Chapter 44 - 42

Zero defeatedly gave up as it was no use and the warning on his sight kept flashing. He went back to the hallway leading to the barracks and saw General Jianguo there.

"Zero! You're here!" The general greeted him enthusiastically that made the young man confused. As he had known that he was not familiar with the general and the general isn't friendly with anyone other than the King.

Might be the general was mistaken.

The young man pointed to himself and asked, "Are you talking to me?"

"You kid, you really love to joke!" General Jianguo smacked his back in a friendly manner but still it made Zero felt the strength of the general.

["What's happening, system?"]

[The system had an ability to alter memories of the people that is included in the mission to make it easy for the host to adapt.]

This was the first thing that the system responded in a favorable manner. Zero smiled while knowing that he had a unique system, it would be a piece of cake if he could just alter their memories in order to prevent the war.

[The alteration of memory is under the control of the system random pick. Your altered identity is a good nephew of the Greatworld King and you're under the training of the General who will be leading the first platoon to annihilate the Phoenix soldiers.

Zero felt his face hardened as he knew this, he thought that he had the control of altering memories but it was easily crushed by the system's information.

["What's a system random pick?"]

'Don't reply that I am going to read it to another some kind of system definition or something.' Zero chanted on his mind.

[Host is fortunate as there's an inputted explanation for the description.]

[System random pick is depended on the intelligence stat. The effective the intelligence stat is, the more reliable the altered identity will be.]

The young man frowned at the statement of the system but he was snapped back when the heavy hand of the general pounded again on his back.

"What are you thinking, kid?! Let's go now! After coming out from your indoor cultivation, you seem to be getting more silly."

"General, what do you think about the case of Xiu Ying's death?"

"Death? Oh, you mean your cousin's death?"

"Yes, my c-cousin's death."

The young man was not used calling someone as cousin and most of all, someone that claimed to be his lover.

"We've investigated it with the help of Bai Zhou and we're still suspicious about the case as it pointing the evidences to the first prince though the first prince would not benefit anything other than declaring war if he killed the third princess."

Zero frowned and asked, "Why didn't you prevented the war if you're suspicious about it?"

The general chuckled at the seriousness of the young man and ruffled the youth's hair.

"Kid, the King is now in despair due to the death of his youngest daughter and because of anger and sadness he declared war after seeing the evidences. If its me, I would truly get myself bloody in order to avenge my daughter."

The youth was silent about the general's words because the man got his point there. If he was a father, he would do what the king did.

"Maybe you should stop thinking about it and start training, too. You're a month's too late for participating in my first platoon!"

"You mean the war? I'll be participating in the war?"

"Yes," General Jianguo frowned at the weirdness of the young man. 'Might be the effects of suddenly knowing that his cousin died after getting out of his indoor cultivation. I heard that they were close?'

"So start now your training!"

Zero obliged after finding his spot. The barracks had a training gym where many training equipments for the soldiers to spend into their strength, endurance, reflexes and other stuff that could make them improve could be found inside. There would be one on one fight between the soldiers, a training of reflexes in the moving mechanical dolls, a punching bag to execute your punches, and other mobilized training equipment for the soldiers.

There weren't only soldiers in the gym as there were equipment staffs who would be at service if the soldier's needed help or ȧssistance.

["System, do you know anything about this?"]

[The host is obliged to follow and adapt all the sitaution that the host will fall in.]

The young man gritted his teeth to the scum reply of this broken product as he started to punch the punching bag infront of him, venting his frustration. After five punches, he heard a system notification.

[Ting! Strength increased to 2 points of effectivity.]

[Performer: 0

Title: ?????? (Locked)

Task completed: 0

Intelligence: 10

Strength: 1(+1)

Stamina: 5

Agility: 1

Skills:

Charmer: 10

'Wasn't it easy to increase all of his stats with the help of these training equipments?'

Zero smiled as he started to energetically punched on the punching bag. Every the fifth time he would punched, there would be a system notification ringing on his ear.

[Ting!]

[Ting!]

[Ting!]

….

After reaching the 10 points of effectivity, it stopped ringing.

'It might already reached its maximum or something?'

["Open display screen."]

Title: ?????? (Locked)

Task completed: 0

Intelligence: 10

Strength: 10

Stamina: 5

Agility: 1

Skills:

Charmer: 10

(No further skills) ]

As Zero looked around in order to find an available equipment staff in order to help him with practicing his reflexes, a girl approached him.

"Excuse me, mister? Do you need help?" a girl with twin tails had a bright smile on her face and on her forehead was a headband that has some kind of mechanical spectacle on it, asked the young man.

Zero agreed as the girl smiled and introduced herself, "You can call me Li Li, mister. Are you a soldier here, too, mister?"

Li Li with a bright smile beamed at the young man as she started to test the mechanical dolls that Zero would use.

"Sort of. You can call me Zero."

The girl hummed as she put down her headband spectacle and nodded at the youth, an indication that he could now start.

There were two mechanical dolls that Li Li operated as Zero dodged at their attacks yet he was a second late as he got hit by the smack of the mechanical doll and he felt that his bone crushed from the intensity.

The mechanical dolls were weighted of 200 kilogram due to heavy metals and other composition so it was natural to get that kind of result if you're just an amateur in training.

Though the young man got hit, his agility increased. After he got hit for more than five times, Zero laid on the ground, he was not a physically fit person and he isn't into soldier training or something, and for some reason he was grateful that he was a mage as mages only used the qi energy to manipulate their attacks and defences, and they had long range attacks, too, so dodging wasn't a problem but currently, after receiving this defected system, he's now suffering from the consequences of not practicing his physical body.

["Open display screen."]

[Performer: 0

Title: ?????? (Locked)

Task completed: 0

Intelligence: 10

Strength: 10

Stamina: 6

Agility: 10

Skills:

Charmer: 10

(No further skills) ]

The fruits of his labor. Though he needed to be beaten up again by the mechanical dolls in order to increase his stamina. Endurance and patience is the key to achieve heights.

Li Li neared the dead tired young man on the ground as she waved her hand infront of the young man who was staring into the air. Zero automatically closed the display screen and turned his attention to the girl.

"Zero? Are you okay? Do you want to rest first before continuing?"

"Just wait a bit and I'll continue."

After hours of enduring the hits, the young man got used to it. He was having fun dodging the mechanical dolls after he reached 10 points of effectivity in his stamina.

[Ting! A reward of 5 stat points.]

[Ting! You got the title of Beaten Junkie.]

Zero stopped for a minute as to look at his personal stat.

[Performer: 0

Title: ?????? (Locked), Beaten Junkie

Task completed: 0

Intelligence: 10

Strength: 10

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

(+5 stat points)

Skills:

Charmer: 10

(No further skills) ]

["System, what do I do with this reward?"]

[Host, after reaching 10 points of effectivity to all of the host stats, the host can now allocate excess stat points.]

["Allocate? Where should I put this 5 stat points, system? Do I need to distribute it to each?]

[…]

It's natural that the defected system won't reply to him because it's only good for making him read things. The young man clicked the 'Beaten Junkie' title and his mouth quirked in annoyance.

[Beaten Junkie - you're a host that loves to be beaten up. If you activate this title, you get a 20% endurance of any kind of pain inflicted affliction.]

Even though the description was irritating yet it gave him benefits so he pressed activate and all the pain that he was feeling a moment ago, disappeared.

Li Li neared the youth as she handed him a water and a towel.

"By the way, you look very young to be working here. Are you not studying in any school?" Zero asked as he dried his wet hair with the towel.

The girl suddenly bowed her head while she remembered her school yet she smiled at the young man.

"Well, my school was destroyed a year ago. Did you hear about Harconia Institute?"

"Harconia? You're school is that one?" The youth stated with surprise on his face.

He heard that in the news after waking up from coma, that the institution was infiltrated by the demons and many lives were ceased on their hands. Even a prominent household son from Sereign continent wasn't excluded from the misfortune. The TwinCity King decided to temporarily closed the Harconia Institute because there were dark energies left behind by the demons.

Li Li continued, "Harconia Institute is the very best school that I ever been. My classmates were cool, even teacher was… a-awesome."

Zero noticed that the girl was saddened by this so he wanted to comfort her but Li Li instantly smiled, "But all of it was in the past now! We should seek for the new beginnings. That's why I stopped enrolling to any martial schools as I had no talent in cultivation and I applied here as a equipment staff so I could make many more of my inventions! Did you know that I made that mechanical dolls?!"

"Really?"

"Yes! The materials that I used.."

The young man just listened to the girl's enthusiastic talk that made him smile from it.