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Chapter 044 Abilities Upgrade

Ling Mo and the Fatty used to be good buddies.

But people live in the present, and past friendships can’t be everything. Compared to the current Fatty, Ling Mo places more importance on Xia Xinyan.

Of course, it’s not like he’s being forced to choose between the Fatty and Xia Xinyan right now; it just feels a bit strange listening to Fatty talk about… his girlfriend.

How should I put this? It’s like a special kind of possessiveness; even though they were once friends, Ling Mo doesn’t want him to touch on that topic.

So concerning the Fatty’s current topic, there really wasn’t much to discuss.

To be honest, there wasn’t much emotional bond holding them together anyway.

Fortunately, the Fatty isn’t the type to be oblivious to the atmosphere. Seeing that Ling Mo wasn’t interested in pointless banter, he quickly changed the subject: “Hey, I want to ask you something, and you have to tell me the truth.”

“What is it?” Ling Mo tilted his head to look at him.

The Fatty glanced at Xia Xinyan’s room before leaning in closer and lowering his voice, “Your girlfriend… she’s really not Xia Xinyan, right?”

“…Which Xia Xinyan?”

“Who else could it be? The one! The daughter of the Summer Family!”

The Fatty isn’t stupid; even if he hadn’t thought it through at first, he’s figured it out by now.

Ling Mo got into Linjiang University, and the Summer Family is also based in Linjiang. The Fatty’s understanding of the Summer Family is limited to the online jokes about their wealth, but he at least knows there’s a young lady in the Summer Family, about the same age as them.

Putting these clues together, even if he couldn’t be sure, they were basically close.

I mean seriously, what are the odds? In the same Linjiang University, there just happens to be a beautiful girl who shares a name, age, and even has the means to get a Game Pod?

The Fatty doesn’t think Ling Mo got that Game Pod on his own; after all, they’ve been together for three years in high school, so he knows Ling Mo’s background.

So, thinking this through makes it clear.

But the more he thinks about it, the more absurd it sounds—it’s precisely because he knows how much Ling Mo is worth that he finds it so strange that the daughter of the Summer Family would be interested in him!

…Cough, not that he’s mocking Ling Mo’s looks; I mean, the dude is pretty decent looking, especially after sweating it out on the basketball court, which even makes the Fatty want to take up fencing. But apart from that, what could Ling Mo have to attract the young lady?

Come on, this is not even a question of status difference. The Summer Family’s wealth is such that, in a small country, they could easily rule as emperor. Rounded off, Xia Xinyan is basically a princess among the wealthy elite; pairing her with Ling Mo is like a fairy tale turned upside down… cough cough.

Anyway, the Fatty just can’t figure it out.

—Ling Mo naturally knows this, and he’s been contemplating it for the past few days.

But pondering won’t change anything; it’s not like he can read minds and guess at what Xia Xinyan is thinking.

So, he’s decided to stop thinking about it altogether and just go with the flow, letting things develop in a way that feels right to him.

As for the Fatty’s question, he chose to be noncommittal: “What do you think?”

Since Xia Xinyan hadn’t actively admitted it before, there was no need for him to force the issue.

The Fatty stopped asking: “Alright, but being able to mix in such good company deserves a congratulations. Make sure to hold on tight.”

“Of course.” Ling Mo patted his shoulder, laughing, “You should head to bed early, or if you can’t sleep, why not help me keep watch until morning instead?”

“Get lost, I’m going to sleep,” the Fatty said as he got up and left.

Watching him enter his room, Ling Mo fell silent for a few seconds, sighed, and leaned back on the swivel chair, playing around with some bricks.

Just like how the Fatty had been training his abilities, this was indeed a method to both kill time and have some meaningful engagement. Ling Mo wasn’t particularly sure how to strengthen his powers, but even if he couldn’t unlock other items, as long as he practiced the process of manifesting bricks, he might just open up a new way of playing—tentatively named the Brick Hero.

His skills could lead to an infinite brick creation process.

While Ling Mo was fiddling with bricks in the corridor, Xia Xinyan in her room wasn’t idling either.

In fact, she had woken up as soon as Ling Mo got up to leave. Although he had been as quiet as possible, it was still enough to rouse her.

Players who have experienced the Cataclysm basically have this ability; any little noise can wake them from deep sleep, putting them in a state of alertness immediately—because those who lack this ability typically find themselves meeting Jesus in their dreams.

So, it’s safe to say that Xia Xinyan’s sleep quality is quite poor.

If it weren’t for the constant buff of looking flawless, at this rate, she might soon lose her appeal in Ling Mo’s eyes.

Of course, in the future, boosting physical stats would solve this issue, allowing players to maintain high sleep quality during brief periods of rest, but that effect isn’t evident yet.

Thus, Xia Xinyan couldn’t sleep.

After lying in bed for a bit and staring at the “Drowsiness” status bar for a few seconds, she flipped over and opened the Tianji system.

She hadn’t had the chance to use the system points Tianji provided her, mainly because the system was new and intriguing to her, and she hadn’t quite figured out what would be the most beneficial way to use her points.

While abilities can be improved directly, that doesn’t guarantee all positive outcomes. Players improving their strength through training is a mutually reinforcing process; they can gradually unlock and learn more techniques as they become familiar with their powers. However, directly upgrading abilities essentially provides a framework that supports various techniques, yet if players are clueless about those techniques, an overly broad range can make it difficult to figure out where to start learning.

She could act as an abilities mentor for Ling Mo, but the real problem is how to explain why she knows his abilities better than he does?

That’s quite the puzzling predicament.

Nevertheless, hoarding points wouldn’t do any good, so she planned to see if there were any upgrade paths currently beneficial for them.

The Tianji system is linked to Ling Mo as well, meaning she could not only enhance her own abilities but also directly enhance Ling Mo’s through the system. And it’s not just about expanding the items he can manifest; there are upgrades for all sorts of aspects, like manifesting speed, difficulty, duration, consumption, and so on.

But after checking everything out, Xia Xinyan made a more conservative decision to unlock a small portion of cold weapons’ manifestation abilities for Ling Mo, such as daggers—fundamentally, these items represent a leap in manifesting materials; it not only means Ling Mo can conjure these items but also that he already holds the capacity to manifest any other items of the same material.

Too bad he doesn’t know programming.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that it needed an exorbitant price point. Just this tiny expansion for item manifestation consumed three-quarters of her point stash.

Xia Xinyan winced at the thought.

So, she decided to retaliate by spending all her remaining points on herself.

For instance… boosting the power of her demon abilities under primary beast transformation.

—She never said she wouldn’t use demon abilities in the future, right? Right?

 

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