long are these two going to stay mute?"
Lu Ting whispered: "The Commander is fine, just insincere. As for Xiao Er, apart from saying 'I met a very powerful analyst' after the two-person team-up last time, I haven't heard him say a word since."
He Lanqi covered her mouth and laughed: "Really? You actually heard him speak?"
"How powerful an analyst?" Her smile quickly disappeared, and she asked competitively: "More powerful than me?"
Lu Ting flatteringly linked arms with her: "Of course not, Sister Qi dominates all seven major academies."
He Lanqi was delighted by her sweet talk. After chatting about a few casual topics, she returned to the main issue: "Seems like we saw the Zhu Jing Fu school team tonight."
Up ahead, the two young men who had been listening to their teammates' complaints about them both slowed their steps when they heard the topic change.