Chapter 11

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

On the following noon, Lin Yu received a notification from the courier this soon since he had gone out of his way to find a seller in the same city.

Currently feeling slightly impatient, Lin Yu decided to bail on his classes and bolted directly back to his room.

The parcel was not as heavy as the wooden Charge Blade before it. Instead, it was a bunch of disassembled parts that were 3D-printed with tree resin. Even though these parts were placed in a huge box, they were not as heavy.

Rip!

After opening the square cardboard box, a pile of plastic parts fell out onto the floor, heaped up like a tiny hill. This pile of monotonous grey plastic parts stared right back at him like some slightly smaller parts of reassembled lego pieces.

There were no missing parts and the only thing left for him to do was assemble the whole thing and paint it. He had long prepared the inner glove lining and the paint. He bought the paint from a local hardware store, and even the inner glove lining was just simple leather gloves bought to simplify his build.

“Let’s hope this gauntlet isn’t a ripoff like the Charge Blade.”

Lin Yu was surprisingly fast in setting up his camera while he said his prayers in his heart. He then proceeded to sit on the ground and begin assembling the whole thing together.

The Hextech Gauntlets were actually a modified part taken from a robot in LoL and its abnormally large size would be impractical to make fit like a normal gauntlet. Hence when Lin Yu designed it, he made sure that a huge part of the fingers were solid and the cuff was spacious.

However, he had also crudely designed the moving joints. The finger joints were held together by two rubber bands attached to the backplate of each finger, allowing them to extend and return to their original position when bent.

In order to flex his fingers, he had connected the joints with a few suspended threads tied to a metal ring, and each thread was connected to a finger. This meant that even when the gauntlets were in a resting position, the fingers would be slightly curved. The threads were long enough to reach the palms, which would allow him to pull each finger with the metal rings on the inside. With that, he would be able to form a fist.

Of course, the fist-clenching gesture was merely for show and it would be impractical to grab anything with the prop. However, this was not as important as his skills and abilities had improved. He found that it would be more important for him to entertain his viewers and keep them happy.

A cosplay prop with actual moving joints would undoubtedly be extremely popular and praised by the people in B site, who held the ACG culture to such high importance and regard. To be accepted would mean more experience; with experience, he would be able to level up.

Assemble. Painting. Testing, then attaching the inner leather glove… Every step was done in perfect order.

Thus after an entire afternoon, a huge pair of Hextech Gauntlets stared back at Lin Yu.

___

[Hextech Gauntlets Replica]

Rank (LV0): 0/100

Description: Effective as display props, decorations, and entertainment.

Evaluation: An intricately made toy.

___

He had not gone over the top in designing and making the pair of gauntlets. He designed them based on the classic character skin of Vi, the Piltover Enforcer. The main color base was black. The joints and its fingers were painted with splashes of red. This was done to give the illusion of depth. The fingertips and the back of its hands were sprayed with bronze-tinted yellow paint.

The edges of the gauntlets stood out the most; it was as if metal plates were used to connect the joints. The only unfortunate thing was the limitations in actual materials used, as it still had a pretty obvious plastic look to it. Due to this, its entire rank fell to a B.

However, this did not matter much since if he leveled up just one more time, the quality of the materials would not be as awful as what he currently had.

The total EXP needed for his gauntlets to level up was actually twice the total amount of EXP needed for the Charge Blade; it seemed that there was no standardization of EXP for each item to gain levels.

However, this was a good thing as the higher the required EXP needed, the better the actual effects of this pair of gauntlets would be. It would make no sense if an item turned out to be weak and unwieldy when the EXP requirement was higher, right?

With this in mind, he proceeded to put the gauntlets on and began waving them around excitedly. He recorded a few videos of him waving his gauntlets around. After that, he then proceeded to edit and insert some background music for the video.

There would be not much need for narration in his video since he had decided to showcase everything, from the drawings to the assembly. The only part that took up most of his time and focus was the action pose at the end of the video. Everything else was a smooth process to edit.

…

He never woke Xu Zhaoyang up early the next day…since there was no way to wake him up anyway. The group of cowards did not dare to spend the night in the cyber cafe and instead stayed up all night gaming in their dorm rooms.

“The handsome awakes when the ugly was still trapped in slumber.”

Lin Yu, who had finished freshening himself up, stared at his roommate who was still soundly asleep. He could not understand why he somehow felt slightly accomplished as he stared at his roommate.

Of course, he would rid himself of that slightly peculiar emotion as soon as it came to him as he stared excitedly at the Hextech Gauntlets he made yesterday.

[Rank (LV0): 261/100]

A smile formed on Lin Yu’s face as soon as he stared and focused on the experience display for his Hextech Gauntlets as he rummaged through his wardrobe to look for some wrenches and an unused, brand new black backpack that he bought before getting into college. After that, he proceeded to stuff the gauntlets into his backpack before leaving the dorm.

Although his roommates were still asleep, he still preferred to be cautious about everything as one could never be too careful; he decided to upgrade his gauntlets in a secluded spot with absolutely no one else but himself.

1It seemed he was not as overly excited when the gauntlets were already in his backpack. As it was rare for him to feel so refreshed and amazing this early in the day, he proceeded to head directly toward the noodle shop by the college and order himself the extremely popular nationwide bowl of beef noodles. While he savored every bite, he decided to watch the video he had uploaded yesterday.

Since the Hextech Gauntlets video was uploaded last evening, the analytics of the video was well received and had gained 50,000 views at a fast pace. The experience ratio was at about 109:1 and based on his own predictions, he would see another wave of views by eight or nine in the morning.

The constant waves of comments were merely a way for him to feel better about himself. However, it seemed viewers from B site enjoyed trolling since the comments were about their intentions of making it but having no hands to do so, as well as the price it would cost. As most of the comments were repetitive, they were not worth mentioning.

However, there were a few viewers who started watching from the Charge Blade video and the comments left by them were interesting.

“Stop delaying, I know you’ve made an upgraded version of it. Just upload the damn thing already!”

“Could you not stick so religiously to your schedule? Just get to the point and stop teasing, alright? My time happens to be very tight!”

“I have no time to listen to the explanations. Hurry up and slap our faces already!”

1“Yes! What are you waiting for? I’m done washing my face already.”

…

“Cough, cough…”

Lin Yu almost spat out his noodles while laughing violently as he read the comments.

“Have I unintentionally created a troll on my own?”

Having trolls would be a good thing since it was pretty much the same as milking scandalous news about any celebrities; this meant an infinite supply of unending topics that would come naturally and was technically an accidental reward to everything he had sowed so far. However, this troll had to have a firm stance on his ground and would be better if this troll were even more aggressive.

“Since you guys have requested for the money shot, then don’t mind if I do.”

1After delaying for a brief moment, Lin Yu proceeded to swiftly chug the entire bowl of noodles down. After scanning the code to pay for his meal, he proceeded to leave the noodle shop with the black backpack on his back.

There were plenty of secluded spots in his college and plenty of places with absolutely no signs of people. However, if he was to choose the most secluded spot with the most privacy in the entirety of Changhai Vocational College, it would be at the tiny hills at the back of the college’s gate.

3Those were only barren dirt hills and Lin Yu who had already had his breakfast would not need to worry about being caught by surprise by anyone.

“Upgrade!”

He sat on a rock as huge as his head by the hills, before immediately taking out the Hextech Gauntlets from his backpack to finally begin his long-awaited upgrade.