Honkai Impact 3rd: Starting with Hand-Crafted Black Tech to Save the Pre-Civilization Author: Updates in Dreams
Carrying a strange system known as "Even an Idiot Can Do Research," Ai Yue transmigrated into an era destined for destruction.
However, when he saw the name of the project at the top of the system's technology tree—the "Plasma Spark Tower"—he realized that someone was about to be in trouble.
The Thirteen Flame-Chasers might not be able to defeat the Herrscher of the End, but what about thirteen hundred million Flame-Chasers? Or even three billion?
End, you will fall beneath my Specium Ray!
Chapter One: The Fool on Twilight Street
No one could say for sure where the name Twilight Street had come from. The only thing people could confirm was that the Twilight Street they often spoke of was not limited to the street with the church. Centered around that street, it encompassed settlements spanning several surrounding blocks.
After all, when this city was destroyed by a sudden disaster, this was the only place that survived.
Those who had luckily survived believed that this place had Heaven's protection. As a result, the number of people living here had not decreased. Instead, it had gradually grown.
Ai Yue lived here now, too.
At this moment, he had just come out of the market on the western side of Twilight Street. He carried half a wooden chair and a bag of assorted junk in his hands, a smile plastered across his face. He looked as if he had made quite a haul.
Of course, Ai Yue himself would probably consider it a bumper harvest later—after all, in this era, it was hard to imagine anyone exchanging canned meat for such assorted junk.
Watching the pale young man swagger out of the market and head toward the outskirts of Twilight Street, a young man who had been squatting by the market entrance and looking around finally stood up. He wanted to catch up with the man ahead.
In this era, where survival was incredibly difficult, food was life. If someone could casually trade food for useless junk, that meant he had even more food in his possession.
Such a person was, without a doubt, a fat sheep.
But the moment he took a step, a snort of laughter came from beside him.
"What are you laughing at?!"
The young man immediately glared over fiercely. He saw a middle-aged man wearing a tattered trench coat, his face covered in stubble.
In this world, whenever someone mocked you, you had to act tough and fierce. Otherwise, people would think you were a pushover and plot against you.
As a scavenger skilled at plotting against others, the young man understood this principle very well.
"You look unfamiliar. You're new here, aren't you?" Facing the young man's fierce expression, the middle-aged man merely spoke calmly. "Consider this a welcome gift for newcomers. I advise you not to get any ideas about that young man."
The young man frowned, but he did not dismiss the other man's words. "What do you mean?"
"That young fellow has lived on Twilight Street for nearly half a year." The middle-aged man said, "For the whole six months, he's always acted like this. Do you think you're the first person to set your sights on him?"
The middle-aged man's meaning was vague, but the young man still understood it—if that young man had survived countless robberies unscathed, then he was clearly far more complicated than he appeared.
Was this a trap?
"Thank you for the warning, sir." After thinking it over, the young man decisively abandoned his previous plan. "May I ask who you are?"
Just as the middle-aged man had said, he had indeed only been wandering around Twilight Street for a few days. He happened to lack a way to learn about the place, so he wanted to build a good relationship with the man.
"You can call me Brother Dog." The middle-aged man smiled and said meaningfully, "My occupation—well, I'm probably a police officer."
The young man's expression instantly became colorful.
If I'd insisted on going after him just now, were you planning to put me in cuffs?
Ai Yue had no idea that someone else had once again taken him for a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Even if he had known, he would not have cared.
Just as Brother Dog had said, he dared to flaunt himself in public because he naturally had something to rely on.
For example, the two stun guns hidden beneath his coat, as well as the self-triggering miniature shield generator clipped to his belt.
Ai Yue had now returned home, only to discover an uninvited guest sprawled across his sofa.
"Brother Yue, you're back!" A slender girl with short brownish-yellow hair raised her head from the sofa, her face shining with a brilliant smile. "Did you go be a fool again?"
She glanced at the things in Ai Yue's hands and immediately knew where he had been. After all, the man in front of her rarely left the house.
Everyone on Twilight Street knew that Ai Yue used precious food to buy junk. Behind his back, they all called him "the fool." However, the only person who dared use that term to his face was the girl before him.
"I told you, everything I bought is useful, Pardofelis." Ai Yue was not surprised by the girl's arrival. The security measures in his home could stop plenty of ill-intentioned thugs, but they absolutely could not stop the elusive "Robin Hood of Twilight Street."
Besides, he had never planned to stop her.
"Can anything be more useful than gold?" Pardofelis rolled over on the sofa and stretched. "You'd rather trade canned food for half a chair than exchange it for a gold bar. That's just bizarre!"
"That isn't bizarre. It's because I've already used up all of gold's utility value." Ai Yue put down his things, then patted the girl's leg, signaling for her to make room. "Did you get any good stuff?"
Pardofelis, the greatest cat burglar on Twilight Street, made every security measure seem useless. Breaking into a rich man's treasure room was easier for her than returning home, so she jokingly called her activities "restocking."
As Pardofelis's biggest partner, Ai Yue enjoyed the right of first refusal every time she restocked.
"Hehe, of course!" Pardofelis mysteriously opened her waist pouch. "You remember that bald, fat guy who lives on Muddy Avenue, right? He just got another batch of collectibles!"
The fat bald man on Muddy Avenue was a gemstone collector. Even in times like these, he never forgot his hobby. He was a "supplier" whom both Pardofelis and Ai Yue liked very much.
For Pardofelis, gemstones were easy to carry and highly valuable. For Ai Yue, gemstones were also a category likely to produce rare items.
As Pardofelis placed the things from her waist pouch on the coffee table, several gemstones of different colors and shapes appeared before Ai Yue.
"These are all very precious gemstones, especially this one!" Pardofelis picked up a pale-purple gemstone. "That fat guy said it was called Taf—Taf something..."
"Tafite Stone." Ai Yue took the gemstone from her hand and nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad. This is good stuff."
"You recognize it, Brother Yue?" Pardofelis had thought she could show off a little, but once again, she ended in failure. "How do you know everything?"
The fat man had said it was an extremely rare gemstone, and she had thought that, this time, Ai Yue would finally not recognize it.
Ai Yue merely smiled faintly. "I don't know either, but it's written on it."
In his field of vision, the several gemstones were covered by faint blue screens of light displaying information only Ai Yue could see.
Tafite Stone (Rare): Usable value 100%. Investing in the current R&D project "Spacetime Fracture Technology" can provide an additional 50% boost to research progress. Chapter Two: The Cheater from Beyond the World It was clear that the fat bald man's new collectibles really had something to them. The several gemstones Pardofelis had obtained were all things Ai Yue could use. "I'll take all five." Ai Yue casually stuffed the precious gemstones into his pocket. "Same price as always: one box of canned food per gemstone?" "Love you, Brother Yue! I knew you were the best!" Hearing that he wanted them all, Pardofelis was overjoyed. She flipped off the sofa. "As for the canned food, I'll come get it tonight. It's too conspicuous right now." Although gemstones were more valuable than gold, their poor liquidity meant black-market merchants would drive the price down ruthlessly. One gemstone could not even be exchanged for half a box of canned food, let alone a full box. Only Ai Yue could offer this price. And it was not only gemstones. Whenever Ai Yue wanted to buy something, he would purchase it at a very generous price without ever haggling. As a result, Pardofelis had long since developed the habit of selling everything to Ai Yue first after restocking. Of course, she did not know that Ai Yue was doing this deliberately. His goal was to raise her favorability toward him. "By the way, Brother Yue..." After her excitement faded, Pardofelis remembered something else. She gave Ai Yue an ingratiating smile. "Have you invented any new miraculous tools lately? If you have, don't forget me!" Although it was difficult to tell from his appearance, Ai Yue was actually a "scientist" who could invent all kinds of strange and unusual things. "Soon." Ai Yue glanced at the air beside him and spoke casually. "Wait another two days." "Okay, okay!" Pardofelis nodded repeatedly. "Then I'll be going. I won't disturb you when I come move the stuff tonight!" As Ai Yue's biggest supplier, Pardofelis could not only trade with him face-to-face. She also had permission to enter and leave Ai Yue's storage room at will. Only after Pardofelis left did Ai Yue carry the junk he had bought from the market into the innermost room. A sign reading "Laboratory" hung on the door. Even Pardofelis, who could freely enter and leave Ai Yue's home, was forbidden from entering. In the girl's imagination, the room was surely packed with all kinds of instruments and tools. In reality, however, it was completely empty. That was because Ai Yue conducted research not with instruments and equipment, but with a cheat. As a transmigrator, his cheat was the foundation that allowed Ai Yue to establish himself in this chaotic world. After locking the door from the inside, Ai Yue finally sat down and placed the half wooden chair on the table. In his field of vision, special information appeared above the wooden chair.
Maple (Common): Usable value 100%.
Welcome back to the Hand-Crafted Research System. Would you like to activate the unfinished research project?
As the prompt appeared in Ai Yue's mind, a screen of light visible only to him appeared before him. Based on his thoughts, the screen displayed the unfinished research project, "Spacetime Fracture System." Although the Hand-Crafted Research System was not as convenient as those cheats that allowed one to become stronger simply by adding points mindlessly, it truly lived up to its name: as long as one had hands, one could conduct research. As long as materials with usable value were placed into the system, the research progress of a project could be increased. Once the project was successfully researched, Ai Yue would learn everything about it. However, it was important to note that although everything in the world possessed usable value, once a material's usable value had been completely exhausted, it could no longer advance research progress. For example, the maple chair before Ai Yue: once its usable value was used up, maple would become meaningless to him. Even if another hundred identical chairs were placed before him, he would not spare them a glance. This was also why he had told Pardofelis that gold was useless. However, through his research into the system, Ai Yue discovered that the system's assessment of usable value was very lenient. If a new object could be made from a material whose usable value had been exhausted, that new object would once again possess usable value. For example, if Ai Yue first exhausted the usable values of copper and tin, then smelted them into bronze, or a copper-tin alloy, the copper-tin alloy would possess its own usable value as well. But now was not the time to dwell on these matters. Ai Yue gathered his wandering thoughts and refocused on the research project before him.
Spacetime Fracture Technology: Total progress 89.1%.
Basic principle analysis: Complete.
Basic structural design: Complete.
Basic material screening: Complete.
Prototype framework construction: 43.6%.
No matter how many times he browsed the system, Ai Yue could not help sighing. This damn system was truly simple and brutal. Technology that would normally require a long time and vast amounts of manpower and resources to explore and study bit by bit, through repeated testing and iterative updates, was divided into only four parts by the system. To complete it, he only needed to find some wood, stone, metal, and other materials and stuff them inside. If this thing were made public, Ai Yue had no idea how many people would vomit blood three times and drop dead on the spot. For the sake of everyone else's physical and mental health, he absolutely could not reveal the system's existence. Thinking of how many innocent lives he had saved, Ai Yue could not help feeling proud of himself. After reopening the research project, Ai Yue directly invested all of the maple's usable value into it. Soon, half of the wooden chair's leg transformed into countless points of light and dissipated into the air, while the progress of "Prototype Framework Construction" rose by 5%. To be honest, Ai Yue could not imagine how half a chair leg could possibly be useful in researching Spacetime Fracture Technology. But he quickly abandoned this pointless line of thought and began stuffing the second item into the system. In just two short minutes, the items Ai Yue had bought from the market that day had been drained of their usable value and completely reduced to waste. The progress of Prototype Framework Construction had risen to 85.4%. However, Ai Yue did not simply throw them aside. Instead, he continued controlling the system and letting it devour the objects. Although stuffing them all into the system could not advance the research progress by even one percent, it could completely break them down, saving Ai Yue the trouble of dealing with the garbage. Next came the main event. Ai Yue took the Tafite Stone from his pocket and placed it on the table. His expression also became solemn. As one of the most precious gemstones in the world, the word "Rare" after Tafite Stone proved that the system acknowledged its value. The greatest difference between rare materials and ordinary ones was that rare materials possessed special effects of their own. For example, Tafite Stone could contribute 150% research progress to the development of Spacetime Fracture Technology. If a material of the same quality could advance it by 10%, Tafite Stone could advance it by 15%. Whether he could complete the project today depended entirely on the Tafite Stone. *It was brought back by the lucky kitty, after all. Don't disappoint me.* Chapter Three: Herrscher of the End: Wait, Am I Fighting Ultraman? Although he knew his actions would not interfere with the system's operation, Ai Yue still could not help holding his breath when he placed the Tafite Stone into the system. The next second, as half of the Tafite Stone's body transformed into points of light and disappeared, the progress of Prototype Framework Construction was completed.
Spacetime Fracture Technology successfully researched.
Please enter the Construction System to manufacture the prototype.
Ai Yue glanced at the Tafite Stone on the table and discovered that the gemstone still had 47% of its usable value remaining. It truly lived up to its rare quality. Following the system's prompt, a flood of complicated knowledge surged into Ai Yue's mind, while the system interface before him was gradually replaced by a blank expanse. Ai Yue's system cheat was actually divided into two parts. Climbing the technology tree by piling up materials was only one half. He called the other half alchemy. In other words, the so-called "Construction System." As Ai Yue conceived the design in his mind, a fingerless glove was gradually outlined on the blank interface before him. Most of the glove was covered in metal, making it look somewhat heavy. A circular button was set slightly below the center of the palm, allowing the user to activate it with one hand.
Spacetime Distortion Generator (Prototype) completed. ```
Following the system's prompt, the fingerless glove gradually became tangible. It broke free of the screen of light before Ai Yue and fell onto the table with a heavy thud.
The system did not require any materials when manufacturing a prototype. It was as if the materials previously used to advance the research progress had been used here instead.
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