area51novel Chapter 112 Bourne's Upgrade
Chapter 112 Bourne's Upgrade
While Huo Yuhao was experiencing the initial challenges of starting school, on the other side, four upperclassmen—Long You, Bei Bei, He Caitou, and Tang Ya—were taking their respective entrance exams.
As usual, Bei Bei and Tang Ya's martial soul system entrance exam was held in the Beast Fighting Area. Long You went to audit it and added a Fire Resistance Ring soul skill to one of the two pages of soul skill record book he had obtained after getting his fourth soul ring.
As for the entrance exam for the Soul Guidance Department, it seems to be no different from usual on the surface. However, Long You has figured out something special about the requirement that after students have made their Soul Guidance Devices, they must complete a simulated combat test using only the Soul Guidance Devices they made within the time limit of this assessment (the time is fixed, and the number and level of Soul Guidance Devices they can make depend entirely on their personal abilities).
Although the Panlong Realm is not currently open, the so-called simulated combat is merely shooting at moving targets at a shooting range, with exam scores determined by the shooting performance. However, this has never been included in previous entrance exams. Is the Soul Guidance Department trying to emulate real combat and improve students' practical skills?
Because the conversation at the underground satellite launch base that night was between teachers, Long You didn't hear it. So now, based on the phenomena, Long You can only vaguely sense that the Soul Guidance System might undergo some changes in the near future.
Long You didn't plan to prepare excessively for entrance exams. He simply created a laser-guided rapid-fire soul-guided cannon that could float and move using anti-gravity magnetic levitation technology. That was all the preparation was done. Long You then spent all his remaining time forging soul-forged metal.
After successfully forging with spirit, Long You crafted himself a Yangyan Shenyin forging hammer, and later used a similar method to create a carving knife inscribed with a soul-guided artifact array. Later, after gaining the ability to forge with spirit, Long You upgraded both his forging hammer and carving knife.
It was this upgrade that made Long You realize he could create battle armor. Originally, once he completed the metal spirit forging, he could create battle armor that was practically cutting-edge technology, capable of integrating into a Soul Master's body during downtime. However, Long You always felt that spirit forging alone wasn't as effective as external soul-guided powered armor.
While upgrading the Yangyan Shenyin Forging Hammer and Jinlong Carving Knife, Long You suddenly discovered that the number of inscription arrays that soul-forged metal could support had more than doubled compared to spirit-forged metal. After completely transforming the Yangyan Shenyin Forging Hammer and Jinlong Carving Knife into melee soul tools, Long You began designing his own battle armor.
First, the battle armor is integrated into the soul master's body, meaning that the enhancements the battle armor provides to the soul master's body will not be interrupted even if the soul master cannot control it. Therefore, even in order to absorb soul rings of higher age, Long You needs to develop the battle armor's ability to improve physical attributes to the extreme.
Secondly, battle armor can possess elemental attributes. Long You hadn't read much of the third part of Douluo Continent, and his understanding of battle armor was superficial. The fact that battle armor could carry elemental attributes, thereby enhancing a Soul Master's elemental control and damage capabilities, was one of the few things Long You knew about battle armor, so he absolutely wouldn't give up.
However, compared to normal Soul Masters who have a clear inclination towards Martial Soul elements, Long You is now facing a dilemma.
His Book of Witnesses already contains three attributes: earth, lightning, and fire. It's conceivable that even more attributes will be added in the future. Long You must carefully consider which elemental power he needs most.
After careful consideration, Long You felt that for physical defense, he had the Rhinoceros Plate Armor Soul Skill brought by the Plate Armor Rhinoceros Soul Bone; for mental defense, he had the White Jade Crown External Soul Bone brought by the White Jade Flame Crystal Tiger; and he also had the Imagination Pearl to guard his sea of consciousness. In addition, with the trigger-type defensive soul tool, his defensive reserves should be quite sufficient.
Therefore, besides improving physical attributes, namely the body's endurance, the main aspect that the battle armor should enhance is Long You's attack capabilities.
Considering his weakness in close combat, Long You ultimately decided to equip himself with a set of lightning-attribute battle armor to compensate for this deficiency. This would enhance attack damage, reaction speed, and movement speed, and even make him effective in ranged attacks – quite nice indeed.
As a Soul Guidance Master, the days of forging iron are endless, and the entrance exam for the Soul Guidance Department was scheduled for the second month after the start of the semester. Faced with the target practice test, Long You simply had the upgraded Bourne take the anti-gravity laser auto-aiming rapid-fire Soul Guidance Cannon to pass the test.
Incidentally, the reason why Long You dared to let Bourne take the entrance exam for him instead of going in person was because Long You took advantage of the fact that Shrek Academy had full network coverage to upgrade Bourne.
The upgrade focuses on two main aspects: one is enhancing functionality. Originally, Bourne's primary role was combat support, essentially a card with 70 points in military attributes and 60 points in civil attributes. Now, after the upgrade, both of Bourne's attributes reach 80.
Another aspect was enhancing convenience. Long You specially designed and made a wristband-shaped storage soul tool for Bourne. This storage soul tool had a storage area of twenty cubic meters, all of which contained Bourne's main server.
Long You used a newly mastered soul guidance array on this wristband-shaped storage soul tool. Previously, if the Bourne tablet were placed in the storage soul tool, Bourne would immediately go offline. Now, with the connection of this soul guidance array, Bourne would remain online even if his physical body was inside the storage soul tool.
(The original Bourne tablet was Bourne's true form. It was because the true form was too small and Longyou's soul-guiding array inscription technology was not up to standard that Bourne's functions were limited.)
This wristband-shaped storage soul tool has a soul tool display screen, which, under Bourne's control, functions as a smartphone.
It allows Longyou to experience the thrill of manually operating a screen and using a smartphone, a feeling reminiscent of his previous life. Furthermore, thanks to mature wireless communication technology and the intelligent Bernie, Longyou can also enjoy convenient voice control.
Within a hundred meters of Shrek Academy, Long You can now connect with his smart assistant in real time, just like Tony Stark, simply by wearing a wireless Bluetooth headset and a pair of tactical goggles.
Even when he leaves the satellite signal coverage area, Long You only needs to bring this wristband-shaped storage soul tool that carries the Bourne main server.
With this wristband in hand, Longyou can use Byrne to command his soul-guided powered armor to operate unmanned within the signal coverage area, treating the soul-guided powered armor as an intelligent combat robot.