"Eh..."
Li Pu walked over to the hibernation pod, feeling no matter how he looked at it that this contraption seemed to be filled with some unspeakable secrets. It felt full of sci-fi, and also full of villainous vibes.
"This... immersive learning... how does the immersion even work?" Li Pu still felt a tiny bit of resistance.
"You know in some sci-fi novels," Li Yiyi pushed up her glasses and said, "those full-dive online games? Mhm, the protagonist needs to enter a gaming pod, and then they can start playing."
"Using one's own mind to control one's character."
"Sword Art Online, gaming helmet! I know that thing." Li Pu clapped his hands and said, "Could this be that?"
"Although I don't know Sword Art Online," Li Yiyi said with what seemed like a hint of disdain, "but this thing is way stronger than a gaming helmet! This thing can almost perfectly simulate everything in reality."
"Oh~" Li Pu's eyes lit up as he said, "Then... speaking of which, this contraption is just a large gaming peripheral?"
"I don't think I've ever heard of something so advanced."
"This is military equipment; the army uses this stuff during training," Li Yiyi explained. "The danger in it lies in the fact that the degree of reality simulation is too high. If you die in the game, you will lose your brain waves in reality."
"To put it simply, you will die."
"But if we want to be pedantic, it can only be considered turning into a vegetable—the kind of vegetable with a very high possibility of recovery."
"Eh..." Li Pu took a step back and said, "Then this... I..."
Ten thousand yuan for a life—isn't this a bit too cheap?!
"Don't worry, we're here," Li Yiyi comforted him. "It's quite safe for now. The main conflict right now is that if the simulation's realism is too low, there's no way to achieve the goal of learning, but if the simulation's realism is too high, it will bring about the severe consequences I just mentioned."
"Our goal is to reconcile the contradiction between the two, and we will do so before you experience these severe consequences."
"Wake you up! There's no need to worry about dying."
Chapter 19: Let's Just Not Say Anything At All
Realistic teaching, combining knowledge and action, organically integrating education, learning, and practice together.
In short, to make a long story short.
In order to enable students to adapt to the beatings from social reality after leaving school, the school intended to step in personally!
To beat you up in advance!
This is precisely the purpose of this batch of equipment used for 'learning'. It lets students fully experience the cruelty of society, organically combines the knowledge they have already learned with social events, and allows students to grow up healthily so they won't be deceived by that temptation-filled social reality in the future.
Therefore, the teachers decided to trick you first and give you a beating!
All of this is the purpose and meaning of the existence of the learning apparatus.
Creating a virtual scene very close to real society for the students within a controllable range for the teachers, letting them experience the malice from society in advance, will allow them to grow up more robustly.
Regarding this, it really is...
"Good point, please go easy on me." Li Pu twitched the corners of his mouth stiffly, forcing out a smile that was uglier than crying as he said, "I already know what social reality is, I've been beaten by social reality too, and I've felt the malice of this society. So please, everyone, make sure you let me have a good dream."
"Don't worry, this is just a test," Li Yiyi said. "Just think of it as a virtual game."
"Then what kind of virtual game is this?" Li Pu grabbed the edges of the hibernation pod with both hands and asked, "Can you tell me?"
"It's the kind of wonderful, wonderful~ kind where any wish can be fulfilled," Li Yiyi smiled and placated him.
"Really? You aren't lying to me, are you?" Li Pu still braced his body stiffly!
"Lie down!!!"
This time Li Yiyi truly couldn't take it anymore. Where on earth did they find a test subject like this? She had already said it was safe—probably, mostly, maybe.
She really didn't have the patience to bicker with this guy anymore.
Her tone suddenly turned stern, even becoming a bit terrifying as she said, "Hurry up and lie down for me! Are you even a man?!"
"So fussy! This is St. Freya Academy! Although there are some safety performance issues, this is also very safe."
"Get down and lie down right now, did you hear me?!"
"Understood."
Li Pu wilted. As the saying goes: The man is the cleaver and chopping block, I am the fish and meat. He had already signed such a contract of indentured servitude, what else could he do? This shouldn't be the death game from Sword Art Online...
Probably...
He lay down, watching the lid close, watching some gadget cover his head.
Watching the world turn pitch black, and then watching the world suddenly become clear.
And then...
"Is this a stable?"
Li Pu suddenly discovered that he seemed to be lying on some straw. He was wearing an flaxen-colored, coarse-cloth outfit apparently made of linen. He seemed to be lying in a corner of a horse stable, with two fine horses beside him.
He...
The feeling might not quite hit the mark, but his chest felt a bit tight, and things felt a bit empty down below...
"Hey!"
Suddenly, a blond, blue-eyed white boy with freckles on his face came over carrying a wooden bucket, two brushes, and some tools Li Pu had never seen before. Yelping, the kid dumped all these things in a heap right in front of Li Pu.
"Don't be lazy like a swine, get up. The knight lord is going out today."
"Hurry up and get the horses ready."
Li Pu looked at this pile of things smashed in front of him. What were all these? Cleaning tools!
"Why... why do I end up as a cleaner everywhere I go?" Li Pu sighed and said, "Is this... a medieval version of an otherworld life starting as a cleaner?"
"What are you muttering about?" said the blond-haired, freckle-faced youth. "If we're late..."
"The knight lord won't be happy. If the knight lord isn't happy..."
"You want to eat the paddle, but I certainly don't want to eat the paddle!"
This didn't count as a good dream, but it didn't count as a nightmare either—at least it was much better than his imagination of swords, guns, and bloodshed right off the bat.
Li Pu hoisted the mop and picked up the bucket, saying, "I know~ I know."
"Isn't it just being a cleaner? I'll just treat it as a newbie quest."
"Anyway, this..."
It was all the same; he became a cleaner wherever he went.
And this...
"Is this... is this the legendary King Arthur?"
Just as Li Pu entered this 'dream', a golden figure was standing in front of the screen in the main control hall. The maid-uniformed girl standing beside him looked somewhat perplexed at the screen, viewing what looked nothing like a king's work.
"What do you think King Arthur at this period in history should be doing?" asked the blond-haired man while sipping coffee. "Rita."
"Shouldn't it be learning swordsmanship, Lord Otto?" Rita answered respectfully. "Or combat? Knightly etiquette?"
"Not at all." Otto shook his head, his eyes shining as he looked at the display on the screen before him. "Starting as a page at age seven does not mean direct contact with those things."
"You do chores, and only upgrade to a squire at age fourteen. That's when you start learning swordsmanship."
"But what you still need to do is clean horses, maintain armor, and so on."
"Only when you reach the age of twenty-one can you officially become a knight."
"The times are different, and some things and practices will differ," Otto said. "But the basic situation remains somewhat similar."
"At this age, one is not yet an official knight, so doing these miscellaneous chores is completely normal."
"And have you forgotten?" Otto asked rhetorically. "King Arthur was a child secretly taken away and protected by Merlin. Do you think she would be in a pampered position?"
"So this appearance is very normal."
The blond youth on the screen—or rather, the girl disguised as a youth—was tidying the stable, cleaning horses, and maintaining armor together with another youth, and even training in swordsmanship with wooden swords.
"It should be almost time."
Otto said, "No need to wait too long. Have Mei come over in a bit..."
"No, prepare a separate activity room," Otto said, taking a sip of his coffee. "Let her spar with Mei in swordsmanship."
"Spar in swordsmanship?" Rita looked at the 'youth' awkwardly waving a wooden sword to hack at a wooden dummy on the screen and said, "Will this be a problem?"
"Hokushin Itto-ryu—this Li Pu won't be able to win, right?"
"Even if he is the reincarnation of King Arthur."
"Don't underestimate the memories of the soul," Otto finished his coffee in one gulp and said. "The changes brought about by gradually awakening the memories of his soul are not just minor ones."
"Go make preparations." Otto stood up, put his hands behind his back, and looked at the clumsy 'youth' on the screen.
"The outcome this time is not yet certain. Tell Mei that during the swordsmanship spar..."
"She must go all out!"
Chapter 20: It Doesn't Feel Good At All
"This game is no fun at all! The learning curve is extremely steep!"
Crawling out of the hibernation pod while cursing and swearing, Li Pu complained, "During all that time I didn't do a damn thing except brush horses, hack wooden dummies, and take a beating with a wooden paddle."
"At least give a newbie tutorial! This game..."
"Making students time-travel to the Middle Ages?"
"This game is sheer trash!"
With almost no hesitation, Li Pu summoned his keyboard-warrior hater mode and went on a rant against this so-called 'virtual game': "When you make games, at least take things into consideration! Even if you don't consider the player's experience, at least consider the students' experience. Are the NPCs you wrote written as sadists?!"
"If you lose, you lose, but why actually hit people!"
"Aiyo hey, it really fucking hurts!"
"There's not even a save and load function."
"Thumbs down!"
Because he lost to that blond punk in the swordsmanship spar, he got beaten with a paddle. He had originally wanted to see if he could use the cheating method of reloading to try again.
He ended up finding out there wasn't even a game interface.
He had taken that beating of paddles completely raw.
If not for that paddle beating, he wouldn't have crawled out of the hibernation pod in such a sorry state.
"And why can't you customize your character? No custom ID? It clearly looks like an open world."
Li Pu complained again, "It's completely non-open!"
It felt just like playing Berserker's Creed 1 and 2—although it looked like an open world and felt like it, in reality, it wasn't all that open.
Some places couldn't be reached, there weren't many exploreable objectives, and straying from the established main story would just yank you right back.
The range of exploration for the player was small, but the NPCs' beatings directed at you were definitely abundant.
"Even giving it a thumbs-down is useless."
Li Yiyi held a small notebook and said, "This thing is learning equipment, not equipment meant for you to actually play games with. Therefore, your mindset of treating this contraption like a game is wrong to begin with!"
"But you didn't tell me the protagonist was a girl!" Li Pu covered his crotch down below, finally feeling a bit relieved.
"Because it's meant for female students to use," Li Yiyi explained further. "Or what else? You'll just have to get a little used to it."
"But..." Li Pu started to say something else.
"There aren't that many buts!" Li Yiyi said with a dark face. "Change into another outfit and go participate in the next test."
"Eh... there's actually a next test?" Li Pu exclaimed in shock. "No... is the test just... this?"
"Of course not!" Li Yiyi said. "This is a learning apparatus; we need to see how much knowledge you've absorbed."
"Step lively, change your clothes, and go participate in the next test."
"Aside from brushing horses and taking beatings, what the hell can anyone learn from this?" Li Pu stood up, grumbling as he went to change his clothes. Since he had already sold himself into this, for the rest he could only follow other people's wishes.
Though he always felt something was off—why on earth did learning mean experiencing a medieval setting?
Before you continue