RBCT Chapter 29 The Qigong Master's Requirement Room
Chapter 29 The Qigong Master's Requirement Room
Lin Zhuo used his teeth to tear off the excess gauze and carefully wrapped the wound on his palm. With the help of his Qi, the wound had basically closed and would heal by nightfall. However, since it was on his hand, proper protection could prevent bacterial contamination and avoid secondary injury.
He held the stack of talismans in his hands with great care, as if an ancient person were holding banknotes. He stroked them carefully and even held them under his nose to smell them. The iron talismans didn't have much of a smell, but they exuded a pleasant aura.
The blue-quality talisman paper and ink can not only be used to make talismans, but Lin Zhuo can also sell the excess shares on the Zongwang Forum to exchange for his first disaster coins.
Lin Zhuo urgently needs to rent a virtual training room. Whether it's lightness skill or martial arts, it would be difficult to hide the fact that he practices in any place in Hongshui City. In the past two days, he has seriously considered going to the underground mine to open a secret base.
Exchanging real-world resources for disaster coins is a nearly profitable business, as the purchasing power of disaster coins on the comprehensive network is quite excellent; 1 disaster coin can be exchanged for tens of grams of pure gold.
In theory, selling just a portion of the talisman paper and ink would be enough for Lin Zhuo to become a very wealthy man in reality.
Unfortunately, gold and silver are not very useful within the human community. After all, this political system has abolished the monetary system, and work points earned through labor can only be exchanged for resources within the organization and collective, and cannot be transferred between individual citizens.
In those days, private trade could only be carried out through barter, such as exchanging exquisite handicrafts with other laborers for imported products or fresh meat.
Lin Zhuo saw many customers pretending to be at work at the Jianlan Library. They often exchanged items by doing handicrafts. Some knitted sweaters, some carved sealing wax, or made clay dolls by hand. They were all quite interesting and always attracted other customers to quietly watch.
This kind of trade pattern is just like that of primitive societies. This is also an interesting aspect of history: under certain conditions, those ancient and backward things can appear in the most advanced and developed eras, only with similar appearances but different cores.
For Lin Zhuo, directly exchanging the Disaster Coin for gold and silver would be the most unprofitable option, and would also attract unnecessary suspicion. Exchanging it for technological data, which he wanted to convert into social power, would require an academic path, something Lin Zhuo had little interest in.
The most reasonable consumption plan at present is to use all of it to invest in one's own career path.
Lin Zhuo searched for recycling channels on the forum. Besides transactions between individual players, there were trading platforms established by player groups. Of course, there was also the official acquisition platform of the comprehensive network, but the price was too low, so it was usually not considered.
As the saying goes, it's good to compare prices from three different vendors. In an era when talismanic arts were all the rage, talisman paper and ink were practically hard currency and never had trouble selling. However, because the market supply was so large, the price was much lower than that of other spiritual materials of the same grade.
On such a morning, Lin Zhuo yawned as he rushed to work. Before leaving, he ate two tubes of nutritional paste to fill his stomach. All the way, he was thinking about selling his goods, just like a small merchant going to a market in ancient times.
To ship to individual buyers, simply post a listing in the trading section, and interested players will contact you. However, sales usually start at a minimum of a few dozen units; smaller quantities are less likely to attract buyers.
Selling to player trading platforms allows you to send only one talisman at a time, but the overall purchase price is lower than that of individual sellers, since middlemen always make a profit.
By the time Lin Zhuo arrived at the Jianlan Library to clock in for work and sat down at his workstation, he had already sold fifty sheets of Black Bone Red Pattern Iron Paper to a stranger.
The deal yielded 799 disaster coins. Lin Zhuo wasn't good at bargaining and just stuck to his bottom line, but fortunately, the result was quite good.
With the money, he immediately searched for virtual training grounds.
The so-called virtual training ground is actually an alternate dimension that the player enters. However, players can be resurrected after death, and all injuries will automatically heal when leaving the training ground. Even the damage to equipment and items can be restored.
Depending on the difference in environmental enhancement factors, venue rental prices vary drastically, so it's important to consider your budget.
The training ground is suitable for beginners to practice various martial arts. The rental fee is 8 disaster coins per hour. Various environments, terrains and general equipment can be customized. Lin Zhuo already felt that this was a very good choice.
Another advantage of using the virtual training ground is that time flows relatively still, so even when Lin Zhuo is at work, he can sneak in and train for a while at any time.
This was a huge temptation for him.
The library was deserted at six o'clock, and he was all alone at his workstation, which was quite desolate.
"It's time for me to work hard," Lin Zhuo thought to himself. Since he had already decided to sneak into the training ground to slack off, he needed to replenish his energy first. He went to the lounge to grab some food to replenish his energy, and then closed his eyes to practice his internal energy until eight o'clock in the morning.
By this time, there was already a sparse flow of customers, while Lin Zhuo was full of energy, having completely shaken off the fatigue of staying up all night, and was ready to start a day full of energy.
"Alright, training ground, start."
There are two ways to enter the training grounds or any other instance space.
One method is to open a teleportation portal. A spacetime vortex will appear in an open area near the player. This portal allows players to bring in miscellaneous items or bring resources scavenged in the dungeon to the real world.
However, considering that some players' situations are not suitable for shocking events, the network also provides a direct teleportation service, so that the movement cannot be detected and, in the eyes of outsiders, the players have not moved at all.
Lin Zhuo naturally chose the second method of entering the training ground covertly.
In an instant—the world changed, and the scenery transformed completely.
The chair beneath Lin Zhuo vanished into thin air. He quickly assumed a horse stance to steady himself and looked around. He found himself in a large hall of a wooden building, his feet resting on the warm, smooth wooden floor.
He was all alone in the entire venue, with rows of wooden dummy dolls in front of him, arranged like soldiers on either side of a red carpet, guiding him through the central aisle.
Lin Zhuo walked all the way to the end of the hall, where a rough, gray-black stone wall stood, with a golden bronze door embedded in the wall.
He had carefully read the instructions before entering the training field and was familiar with the door.
Behind the door is a demiplane similar to the Room of Requirement. Players only need to place their palm on the door panel and silently think about the desired environment and terrain to generate a room that is roughly the same.
Since it is a beginner training ground, there will be no rare treasures or wild beasts in the generated training area; only mechanical puppets to assist in training will appear.
Lin Zhuo's purpose in this trip was to create a light-body movement technique and a hard-body technique, both of which required additional equipment.
The art of maneuvering is used in close combat. One must be wary of enemy weapons and bullets, and one's footwork must be precise and stable.
As for physical skills, Lin Zhuo considered the scenarios he might encounter in reality.
Because shield generators are common in individual soldier equipment, many firearms now fire subsonic bullets, which are filled with strong acids, incendiary agents, poisonous gases, or thunderstorm capacitors. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid bullets hitting the body as much as possible during combat.
In this way, the rigid, direct approach of horizontal chaining qigong is no longer suitable, while the guiding force qigong, which uses softness to overcome hardness, can deflect bullets and is more suitable for actual combat.
Combining the requirements of the two types of techniques, Lin Zhuo raised his hand and pressed down on the door, silently imagining a forest of stone pillars a hundred feet off the ground, and set up multiple paintball launchers around it.
With his mind made up, the heavy bronze gate in front of him suddenly opened, and a hazy white light rushed towards him, engulfing him completely.
When the bright light faded, Lin Zhuo looked again and saw a desolate valley in front of him. A wide river flowed at his feet, and in the middle of the river, hundreds of smooth stone pillars of varying heights and thicknesses stood in a circular array.
He stood on the bank, suddenly used the Shrinking Earth Leap Technique, exerted force with his feet, stepped on the river surface, and burst into huge sprays of water. His figure shot away like lightning, flying all the way to the edge of the forest of stumps. He raised his hand and slapped a stone pillar, repeatedly tapping the pillar with the toes of his shoes. His whole body soared up like a firecracker, and in the blink of an eye, he was a hundred feet in the air.
Dozens of paintball launchers atop the pile of trees, all shaped like humanoid mechanical puppets, suddenly lit up with yellow gems in their eyes upon seeing the newcomer and began unleashing a dense barrage of bullets at Lin Zhuo.
There was no time to hesitate; Lin Zhuo had to begin creating his skills immediately.
[A new, unnamed, blank skill has been created. Please begin refining the skill's operational principles.]
[A practical demonstration has been detected; data entry is in progress]