Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 132 - 107. Jian’s Value

Chapter 132: 107. Jian’s Value

"Frost Plated Bone White"

This task, Li Aozi had never heard of anyone triggering it before.

Clearly, this was because his enmity with Frost Plated had become irreconcilable, thus naturally resulting in a ’world task’.

All three rewards were generous, but the difficulty was also plainly evident.

"Frost Plated Bone White..."

Such a cold term, but it seemed not at all incorrect.

Even though the system prompt indicated that once this task was chosen, it would be irreversible—Li Aozi still chose to accept without hesitation.

It was because of the discrimination and persecution experienced in this life, as well as Nomi’s tragic death, including Xeno and the young teens turned into experiments or the countless women like Qiu Ran in the lower strata, and even aspiring individuals like David Lyn and Du Zexin who couldn’t truly change their own fates—the source of all these tragedies was Frost Plated.

Frost Plated was rotten to the core, and only a change from the ground up could truly end the tragedies.

It would be hard, Splendid Story abbreviated was SS level, and in fact, tasks higher than S level were simply not feasible for one person to complete.

Not to mention Settlement Condition C: "Ending the Evil Result"—which required the permanent eradication of Frost Plated and the problems of the Outer World, ensuring on top of that, the people of Frost Plated would not go to extremes.

This involved many problems, the first troublesome factor to consider was the Forged Society, Philoris, and its Pseudo-Human citizens.

Philoris was an external threat, but a Narrative-Level Civilization would not sit by idly; there was no need for him to worry about that for the time being.

But what about the Pseudo-Humans?

Frankly, the biggest threat of the Pseudo-Humans was not the Pseudo-Humans themselves, but rather the panic that the fact of ’the existence of Pseudo-Humans in the world’ could cause people.

The most obvious victim case was Qiu Ran—she clearly wasn’t an Ersha Infected Individual, but upon being told of the infection, she believed it without a doubt, voluntarily left her family, and many Ersha Infected were in the same situation.

Humans are, after all, social animals; once the group acquires a wrong mentality, even if you know it is incorrect, you will be influenced by the group, either not reflecting on your own mistakes or not daring to speak up and silently conforming.

It was the same with Frost Plated: the men were all well aware that women were innately physically less capable than men, but with Frost Plated’s policies, judicial decisions, and personnel use intentionally biased towards women, public opinion naturally tilted towards women, even starting to propose "female superiority", "women are the higher gender", "men carry an original sin, and can only breed violence" and such concepts.

The end result was employers and men being influenced, with men suffering discrimination, and women like Qiu Ran at the bottom of the discrimination chain.

This was also the most direct problem to solve Settlement Condition B.

There were still quite a few ambitious individuals within the David Lyn Faction; Li Aozi believed in this ’last man of Frost Plated’’s political and military abilities—after all, being able to command Frost Plated’s broken army to defeat Sky Ring’s war madman twice was truly no small feat.

The question was, even though David Lyn could take Frost Plated down the right path, or protect the nation’s security—could he completely revert people’s thinking amidst such a media environment?

Even if he could turn them around, would the women who were the beneficiaries agree?

Li Aozi himself knew this all too well.

His previous mother was very enlightened, but when faced with continuing education, she still chose to have Li Aozi give up his studies to let his sister go to college—a dilemma not unlike that of many lower-class families.

These matters, Li Aozi felt, couldn’t be rushed.

They say it takes at least two generations for people’s concepts to change, that is, twenty years.

Twenty years, which is about one or two versions’ time.

In comparison, the real headache was still the Pseudo-Human issue.

Looking at these Settlement Conditions, Li Aozi estimated that A was likely the easiest.

In his previous life, Frost Plated only had a few tens of thousands of players by name, some standing with the original government forces, yet that alone was enough to help David Lyn secure the President’s position for a decade.

Li Aozi thought it through and had an idea.

Since the A test had already started, if he could get in touch with the internal testers of the game, and use some suggestive methods, perhaps he could make these official personnel aware of the importance of the in-game voice channel ahead of time, there might be improvements.

Not to say anything else, but you can never trust a game designer’s abilities; Li Aozi himself was an Ace Bro, while the game designers might not have even logged into the game.

From a player’s perspective, typically only one of the game designer’s mother and brains could exist.

If he did not end Frost Plated’s current dominion, the entire nation, the entire country’s people—at least, Li Aozi himself would face more severe persecution.

Fortunately, he had already thrown away his personal terminal; otherwise, who knows what Frost Plated’s netizens might start doing—either subjecting him to a barrage of messages or escalating to physical confrontations offline.

There was nothing more to say; for a long while to come, Li Aozi’s tasks would all revolve around one point—that was to crush Frost Plated to bits!

"Next, let’s see what rewards Du Meibi’s task has."

[Urgent Event: "Armor Assault" has been completed]

[Assessment]: Thrilling

[Due to your excellent performance, the random reward will change to a five-choice one]

[Awarding reward...]

[Reward Settlement]:

[You have gained 10,000 experience points.]

[You may extract one exquisite skill from ’Professor Anna.’ Please choose one from the following five [Fine Artistry] knowledge options]:

A. "Doctoral Level, Basic Pharmacology" — You will be able to create basic medicinal compounds in a laboratory through formula combinations.

B. "Doctoral Level, Commodity Marketing" — When selling items in bulk, based on your [Intelligence] assessment, you can achieve at least a 10% increase in sales volume.

C. "Professor Level: Pharmacokinetics" — All the medicinal compounds you create will have an instant effect.

D. "Master Degree of Clinical Medicine" — Serves as a credential for an independent clinical physician, increasing your success rate in emergency treatment of critical cases.

E. "Bachelor Degree of Biochemistry" — Your profound understanding of animal, plant, and human biochemical mechanisms will make it easier for you to understand biology and chemistry.

"This Meibei... truly brought bad luck over here."

Li Aozi truly hadn’t expected that, although Professor Anna’s knowledge didn’t reach the level of a Transcendent, she still possessed a dozen or so professor-level foundational knowledge areas.

Out of the five skills, there was only one professor-level, and even bachelor-level knowledge was up for grabs.

"So unlucky!"

Li Aozi took a look and realized that only option A would be useful to him.

He also had a [Craftsman] lifestyle profession, so after choosing A "Doctoral Level, Basic Pharmacology," he dragged the skill under this yet-to-be-activated lifestyle profession.

Being able to create basic medicinal compounds wasn’t too bad; he could sell some in the future. Not only would it enhance his survival capability, but making a bit of money was definitely possible.

After the battle ended, Jian Neriya came out and didn’t comfort Qiu Ran. Instead, she searched the battlefield, picking out some weapons and equipping herself with them.

Li Aozi couldn’t be bothered with this woman, just like Qiu Ran said, she wasn’t a good woman.

Keeping her was purely for maintaining contact with the Rose Army.

However, he had a thought and suddenly realized this woman did have a significant use.

"Qiu Ran, Jian, come with me for a moment."

Li Aozi beckoned them, leading them down the corridor, all the way to the subway station.

The agents had been wiped out, so there were no obstructions along the way. Qiu Ran’s mood improved a lot, possibly because of his recent words and the actions of beheading Anna that made her feel closer to Li Aozi.

"So this is an old-era subway... Why does it feel fancier than the modern ones?"

Qiu Ran leaned on Li Aozi, her fingertips gently brushing over the marble reliefs on the wall. These exquisite carvings had survived hundreds of years, and although erosion had damaged them, their former beauty was still discernible.

"Well, of course, the Azure Star’s civilization of the old era was way more impressive than the present,"

Li Aozi said casually, deliberately adopting a Scavenger’s tone:

"These are cultural heritages from the ancient order. Y’all better be careful not to damage them."

"Scavenger indeed,"

Jian made a brief comment:

"The times will always change, and there is no progress in only basking in the glory of the old days."

As they descended the stairs, Li Aozi had already noticed the conspicuous armored train, which was pulling in its boarding ramps, preparing to flee.

Indeed—the members of the Metro Brotherhood were still there!

He deliberately shouted:

"Oh no, it seems the warriors of the Rose Army are dissatisfied with the old order, and by extension, with the creations of the old era as well? Let me say something hurtful—don’t get offended—but the chips in the old-era toasters run smoother in the Red Arrow’s mobile armor than the inferior products of modern industry."

At his pointed remark, the armored train inside the station suddenly emitted a huge screeching of brakes.

"Yikes!" Qiu Ran was startled, "What’s going on—wow, what is this? Is this... a train? Why is it covered with so many layers of armor, and there are machine guns too?"

As a mechanic, Qiu Ran was immediately fascinated with this kind of industrial machinery. She rushed forward, staring fixedly at the armored train, from its structural design to its outer protection. The rough and violent charm of heavy industrial machinery had a strong visual impact.

"Stop right there."

Just as Qiu Ran was about to touch it, a woman’s voice from inside the train ordered them to stop. The train came to a halt, the ramp descended, and two Metro Brotherhood members wearing leather jackets and exoskeletons emerged from the train.

The man was the driver, looking Li Aozi up and down and asking:

"Are you the Scavenger?"

Li Aozi took off his goggles, revealing his pale skin and handsome face, immediately gaining a sense of closeness with the other.

"Li Aozi, a prospector digging for gold."

His fluent underworld jargon got a nod from the man who shook hands and greeted him:

"Long live Ludvigia and the Anaerobes. I’m the driver of the ’Youth Number,’ Zhou Liefeng, and this comrade here is Selya."