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Academy of Grinding
Chapter 4 - Non-existent Lifeline

Chapter 4 - Non-existent Lifeline

“I swear I’ve seen you somewhere before… are you a celebrity or something?”

Sumire seemed surprised.

“Not really. Where do you think you know me from?”

“I don’t know, it’s just that your face seems so familiar. This is just pure speculation, but do you know anything about Gehlee?”

“Who’s that? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I’m sorry then.”

There was a moment of silence.

Surprise Question

Given are the functions 𝑓𝑝(𝑥)=9√(x^2+p)/(x^2+2). The line 𝑘 with a slope of 2.5 touches f𝑝 in 𝐴 with 𝑥𝐴=−1. Get the function of k algebraically.

Write your answer here: _________________

They really should make these phone keyboards better. The amount of times I typed ‘c’ instead of ‘x’ is truly phenomenal.

I saw that Sumire finished several seconds before me.

To be fair, the question was a decent bit harder than the last.

Correct!

You were the #8th student to answer that correctly. (13.98s elapsed)

You have been awarded 1,500 points

“I expected more from you, Akira.”

Sumire was looking down at me with a smug expression.

“The keyboard’s too small. You have an unfair advantage.”

“Oh? Just because I have beautiful, small fingers?”

“Remove the first adjective and you’ve got what I was meaning.”

She laughed a little.

Suddenly, the boy looked up at us.

He took a step back before flipping his glance up and down from his phone. I guess he was a bit shocked or something. Maybe he overheard us, we weren’t exactly talking that loud—but it was definitely possible.

“Wait, did you two get that question?” he asked.

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Sumire smiled.

“Nope, we have no clue what’s going on. These questions are all way too hard anyways, there’s no point in us even trying,” she answered.

“What were you typing before… then?”

“I was just looking in the SHOP, do you mind?”

“N-no… sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying…”

With that, he turned around. I guess he found that pretty convincing. Still, those questions weren’t hard, so I’m not sure why he believed us so easily.

Sumire turned back to me.

“We should be careful what we say around other people,” she suggested.

“Why?”

“It’ll be annoying if they find out about us.”

“What do you mean? We’re nothing special, not in this school of 100,000.”

Sumire sighed.

Making her way toward the elevator again, she continued to tap on the GATHER app on her phone. That was what filled most of our time at the moment. On our quest to find some food, we travelled to the 150th floor again.

POINTS

Your current points: 3,112

Current Rank: #32,263

“I assume neither of us really have enough money to buy good food.”

“Yeah.”

“What the plan then, we go hungry tonight?”

“There’s not much else we can do, can we?”

Despite the two of us travelling back to the food court, we still didn’t really have a method to purchase a meal. We were a few thousand off even the cheapest stuff on the 150th floor.

As the elevator doors opened, we were greeted by the sight of hundreds of students, both boys and girls, all meandering around the place. There were probably quite a few of these ‘food courts’ but it seemed that the ratio was still a bit unbalanced.

“What's the plan, Akira?”

The sound of chatter in the background was so loud I could barely hear her speak.

“What other floors could we try?”

Sumire looked up at the signage.

“We could try the 300th floor. Although I worry that there’s an upward trend in terms of price as we go up the floors.”

“I guess it’d be fine for us to just go back for now and figure out how to get more Points. It’s way too loud here, anyway.”

“Sure, let’s do that.”

We began to make our way back to my room—and some peace and quiet.

*

POINTS

Your current points: 3,351

Current Rank: #34,563

“It seems that the other students are about as carefree as I expected, Akira.”

“Well, if they pooled their money they could probably get some food. Shouldn’t we look for other people to group up with as well?”

“You’re free to do that if you want, but I’d rather not.”

“Why’s that?”

“I just don’t enjoy being with dumb people.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to that.

Sitting back on my comfortably soft bed, I simmered in the tranquillity of my room. It was like I was a potato in a warm stew, as opposed to the crowded outside. Crap, I’m using metaphors related to food, maybe I am hungrier than I thought.

Sumire kicked my shin as she swung her legs off my table.

“You want to buy another minion?”

“Do you think so?”

“We should see what they do, at least.”

“Maybe, I can afford a [Poultry Minion] or a [Star Minion].”

“I think the Star Minion is pretty self-explanatory.”

“I’ll buy the Poultry one then.”

“Sure, I’ll transfer you ten Points for the info like before.”

I guess that was a good enough deal for me. I could probably handle not eating for a little while longer, water was provided to us for free, at least.

FIELDS

[Wood Minion] x1

[Poultry Minion] x1

Like before, I looked at its description

[Poultry Minion]

Inventory: 0x Egg

Offspring: 0x Chicken, 0x Duck, 0x Turkey

[BASE] Produces 1x Egg per hour.

10 Eggs can be converted to a Point. Eggs can also be [Hatched], with a small chance of creating one of the possible {Offspring}. The {Chicken} produces 1x egg per hour. The {Duck} increases the value of an egg by 0.1 Points. The Turkey doubles the production speed of all {Chicken}s.

This minion was significantly more complicated than the previous one, it also had an element of luck built into it.

I showed Sumire the information I could see.

“That’s pretty interesting, still, it’s ultimately just a form of exponential growth. It just seems more complicated than it actually is.”