Time went by day after day, and more than a month passed in the blink of an eye.
For that entire month, Li Si had barely logged off. His days had settled into a fixed routine.
Classroom—library—home, day after day without interruption.
Thanks to his electives, his schedule had gone from fewer than four classes to being packed full. Even Saturdays and Sundays were no exception. His daily quests had become a steady source of two hundred points of general experience.
Those two hundred points of general experience gave him nearly three and a half hours of accelerated study time. Li Si hadn't wasted a second of it. He had worked through almost every book that interested him in the Midtown School of Science and Technology library.
All that hard work had paid off handsomely.
----Knowledge----
Mechanical Knowledge LV4: (4780/10000)
Biochemical Knowledge LV2: (300/1000)
Cyber Knowledge LV3: (180/5000)
Energy Dynamics Knowledge LV2: (850/1000)
Physics Knowledge LV2: (650/1000)
Materials Knowledge LV1 (470/500)
Linguistic Knowledge LV2: (380/1000)
Mathematical Knowledge LV2: (530/1000)
All eight common fields of knowledge had been unlocked.
The targeted experience he earned from reading, along with almost all the general experience he'd accumulated over the past month and a half, had gone into Mechanical Knowledge. It had pushed the field all the way to LV4. The bonuses had grown even more impressive, and he had also built up a deep foundation in mechanical engineering.
He hadn't neglected his other fields, either. Reading in his spare time and targeted experience from classes had pushed most of them to LV2. Cyber Knowledge, which he'd ranked as his second priority, had even reached LV3 after he spent a small amount of general experience on it.
Compared with his main focus, Mechanical Knowledge, those level-one and level-two fields were still significant weak spots. But at this stage, they were more than enough.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Li Si was a walking library. Especially in mechanics and networking, he knew enough to walk into a university and pass for an academic professor.
But while his studies had brought him impressive results, his social life had gone in the opposite direction.
He'd spent more than a month so engrossed in studying that he couldn't pull himself away. His relationship with Gwen had remained at the ordinary-friends stage. They greeted each other when they met, and sometimes chatted for a bit if they ran into each other at the library.
As for his other classmates, he'd practically forgotten they existed. Other than getting along reasonably well with Peter Parker, he'd barely spoken two words to anyone else all month. He was even more invisible than Peter. If he hadn't shown up for class every day, the rest of the class might have forgotten he was there.
And this would probably continue for a while.
Li Si felt he had built up enough of a foundation, and was ready to begin his first Research and Development project: building a Gundam—no, a Transformer.
It might sound like a wild idea, but Li Si had carefully considered whether it was feasible. He couldn't build a high-precision Mark Armor like Iron Man's, but a large robot that didn't require such precise components would be no problem at all.
For players who hadn't unlocked full-immersion virtual mode, it was impossible to combine blueprints without the Research and Development skill that came with the Scientist Template. But for him, that skill wasn't essential.
In full-immersion virtual mode, the Research and Development skill simply helped him enter a more focused state, making it easier to integrate what he'd learned. Without it, the work would be a little more troublesome and a little less efficient, that was all.
In fact, building a robot like a Transformer wasn't as hard as it sounded. At least, not for him.
The modern technological age was all about combining resources. Just look at the technology products on the market. Which manufacturer made every component themselves?
The clearest example was a cell phone.
Almost no phone manufacturer made its own components. Some didn't even manufacture the phones themselves. They provided an idea, an exterior design, and an internal layout that brought together parts from various suppliers. Even the assembly process was outsourced.
The challenges of building a Transformer were similar to designing a phone: the exterior and structural design, the power source, the mechanical limbs, and the core control program.
Were those difficult?
No!
Even ordinary tech enthusiasts on twenty-first-century Earth could put together a robot that looked the part. The only drawbacks would be its short battery life, stiff movements, subpar materials, and clumsy mechanical arms.
With the knowledge Li Si had accumulated, he could already solve all those problems. And in the Marvel Universe, there were so many high-tech companies that he could get any parts he needed. The materials and components available were incomparably better.
"The main things are the mechanical arms, transformation structure, power source, and control program!"
Sitting at his desk in class, Li Si jotted down his thoughts in his notebook. The sociologist at the front of the room, a charming woman who'd managed to retain her looks, had been completely ignored.
"Robotics are fairly advanced in the real world, too. Some classic structural designs should give me ideas..."
"I can get power technology from the real world as well. A military-grade nuclear battery is out of the question, but an enhanced lithium-ion battery or a Graphene Battery should meet my short-term needs. I can find information on all of those with a search engine..."
"As for the control program, there's no point hoping for strong artificial intelligence. Even Tony Stark's Jarvis isn't at that level. Weak artificial intelligence is practically useless, so there's no need for it..."
"I'll just write a basic operating program for now. If I physically isolate it, there shouldn't be any security issues... I can get this done myself if I put in enough time..."
"The biggest problem is funding..."
Li Si's pen stopped.
He hadn't spent the entire month studying. He'd also used his networking skills to take on quite a few jobs on the dark web, and he'd saved up over a hundred thousand dollars. But that was nowhere near enough to build a robot.
He was building it so he could take part in the Spider-Man storyline, which would be the first to begin. A fight with the Lizard was inevitable, so the materials and mechanical arm components couldn't be too flimsy.
Even if he compromised on strength in other areas, that hundred thousand dollars probably wouldn't be enough to finish the robot. And that was before adding the heavy weapons he planned to install. They would all cost a lot of greenbacks.
"Forget it. Worst case, I'll take on some riskier hacking jobs."
After wrestling with the problem for a while, Li Si set it aside for the moment.
In truth, if he were willing to go all in, his current skills would let him break into bank systems and siphon off quite a bit from dormant and bad-debt accounts.
But anything involving money was simply too dangerous. If one of the many agencies that missed nothing started investigating, it would end badly for him.
After all, many American agencies had deals with tech giants like Stark Industries. Important institutions such as the Department of Defense even had copies of artificial intelligence systems. Tracing him would be all too easy.
And that was without even considering S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. The waters on Marvel Earth ran deep. Even if superhuman combatants hadn't appeared in the current version yet, Li Si still wasn't capable of handling them.
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