Chapter 125: Brother Jie! Level up!

You used the C4 you carried in your backpack to cause a huge commotion! Just as you expected, this huge commotion indeed caught the attention of a certain old wizard.

Since the huge explosion you caused was in a wilderness outside the town and harmed no innocents, the old wizard bore you little hostility and was instead more curious.

You relied on your superb acting to tell the old wizard the story you made up, in which you and Liu Delie were two curious youths who, by chance in childhood, had seen a wizard and magic and kept trying to see a wizard again.

Their attitude went from initial wariness to curiosity, then to friendliness, and when they saw you casually forge a sharp, smooth silicon sword from the sand on the ground, they became extremely shocked.

The old wizard thought you were a one-in-a-million alchemy genius, but this is actually the ability of your A-rank forging module, which can use anything around to forge whatever shape you want; the higher the module's rank, the greater the structural strength and toughness it imparts, and it may also grant additional special abilities.

Thus, you and Liu Delie were naturally recommended by the old wizard to enter the wizard academy for further study; along the way, Liu Delie was unusually excited by all the miraculous surroundings, and under the old wizard's guidance you also purchased wands and books.

You smoothly passed the wizard academy's opening ceremony, were fortunately assigned to the same dormitory, and are about to begin a fantastical wizard academy life.

Liu Delie eagerly anticipates the supernatural power he will soon gain; he really likes this magic world's supernatural power, which strikes you as odd—being a brute, shouldn't he want to be a tank or berserker?

In response, the words Liu Delie will say next give you the answer: it's because of his talent, 'Adaptive Arcane Art'—simply put, any spell he can perfectly adapt, and according to his own traits, cause the spell to undergo strange changes.

Though somewhat interesting, its appeal to you is not high—it lacks the boost from your own two talents, and it doesn't have the potency of Yu Xiaomo's Infinite Load Module talent; it's just a rather ordinary talent.

To officially clear this world, you need to graduate from the wizard academy or obtain an A-rank achievement badge; graduating from the wizard academy is obviously the most common way to clear, although it lets you master supernatural power, it also requires spending a lot of time on further study, which does not match your expectation.

What you want is a speedrun, so your natural goal is to obtain an A-rank achievement badge to clear quickly—but another problem arises.

You don't know exactly how to trigger the A-rank achievement badge, but you know there is a storyline in the game, and as an open world there must be many unknown side plots and hidden threads; you must try to find them.

Thus, your few veteran nightmare employees come into use; their bodies can choose whether to be invisible on their own, making them the best choice for exploration.

During these days, while the nightmares went ahead to scout, you and Liu Delie fully enjoyed the wonderful life of the wizard academy—the magical cafeteria, the moving picture frames, the magical spells—letting you and Liu Delie have a blast.

And after Liu Delie learned magic, sure enough, his talent produced some wonderful changes: his incantations are no longer bound by fixed phrasing, but become somewhat free-flowing, so he need not memorize any incantations—he can simply speak freely according to his will to cast magic.

Seeing his happy demeanor, you feel his ability has a hint of idealism, like the power of words turning into reality; this makes you suddenly think Liu Delie's talent is actually not bad—at least it seems to have great growth potential.

These days, you also learned some simple magic from a few magic lessons; although you can't match Liu Delie, you could count as half a wizard, but you're obviously not very interested in these low‑attack magic, whereas Liu Delie is highly motivated, eagerly studying magic, and all the specialist course teachers praise him endlessly.

Reality, Zhang Jie's home.

The nutrition pod for entering dreams opened; Zhang Jie sat up with a pained expression, stretching his body while gritting his teeth.

Having stayed in the nutrition pod too long, his whole body feels awful; normal people should limit dream‑entry time to no more than fourteen hours a day, but he has obviously exceeded that.

At the magic academy in the open world he attends class, then when he sleeps in the academy he logs out, uses the brief sleep time to tackle an F‑rank game, then drags his weary body back to the open world to attend class again.

Zhang Jie feels like a beast of burden turning a millwheel...

Fortunately, with the nutrition pod's support, activities in the dream world amount to sleep for reality; those cheap VR dream‑entry devices can't do that.

Buzz buzz buzz...

At this moment the phone buzzed, as if someone noticed Zhang Jie logging out of Dream Online and sent him a message.

Xiao Mo: Brother Jie! Level up!

Zhang Jie:?

As soon as he opened the phone and saw this, Zhang Jie found it hard not to laugh.

Call me Brother Jie: What the heck to level up?

Xiao Mo: Ah, it's just an upgrade!

Xiao Mo: I showed you a module.

Zhang Jie casually opened it, glanced a few times, and saw it was a thing called the 'Chef Module', a somewhat auxiliary module; most people might not bother to look, but for Yu Xiaomo, modules are never too many.

Call me Brother Jie: Where are you?

Xiao Mo: I'm coming to your place right away!

By now, Zhang Jie couldn't be bothered to keep bickering with Yu Xiaomo; he's been tired these days, so he simply decided to upgrade her.

But he'll definitely have to mess with her a bit—those little female imps are only fun when you bully them!

Soon, Yu Xiaomo knocked on the door; Zhang Jie, wearing pajamas, opened it for her, and what met his eyes was a person dressed head‑to‑toe in strange gear.

Yu Xiaomo wore a silly fish‑head hat, a set of black plate armor that totally mismatched her petite frame, black stockings on her legs, flip‑flops on her feet, hands on hips, looking up at him.

A completely mismatched outfit...

"What are you wearing?"

"At least dress like a person, okay?"

Yu Xiaomo hehe‑laughed, hid the outfit, and returned to her normal bread‑shirt attire.

"This isn't to activate the module effect, is it?"

"All right, all right, no more chatter—quickly take out your module; I need to rest a bit."

Yu Xiaomo gave Zhang Jie a few odd up‑and‑down looks, then asked strangely.

"Zhang Jie, you're not going to spar with me verbally, are you?"

Zhang Jie didn't answer her question, quickly yanked the module card from her hand, golden light flashing, and upgraded it in an instant.

Then he quickly messed with Yu Xiaomo's head a few times, tugged twice at her still‑baby‑fat cheeks, messed her hair into a bird's nest, and casually slipped the card into her hair.

"All right, upgrade done—go play!"

Zhang Jie finally pinched her cheek, swiftly shut the door, and the hallway fell silent at once.

His speed was incredible; Yu Xiaomo, face blank, got roughed up, the little card slipped from her hair and fell with a crisp sound.

Embarrassment and anger welled up; Yu Xiaomo's face flushed red as she shouted loudly.

"Zhang Jie!!!"

"I won't let you off!!!"