258: Chapter 258: The Assessment Begins

"There really is nothing here at all."

Zhang Huaiyuan, having regained consciousness, quickly stood up and scanned his surroundings.

This was a small hill, with scattered fragments of shattered stones, and a forest and a lake not far away.

"My physical strength has been weakened by 97.2%, but fortunately, the empowerment stone still seems to be usable."

Seeing no immediate danger within his field of vision, Zhang Huaiyuan quickly checked his status, feeling somewhat relieved.

Fortunately, the competition wasn't so insane as to completely seal off special abilities; otherwise, he would have had to start from crafting stone axes and chopping trees.

"Using the empowerment stone requires energy, and direct conversion consumes far more than gathering resources for manufacturing. Resources on this planet are limited, so I can't afford to be wasteful. Priority goes to building an engineering robot."

Zhang Huaiyuan weighed his current situation and quickly made a decision.

Anything could happen in this kind of realistically modified world.

With his current physical condition, he would struggle to resist even slightly powerful transcendent creatures. He had to build a shelter and obtain some means of self-defense as soon as possible.

"Hmm... first, it would be best to find a relatively high-quality mineral vein."

Thinking this over, Zhang Huaiyuan subconsciously activated his True Sight ability.

In an instant, the hills and ley lines were transformed into microscopic forms in his eyes.

"The deeper I look, the denser the microscopic forms masking everything become. I can only probe up to fifty meters at most... Wait!"

Scanning the mineral veins, Zhang Huaiyuan suddenly froze.

He wasn't in his true body right now, yet his True Sight ability hadn't been weakened?

Does this mean that even the power of the Origin Star Sea cannot weaken his abilities?

"Forget it, I should focus on what's right in front of me first."

Pausing for a moment, Zhang Huaiyuan returned his attention to finding a suitable mineral energy source.

However, it was clear that the resources on this planet were not so abundant as to be found everywhere.

After scanning the entire hill area, he only found scattered ores containing energy, and most were underground or deep within the mountain. For the unarmed him, mining them would be quite difficult.

"Oh well, every little bit helps. I'll grab the ones nearby first, manifest a weapon, and then go check out the forest."

Having made up his mind, Zhang Huaiyuan threw a tentative punch at the mountain wall.

A shallow fist print appeared.

"No, my physical strength has been weakened too much. I still have to rely on tools. I'll dig up the underground ones first."

After his failed attempt, he turned and found a suitably sized stone and a branch of appropriate length. After a quick grinding, he tied them together into a crude stone shovel and began digging into the soil where he had just detected energy-containing substances.

About two hours later.

With a "thud," the stone shovel snapped.

Looking closely, a fist-sized, pale blue crystalline ore was quietly embedded in the soil below.

[Synthetic Energy Ore]

A non-naturally occurring ore, mass-produced through some means, containing a trace amount of pure energy.

A stream of information flowed into his mind.

"As I thought, it must have been intentionally placed by the designers. I knew normal ores shouldn't be distributed like this."

Zhang Huaiyuan picked it up, and the empowerment stone in his hand rotated.

Soon, the pale blue crystal ore shattered, and all its energy flowed into the empowerment stone.

"It contains approximately 0.001 units of resources."

Zhang Huaiyuan sensed it slightly and understood.

He had once defined the consumption for manufacturing a voyager generation iii series standard assault ship as 1 unit.

Although this single crystal ore was small, it was pure enough to manufacture one-thousandth of a low-grade starship.

"An improved engineering robot requires at least 0.1 units of resources. It seems I'll have to rely on myself for now."

With energy available, Zhang Huaiyuan's vast knowledge finally had a place to be utilized.

With a thought, countless illusory parts condensed in front of him.

"First, I'll make a simple power arm to assist with mining. But with only 0.001 units of resources, I also need to set aside energy for startup."

This level of difficulty was, of course, no trouble for Zhang Huaiyuan.

Soon, a power arm in the form of an exoskeleton was assembled.

As the energy from the empowerment stone was injected, it slowly transformed from illusory to reality.

Kacha, kacha, kacha—!

Zhang Huaiyuan slid his arm into it, and the buckles snapped shut perfectly.

"Looks decent. Let's test its effectiveness."

He moved it slightly, then manifested a tiny energy stone and embedded it into the core of the power arm.

He then returned to the stone wall from before.

Zzzzt!

The front end of the power arm quickly assembled a drill bit, which easily pulverized the thick mountain wall.

Just two minutes later, he had collected a second crystal ore.

"Hmm... the rest are deeper inside the mountain. Digging a tunnel large enough for a person would waste too much energy. I might as well add an automatic positioning and retrieval function to it."

An improvement plan quickly formed in Zhang Huaiyuan's mind. After absorbing the energy from the newly acquired crystal ore, he manifested another pile of parts to add to the mechanical arm.

"Activate."

Once the modification was complete, Zhang Huaiyuan pressed a button, and the entire simple mechanical arm detached from his arm and quickly drilled into the mountain.

About half an hour later.

The automated mechanical arm returned to him, with seven crystal ores resting quietly in the storage compartment.

"The surface resources here should be all collected. I'll wait until the engineering robot is ready before coming back for further exploration."

Zhang Huaiyuan absorbed the energy from the seven crystal ores, rotated the empowerment stone again, and manifested a classic-looking assault rifle.

With such a small amount of energy, it was naturally impossible to create a powerful weapon; its power was roughly equivalent to the standard-issue weapons of the Free Star Alliance in the initial world.

Under the suppression of this world's power rules, its actual performance would be much worse.

However, Zhang Huaiyuan incorporated some design concepts from higher-level weapons, giving it an automatic charging effect. It could automatically absorb free energy from the air, condensing about one energy bullet per hour, which was better than nothing.

Holding 'truth' in his hands, Zhang Huaiyuan's confidence surged instantly.

He donned the mechanical arm again and walked toward the nearby forest.

Before he even got close, he could faintly hear waves of roars and growls coming from within.

"Based on the intensity of the cries and the spatial traces they leave, they shouldn't be much stronger than ordinary beasts."

Zhang Huaiyuan activated his True Sight and, seeing that the microscopic particles in the air weren't fluctuating much, he felt at ease.

"It seems that although I was dropped in such a remote and desolate place, the danger level is fortunately low, giving me enough time to develop. I hope the resources in the forest are more abundant, at least enough to build an engineering robot."

Just as Zhang Huaiyuan was planning his next steps, a voice suddenly sounded in his ear:

"Time Book House participant Aloya has died. Total remaining participants: 29."

...

——

I'll take one last day to slack off tomorrow and return to a normal update schedule the day after. Thanks to all the darlings who are still following the story; love you all~~