Ji Guanli never met the fourth prince. So, he wondered whether the person sitting before him is the infamous leader of WEB, the strongest spy network in the Empire.
Guanli's question brought back Mark to reality. The latter answered, "who am I is of no importance to you. But then again, I was actually quite foolish to discuss the future with you, which you don't have anyway. With such meager strength, your clan is also doomed. So, how about we talk about something else?
Tell me, what do they teach in your academy?"
"Just what in the hell do you want?" Ji Guanli roared at him in frustration before started coughing a bit. It was clear how massive the difference is between Mark and Alina's interrogation.
The teenager doesn't even have the energy to argue much less fight. For the first time, he regretted, taking the advancement pill. How could he have expected that he will run into trouble even with his elite guards?
Now that he got what he wanted, Mark felt that he had no use of him, any longer and asked Alina to knock him out again for a couple of hours.
Later, Ji Guanli woke up again and was offered food for dinner, and then, was tied his limbs with a rope.
The next day morning, Mark woke up from sleep. As soon as he opened his eyes, they met with another pair of eyes. It was Alina. She greeted with a smile, "Good morning, Big Brother."
He was in a crouching position in the front chamber of the battle tank. His head was in Alina's lap. The Android Assistant doesn't need sleep or feel any back pain even if she sat in the same position for years. To pass the time all night long, she read Journey to the West at a slow pace.
Meanwhile, the heir of Ji Clan was imprisoned in a panzer, sleeping in a sitting position. In the middle of the night, after the aftereffects of the pill disappeared, the teenager tried to escape but with Alina keeping an eye on the panzer every moment, he was caught by her.
She pierced his body lightly with the daggers and used the Protos energy in her daggers to suppress his ether energy. All the night, the tips of those daggers were embedded in both of his thighs, effectively paralyzing his body.
Upon waking up, Mark stepped outside of the tank and had brushing, followed by breakfast, early at 5 o'clock, then, finally sitting on a flat rock in a lotus position.
"Open Inventory."
He took out the black pills from the inventory and swallowed them one after another.
*Ding! Your intelligence is increased by 0.1 points.
*Ding! Your intelligence is increased by 0.1 points.
.
.
.
*Ding! Your intelligence is increased by 0.1 points.
*Ding! Your intelligence is increased by 0.3 points.
*Ding! Your intelligence is increased by 0.3 points.
*Ding! Your intelligence stat has crossed 5. Proceed to breakthrough?
"Yes, proceed."
*Ding! Congratulations, you successfully broke through to rank-5.
*Ding! You completed the main quest-II. You received 8000 credits as a reward.
*Ding! You received a new summon, Lightning Wolf.
*Ding! You received a new summon, Tundra Bear.
*Ding! Your share in the purchases of system-created weapons was increased from 50% to 60%.
*Ding! You unlocked a new function, Factory. Check the Character for details.
*Ding! You received a beginner's package. Check out the inventory.
*Ding! You received a new main quest.
*Ding! Your bloodline skill, Absolute Freezing has been upgraded.
*Ding! Your bloodline skill, Ice bolt has been upgraded.
**
Absolute Freezing: Freeze your surroundings for 120 seconds. Range: 200 meters. Cost: 10000 ether points, CD: 30 minutes.
Ice bolt: Conjure any number of ice spears with your ether energy to attack your enemies from far away with each spear containing 100% of your magic power (Int). Range: 200 meters. Cost: 20% ether energy. CD: 0 seconds.
**
*Ding! You received a new main quest. Check the Quest list for the details.
Main Quest II: Make a breakthrough to rank-6.
Reward: 16000 credits
Main Quest III: Make your own weapon for the first time.
Condition: Need to score at least 7 when being evaluated by the system.
Reward: Assistant Robot (rank-1)
*****
"No fucking shit… making own weapon? An assistant robot?" Mark's eyes widened. He only wanted to increase his magic strength (int) so that he can eradicate the legendary realm beast king but he didn't expect another reward like this.
"Maybe, it's due to 6 points of luck?" He couldn't help but wonder. Ever since he purchased the ring of luck and slowly came out of unlucky status, everything is going for him too well. In fact, the progress was too fast, one should say.
He didn't waste any time opening the character menu and clicking on the factory. A new holographic screen appeared before him with details.
Mark's Factory
Level: 1
Available machines: A drill press (1), a welder (1), a milling machine (1), and a lathe (1).
Available time: 30 minutes
Cool down: 24 hours.
<<< Go >>>
"30 minutes, huh. Well, something is better than nothing. Let's see how it looks like."
He clicked on Go.
*Ding! Your consciousness is being teleported to the Factory. Prepare yourself.
Mark was still sitting on a rock but his soul appeared somewhere else in a small chamber with machines before him. There was a robot standing before him.
Unlike the Androids, it was a normal robot but with A.I. software.
Mark inspected it.
Robot-1
Rank: 1
Type: Support
Description: An assistant robot that will help the host to make the weapons.
Mark sighed in relief, "I thought I have to do all the work. Thankfully, the system took care of that issue. After all, I'm a weapon designer, not a gunsmith. Wait for a second, what about the materials? Do I need to buy them from the market?"
*Ding! Open the beginner's package.
"Ah, I almost forgot about it," Mark remembered the reward and opened the inventory, clicking on the beginner's package.
*Ding! You received a 10 kg slab of stainless steel, 10 kg slab of iron, 10kg slab of aluminum alloy, 1 kg slab of titanium, and 1kg of smokeless powder.
According to the images, all of them looked like they were perfectly refined.
"Hmm, it's cool and all but they won't be enough. I still need to care about other things like rubber grip and recoil springs. Maybe, I need to research the metals. There are various metals that I don't know or maybe, they were just called with different names. I need to gather information and make contacts with the dealers who can provide me with those.
Okay, I have spent enough time. Let's return. We'll get to this weapon-making after returning to the store. After all, I finally got the opportunity to bring out my knowledge into the real world. I shouldn't be thinking of some ordinary handgun at all."
After returning to reality, Mark opened his eyes and started absorbing the ether crystals until he reached 2000 ether points before he got into the battle tank.
The Panzer was also dismissed and Ji Guanli was brought back to the tank. Alina sit in the middle and Mark started the vehicle, before driving the vehicle towards the east.
Their next destination is an infamous dungeon that hasn't been cleared for a decade.
