Hardcore Benchmarking

A moment later, the iron door at the air-raid shelter entrance slowly opened with a piercing scrape. Behind it stood a giant nearly two and a half meters tall. He wore a simple black shirt and had no mechanical modifications on his body, yet his muscles bulged like balloons. A closer look revealed that the index and middle fingers of both hands each wore a ring-shaped Magic Guide Terminal.

That made Ivette take another look, her brows rising slightly.

Normal people would not need four Magic Guide Terminals unless they had some particular use for them, such as storing magical spell formulas.

The term "Cyber Mage" immediately surfaced in Ivette's mind. Unlike her, a fake Cyber Mage, the man before her was probably the real deal. His path was likely Black Tower Pharmaceuticals' "Active Rune Group," and he might even have used Rune Elixirs that enhanced the body.

Well, strictly speaking, he should count as a Bio Mage or Mutant Mage...

"My humble self is the one in charge here. Brothers on the street call me Welder. What should I call this beautiful mage?" Despite looking rough and fierce, the giant spoke in a rather refined and easygoing manner. He sounded like someone who had received an education.

"Ivette Shien." Ivette gave her name. It was a dream anyway, and a false name at that, so she could not be bothered to make up another.

"Miss Shien, I heard from my men that you wanted to make a deal here?"

"Yes."

"Then please, come in and let's talk."

Ivette gave a calm hum. Though she looked like a beautiful young girl incapable of harming even a chicken, her composed bearing made Welder regard her more highly.

On this planet, strength could be bought with money, but presence and inner depth could only be accumulated over time. This girl was neither arrogant nor fearful, and he could not help wondering about her true age.

She had probably injected a Rune Elixir for Eternal Youth. Her real age might already be forty or fifty... he thought warily.

Following Welder into the air-raid shelter, they passed through a crude underground corridor riddled with bullet marks. As the clamor grew louder, master and disciple caught sight of the underground market.

Scorching gun barrels glowed blue atop the stalls, while the hum of Lightning Blades sliced through the air. They were all obsolete rune weapons, but more than sufficient for ordinary people, with prices ranging from several thousand to several tens of thousands.

In addition, the corners of the hall, filled with vulgar language, housed trades in addictive substances even more dangerous than weapons. Rosaline looked over curiously, only to be met with filthy, covetous stares. She hurriedly put on a stern face and imitated her teacher's indifferent manner.

Welder's "reception room" was an iron cage enclosed by blast-proof steel plates.

After sitting on the sofa inside the cage, Welder ignored the noisy surroundings and silently poured three cups of coffee. He pushed two toward them and said, "Are you two new to Blackwater District?"

White mist curled from the coffee cups, carrying the bitter almond scent of some additive. Ivette signaled Rosaline not to touch it, then nodded slightly. "Yes."

"Then what sort of deal are you looking for?"

"I want to purchase secure new identity ID cards and pirated professional books on rune knowledge." Ivette spoke calmly. "Also, I hope to acquire a stall here to sell some original Restricted Spells, or accept commissions related to Rune Compilation."

"Your order..."

Welder suddenly laughed, as though he had heard something amusing. He lifted his coffee, took a measured sip, and said, "I can get you ID cards, but pirated books?" He licked away the coffee stain at the corner of his mouth and gave a short chuckle. "Last year, a gang secretly printed and sold introductory rune knowledge textbooks from Black Tower Middle School. In less than a month, they all vanished. No one even knows where their bodies are now."

A trace of surprise flashed across Ivette's calm face. From pre-apocalypse knowledge, she knew that the Origin Civilization had been extremely harsh on piracy, but this sounded... far more serious than she had imagined.

Rosaline also asked in surprise, "That serious? Why?"

"Because it infringes on corporate intellectual property. That's how they make money while lying down, so how could they not protect it properly..." As Welder spoke, he noticed Ivette's expression and narrowed his eyes. "Miss Mage, don't tell me you didn't know that?"

Ivette looked at him. There was no emotion in her gaze, still as a dead pool, yet for some reason, Welder felt a chill run through his entire body. His earlier doubts about her identity as a Cyber Mage immediately vanished.

What he did not know was that Ivette was sighing madly inside.

When shopping online last night, she had wanted to buy the patented book Elemental Decay Completion Technology, sold by Ember Trace Chemical Industry, one of the super corporations, to solve her real-world energy storage problem.

Then she saw the price. It was just an e-book, yet it cost 500,000 credits. She had been utterly stunned and instinctively applied the experience from her previous life, wondering whether she could find a pirated copy.

Only now did she learn that the underground black market dared to trade illegal weapons but would not touch pirated books related to rune knowledge. Forced to purchase through legitimate channels, she had no idea how long it would take to save that much money.

"Still, Miss Mage, your goods are quite rare. Perhaps I can offer you some trade opportunities. How about it? Quite a few gangs would be interested."

Welder changed the subject, leaning his upper body forward with a grin. "Everyone knows the commission here is twenty percent. I'll only charge you ten. Fair enough, right? Once I inspect the goods, I'll introduce you to some buyers."

"Fine."

Eager to find an opportunity to make money as soon as possible, Ivette did not care much about the commission. Besides, Welder's discount seemed genuine. In her previous life, e-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD seemed to take around ten percent from ordinary shops anyway.

"What a straightforward lady. I hope we work well together." The smile on Welder's face deepened.

He truly was not lying. Half was half. In his eyes, the connections of a mage were more valuable, especially since she could provide original Restricted Spells and seemed to be highly skilled.

Of course, Welder himself was also a Cyber Mage, but his rune mastery had only just reached the beginner level. Being able to cast someone else's spell formula was already good enough. Asking him to create a spell formula himself was unthinkable. Forget creating one—he did not even dare make minor adjustments, terrified that he might accidentally introduce a bug and blow himself up.

All that could be said was that even among mages, there were differences.

Rune Compilation commissions would not appear out of nowhere. Ivette knew perfectly well that she first needed to produce something substantial to prove her ability.

Therefore, for her first sale, she chose an original Restricted Spell—a term for illegally created spell formulas made privately without official review and registration.

The spell was called "Arcane Wind Blade YH47254." It was the move she had used to kill those three hooligans yesterday. "YH" represented "Ish City Blackwater District," while "47254" was the number of runes. This naming method effectively prevented duplicate names.

"Arcane Wind Blade?" Welder raised his brows and asked skeptically, "It sounds ordinary. What's special about it?"

As he spoke, he led the two of them into an inner room.

This room was slightly larger than the reception room. Its wall paint had peeled away, exposing dark red bricks. An old machine stood in the corner, its yellowed casing looking as though it had been soaked in time for a century.

However, this was not a plastic casing, but a type of Mycelial Plastic—an organic synthetic material invented by Scale Shedding Organism, the company that had developed Magic Light Vine. Its primary material was the secretion of some mana-devouring fungus, and its function was not too different from plastic.

"Nothing particularly special. I just made some optimizations. Its performance should be decent." Ivette's gaze fell on the machine.

A Spell Simulator—a testing machine used to simulate magical effects. It was somewhat like a stress test in the field of magic, capable of assessing a spell formula's performance ratings to the fullest extent possible.

Though she had learned of its existence from professional books at Abyss Base, this was her first time encountering the real thing. Ivette could not help feeling as though she were about to take the college entrance examination.

I've spent centuries playing with rune design, but this is my first time doing hardcore benchmarking. I'm actually a little nervous.

In particular, she had not optimized Arcane Wind Blade as carefully as she had Frost Bullet, Flame Dance, Wind Control, and Wrath of Thunder—the four great pillars of ice, fire, wind, and lightning. Its test result would therefore be somewhat lower.

I'm entirely self-taught and never received systematic training. They won't deduct a huge number of points, will they...? This is in front of my disciple. You piece of junk, don't push me...

She thought this with a blank expression.

"Then, Miss Shien, please inspect the machine first," Welder reminded her.

This was standard procedure to prevent rune array theft: confirming whether "trace-free mode" had been enabled. It was still possible to tamper with it even when enabled, but doing so was extremely difficult and could easily trigger copyright reports. Ordinary gangs did not dare take that risk.

Ivette nodded, placed her hand on the touchpad, and began a comprehensive inspection of the machine's system. Once she confirmed there were no issues, she activated test mode, entered the rune array, and waited for the machine's simulation results.

"It's moving!" Rosaline said in surprise as the machine began to shake. Then a line of text appeared on its screen—

[Rune Quality Test in Progress...]

"Rune Quality? What's that?" Rosaline asked. She could not read it, but perhaps because illiteracy was common here, Welder's machine had voice broadcast enabled.

Before Ivette could answer, Welder smiled and told Rosaline, "It's an indicator used to check how much redundancy a spell formula has."

"Redundancy?"

"That's right. Rune arrangements in magical spell formulas often contain useless 'garbage runes' that affect casting efficiency. For example, a spell that could be cast in three seconds might take three and a half seconds instead."

"The larger the spell formula and the more runes it contains, the more garbage runes it generally has... Rune Quality calculations determine the proportion of those garbage runes, then compare it with spells of similar specifications to produce a quantifiable reference."

"Why would there be garbage runes?" Rosaline asked in confusion.

"There are many reasons." Welder shrugged. "They might be leftovers from repeated modifications during testing. Maybe the compiler was lazy and could not be bothered to optimize them. Some spell formulas even develop problems if you remove the excess parts, so they can only be retained."

"I see..."

"The scoring method is also simple. It calculates the redundancy rate and compares it horizontally against spell formulas of similar specifications. The top five percent are S-rank, the top ten percent are A-rank, the top twenty percent are B-rank, and so on. The worst ten percent are J-rank."

While Welder was explaining, the stress test for the first metric was nearing its end.

A moment later, the test finished, and a large "S" appeared on the screen.

"Whoa, this is my first time hearing an S-rank announcement..."

Startled discussion came from behind them. Ivette glanced over and found several guards peeking in through the doorway to watch the excitement.

Welder was stunned as well.

Rune Quality was the lowest-weighted performance metric in the overall score, but earning an S-rank was still extremely difficult. It meant that the compiler was either an extraordinary master capable of completing Rune Compilation in one smooth flow, or a perfectionist or obsessive-compulsive person willing to spend a great deal of time...

Looking at Ivette's shining silver hair, clean face, and simple black-and-white shut-in-style outfit, Welder thought it over and decided the latter was more likely.