Luon woke up feeling refreshed. Last night he read a couple of web novels about survival in a mutated apocalypse, death games, and living in the forest with barely anything. Luon felt inspired by them with their unique and common perception on things.
Unlike those main characters, he had the time to be prepared for his survival training. Two weeks may seem quite long but time passes by fast when during the preparatory stages.
Why should he unprepared like those main characters? He knows the event is going to happen unlike them and the event allowed them to bring whatever they wanted except for food. The monitors who oversee the event would immediately fail the student if they had secretly brought food.
Of course, although the student has failed right away, the student won’t be told until the end. It’s like taking a driver’s test and finishing satisfied only to find out that they’ve failed at the start wasting several minutes of their life.
The surprising part was that there was another event happening at the same time causing the school to be on break for two months.
The Alliance Tournament. Second-year students at Nexus University, after passing the local qualifiers send three teams into the event.
The qualification rounds lasted for nearly half of the year and entry was voluntary. During the times Luon and his classmates were studying in their classes numerous battles were fought to obtain the three selection positions.
Why do students want to partake in the event? It was simple, Glory! Similar to how medals are given to students doing the survival training, the teams that could bring victory to their solar system are endlessly admired and filled with benefits. A whole year's worth of half the production resources from over 16 solar systems is a lot to wager.
Unfortunately, Luon and the others weren’t able to watch the main tournament as the survival training started and ended at the same time. The school designed it that way because it matched with the scheduling.
Luon got out of his room and did his morning routine, a healthy breakfast supplements a healthy body.
Luon planned out his tasks for the upcoming two weeks before the event. Unlike Gizmo, Tyron and Bendan who were watching the end of the qualifiers, he wanted to prepare thoroughly.
Along the way, he met Arisa, Belle, Shizuka who were just about to go out to do some shopping. Looking at these young rich ladies, he couldn’t help but sigh at how powerful their families were.
Luon’s improvements were impressive mainly due to the fact he had started to cultivate his body to match his complex sword skills and techniques. However, after awhile it began to slow down right before entering combat level 50.
Gizmo, Bendan, and Tyron were about a few levels away as their physical fitness matched Luon but only lacked the several decades of combat experience Luon had. What was surprising though was how fast these girls leveled.
Their pace was equal to Luon’s improvements as they improve their status all-around. Arisa and Belle have even reached level 50. Most combat students after graduating from Nexus University average around level 60.
Money, it was the only significant difference between them. With the money, they could buy cultivating resources like rare herbs and pills or enter secluded training in secret realms. Not only that but they have NG-Arms which potentially raises their current levels to 70.
Of course, using NG-Arms have its limitations. The energy exerted at level 70 was way more costly than at level 50. The max operational time was a few hours and if you press it hard enough the energy could be spent in a single hour.
Luon was reminded of the might of NG-Arms once again as he thought, ‘Maybe Zekar has some scrap ones I could rebuild from? Even though they're scrap, he’ll probably charge me a lot.’
Even after working part-time and selling products he still didn’t have enough to buy a brand new set of NG-Arms, and with his current amount, he would have nearly zero Galaxia Coins if he bought it second-hand. Although NG-Arm were useful, Luon would rather spend it on cheap, valuable tools to help him kill Inzektors fast to make more money.
The girls after seeing Luon pass by exchanged some light greetings as they walked away whispering to each other. A few giggles could be seen, although Luon didn’t know what they were talking about he knew that they’ve become much closer than what they started with.
Surprisingly, Luon’s simulations barely had any contact with females except for his second time. In the real world, he was able to talk to them without losing cool regularly. Out of the three, Luon thought he would end up much closer to Belle as she was the first female he had talked to for possibly centuries, but he ended up meeting Arisa quite often. Luon became a fan of midnight instant ramen trips and several times they met each other.
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After their trade agreement, they had nothing to do with each other, but Arisa used her connections and found out that Luon was being taught by Zekar on crafting, after which she began to annoy Luon consistently to forge her items, at a meager price.
5%. Arisa only gave him that little amount more than the material costs for labor fees. Sometimes Luon would profit, but most of the time he would be making less than what he should have.
However, this didn’t deter him from meeting with her as not only did she pay him, she also gave him the latest information in regarding Zythos.
For some time now her family has been very wary of the Mythos clan's actions, although Luon didn’t want to be involved with politics the information was still a godsend to him who had no connections.
One time Luon asked if she liked him as she only asked him to be her private engineer, but she just looked at him in the eye and said, “Aren’t you being a little full yourself, do you think your special? I’m just doing business with you because of you're convenient. It’s not like I like you or hate you, it’s just business. Yup, just business.”
And then she looked away and left, she didn’t talk to him for a few weeks later, and Luon felt terrible as he had overestimated himself.
“Zekar I’m back again,” said Luon arrived at the store to find Zekar at the counter staring mindlessly at Luon who entered.
But his expression quickly changed as his deadpan face once again appeared while he questioned Luon, “So what are you going to do today? Around this time you should be preparing for the training camp.”
Luon then replied “Well I was going to go craft some tools in the back for the upcoming weeks. Oh, I was just wondering do you by perchance have any scrap NG-Arms I could use for the event? Make it cheap for me please.”
Zekar sighed and led Luon to a room in the back, it was a dusty room mainly filled with boxes except for an unclean bed and an unused NG-Arms in the corner.
Zekar picked it up and gave it to Luon and said, “Even if you tried to make one you might end up having some problems later on. Just use this and train with it a bit. As for the payments you could do it in installments.”
Luon gazed at the dusty NG-Arms and asked, “Why do you have one just laying in the dust like this? Wouldn’t it better sold?”
Zekar looked at Luon and said, “Do you want me to sell it to someone else? If you want I can.”
“Nope, no thanks. It’s perfectly fine with me,” said Luon as he quickly held onto it with his life and left the room without another word.
Seeing Luon leave Zekar left the room and gently close the door sealing it once again for another eternity, or so he thought.
Luon spent the two weeks learning how to use the NG-Arms and crafting various useful gadgets to help him succeed in killing as many Inzektors as possible.
Using his decades of engineering experience and the modern techniques that Zekar taught him before Luon laid one of his greatest masterpieces so far.
[Formidable Blightsteel Suit]
[Rank - Rare]
[Defense - 2500]
[Durability 800/800]
[A full body suit made in resemblance of a knight or a concealed superhero. Made from a mixture of steel and blightstone it became a lightweight masterpiece with a formable defense.]
[Perk 1 - Transform]
It wasn’t the first time he had tried to create armor, but it was his best with the materials he had. Leather was extremely expensive as poaching and hunting for animals was only available in other solar systems. The only type of armor Luon could use would be cloth or metal in which fabric, although naturally weaker was more expensive.
If Luon had an excess amount of money to buy materials, he would have spent it on some [Demonic Spider Steel Thread], the best type to use for clothing. Full metallic armor was less flexible and could only be used on the battlefield as it would look awkward walking on the streets with it on.
Without Zekar’s help, the cost to make some personal armor would have been astronomical. The number of failures was quite high. Even the standard item to Luon’s new requirements was a failure, and he was lucky enough to make a rare one with a title option.
Zekar told Luon that well-made armor sometimes comes with a title option potentially boosting the standard properties by another half.
“But looking at it again… Would you really want to use this? This armor is practically screaming out masked hero,” questioned Zekar who looked at the gaudy design of the armor.
Zekar smiled barely containing his laughter inside as he continued, “There’s also the perk skill, [Transform]? It seems quite useful and as it transforms into a belt. A nice idea indeed but now you definitely look like one of those secret superheroes who hide their powers in the shadows.”
Luon stared at Zekar who ended up laughing at the suit of armor. Luon placed the transforming belt and transformed into a superhero causing Zekar to laugh even more. Despite the looks, it was practical, and at least Zythos wouldn’t be able to recognize him right away.
During these two weeks, Zekar was very helpful and allowed Luon to stay in the dusty room after he swept the dust away. Luon found it strange for Zekar to be this enthusiastic about helping Luon but merely thought he was worried about losing his little part-timer during the event.
Days passed, and the event came before he knew it, Luon arrived at the plateau with many spaceships that were going to ferry them to their destination.
The location of the venue was at an isolated planet in the Nexus solar system called Alpha, it recreated Inzektor habitat and several times a year soldiers would thin them out while scientists study their evolution and habits.
Many students were gathering about, and Luon quickly found his friends. Groups were allowed in the event, but records were still individually recorded. A common tactic Luon read up about was that rich people can have their minions gather dying Inzektors and give the last kill to them.
Luon prepared as much as he could, he had many weapons, tools, and his own person NG-Arms. Whatever shameless strategies Zythos had or scary Inzektors there were Luon could find out when the time comes. There were 14 days until the end of the event.