Chapter 53: Can't Help Stealing the Lines

Playing games.

Before the great disaster, it wasn’t the most profitable line of work, but it was certainly one of the easiest ways to make money. Its difficulty was on par with switching careers, demolition work, becoming a celebrity, or launching a coin to fleece investors—no particular order.

“For now, making games is the most suitable option for us!” Alpha Ji declared seriously.

“How would we do that?”

“We could… Wait, you’re not objecting?” Alpha Ji was surprised. “Didn’t you used to say that games were a waste of time and life, that they poison people and make them lose their ambition?”

“Listening doesn’t poison anyone.”

“In fact, I think games might not be so useless after all…” Ye Chao forced himself upright, gesturing toward the second cage.

Inside, Fang Ju had just finished a session. He was drenched in sweat, legs trembling, crouched atop his pet turtle’s shell, too afraid to lie on his back since his butt had been kicked so swollen it resembled Kardashian’s.

“In normal training, both physical and mental stamina are limited. The time one can truly devote to focused, efficient practice isn’t long. But if there were a game that simulated reality closely enough, people wouldn’t have to worry about physical limitations and could concentrate solely on honing their skills… Er, why are you looking at me like that? Hungry?”

Alpha Ji was staring daggers at Ye Chao.

Of course, it wasn’t hunger—she wanted to eat him alive! Was he incapable of feeling comfortable unless he stole her lines? He’d said everything she wanted to say—what was left for her?

During her days at the training ground, Alpha Ji had come to understand the situation. Ye Chao and the others trained differently from athletes before the disaster—back then, people didn’t have powers. Now, training sometimes required stamina, sometimes ability, and some special moves demanded both. For instance, Xu Tiange’s “Blazing Gale Dance” not only required her full focus but also needed her minions’ assistance…all the more complicated.

And the more powerful the moves, the greater the cost. A few uses per day would leave anyone exhausted and content. It was similar, in a way, to a round of battle royale: you parachute in, loot gear, run from the zone, finally gather a full kit, only to meet an enemy and be eliminated in three seconds. Thirty minutes of gameplay, three seconds of actual gunplay.

But if there were a game that could replicate real abilities in a virtual world, so that all training required no physical stamina, allowing endless practice to improve proficiency—like a shooting simulator for battle royale games—even if not fun, it would surely be popular.

After all, not everyone could have a miraculous experience like Bai Niao Sheng.

“About the venue and servers—you’re planning to use imaginary space, right?” Ye Chao tapped his head. “Players fight there, and you can learn from them, taking full advantage of your AI abilities.”

Exactly right—this was the entirety of the multi-gigabyte plan Alpha Ji had drafted.

Ye “Can’t Stand Not Stealing Lines” Chao.

[Ye Chao: Favorability -100!]

Host, venue, server, even the GM were all set. All that remained was…

“Teacher Guan, I’d like to apply for some computer time.”

“You’d like to apply for computer time, right?”

The two lines almost overlapped—one spoken aloud, the other ringing in Ye Chao’s mind.

Stealing lines yet again!

[Ye Chao: Favorability -99!]

Guan Junyuan agreed to Ye Chao’s request. After three days of intensive training, he’d accepted Ye Chao’s utter lack of potential in martial arts. This application was for ability training, presumably? But aside from boosting mental attributes, Ye Chao’s powers were useless for combat. In the college entrance exam, physical tests didn’t prohibit supernatural abilities—if you could run 100 meters in three seconds or jump twenty meters, that was still skill. But for abilities that offered no practical help, why bother training?

Puzzled, but treating Ye Chao as a last resort, Guan Junyuan let him be, even feeling a faint sense of relief, as though he’d finally found a way out.

==========

Third High School, computer lab.

This was nothing like the computer labs in schools before the disaster—much more advanced!

Yes, you read that right. Post-disaster, the labs weren’t inferior; in fact, they were even more sophisticated!

The reason was simple—not only did they serve programming education, but they were also essential for meditation practice.

Take Ye Chao’s power, for example. Understanding how a USB drive works isn’t difficult, but deducing its internal structure, wiring, and chip layout through theory alone? For anyone but Ye Chao, it was impossible.

Thus, CAD became necessary.

With electron microscope scans and similar techniques, the internal structure of a USB drive could be rendered at the molecular level in a virtual world, aiding comprehension, memory, and enabling the inscription of USB drives or other Seed weapons.

For more than ninety percent of students, their first inscribed object was completed this way. Only a rare few geniuses, like Xu Tiange, could do without CAD.

Innate talent determined the speed of an ability user’s progress; CAD determined how many could progress at all.

There were even some whose awakening was difficult, but once achieved, their abilities and growth rate rivaled those of unassisted prodigies.

So, despite the high cost, the hassle of maintenance, and the fact that the technology surpassed even pre-disaster levels, the Yunzhou Alliance still equipped every university with such computer labs.

This was, after all, a world of powers. Despite cultural gaps and technological decline, with enough determination and investment, it wasn’t too hard to rekindle a small branch of the pre-disaster tech tree, even if the whole thing remained out of reach.

Compared to mass production, the biggest issue with bespoke work was the output.

Thus, while Third High’s lab was advanced, it had only ten stations, for nearly a thousand students—each allotted just one hour per week. It was pitiful.

Of course, Ye Chao’s application for computer time wasn’t for CAD—by now, that was of little use to him. He had his eye on the full-immersion sensor helmets here.

The game’s venue, server, and even the admin were ready; only the access issue remained. Others weren’t like Ye Chao—they couldn’t enter imaginary space by thought alone. Even for battle royale, you needed a decent computer.

A few days ago, at Alpha Ji’s pestering, Ye Chao had sneaked into the lab to let her attempt to infiltrate the network.

She failed.

Jiangcheng’s fixed-line network seemed shrouded by some invisible force—very likely the power of inscribed, mythicized objects.

In short, Alpha Ji could easily receive and convert wireless signals, but hit a dead end with fixed lines.

Secretly inscribing a sensor helmet failed as well, since each helmet was pre-inscribed at the factory.

Ye Chao didn’t yet have the ability to forcibly overwrite someone else’s inscription.

But he had other means.

Logging in and triggering the timer, Ye Chao accessed the network and requested the central computer for the scan data of the sensor helmet.

He couldn’t inscribe these helmets—but could he make one himself?

If he couldn’t even produce a simple sensor helmet, how could he ever hope to build an Iron Man suit?