19. Hardcore Benchmarking

After a moment, the iron door at the entrance of the air-raid shelter slowly creaked open with a harsh scraping sound. Standing behind it was a giant nearly two and a half meters tall. He wore a simple black shirt, with no mechanical modifications on his body, yet his muscles bulged like balloons. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that his index and middle fingers on both hands each bore a ring-shaped magic conduit terminal.

This caught Yvette’s attention, and she raised an eyebrow slightly.

—Ordinary people wouldn’t need four magic conduit terminals, unless they had special requirements, such as using them as reserves for magical formulas.

Almost immediately, the term “cyber mage” sprang to Yvette’s mind. Unlike her own status as a pseudo-cyber mage, this figure was likely genuine, following the “Active Rune Group” path from Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, possibly even using the enhanced “Rune Elixir” to strengthen his body.

Strictly speaking, he would be classified as a biochem mage or a mutation mage...

“I’m the one in charge here. The brothers on the street call me ‘Weldgun.’ Fair maiden mage, may I ask your name?” Despite his rugged and fierce appearance, the giant’s tone was surprisingly refined and easygoing, giving the impression of a well-read individual.

“I’m Yvette Sienne,” she replied, giving her name without hesitation. Since this was a dream and an alias, she saw no need to fabricate another.

“Miss Sienne, my men told me you want to make a deal here?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, please come in and talk.”

Yvette responded with a calm hum. Though she appeared to be a fragile young woman, her composed aura made Weldgun regard her with newfound respect.

—On this planet, power could be bought with money, but aura and inner strength came only with time. This young lady was neither arrogant nor timid, leading him to question her true age.

Perhaps she had injected the “Youth Everlasting” rune elixir, and was actually in her forties or fifties... he thought warily.

Following Weldgun, they entered the air-raid shelter and walked through a crude underground corridor scarred with bullet marks. The distant clamor grew louder as master and apprentice approached the underground market.

Heated gun barrels glowed blue on the stalls, and the humming of thunderblades sliced the air. Though all were discarded rune weapons, they were more than sufficient for ordinary people, priced from a few thousand to tens of thousands.

In addition, in a corner of the hall filled with crude language, even more dangerous addictive substances were traded. Rosalind’s curiosity was met with filthy and lecherous gazes, prompting her to straighten her face and mimic her teacher’s casual indifference.

Weldgun’s “reception room” was a cage made from explosion-proof steel plates.

Sitting on the sofa inside the cage, ignoring the noisy surroundings, he silently poured three cups of coffee, pushing two across the table and asking, “Are you two new to the Blackwater District?”

The coffee cups emitted swirling white steam, mixed with a bitter almond aroma from some additive. Yvette signaled Rosalind not to touch it and nodded slightly.

“Yes.”

“So, what kind of deal are you looking for?”

“I want to purchase a secure new identity ID card, and pirated professional rune knowledge books,” Yvette said calmly. “Also, I hope to get a stall here to sell some of my original ‘restricted-level formulas,’ or accept commissions related to rune compilation.”

“That’s quite an order...” Weldgun suddenly laughed, as if he’d heard something amusing. He sipped his coffee and said, “I can get the ID card, but pirated books? Last year, a gang tried selling pirated beginner rune textbooks from Black Tower High School. Within a month, they all vanished. No one knows where their bodies are now.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Yvette’s composed face. From her pre-apocalypse knowledge, she knew the Origin Civilization heavily cracked down on piracy. But hearing this now made her realize the severity was far worse than she imagined.

Rosalind asked in astonishment, “That serious? Why?”

“Because it violates corporate intellectual property. That’s their guaranteed income; they guard it fiercely...” Weldgun said, noticing Yvette’s expression, squinting his eyes. “Miss Mage, surely you know this?”

Yvette glanced at him with an expression devoid of emotion, as silent as a still pond. Yet for some reason, Weldgun felt a chill run through him, and his earlier doubts about her being a cyber mage vanished.

What he didn’t know was that Yvette was inwardly sighing deeply.

Last night, while shopping online, she wanted to buy the patented book “Element Decay Compensation Technology” sold by one of the super corporations, Embermark Chemical, to solve a real-world energy storage issue.

Then she saw the price: 500,000 credit points for a single e-book. She was stunned, instinctively recalling her past life’s experience and wondering if she could find a pirated version.

Now she understood why the underground market dared trade illegal weapons but not pirated rune knowledge books. Forced to buy through official channels, she didn’t know when she’d ever save enough.

“But Miss Mage, your goods are rare. Maybe I can offer some trading opportunities. Many gangs would be interested.”

Changing the subject, Weldgun leaned forward and chuckled, “You know the usual cut here is 20%, but I’ll only take 10%. Fair enough? After inspection, I’ll help you find connections.”

“That’s acceptable.”

Eager to start making money, Yvette wasn’t concerned about the commission, and Weldgun’s discount seemed genuine. In her past life, e-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD took roughly a 10% cut for regular stores.

“A straightforward lady. Hope we have a pleasant cooperation,” Weldgun’s smile deepened.

He really meant it—a 50% cut reduction was genuine. To him, a mage lady’s connections were more valuable, especially since she could provide original restricted-level formulas, suggesting high skill.

Of course, Weldgun was also a cyber mage, but his rune mastery was only beginner level. Being able to use others’ formulas was impressive enough. Creating original ones? Impossible. Even tweaking existing ones was risky; a bug could blow him up.

Between mages, there were clear differences.

...

Rune compilation commissions didn't come out of nowhere. Yvette knew she had to prove her capabilities first.

So for her initial sale, she chose a restricted-level original formula—a term for illegal formulas created without official approval.

The formula was called “Arcane Windblade YH47254,” the very technique she used to kill those three thugs yesterday. “YH” stood for “Ish City Blackwater District,” and “47254” indicated the number of runes. This naming method effectively avoided duplication.

“Arcane Windblade?” Weldgun raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Sounds ordinary. What’s special about it?”

Leading them into a slightly larger room with peeling walls revealing dark red bricks, Weldgun gestured around.

In the corner stood an old machine with yellowed casing, as if soaked in time for a century.

However, it wasn’t plastic but a “mycelium plastic”—an organic synthetic material invented by the “Lin’she Biologicals,” developers of the Magic Light Vine. It was mainly composed of secretions from a demon-affinity fungal strain, with properties similar to plastic.

“There’s nothing special, just some optimizations I made. Performance should be good,” Yvette said, eyes fixed on the machine.

—A formula simulator, a device used to predict magical effects, similar to “stress tests” in the magic field, capable of rating various performance metrics of a formula.

Though she had read about such devices in specialized books at the Abyss Base, this was her first hands-on experience, stirring the nervous excitement of preparing for a crucial exam.

Having designed runes for centuries, this was her first hardcore performance test, making her feel unexpectedly tense.

Especially since she hadn’t refined the “Arcane Windblade” like her other signature spells—Frostbolt, Flame Dance, Windmaster, and Thunder’s Wrath—so the score might be somewhat low.

I’m self-taught with no systematic training; I hope they don’t deduct big points... She thought expressionlessly.

“Miss Sienne, please inspect the machine first,” Weldgun reminded her.

This was to prevent theft of basic rune group operations and to check if “Stealth Mode” was activated. Though it could be tampered with, that was risky and could lead to copyright complaints, so ordinary gangs avoided it.

Yvette nodded, placed her hand on the touch panel, and began a thorough inspection of the system. Confirming everything was in order, she activated the test mode, inputting the rune group and awaiting the machine’s simulation.

“It’s starting!” Rosalind exclaimed as the machine began to shake. Then, a line of text appeared on the screen—

[Testing Rune Quality…]

“What’s rune quality?” Rosalind asked, unable to read. Perhaps due to high illiteracy here, Weldgun’s machine had voice broadcast enabled.

Before Yvette could answer, Weldgun grinned and explained to Rosalind, “It measures the redundancy level of a formula.”

“Redundancy?”

“Yes. Rune arrangements in magic formulas often contain ‘junk runes’ that have no effect but reduce casting efficiency. For example, a spell that should take three seconds might stretch to three and a half.”

“The bigger the formula, the more junk runes it usually has... Rune quality calculation finds the proportion of these junk runes and compares them with similar formulas to give a quantifiable rating.”

“Why are there junk runes?” Rosalind was puzzled.

“Many reasons,” Weldgun shrugged. “They might be leftovers from repeated testing and modifications; the compiler might be lazy and not optimize; or sometimes removing extras causes problems, so they have to stay.”

“I see...”

“The scoring is simple. It calculates redundancy rate and ranks formulas of similar specs. The top 5% are S rank, top 10% A rank, top 20% B rank, and so forth. The bottom 10% get J rank.”

As Weldgun explained, the first test was nearing completion.

Moments later, the test finished, and a large “S” appeared on the screen.

“Wow, this is the first time I’ve heard an S-rank announcement...” The sound of surprised voices came from behind. Yvette glanced back to see several bouncers peeking in, drawn by the commotion.

Weldgun was momentarily stunned.

“Rune quality” was the lowest weighting metric in the overall score, but earning an S was still very difficult. It meant the compiler was either a super-expert who could craft runes flawlessly or a perfectionist—or perhaps obsessive-compulsive...

Looking at Yvette’s shimmering silver hair, clean face, and simple black-and-white otaku-style clothing, Weldgun thought the latter was more likely.