Chapter 156: A Bold Guess

...

Lan Qingyou never imagined that handing the design over to The Chariot would result in so many tricks up his sleeve.

Still, a cavalry charge was actually a rather nice synergy.

The Chariot: "There is more. That lance is not just for charging. Try pressing the counterweight orb at the very bottom."

Lan Qingyou took a look and immediately gave it a try.

Clack!

Instantly, spiraling grooves depressed into the lance. The entire weapon began to spin, emitting a loud whirring sound as it cut through the air.

The Tower: "This is..."

The Chariot: "Not bad, right? Compared to a simple thrust from a normal lance, the power behind a drill is significantly greater. I even specially designed blood grooves into it, guaranteeing a massive hole with every thrust."

The Tower: "Okay, it is indeed very impressive."

Lan Qingyou looked at the still-spinning lance, then at The Chariot's smug messages on her Card, and could only offer a helpless reply.

Initially, she had just wanted some basic armor and weapons.

Yet, the fancy features The Chariot came up with left her completely speechless.

When it came to pulling off stunts like this, one truly had to have a passion for it.

The High Priestess: "You designed this?"

Just as Lan Qingyou and Orff were deep in their lively discussion, The High Priestess suddenly popped up with a question.

The Chariot: "Of course. This is the image of the perfect Power Armor in my heart."

The High Priestess: "Is that so?"

The Chariot: "Naturally."

The Chariot was still acting tough.

The High Priestess: "But why does it look like the Iron pattern power armor to me? Especially that purple model, its color scheme feels strikingly similar to the Emperor's Children legion."

The High Priestess: "And that thing that looks like a knight order's helmet, is that from the Loyalists?"

The Star: "And what about the spreading wings of the owl on the chest plate of the pink model? Are you imitating the Raven Guard? Owl Guard? Why didn't you just add a Roman crested helmet and make a Centurion, wouldn't that look better?"

The High Priestess: "Right, right! Throw in a black and gold color scheme and it would be absolutely perfect."

The Chariot: "Uh... this... it is just a reference. It is purely an homage. I do not care who asks, that is my final answer."

Tag-teamed by The High Priestess and The Star, The Chariot was backed into a corner.

In the end, he gave up on defending himself and threw out the word 'homage'.

It was truly rough for him.

The Star: "Forget it, Power Armor basically looks the same no matter what. But I still feel like it is missing something."

Seeing this message, Lan Qingyou and Orff typed out question marks at almost the exact same time.

The Star: "Capes! Neither the cavalry nor the infantry have capes. It just feels wrong, their coolness factor is cut in half."

The Tower: "That actually seems to be true."

The Chariot: "..."

Lan Qingyou completely understood. After all, aesthetics were everything.

However, Orff did not seem to share that sentiment.

The Chariot: "A cape is completely unnecessary. What use does that thing have besides looking pretty?"

That instantly set Ruan Qingyi off.

The Star: "How is it useless?! How is it useless?!"

The Star: "You enchant the cape! Put defense enchantments and the like on it, and their defensive power will shoot right up."

The Star: "And that lance! With such a high rotation speed, shouldn't you add a constant temperature enchantment to prevent overheating?"

That made so much sense!

Now, not only Lan Qingyou, but even Orff was rendered speechless.

The Star: "@The Tower, wait a moment. I am going to make twenty-one capes for you. @The Chariot, send me the Power Armor specs."

The Tower: "Ah, this... is really not necessary, is it?"

The Star: "It is necessary! Highly necessary!"

With that said, The Star ran off to gather materials for Lan Qingyou's magic puppets, leaving Lan Qingyou staring blankly at the Card in her hand, squinting like a confused old man looking at a smartphone.

It took a good while for Lan Qingyou to process it before she raised a hand to scratch her head.

She had originally thought that simply having the equipment was enough; she was still in a rush to take a stroll outside.

But Ruan Qingyi pulling this stunt made her feel too embarrassed to just leave. Yet, sticking around felt like a bit of a waste of time.

Now, she was feeling rather anxious, unable to sit or stand still.

Whatever. Crafting capes might seem simple on the surface, but it would actually take quite some time.

Since that was the case, she might as well find something to do first.

It was not like she lacked things to keep herself busy, anyway.

Thinking of this, Lan Qingyou took out her magic puppets one by one and suited them up, even mounting the six purple Humanoid Magic Puppets onto the Horned Lion Beasts.

However...

Even though The Chariot had claimed that the cavalry Power Armor and the Horned Lion Beasts had synergy...

...in reality, all it meant was that they could mount smoothly, and the latches connecting the Power Armor to the backs of the Horned Lion Beasts kept them from falling off.

To truly make them charge like real knights, she still needed to program some commands.

These commands had to be added to both the Humanoid Magic Puppets and the beast-type magic puppets.

Fortunately, there were only six pairs, so it was hardly a difficult task.

Thus, while waiting for Ruan Qingyi to finish the capes, Lan Qingyou simply decided to modify these magic puppets pair by pair.

As she worked, she also reviewed the notes she had previously recorded.

Gradually, when Lan Qingyou was programming the third pair, she suddenly struck upon a new and bold idea.

If these commands could be written in Karimic script, then why could they not be written in the Dragon Kingdom's Universal Federation text?

After all, the characters took up less space, and each character possessed its own distinct meaning. Sometimes, a single character could even represent an entire command.

Lan Qingyou was the type to act on her ideas immediately, but she did not let her impulsiveness cloud her judgment.

She did not rush to experiment on the purple knights and the Horned Lion Beasts, but rather brought over a Copper Hammer Beast.

Although the number of Copper Hammer Beasts was even lower than the Horned Lion Beasts, she could afford to lose one of these magic puppets, whose primary purpose was protection anyway.

Compared to the crooked, squiggly Karimic script she had been writing before, inscribing the Dragon Kingdom's Universal Federation text was far more natural.

Lan Qingyou tested them one by one, mapping those Karimic commands to corresponding Dragon Kingdom vocabulary.

Then, as if practicing formal calligraphy, she etched every single character with perfect block-letter precision.

Only when linking them to the intricate lines and magic circuits did she slightly elongate the final strokes to establish the connection.

When she finally activated it, the results showed that it actually worked!

Lan Qingyou was utterly dumbfounded.

While success was certainly a cause for joy, the implications hidden behind this achievement made her frown involuntarily.

Success on the first try?

That should not have happened.

According to Lan Qingyou's calculations, an 'innovation' like this should have required at least seven or eight failures, forcing her to identify the underlying issues and eliminate them one by one.

After all, she was someone who loved to tinker and innovate, and none of her previous breakthroughs had ever succeeded on the very first attempt.

Most required repeated experiments and verifications before they bore fruit—she had plenty of experience in that regard.

But this?

Frowning deeply, Lan Qingyou began to ponder. Why had it worked perfectly on the first try this time?

Her previous success with the talent potion on the first try had been the result of meticulous calculations, sheer coincidence, and an incredible burst of luck stacked together.

While she would not say all the buffs had been maxed out, the buffs had definitely been stacked in her favor.

But why had things turned out this way today?