Basic Shooting: Hell's Curse

Washing up, registering, getting a haircut, changing clothes, then eating.

It was during registration, when Rick's name was entered into the records, that Yang Yunzhi heard another ding.

"Congratulations on becoming a Private Third Class. You have received the basic rewards: 20 Doriki Value and the skill [Basic Shooting]."

"You have gained one lottery draw. Would you like to draw?"

Yang Yunzhi felt his entire body tremble, followed by a warm current coursing through him.

He touched his arm and felt that his muscles seemed much firmer.

At the same time, a wealth of shooting knowledge appeared in his mind, including aiming techniques, firing techniques, ballistics, lead calculations, wind speed calculations, and more.

"So this is a system reward?" Yang Yunzhi was immediately delighted.

A regular Marine with a gun only had a combat power of 10, while his 20 Doriki did not even include a weapon.

His original Doriki Value had probably been around 4, far below that of an ordinary person, but it had suddenly risen to 20.

In other words, his combat strength had increased fivefold in an instant!

On top of that, the skill [Basic Shooting] gave him not only shooting knowledge, but also the corresponding muscle memory.

He was now confident that if given a gun, he could hit every shot within fifty meters.

Anything farther than that was beyond him. That was the limit of the basics.

However, shooting did not only include firearms.

Throwing, archery, and other subjects related to shooting were all included within [Basic Shooting].

"Since there's Basic, there should be Intermediate and Advanced too. Maybe I can become a super sniper someday!" Since Yang Yunzhi had transmigrated here, he was naturally quite interested in firearms.

After experiencing the system rewards, Yang Yunzhi checked his three newbie rewards again.

His mental storage space had changed from one cubic meter to two cubic meters.

He did not know whether it doubled with every level or simply increased by one cubic meter per level.

The map range had also changed from a hundred-meter radius to a two-hundred-meter radius.

As for the Personal AI, Little Bean, he could not see any changes from its appearance.

"Little Bean, did you change at all?" Since he could not tell, Yang Yunzhi simply asked.

"I-I don't know!" Little Bean replied.

"I know!" Although Little Bean did not know, Yang Yunzhi could sense it. The mechanical quality in Little Bean's voice had diminished somewhat, replaced by a touch more humanity.

Clearly, this was a sign of increased processing power.

With that, Yang Yunzhi understood Little Bean's upgrade path.

It would probably evolve from AI into super AI, then into artificial intelligence?

"Oh right, there's still one lottery draw. I thought I'd have to wait until I was promoted to Private Second Class. I didn't expect going from civilian to Private Third Class counted as a promotion too?"

Yang Yunzhi muttered, "Draw!"

Then he felt his body shake, and Little Bean's voice rang out. "Congratulations, Master. You have drawn the passive skill: Hell's Curse.

Hell's Curse: Every living being you kill has a chance to drop a soul. Ordinary living beings have a 50% drop rate, while elite-grade and above living beings are guaranteed to drop one.

Each soul grants you 0.75 armor and 0.75 ability power.

"Holy shit, Thresh's passive!"

You could even draw something like this?

Then if I draw Veigar's passive, Nasus's Q, and Sion's W, wouldn't that be insane?

"Master, I have compiled your personal information. Would you like to view it?" Little Bean said.

"Let's see it!"

A panel immediately appeared before his eyes.

[Yang Yunzhi]

[Age]: 18

[Doriki]: 20

[Skills]: Hell's Curse (Passive), [Basic Shooting]

[Newbie Rewards]: Space (2 cubic meters), Mind Map (200-meter radius), Personal AI (Little Bean).

Mm, the panel was simple, and there were very few skills.

However, Yang Yunzhi had read plenty of novels in his previous life. He knew that panels always had little on them in the early stages and much more later on.

By the later stages, sometimes even several thousand words would not be enough to list everything, so he was in no hurry. He could take it slow.

After changing clothes, Yang Yunzhi followed Ryan to the training ground.

When Hina saw him, her eyes first lit up. He had looked skinny before, but once he put on a Marine uniform, he really did look somewhat like a Marine.

Then she impatiently assigned him a task. "Sit here and help me register everyone's name, age, and number of laps. I'm taking the recruits out for training. Oh, right, what's your name?"

"Rick!"

"Rick, right? Every day when you report for work, you need to come to me and receive your assignment. Before getting off work, you need to report your work to me as well! Let's set the times at nine in the morning and five in the afternoon. I'll also arrange an office for you next to mine. If it isn't a task that requires you to go out, stay in your office. I expect you to be available whenever I call! Do you understand?"

Yang Yunzhi immediately nodded. "Understood!"

Wasn't this just being a secretary?

Still, a secretary was fine. Secretaries got promoted quickly, and it was safe!

He just wondered whether Hina would make a move on her secretary.

If she really did, should I resist or not?

"Alright, work here for now. I'll come back later and see how you've done!" Hina stepped aside, then directed the seven or eight Marines who had been gathered around her. "Come with me. I'll take you to train!"

Yang Yunzhi sat down in the chair. Perhaps because Hina had just left, it still retained some warmth.

But Yang Yunzhi did not dare let his thoughts wander. He began working diligently.

Then he discovered that the task was extremely simple and did not require diligence at all. There were not many people coming to enlist, and sometimes not even one person showed up in an hour.

All he had to do was monitor how many laps the applicants ran. One lap took anywhere from three to five minutes, and using tally marks, there was no way he could count wrong.

He did not even need to think. As long as he kept his eyes open, his AI would handle everything.

"Looks like you're doing quite well?" Two hours later, Hina returned covered in fragrant sweat. Seeing that Yang Yunzhi had successfully registered two names, she praised him.

Yang Yunzhi blushed slightly from the praise. Mainly because the work was simply too easy.

It was like solving one plus one equals two, only for someone beside you to praise you for doing it well.

"Not bad, not bad. It isn't difficult!" Yang Yunzhi said modestly.

Hina nodded. The work truly was not difficult, but aside from the two of them, no one else could do it, because the other soldiers were genuinely illiterate!

"Are we recruiting soldiers now?" Seeing that Hina did not seem to be leaving anytime soon, Yang Yunzhi asked curiously.

Logically, one should not casually ask questions in a military camp, but Yang Yunzhi could tell that this camp did not seem very formal. Hina probably would not care that much.

"Of course!" Hina nodded. "I only took office two months ago, and then I discovered that the soldiers here had completely rotted away. Slacking off, refusing to catch pirates, and not training were minor issues. Some people were actually selling military weapons, while others had connections with pirates outside!"

"I spent two months cleaning house and barely managed to remove the problematic Marines, but there aren't many useful people left. We can only recruit new ones. But as you can see, recruiting isn't easy. It's been three days since we started, and we've only recruited eleven people!"

"How are you recruiting?" Yang Yunzhi asked.

"By posting notices at the entrance!" Hina replied.

Yang Yunzhi immediately covered his face. "That's it? Nothing else?"

"What else can we do?" Hina asked in return.

"No, weren't you a graduate of the Marine Elite School? Don't you know how to recruit soldiers?"

"The Elite School doesn't teach that!" Hina spread her hands. The Marine Elite School taught Six Powers, swordsmanship, Devil Fruit development, and navigation. Why would it teach such things?

Then she looked at Yang Yunzhi again. "Ah, I forgot about you. You've studied before. Hurry and tell me, what can we do to quickly recruit a large number of soldiers?"

Yang Yunzhi immediately sighed. The Marines in this world really were pitifully naive!

No wonder they could be manipulated so easily by the Five Elders and even have their funding restricted!

You're the military, for crying out loud. How could you possibly lack money?

"Recruiting is simple!" Yang Yunzhi said. "Doesn't West Blue have a weekly newspaper? We can run an advertisement in it!"

"Huh?" Hina was stunned at first. "That's possible?"

But she quickly shook her head. "No, Base 36 doesn't have much funding. How could we afford to advertise in a newspaper?"

"But we're the Marines. It's a public service advertisement, not something we're using to make money. How could they have the nerve to charge us?" Yang Yunzhi spread his hands. "If they insist on charging us, we'll accuse West Blue Weekly of leaking Marine military secrets, then shut down their newspaper office!"

Hina rolled her eyes. "Your methods are way too forceful, and they haven't done anything like that!"

"But the public reported them, so we have to investigate, right? Then we investigate for three to five months. If they really didn't leak anything, we can just apologize!" Yang Yunzhi explained.

Hina froze. "We can do that?"

"Of course, and it's perfectly legal!" Yang Yunzhi said with a smile.

As the saying went, commoners did not fight officials.

Because if an official wanted to make trouble for a commoner, there was always a way.

"Of course, shutting down their newspaper isn't our real intention. We just want them to publish an advertisement for free. As long as we appeal to their emotions and reason with them, I'm sure they'll understand!"

Hina nodded. She was not stupid. She simply had not encountered many things before, but once Yang Yunzhi explained it, she understood immediately.

She was not rigid either. This might sound like a threat, but if it could quickly recruit soldiers, save a great deal of time, and not violate any rules, then why not do it?

"Let's go!" Hina slapped Yang Yunzhi on the shoulder.

"Where to?"

"To contact the newspaper!" Hina said hurriedly. "No time to waste. We need to act quickly!"

"What about these people on the training ground?"

"Haven't they already run five laps? They've passed, so there's no need to watch them!"

She knew how powerful newspapers were. Base 36 only had an authorized strength of 350 people. Once the paper published the advertisement, they could easily fill the ranks.

So why waste time here?