Volume 1, Chapter 9 – The Empire Must Die!

After being repeatedly handled by Anran, the lamp in the room went through dozens of grueling cycles of disassembly and reassembly. In the end, it finally… died.

There was no helping it. At the end of the day, it was only a lamp. Although its mechanical structure was a little more complicated than the lamps commonly seen outside, all it managed to do was provide Anran with 221 experience points, and it still could not buy itself even one extra second of life.

“Simple machinery like this is useless now.”

Anran put the reassembled lamp back into its socket. During the last few rounds of assembly, she could only get 1 experience point each time. Even if the lamp had not died, she would not have kept taking it apart and putting it back together.

Unfortunately, there was no more advanced machinery to be found in the room.

Using the faint light from the corridor, Anran searched the room again, but still came up empty.

In the end, she could only go to bed.

Anran’s first day in the holding cell passed very peacefully.

…

“All right.”

The policeman delivering breakfast reluctantly agreed to Anran’s request, though he still looked a little unwilling.

The woman next door held a book out through the iron window. After the policeman carefully checked it and found nothing unusual, he finally handed the book to Anran.

Cautious, yet not really cautious.

Anran could not be bothered to care what kind of people these cops were, as long as they did not interfere with her life in the detention cell.

“Oh, right, there’s one more thing.” Anran took down the lamp. “The quality of your lamp is terrible. It suddenly died while it was on.”

“It stopped working?” The policeman took the lamp and said in surprise.

“If you don’t believe me, go try it yourself.” Anran’s face did not change in the slightest.

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The policeman nodded. “You don’t need the lamp right now anyway. I’ll bring you a new one when I deliver lunch.”

“No problem.” Anran sounded completely unconcerned.

The policeman left. Less than a minute later, the woman next door suddenly started knocking on the door.

“Hey, hey, hey. You got the book already, so hurry up and continue yesterday’s story.”

Anran waved her hand. “What’s the rush? Let me read for a bit first.”

“…”

“You’re not planning to stand me up, are you?” The person next door grew suspicious.

That made Anran unhappy at once. “Your Master Anran’s reputation is solid as iron. I never lie.”

Except when I’m lying to NPCs.

“Really?” There was a note of hesitation in the other woman’s voice. Clearly, Anran’s firm tone had actually startled her.

“Really.” Anran carried the book over to the bed.

At a time like this, whether you believed it or not, you had no choice but to believe it.

Anran opened The History of Mechanical Development on 1886.

By then, the person next door had gone quiet. Being able to read without anyone disturbing her put Anran in a very good mood.

As a trade planet conquered by the expeditionary army, Ailan Cluster No. 1886 had, a little over thirty years ago, still been a civilized planet whose space technology had only just reached the near-orbital stage.

Other than a few trade stations, 1886’s overall technology had not made any great leaps forward and had retained much of its old appearance. It was precisely because of this setting that 1886 had been chosen as one of the players’ starter villages.

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This allowed players to get through the weak early stage of the game smoothly, instead of getting rubbed into the ground by just any random NPC.

As a result, the class knowledge book Anran was reading also seemed quite basic.

Its Intelligence requirement was 7, exactly the same as Basic Circuit Repair Manual.

So the awkward “insufficient Intelligence” prompt did not appear again.

“Ding! You opened The History of Mechanical Development on 1886 and began reading.”

Anran immersed herself in the book.

“The History of Mechanical Development on 1886 study progress: 3.7%.”

…

“Ding! The History of Mechanical Development on 1886 study progress has reached 100%. You have learned the fundamentals of mechanics and successfully unlocked the class Apprentice Mechanic! Endurance +1, Intelligence +1, obtained 3 free attribute points, obtained 1 skill point.”

Anran felt as if she had been elevated to a higher state.

She had grown stronger again!

Not counting those free attribute points, the current Anran, with her Stamina now doubled, could beat up two Anrans from two days ago.

Crazy strong.

“You have comprehended new skills [Basic Mechanics], [Basic Assembly], and [Basic Analysis], and successfully unlocked the Mechanic skill tree.”

[Basic Mechanics] likewise deepened her understanding of mechanical knowledge. [Basic Assembly] was a passive skill that increased the speed of assembling machinery, and at Lv1 it improved efficiency by 3%. As for [Basic Analysis], it was an active skill used to analyze blueprints for low-level machinery.

For a pauper Mechanic, [Basic Analysis] was a very important skill.

For example, at lunchtime, the policeman brought her another new lamp.

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Anran skillfully dismantled the lamp and activated [Basic Analysis].

Analyzing…

Progress 38%…

Progress 72%…

Progress 100%!

“You completed the analysis of [Ordinary Lamp] and successfully obtained the blueprint for [Ordinary Lamp]!”

At last, the first slot in the Mechanic’s blueprint library lit up amid the sea of gray.

Anran nodded in satisfaction. Now, as long as she had enough materials, she could easily make another lamp herself.

“Hey, have you read enough yet? It’s time for me to continue that story.”

After a long silence, the call from next door came again.

Anran looked up at the sky… ceiling.

Forget it. I’m in a good mood today, so I’ll tell you a little more. If I drag this out, six days will pass quickly enough. Then the sea will be wide for fish to leap and the sky high for birds to fly. If I deliberately leave the ending untold, you’ll suffer yourself sick over not hearing how it ends.

“And so the battle in the Astarte Star Domain ended. The Imperial forces won, but under Yang’s command, the Alliance forces still were not completely annihilated.”

“Are the Alliance leaders all a bunch of idiots?!” the woman next door said suddenly, full of righteous indignation.

Anran was puzzled. “They really were shortsighted, sure, but isn’t that a bit too strong a reaction?”

“If they weren’t idiots, how could the Imperial forces possibly have won that battle?”

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“If the Imperial forces had lost, the story wouldn’t have been able to continue,” Anran reminded her.

But the woman next door stubbornly insisted, “Then couldn’t you just tell how Yang hunted down the remnants of the Imperial forces?”

I can’t make up that kind of story, and no audience would want to hear it anyway.

If Romance of the Three Kingdoms turned into Cao Cao effortlessly crushing all the other warlords, who the hell would still want to read it?

“In short, the Empire must die!” the woman next door declared passionately.

“…”

The story had barely even begun. Was it really okay to get this invested already?

Anran touched her hair. Just then, the room suddenly shook, and dust sifted down from above.

An earthquake?

Anran shot to her feet.

“Oh no, it’s an earthquake! Let me out!”

If this really was an earthquake, that would be a disaster. She would definitely be crushed to death in here.

“Boom!”

The room shook again, and this time Anran even heard a rumbling crash.

“No. I can’t just die like this!”

Anran’s intense desire to survive was instantly ignited.