The Great Yong Must-Eat List
The assistant gave him a strange look.
How could Professor Su not even recognize Her Highness the Eldest Princess? Had he been living as a wildman in the mountains?
Seeing Su Luo's expressionless face, the assistant hurried to explain.
"Professor Su, this is Her Highness Di Yubing, His Majesty's eldest daughter and the Eldest Princess of Great Yong. She's also currently in charge of the Hudu region... and she's topped the Great Yong Beauty Ranking for ten years running!"
"Oh?! Who's this top spot? The princess takes him down every year?"
Su Luo tossed out the bit of trash talk, then suddenly realized something was off.
"Wait... that big star who got the whole world talking, Le Lingyan. Is she on that ranking?"
"She is, Professor Su. The renowned Le ranks fourth," the assistant replied at once.
"Then... who's second?"
"Second is Princess Shui Huaimeng. She... currently works at the Superpower Management Bureau."
"Third?"
"Third is Miss Ning Jiyue. She's believed to be in the Yu Region at present."
Su Luo knew the Yu Region had long since fallen under the de facto control of Dongli Cang's forces.
Su Luo went on to ask about the fifth through tenth beauties, then fell silent.
Apart from two whose whereabouts were unknown, every single one of the others had appeared in one form or another at Dongli Cang's side or within his territory.
So Dongli Cang had pretty good taste and was eating quite well.
In that case, the Eldest Princess Di Yubing, who had just forced her way into his laboratory, was almost certainly another target on Dongli Cang's "menu."
Su Luo considered whether he should run and leave Hudu.
Even someone practicing fasting could figure out that Di Yubing's presence would inevitably trigger an important plot development in Dongli Cang's "script."
And thinking with his other head, how had those powerful subordinates and peerless beauties who had not originally belonged to Dongli Cang's forces ended up won over by him?
The beast tide arrived at the city gates.
The Superpower Management Bureau had anticipated it and deployed its forces.
The great savior Dongli Cang once again saved an entire city's people.
The beauty or powerhouse wept with gratitude and immediately pledged allegiance.
Originally, Hudu had been the most secure Barricade south of the imperial capital, thanks to the remnants of Great Yong's imperial forces, its geographic advantages, and some superpower users.
But now, the Eldest Princess Di Yubing was personally stationed here... it was practically like lighting the brightest beacon in the dark, telling Dongli Cang and the "plot" that might or might not exist somewhere out there in no uncertain terms:
The top entry on the Great Yong Must-Eat List is here!
An old foodie like Dongli Cang certainly wouldn't miss it.
Whether the city was successfully defended or not, chaos would inevitably follow, and the quiet research environment Su Luo wanted would be gone.
After weighing his options for a moment, Su Luo ultimately decided to stay put for now.
If anything went wrong, he could run immediately. He could fly, after all, and the flying mutated beasts in the beast tide couldn't stop him. Dongli Cang had no reason to stop him either.
With that thought, Su Luo gained a clearer understanding of the difficulty of the [Class Change Dungeon]. A survivor who could obtain a [Class Change Certificate] had to be strong enough to take on a Level 5 elite monster, such as an Alchemical Puppet, alone.
He guessed that the SS-rank superpower users of this world were roughly as strong as Level 5 elite monsters.
A survivor with power beyond SS-rank might not be able to come and go freely amid a beast tide, but surviving thirty days, at least, wouldn't be a problem.
As for why Su Luo had found himself in the predicament of starting in an environment without Mana...
Was it possible that Su Luo's situation amounted to "skipping class"?
Under the normal process, aside from the most basic skills such as [Meditation] and [Zen Meditation], all other Mana-related Skill Books contained class skills that could only be learned and used after a Class Change.
Without Mana and spells, Su Luo, whose highest attribute was 12 points, would have had to take on a Level 5 elite monster whose highest attribute was 15 points and which also had a host of powerful skills. Even a hundred Su Luos together probably couldn't have beaten it.
Leaving Talents aside, to obtain a [Class Change Certificate] solo through sheer strength, the only way, based on the information currently available, was to save up enough free attribute points before reaching an average of 11 points, then allocate them all at once and steamroll the Dungeon with high attributes.
A "stat monster" who successfully changed classes that way naturally wouldn't have suffered the Mana anxiety Su Luo had when he first entered the Dungeon, like a skilled cook with no rice to cook.
But Su Luo had saved five free attribute points.
With nothing else to do, Su Luo found a blue skill, [Body Modification (Blue)], among the Skill Books the Mutual Aid Association had previously sent him.
After skimming through it, he found that it seemed more like a skill specifically intended for classes such as Wizards or alchemists, involving extensive knowledge of biological transmutation and physical enhancement.
He happened to have plenty of low-level mutated beast materials on hand to practice with, so Su Luo immediately immersed himself in the skill and began learning it at a rapid pace, intending to lay the groundwork first.
He couldn't count on external heavenly materials and earthly treasures to strengthen his body forever. So how was he to keep raising his Constitution and Strength attributes in the future?
By learning relevant advanced skills and then slowly stacking them up bit by bit through the system's mighty power?
That would seriously slow down his learning and growth.
Besides, Su Luo didn't much like growing stronger without understanding how.
The most fundamental solution was to directly modify and optimize his own biological structure.
His body's strength would grow in step with his knowledge. The deeper his knowledge, the stronger his body could become!
Meanwhile, his study of [Spell Permanence Technique (Blue)] had hit a bottleneck. Most of the next few chapters covered optimization techniques for reducing Mana consumption and speeding up spellcasting, with no qualitative breakthroughs.
Su Luo weighed his options and found that laying the groundwork by learning [Body Modification (Blue)] offered greater benefits than the marginal returns from continuing to study [Spell Permanence Technique (Incomplete) (Blue)], so he switched tracks without hesitation.
The laboratory had a large supply of D- and C-rank mutated beast materials, as well as a small quantity of B- and A-rank materials.
D-rank mutated beasts weren't supernaturally strong, only a little stronger than lions and tigers. After briefly familiarizing himself with their structures, Su Luo quickly mastered the relevant basic modification chapters.
C-rank mutated beasts' bodies began to display obvious supernatural traits, and the directions of their enhancements varied wildly. Su Luo spent more than a day practicing with a large amount of material, absorbing this knowledge as well and learning the basic modifications for the relevant attributes.
By the time he reached B-rank mutated beasts, the amount of material available dropped sharply, but their bodies were already immensely strong, with the corresponding attributes estimated to be close to 10 points. Su Luo used up all the B-rank materials in the laboratory, only to find that he had failed to master even two-thirds of this section.
The speed at which he learned this skill with materials to practice on was entirely different from the speed without them. Su Luo put down his scalpel without a second thought and went back to studying Spell Permanence Technique.
At least he now had a fairly deep understanding of the biological structures of creatures with attributes below 10 points. If he could get enough experimental materials and a reliable surgical environment later, perhaps... he could create a biologically modified organism with attributes reaching 9 points.
On his sixteenth day in this world, Su Luo was lying on a bed in the lounge, leafing through a Skill Book, when his personal communicator suddenly rang. It was Wang Shouye.
"Mr. Su, the casing and framework for the 'Mana conversion device' you requested have all been completed. Would you like us to deliver them to the underground laboratory now?"