The Almighty Ring

After the war was over, Jiang Fei headed back to King Elric to submit the quest and get his reward. However, before he could even exit the nest, the system logged him out of the game.

He was too engrossed in killing the Nagas that he had forgotten to check the system time.

Jiang Fei woke up and found himself asleep on the captain’s chair. Besides his slow breathing, there was silence in the air. Except for the almost inaudible sound of electronic buzzing, Jiang Fei could not hear anything else. Although it had been a long night, 0541 was still syncing with the Data Center of the ship.

Although 0541 was not done with its task at hand, it was still able to finish concocting the Bio-Potion that Jiang Fei had requested.

“Let the pain come! At least, I’m prepared for it!” cried Jiang Fei. He took the potion and gulped down the entire bottle, preparing for the worst to come. As soon as he had swallowed the entire content of the bottle, he quickly lay down on the cold hard floor of the ship and braced himself for an intense session of excruciating pain.

The pain only kicked in hard a few seconds later.

“Bring it! URGHHH!”

“WOOOAHH! SHOW ME WHAT’CHU GOT!”

“Owww! Oupfff! Urghhhh! It’s too much!”

…

The entire floor was filled with pools of Jiang Fei’s sweat. Even though becoming stronger with a sip of a potion was nice, the pain he had to bear had always made him question his life decisions.

There was no light at the bottom of the sea and Jiang Fei could not tell just how long had he been tortured. By the time he could muster enough strength to resist the pain, he realized that the hellish moment was over. He struggled to get himself up but eventually made his way to the captain’s seat.

The pain he felt for this session was far greater than from all the previous potions combined. Although he was mentally prepared for this, he had greatly underestimated what pain could do to him.

After half an hour of panting and resting, Jiang Fei was finally able to regulate his breathing. When he tried to stand up, he felt a powerful pang in his legs, stomach, arms, and head. He fell back to the seat immediately.

“Congratulations, Captain! You have become so much stronger!” said 0541. It seemed that 0541 was finally done with the syncing.

“Sometimes… I really do wonder if you are trying to kill me…” said Jiang Fei as he fumbled with his words. He was too weak then.

“Congratulations, Captain! It seems that the energy level in you have reached the standard beginner Level 4 Metahuman level!” said 0541.

“Hm. So it seems,” said Jiang Fei. Although he was too weak to move, he could at least feel the flow of energy inside him. Previously, the energy inside him felt like it was flowing without a specific form. Now, he could feel the energy was condensed to liquid form. If he further condensed the energy inside him, he could manifest it into strength at least ten times stronger than before.

“How did the syncing go?” Asked Jiang Fei. As he was too weak to do anything, Jiang Fei checked on 0541 instead.

“Besides a few data that was lost with other parts of the ship, I am basically restored to the factory default settings. As long as I have enough power, I am nine times stronger than I was before,” said 0541.

“Hm. So, could you craft me the perfect martial skill?” Asked Jiang Fei. He did not forget that since it was his main goal.

“Yes,” said 0541 and it quickly got to work. Right before it started to work on the martial skill, 0541 chimed in and asked, “Calculations would not consume too much energy but it will take at least four hours to complete. However, to ensure calculation efficiency with power consumption, I am unable to provide any other functions during the operation. Do you still wish to continue?”

“Yes please,” said Jiang Fei. With that, 0541 went silent and the electronics started to buzz.

Jiang Fei had allowed 0541 to go uninterrupted as Jiang Fei was unable to do anything at the moment. He could use the time to recuperate while 0541 did its thing.

Jiang Fei took out some food and water and rested on the captain’s seat.

Four hours was not too long as Jiang Fei even napped for a little while after he had his meal. By the time 0541 had completed the calculations, it woke Jiang Fei from his nap. Even though he was still slightly sleepy, his body had fully recovered.

“Captain, I am now projecting the martial skill. Please observe,” said 0541 as it projected a hologram in front of Jiang Fei.

“Huh? How am I supposed to learn this?”

0541’s martial skill was not a book but a holographic stick figure that moved around.

“Using words or written form is not an inefficient method to learn. There are times that the slightest misinterpretation would cause one to learn the wrong move. Misunderstanding of the context might even cause one to lose his mind during practice. I am now only demonstrating the moves, I will also imprint the knowledge directly onto your mind.”

“What did you just say? Imprinting knowledge?” Jiang Fei was shocked.

“Correct. Knowledge Imprinting is a technology that is used during the absence of a teacher during class. Students on planet Namek gained knowledge of the basics through this method. However, imprinting knowledge would be useless without actual usage of the knowledge through physical use. One must recall the information that they learn and practice it. It is similar to what humans called homework,” said 0541. When 0541 said it had gained more function after syncing with the Data Center, Jiang Fei had not expected 0541 to have a function like this!

“This is convenient! Could you also give me the knowledge of language? I would like to learn a few of the most commonly used language!” said Jiang Fei. Jiang Fei had a good memory but learning language was something that took too much time. If 0541 could directly imprint that knowledge onto his brain, he would the ability to understand and speak several languages easily! Unlike martial skills, language was just information that he could immediately use since it did not require Jiang Fei to practice. All he needed to do was to match the correct context with the foreign word and Jiang Fei would be able to converse with other people even if it was only a simple conversation.

“Alright,” said 0541. As soon as it said that, a blue light beamed on Jiang Fei’s forehead. After a while, Jiang Fei could feel a large amount of information being poured into his mind. After the beam was turned off, Jiang Fei was assaulted by a tremendous pain in his head.

“Urgh…”

“Captain, adjusting to the information requires some time. Your brain is not accustomed to this method of imprinting. It will take several hours for your mind to recover,” said 0541.

“Alright. You could have warned me beforehand…”

Jiang Fei could not think straight. He tried to clear his mind but new information kept on pouring in one after another. Jiang Fei struggled again and sat down on the captain seat. He closed his eyes and slowly digested all the new information that was swirling around chaotically in his mind.

After some time, Jiang Fei had sorted out the information. He had learned eight new languages as well as the martial skill that was included during the imprinting. Even though he knew the martial skills, it was hard for him to actually fetch them out of his mind to use it physically. He quickly understood what 0541 had explained earlier about “homework”. Alas, Jiang Fei’s head was still throbbing and he decided to close his eyes and sort all of the new information before moving around again.

As the outside light could not reach the bottom of the sea, Jiang Fei could not tell how long he had taken to adjust himself. By the time he opened his eyes and the throbbing pain in his head had subsided a little, he had fully mastered the eight languages and even the martial skill.

“0541, what is the name of the martial skill?’

“I may have the ability to calculate martial moves, but I lack the creativity to give it a name. You should try and give it a name!” said 0541. Jiang Fei subtly felt that 0541’s personality had improved when he first entered the Bridge but after 0541 had synced with the Data Center, Jiang Fei could tell that 0541’s personality had really improved.

“A name…” Jiang Fei went quiet for a bit.

“What about Origin Force?” said Jiang Fei as he had named the most powerful martial skill, possibly in the entire universe.