Chapter 19-19- Hardcore Running Points
A moment later, the iron door to the air-raid shelter slowly opened with a sharp grinding sound. Behind it stood a giant nearly two and a half meters tall. He wore a simple black shirt and had no mechanical modifications, yet his muscles bulged like balloons. A closer look revealed that he wore ring-shaped magic terminals on the index and middle fingers of both hands.
This made Yvette take a second look and raise her eyebrows slightly.
——A normal person would not need to use four magic terminals unless he has a special need for these things, such as using them as a storage tool for magic spells.
Soon, the term "cybermage" immediately emerged in Yvette's mind. However, unlike her fake cybermage, the person in front of her was likely the real thing, and he was using the "Active Rune Set" of Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, and might even have used the "Rune Secret Medicine" to strengthen the body.
Well, strictly speaking, it should be considered a biochemical mage or a mutation mage...
"I am the boss here, and my brothers on the road call me 'Welding Gun'. What's your name, beautiful mage lady?" The giant looked rough and fierce, but when he spoke, his tone was elegant and easy-going, and he sounded like an educated man.
"Yvette Sheen." Yvette gave her name. After all, it was just a dream and it was a pseudonym, so she was too lazy to make up another one.
"Miss Xien, I heard from my men that you want to make a deal here?"
"yes."
"In that case, please come in and chat."
Yvette hummed calmly. Although she looked like a beautiful and weak girl, her calm aura made Welding Gun look at her with a higher regard.
On this planet, strength can be acquired through spending money, but aura and inner qualities can only be cultivated over time. This girl was neither arrogant nor timid, which made him doubt her age.
She must have been injected with a secret rune potion that promises eternal youth, so her real age might be in her forties or fifties... he thought warily.
Following the welding gun into the air-raid shelter, passing through a crude underground corridor riddled with bullet holes, and listening to the noise coming from far away, the master and apprentice saw the underground market here.
The scorching gun barrels glowed blue on the stalls, and the hum of lightning blades sliced the air. Although these were obsolete rune weapons, they were perfectly adequate for ordinary people, and their prices fluctuated between a few thousand and tens of thousands.
Beyond that, in the corners of the hall, filled with vulgar language, lurked the trade of addictive substances more dangerous than weapons. Rosalyn looked in curiosity, but was met with a filthy, greedy gaze in return. She hurriedly put on a stern face and imitated her teacher's nonchalant attitude.
The "reception room" of the welding gun is an iron cage surrounded by explosion-proof steel plates.
Sitting down on the sofa in the iron cage, ignoring the noisy surroundings, he silently poured three cups of coffee, pushed two of them to the other side, and said, "Are you two new to the Blackwater District?"
White mist curled up from the coffee cup, mingling with the bitter almond flavor of some additive. Yvette motioned Rosalyn not to touch it, then nodded slightly. "Yes."
"So, what deal do you two want?"
"I'm hoping to buy secure new ID cards and pirated rune books," Yvette said calmly. "Also, I'm hoping to get a stall here to sell some of my original 'restricted spells,' or perhaps accept commissions related to rune compilation."
"Your order..."
Welding Torch suddenly laughed, as if he'd heard something quite amusing. He took a sip of his coffee and said, "I can get the ID card, but pirated books?" He licked the coffee stain from the corner of his mouth and chuckled, "Last year, a gang secretly printed Black Tower Middle School's introductory rune textbook and started selling it. Within a month, they vanished. Now, no one knows where their bodies are."
A hint of surprise crossed Yvette's calm face. From reading about the pre-apocalyptic period, she knew that the Origin Civilization had been very aggressive in combating piracy, but now it sounded... much more serious than she had imagined.
Rosalyn was also surprised and said, "So serious? Why?"
"Because it infringes on the company's intellectual property rights. This is something they make money from, so how can they not maintain it properly..." Welding Gun said, noticing Yvette's expression and narrowing his eyes, "Ms. Mage, don't you know this?"
Yvette glanced at him, her eyes devoid of any emotion, as silent as a pool of stagnant water, but for some reason, Welding Torch felt a chill all over his body, and the doubts he had just had about the identity of this cyber mage immediately disappeared.
But what he didn't know was that Yvette was sighing madly in her heart at this moment.
When she was shopping online last night, she originally wanted to buy the patent book "Element Decay Complement Technology" sold by one of the super companies "Jinhen Chemical" to solve the real-life energy storage problem.
Then I looked at the price. It was just an e-book, and it cost 500,000 credit points. I was stunned. I subconsciously brought my past life experience into play and thought about whether I could get some pirated copies.
Only now did she realize that the underground black market would even trade illegal weapons, but wouldn't trade pirated books related to rune lore. As a result, she was forced to buy the originals through legitimate channels, and she had no idea how long it would take to save up the money.
"But Miss Mage, your goods are quite rare. Perhaps I can offer you some trading opportunities. How about that? Many gangs would be interested."
Welding Gun changed the subject, leaned forward, and chuckled, "Everyone knows the commission here is 20%. I'll only charge you 10%. Isn't that nice? After inspecting the goods, I'll help you connect."
"Can."
Eager to get the opportunity to make money as soon as possible, Yvette didn't care much about the commission, but the discount on the welding gun seemed real, because in her previous life, the e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com seemed to only take about 10% commission from ordinary stores.
"What a straightforward lady! I hope we can have a pleasant cooperation." The smile on Welding Gun's face deepened.
He really didn't lie. Half is half. After all, in his opinion, a wizard lady's connections seemed more valuable, especially when she could provide original restricted-level spells, which seemed to be of a very high level.
Of course, Welding Gun himself was a cybermage, but his rune mastery was only at the very beginning. Being able to use other people's spells was a plus, but creating his own was unthinkable. He didn't even dare to tweak them, let alone create an original one, for fear of accidentally creating a bug that would kill him.
All I can say is that there are differences between mages.
…
The commission for rune compilation would not come out of thin air. Yvette knew very well that she needed to produce some solid results to prove her strength.
Therefore, for the initial sale, she chose a restricted original technique - another name for illegal techniques that have not been officially approved and filed and are privately created.
The name of this spell is "Arcane Wind Blade·YH47254," the same spell she used to kill the three thugs yesterday. "YH" stands for "Blackwater District of Ish City," and "47254" is the number of runes. This naming method effectively avoids duplication.
"Arcane Wind Blade?" Welding Torch raised an eyebrow and said skeptically, "It sounds very ordinary. Is there anything special about it?"
At the same time, he led the two of them into a room inside.
This room was slightly larger than the reception room we had just been in. The wall paint was peeling, revealing dark red bricks. In the corner stood an old machine, its casing yellowed, as if it had been soaked in time for a century.
However, this is not a plastic shell, but a kind of "fungal plastic", an organic synthetic material invented by the "Lin Tui Organism" that developed the Magic Light Vine. The main material is the secretion of a certain magic-eating bacteria, and its function is not much different from that of plastic.
"It doesn't have any special features. I just made some optimizations, and the performance should be good." Yvette's eyes fell on the machine.
——A magic formula simulator is a testing machine used to deduce magic effects. It is somewhat similar to the "baking machine test" in the magic field. It can measure the rating of various performance indicators of a magic formula to the maximum extent.
Although she had known about the existence of this thing from the professional books in the Abyss Base, this was the first time she had come into contact with it in real life. This made Yvette feel like she was about to take the college entrance examination.
——She has been playing with rune design for hundreds of years, but this is her first time doing hardcore running points, and she was a little nervous for a moment.
Especially the magic "Arcane Wind Blade", she did not optimize it as seriously as the four great magics of ice, fire, wind and thunder, namely Frost Bullet, Flame Dance, Wind Rider and Thunder Fury, so the measured results will be a bit low.
I'm also completely self-taught and haven't had any systematic training, so I hope I won't be penalized for any significant points... This is in front of my apprentice, you broken machine, don't push me...
She thought expressionlessly.
"Well, Miss Sheen, please check the machine first." The welding gun reminded.
This is to prevent the theft of the rune set, confirming whether the "incognito mode" is turned on. Of course, it is possible to tamper with it, but it is extremely difficult and prone to copyright reports. Ordinary gangs simply don't dare to take this risk.
Yvette nodded, placed her hand on the touchpad, and began to conduct a thorough inspection of the machine's system. After confirming that everything was correct, she started the test mode, entered the rune group, and waited for the machine to deduce the results.
"It's starting to move!" Rosalyn said in surprise as the machine started to shake. Then she saw a line of words appear on the screen of the machine -
[Rune quality testing...]
"Rune quality, what is that?" Rosalin asked. She couldn't read it, but perhaps because of the high illiteracy rate here, the welding gun machine turned on the voice broadcast.
Before Yvette could speak, Welding Gun said to Rosalyn with a smile, "This is an indicator used to check the redundancy of the technique."
"redundancy?"
"Yes. In the rune arrangement of magic spells, there are often useless 'junk runes' that affect the efficiency of magic casting. For example, a spell that can be cast in three seconds may be delayed to 3.5 seconds."
"The more runes a large spell has, the more junk runes it will generally have... Calculating rune quality is about finding the percentage of these junk runes, then comparing it to spells of the same specification to come up with a quantifiable reference."
"Why are there junk runes?" Rosalyn asked in confusion.
"There are many reasons," Welding Gun shrugged. "It could be that repeated modifications during testing resulted in residuals. Or perhaps the compiler was lazy and didn't bother optimizing. There are even some techniques where deleting unnecessary parts would cause problems, so they have to be retained."
"So that's how it is..."
"The method for quantifying the scores is also very simple. It calculates the redundancy rate and then compares and ranks similar techniques. The top 5% are S-grade, the top 10% are A-grade, the top 20% are B-grade, and so on. The bottom 10% are J-grade."
While the welding gun was being explained, the first indicator, the "bake-up test", was nearing its end.
After a moment, the test was completed and a big "S" appeared on the screen.
"Wow, this is the first time I've heard an S-rank announcement..."
There were shocked chatter behind her. Yvette glanced over and saw that it was a few thugs who were watching over the place, peeking out of the door and joining in the fun.
The welding gun was also stunned for a moment.
"Rune Quality" is the performance indicator with the lowest weight in the comprehensive score, but it is also quite difficult to get an S-rank. This means that the compiler is either a super-master who can compile runes in one go, or a perfectionist or obsessive-compulsive who is willing to spend time...
After taking a look at Yvette's shining silver hair, clean face and simple black and white otaku-style outfit, Welding Gun thought about it and still felt that the latter was more likely.
(End of this chapter)
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