Yue Xingwen, Jiang Pingce, Liu Zhaoqing and Ke Shaobin were the initial members of the C-183 Research Group. In order to team up with everyone as soon as possible, the four of them took out 1.250 points for each of the two courses they received at the Faculty of Mathematics, and put together enough 5.000 points to upgrade the Research Group to level 3 in one breath, leaving less than 200 points in their hands, which had not been enough to upgrade their skills.
Now that he had finished three courses at the Faculty of Architecture, where he had earned 428 points for <City Collapse>, 570 points for <The Mystery at the Construction Site>, and 428 points for <Endless Stairs>. He got a total of 1.426 points, plus the points left over from before, Yue Xingwen currently had more than 1.600 points in his hand, more than enough to upgrade his skills.
After going back to take a nap, at 2:30pm, Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce set an alarm to get up together, washed their faces and took the elevator side by side to the Library Database on the -1st floor.
Yue Xingwen said, “I’m going to upgrade my idiom dictionary to level 3 first, and then trade another resource book if I have extra points. What about you?”
Jiang Pingce replied, “I’ll upgrade the coordinate system to level 3 first, and then exchange it for a tool when I have extra points.”
Yue Xingwen was curious and asked, “What tools do you have at your Mathematics Department?”
Jiang Pingce replied, “The triangular ruler, straight ruler, compass, abacus for counting, all kinds of 3D geometric diagrams, numerical series formulas, etc… Quite a lot, I’ll take a closer look before I change it.”
Yue Xingwen smiled, “Okay, then I’ll see you later at the Research Group center.”
The elevator stopped on the -1st floor with a ‘ding’ sound, and a familiar mechanical voice rang in his ears: “Welcome to the library’s -1st floor, the Database Center.”
After stepping out of the elevator, the scene in front of him suddenly changed, and Yue Xingwen turned his head to see that Jiang Pingce beside him had disappeared. Then, before his eyes, he was in the wide hall when he first came to the library.
The solid wood bookshelves on all four walls were filled with a wide variety of books, and large crystal chandeliers over a meter in diameter hung in the center of the vaulted hall, and gentle light shone on the clean marble floor, light and shadow were intertwined, like a dream.
Yue Xingwen rubbed his eyes and said, “Is the tutor here? I want to upgrade my dictionary.”
The female mechanical voice rang in his ears: “Welcome classmate Yue Xingwen. The point required to upgrade from level 2 to level 3 for the Chinese Department’s skill book <Modern Idiom Dictionary> is 500 points, is the upgrade confirmed?”
It only took 300 points to upgrade from level 1 to level 2, but now it cost 500 points to upgrade to level 3? It seemed that the higher the skill, the more points it would require to upgrade, a setting that Yue Xingwen could accept, so he nodded and said, “Confirm.”
As soon as he spoke, his <Modern Idiom Dictionary> flew out from his hand under the call of a mysterious power and floated to the center of the hall before a dazzling golden light was cast down from the roof and enveloped the dictionary.
After 3 seconds, the light disappeared and the familiar tutor’s voice rang in his ears: “Congratulations, the dictionary has been successfully upgraded to level 3.”
Yue Xingwen stretched out his right hand, the dictionary obediently returned to his hand, and he quickly flipped it open and looked——
[Modern Idiom Dictionary]
Publisher: Library
Skill Book Limitation : Chinese Language and Literature students
Skill Book Level : Level 3 (Can be upgraded with points)
The following idioms have been unlocked——
[To Prostrate Oneself in Admiration] [Seven up Eight down], the descriptions of these two idioms had not changed.
[Golden Cicada Shell]
When being controlled, or surrounded, immediately release the control and move to a designated location 10 meters away.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Skill Upgrade (Level 3/Full): Effective on all members of the Research Group, allows all team members to release the control and move to designated location 100 meters away, cooldown 24 hours (12 hours).
Ktf qgfnlber ifnfi 2 Xbivfc Jlmjvj Vtfii mbeiv wbnf afjwwjafr eq ab 20 wfafgr, jcv ja ifnfi 3, la mbeiv jmaejiis wbnf 100 wfafgr. Ktf vlrajcmf tjv lcmgfjrfv rluclolmjcais, jcv atf mbbivbkc alwf tjv mtjcufv ogbw 24 tbegr ab 12 tbegr.
Tef Wlcukfc mbcalcefv ab oilq yjmx——
[Fast as Lightning]
Vxlii Fqugjvf (Ofnfi 3/Meii): Coafg erlcu atlr rxlii, atf wbnfwfca rqffv bo jii Efrfjgmt Xgbeq’r wfwyfgr kjr lcmgfjrfv ys 500 obg 5 wlceafr (↑ 30 wlceafr), jcv atf mbbivbkc alwf lr 1 tbeg.
The whole team members’ acceleration of 5 minutes went straight to 30 minutes, this was a huge improvement!
In order to quicken the journey on Cross-Country Orienteering before, Yue Xingwen used this acceleration skill, but it was not effectively used because it only lasted for 5 minutes at a time.
[Torrential Rain]
The torrential rain seems to pour down from the sky.
Skill Upgrade (Level 3/Full): Immediately draws a square area of 10×10 (↑30×30), forming a torrential downpour, which can’t directly injure people, but can be used as a guiding medium (after level 3, the formed torrential downpour can move in a specified direction according to the user’s commands)
Yue Xingwen’s eyes lit up—— The previous torrential rain was 100 square meters and the location was fixed. After upgrading to full level, it was a wide torrential rain of 900 square meters, and it could be moved!
In this way, his torrential rain, whether he worked with Xin Yan and turned it into acid rain, or with senior brother Zhuo and turned it into lightning rain, or with senior brother Liu and turned it into knife rain, the wide range of mobile torrential rain was simply a weapon to kill monster. Upon encountering small monsters like spiders, he could just clear the field in one wave!
Yue Xingwen excitedly continued to flip back. After the dictionary was upgraded, two new idioms appeared——
[The Flooding of Jinshan Temple]
The Flooding of Jinshan Temple is an episode from the ancient mythological story <The Legend of the White Snake>.
Level 3 Idiom Skill.
Summon water that floods a designated area of 100 square meters, cooldown 24 hours.
[A Blazing Prairie Fire]
The fire burns on the field, making it inaccessible.
Level 3 Idiom Skill.
Summon a blaze that instantly ignites everything combustible in an area of 100 square meters, cooldown 24 hours.
Further back, a blank page with a familiar character appeared: “More idioms can be unlocked after the skill book is upgraded.”
Yue Xingwen took a closer look at the new skills, and his mood grew more and more excited.
This upgrade had comprehensively improved the skills of the dictionary, not only giving the three skills of <Golden Cicada Shell>, <Fast as Lightning>, and <Torrential Rain> a qualitative leap, but also giving the two super powerful AOE skills <The Flooding of Jinshan Temple> and <A Blazing Prairie Fire>.
A large-scale flood and fire. At this moment, Yue Xingwen realized deeply—— Their Chinese dictionary was really a well-deserved library’s ‘Magic Dictionary’!
He wronged the dictionary by smashing people with it.
Yue Xingwen reached out his hand and gently touched the hard shell cover which was made of good material, took the dictionary back and asked, “How many points do I need to continue to raise my dictionary to level 4?”
Library tutor: “Level 3 to level 4 requires 800 points.”
Yue Xingwen came to the Database Center with 1.600 points, and he just spent 500 points. He still had 1.100 points, and it was enough to continue to upgrade the dictionary to level 4, but he remembered the Chinese’s junior sister he met at the inn, holding the ‘Complete Book of Punctuation’, and couldn’t help but say, “Can I exchange for a different resource book?”
There was only one dictionary, which was still too limited. In case there was Qin Miao’s big move ‘to dismiss military hierarchy using wine cups’ from the opponent and directly took away his dictionary, wouldn’t he have no skills?
Library Tutor: “Of course you can, the points required to redeem different resource books are different, you can pick the book of your choice from the bookshelf.”
Yue Xingwen walked to the front of the bookshelf.
As a result of his request to ‘redeem the skill book’, all the books had a ‘point price’ on the side, similar to the supermarket price.
He caught a glimpse of <The Complete Book of Punctuation> placed in the very middle, and the points required for this book was 1.200. He had seen that junior sister using commas, periods and ellipses before, and it was quite fun. Unfortunately his points were not enough to exchange it.
Why didn’t he look at another book?
Yue Xingwen’s gaze swept around the bookshelf. The database of the Chinese Department was comparable to the library’s document warehouse. All kinds of ancient books were very complete, there were also a large number of modern and contemporary writers’ personal collections. <Lu Xun Anthology> alone had a row of more than a dozen volumes, if he wanted to exchange the whole set, he needed up to 5.000 points. It was estimated that only diehard fans would save so many points to exchange for the whole collection.
Other authors’ complete works required a high number of points; for example, <Eileen Chang Complete Works> cost 3.000 points. Among the ancient books, the <Siku Quanshu> was the most exaggerated, it actually cost 8.000 points.
Yue Xingwen skipped all the books with more than 1.100 points and specifically looked for some cheap books.
He went around the corner of the bookshelf, and suddenly his eyes rested on the relatively thin book, <Modern Writers’ Classic Anthology> —— Modern writers generally referred to the authors who were active in the literary world from the beginning of the New Culture Movement in 1917 to the founding of the country in 1949. The literary world was full of talents during this period, with representative writers such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang, Zhu Ziqing and so on.
Yue Xingwen had also read this kind of ‘Anthology’ type of book. Although it was not as comprehensive and thorough as the ‘The Complete Works of Writers’ that could thoroughly make them understand the writer’s life, this ‘Classic Anthology’ covered a wider range of works. The style was diverse, and in the book, there would be many writers’ representative works, which was more suitable for use as a skill book.
Most importantly, it only took 1.100 points to redeem this book!
Yue Xingwen’s eyes lit up, and he immediately said, “I want to exchange this book.”
He reached out and took the book off the bookshelf. A prompt immediately came to his ear: “Classmate Yue Xingwen, are you sure to deduct 1.100 points and get the new resource book <Modern Writers’ Classic Anthology>?”
Yue Xingwen said, “Sure!”
Mechanical Voice: “Exchange successful.”
A new book icon appeared in the palm of his right hand, in addition to the icon of the Idioms Dictionary.
Yue Xingwen opened the book excitedly——
[Modern Writers’ Classic Anthology]
Publisher: Library
Skill Book Limitation : Chinese Language and Literature students
Skill Book Level : Level 1 (Can be upgraded with points)
The following articles have been unlocked——
Turning to the first page, a page full of small black characters was actually the full text of Zhu Ziqing’s essay <Figure Seen From Behind>.
Yue Xignwen quickly scanned the article, flipping back a page to find that the font had been bolded and a new skill had appeared.
[I said: “Father, don’t go.”
He looked out of the car and said, “I’m going to buy some oranges. You stay right here and don’t move around.”]
—— Excerpt from <Figure Seen From Behind> by Zhu Ziqing
Skill: Figure Seen From Behind
When using the skill, read ‘I’m going to buy some oranges. You stay right here and don’t move around’ to the target, and the target will wait for you to buy the oranges. Unless you hand the oranges to the target, the target can only look at your back silently and can’t move for 5 minutes (domination control skill, can’t be remove, and can’t be attacked by anyone while controlled)
You can get an orange.
Limited skill, can only be used once per course examination.
Yue Xingwen: “……”
Zhu Ziqing’s essay, <Figure Seen From Behind>,was about his father who took him to the train station. Someone invented a new type of ‘literary type of cursing’ method, for example, netizen A said to netizen B: “Don’t move around, I’m going to buy you an orange’, the subtext was: You are my son.
Because this was what Zhu Ziqing’s father said to him.
The ‘Orange idea’ that was circulating on the Internet was from the <Figure Seen From Behind> essay.
Yue Xingwen never thought the skills of buying oranges would appear in the <Modern Writers’ Classing Anthology> that he exchanged?!
If he said these words, he would get an orange, and the designated ‘son’ must look at his back for 5 minutes without moving.
Domination control skill, this was the first time Yue Xingwen saw this description.
Unlike normal control skills, domination control skills could not be removed. In other words, the targets controlled by Zhu Ziqing’s <Figure Seen From Behind> could not be removed by releasing skills such as Golden Cicada Shell. This skill could only be removed when Yue Xingwen gave the orange to the other party.
Ignoring the weird description, this was a very powerful single control skill!
When they met a BOSS they could not beat, he would just say ‘I’m going to buy some oranges’ and then have the BOSS to pause and watch his back. Then, turning around to give him the orange when everyone was ready? When a teammate was in danger, he could also say ‘I’m going to buy some oranges’, and let his teammate stay in place for 5 minutes, immune to all attacks?
Buying oranges was equivalent to pressing the pause button and the target who was controlled couldn’t move and be attacked for 5 minutes.
Yue Xingwen rubbed his temples—— Library’s skills just kept getting weirder and weirder!
He always felt that after exchanging this strange book, their team’s painting style would gradually develop into a ‘funny team’?
At present, only Zhu Ziqing’s <Figure Seen From Behind> appeared in this new skill book, which was a rare ‘domination control skill’.
He was looking forward to what other great writers would appear in future upgrades to this book?
Interesting! I’m looking forward to the skill upgrades of everyone as well. 😀
Wonder if the oranges can be eaten
I really missed the funny descriptions of skills in books
Thank you very much for the translation 💙💙💙💙💙
That’s a cool skill, not only can you fully control a BOSS, you get to eat an orange too. XD I would like to have this skill, thanks.