Chapter Seventeen: The Test

After breakfast, Melina went to the front garden of the manor.

Maria had already used her system overlay to arrange the furniture here—models of translucent dark blue furniture appeared out of thin air. Sonia couldn’t see them, and Meme pretended not to see them either. They watched as Maria carefully rotated and adjusted the furniture models, searching for the right angle to place them on the ground.

“Confirm.”

Maria’s system overlay still seemed rather primitive; she had to issue commands herself.

After she gave the command, an equipment maintenance table appeared on the lawn.

On it were neatly arranged devices resembling blue rings.

Sonia stepped out of the manor carrying a large pile of basic gear.

It must have weighed several tons, and she also wore exquisite weight-adjustment devices on her wrists and ankles.

She piled the weapons next to the table.

Clang—

Wiping the sweat from her brow, she said,

“Old Maria read the construction list for the Tarye crystal ore and made a very limited diverter. This way, we can give you ‘minimum charge usage for one piece of equipment.’ Simply put, it allows you to test the features of the weapons. You can try all these weapons, as long as Old Maria helps adjust the parameters… Thanks, Old Maria.”

Maria waved her hand and, mimicking Sonia, tapped her chest.

Hiss, what a surge.

“Anyway, I can handle my own tasks here, and Amebi is twenty million times cuter than you. I’m happy to help her.”

“Got your meaning,” Sonia pointed at her.

“Got my meaning,” Maria pointed at herself.

After completing this encrypted exchange, Sonia picked up a crossbow and installed the control core onto the grip.

“Xiaomei, try controlling it with magic factors.”

Melina nodded, raising her hand to assist with aiming, making it easier for the magic factors to find the target.

While establishing the connection, she remembered the question she wanted to ask Sonia.

About the dragon from the local ballad of Crying Peninsula.

Although Miss Li said it was most likely a collective delusion and exaggerated worship by the locals, Melina felt the golden dragon must truly exist. She had no evidence, no sixth sense, nor prophetic magic intuition—just a gut feeling because Sonia was here!

Soso, that person, was already comparable to a calamity.

Just like the protagonist in a game, wherever she went, misfortune followed!

Her senior was doing some yoga-like stretches, very flexible but completely disregarding close combat weapons.

“Senior, do you know about the rumor of the golden dragon around here?”

“Hm? Oh, that one?”

Sonia stopped her exercise, cleared her throat:

“When the stars align, and the weather changes, O golden lord, you are harvest, you are bounty, the messenger of autumn.”

When she sang seriously, she was on par with top online streamers—no tuning needed, her a cappella was beautiful. But her version of the golden dragon ballad was more eerie and sinister, with a folkloric ritual feel. The lyrics were different too.

“Is it this one?”

“Yes.” Melina felt her connection with the equipment was complete. A flood of magic factors tried to surge through but was restricted like a pinched water pipe, flowing only in limited amounts. The feedback magic factors from the equipment were very weak, diluted the moment they entered her body.

For an explorer, equipment acted like an external filter, continuously refining magic factors into ones that could strengthen the body.

However, this “trial version” clearly lacked such effects. Quite disappointing.

“Whoa, it’s working?” Senior Sonia also sensed it.

Banshees were tens of times more sensitive to magic factors than other races, easily detecting changes in ambient factors.

It was said that specialized banshees could sense the gender of a baby the moment a woman around them became pregnant.

“Mm.”

“Where were we? Oh, that ballad. I can responsibly tell you it’s real. That’s a specially grown dragon with the power to destroy a country, and that dragon is my target, not yours.” Sonia paused. “The monsters you face are like prerequisites for it. Don’t worry.”

Can Melina really feel reassured?

She didn’t know, but now wasn’t the time to focus on the legendary golden dragon or think about how senior might handle such a massive beast. She needed to focus on herself instead.

Concentrate.

Melina lifted the crossbow equipped with the control core into the air.

“Oh!” Maria put down her sampling box and walked over, curiously examining the floating crossbow.

The crossbow slowly approached Melina, speeding up then slowing down, closing from three meters to about one meter much more slowly, probably freezing entirely half a meter away.

Melina felt every inch of her body’s magic factors sending signals of delight.

The magic factors and equipment reached harmony; her body trembled slightly. The world through her eyes was enhanced by the powerful magic factors—the vivid colors became even more vibrant, the dull ones even dimmer. Everything in her sight seemed transformed by some force, allowing her to discern magic factors more keenly.

Her body felt stronger, as if she had shed a heavy thick garment, now filled with a sense of liberation.

Is this how it feels to be equipped?

And this is just a temporary effect?

“Try pulling the trigger,” Sonia instructed while magically lifting an empty wine barrel prepared earlier—the spoils of her and Maria’s battle yesterday. Senior was stubborn, after vomiting from drinking, she went for another round, still annoyed by Old Maria but admirable.

Melina steadied the crossbow and aimed at the barrel.

Swoosh—thud!

A practice bolt without a head embedded deeply in the barrel. This was the power of the equipment; even without an arrowhead, it had considerable lethality, enough to pierce the scales of dragon-like creatures and cause serious damage.

Swoosh swoosh swoosh!

Thud thud thud!

Melina had trained with dozens of weapons before, replacing her arms with magic factors, condensing the air around the crossbow to reduce recoil artificially, and using magic factors as lubricants and accelerators on the bow arms and launcher, achieving a three-shot burst.

Three bolts shot almost simultaneously.

They struck the empty barrel.

Sonia stared at the four bolts on the barrel, lost in thought. Maria silently glanced at Sonia, her eyes filled with a complex mix of disdain, pity, and mockery.

Melina was dissatisfied with her shot, habitually shaking her hand.

The floating crossbow gently swayed.

“A bit difficult,” Melina said. “I wanted all three bolts to hit the same scale—”

There were many specialized terms and standards for ranged weapons.

For example, “one scale”: roughly the size of a small 6.3-inch phone, the typical size for most medium and small dragon scales. Thus, shooters measured burst power by how many shots could consecutively hit within one scale’s area.

The three-shot burst was a mid-level skill invented with this standard in mind.

In the capital, it was taught in academies as a special skill requiring extra tuition, but in smaller places, it was already considered a secret or forbidden technique.

After continuous firing, Melina realized, “The magic factors are still unreliable. The recoil on the first two shots is smaller than when I hold it, but by the third, it’s very unstable. And that’s just three shots—if it were four, I’d probably miss entirely.”

Maria glanced at Sonia again, her look filled with… well, disdain, pity, and mockery!

Sonia took a deep breath and muttered,

“The parameters are well-tuned, Xiaomei, ‘macro child,’ huh, Xiaomei…”

Though Melina didn’t understand what that meant, it was probably something like “linked” or “hacked.” She glared at senior.

“Alright, alright. Next, Xiaomei, are you sure you want to stick with ranged? Not switch to melee anymore?”

If she hadn’t spoken, it would have been fine.

But once said, it reminded Melina of someone firing fifteen empty shots, making her angry. So she glared at senior again.

Sonia found it odd—why was Meme glaring at her so much today? Could it be her true nature was Uchiha Meme? Her main skill: glaring?

“Yes, I’ve decided to use ranged weapons because melee is too expensive.”

“Hm?” Sonia stroked her chin. “But with ranged, unless you use throwing knives that can be recovered, you’ll have to spend money on ammo.”

“No.”

Melina explained her idea: “Ranged weapons require a higher magic factor occupancy rate. That means I might originally need six or seven melee weapons to balance magic factors, but if I use crossbows or muskets, maybe only four or five. No matter how expensive the ammo, the total cost is still far less than upgrading one piece of equipment to a high level.”

“Oh!” Sonia nodded approvingly. “True, weapon upgrades in this world get more expensive the further you go. Once you hit mid-tier weapons, even the cheaper upgrades cost two to three hundred thousand gold lire.”

Converted, that was roughly enough to buy a house on the Bund in the magic city, all cash.

Melina almost went weak in the knees.

Others could empty multiple wallets for one set, but she? Meme needed at least five sets…

She bit her lip.

Maria checked the data and gasped.

“Ame’s data is out. The number of required weapons is clear.”

Sonia asked hurriedly,

“How many melee and how many ranged does she need?”

Maria said,

“At least fourteen melee and ten ranged. That’s a bit different from what you said. Seems like the Ame you mentioned in the first round wasn’t fully developed; this Ame in front of us is fully formed… huh?”

Melina leaned back onto the ground.

Youth was wonderful—she closed her eyes and slipped into a dream.

Already avoiding reality!