Crossover: Monthly Character Templates in the Multiverse Chat Group — Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Template Refresh: Quilon, Mahasattvasthavira Empowerment

The Doctor took a cursory glance at the various models of the divine machines scattered across the hangar floor. Her mind was already calculating the sheer volume of effort it would take to dismantle their internal cores, replace the complex wiring, and conduct the necessary reverse-engineering research. It was a monumental headache waiting to happen.

“The more capable you are, the more work you get. You are the smartest one here, Doctor,” Frez coaxed, his tone dripping with practiced persuasion. “I have always believed in one simple truth: never interfere when you do not understand the mechanics. Leave professional matters to professional people. Look, Doctor, you are a super powerful scientist. No one in all of Terra can compare to your intellect. Can you not help us out just this once?”

The Doctor let out a long, heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping beneath her oversized coat. “Alright. Theresa, go get Closure and Mechanist.”

Those two were essentially the strongest minds in mechanical engineering within Babel, though they were also perpetually buried under mountains of work. The grueling repair work for Babel’s infrastructure had always been handled by their calloused hands. Still, the Doctor was genuinely interested in these strange machines. Although she did not specialize in this exact field of robotics, her foundational knowledge was vast enough to bridge the gap.

“Let us give it a try,” the Doctor murmured, rolling up her sleeves.

“And the spaceship,” Frez added helpfully.

“And…”

The Doctor whipped around, pointing a gloved finger at the massive, dormant hull of the spaceship looming in the background. “You want me to modify this colossal thing? By myself? You might as well just work me to death right now. Are you really treating me like a beast of burden?”

“Do not worry, there is no rush for the ship just yet,” Frez said, raising his hands in surrender. “The main priority is these divine machines. They are the most important assets we have right now. Doctor, you just be responsible for the physical modifications. As for the blueprints…”

Frez had already chosen to leave that particular nightmare to Void Archives. The golden cube still possessed its terrifying deconstruction capabilities; it could scan the complex machinery down to the atomic level and then produce the exact blueprints needed.

But there was a catch. The blueprints needed to be drawn by hand.

Temporarily handing his physical body over to Void Archives, Frez retreated into his own mind, watching from a detached bystander’s perspective as the entity hijacked his limbs to furiously sketch out the schematics. The scratching of the pen against paper echoed endlessly. The blueprints for just a single divine machine quickly piled up in the room, becoming a white mountain too massive to count.

It was not until the sun crested the horizon the next day that the schematics for one machine were finally finished.

“I am completely exhausted,” Frez groaned, taking back control and stretching his stiff, aching body. The sheer complexity of a single divine machine was far too troublesome to document manually.

[Why did you not let me connect to your terminal to transmit the data directly and then print them out?]

Frez froze, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief. “Holy crap, why did you not say so earlier?!”

[I thought you liked doing it this way.]

Frez closed his mouth, swallowing the string of curses threatening to spill out. He did not argue with Void Archives. There was simply no point in debating with a smug, sentient supercomputer.

Over in the hangar, the Doctor’s side was buzzing with frantic activity. Word spread that they had already cracked open the chassis of a divine machine. Mechanist and Closure had not slept a wink all night, their eyes bloodshot but gleaming with manic excitement over the machine’s revolutionary internal construction.

Yet, despite their enthusiasm, they still had an even more critical task looming over them: repairing the core systems of Rhodes Island itself.

Leaving the engineers to their madness, Frez wandered off to check on Kiana. The energetic girl was adapting to Terra at a frightening pace, taking the initiative to help the Babel operators with various heavy-lifting tasks around the base. Everyone quickly accepted the cheerful girl with the superhuman strength, grateful for the extra muscle. However, Kiana’s latent, unapproachable aura of raw power still made a few of the more timid operators hesitant to initiate contact.

Elsewhere, Wis’adel had started trailing behind Theresa like a shadow, carefully observing and learning how to be a proper Lord of Fiends and handle the crushing weight of administrative affairs.

Frez rested for a single night at Babel to recover his stamina. From then on, he split his time between generating printed blueprints with Void Archives, pushing his physical limits in training, and traveling to Yunkui Peak to seek guidance from Yixuan.

The manual for the Three Questions of the Fist Sutra was currently in Yixuan’s possession. Whenever her brilliant mind grasped a new concept from the ancient text, she would teach it to Frez, and he would immediately throw himself into practicing the forms.

Kiana was also brought along for the mountain trips. She spent her time there learning the complex flows of Taixu Sword Qi from Fu Hua. Frez had originally wanted to learn the legendary martial art as well, but Fu Hua had firmly rejected him, stating that biting off more than one could chew was incredibly unwise. He needed to master the martial arts he already knew before attempting to learn Taixu Sword Qi., there was a severe inherent penalty for males attempting to learn the technique, making reaching the highest realm virtually impossible for him.

High up inside the courtyards of Yunkui Peak, Frez was currently practicing his horse stance under the sweeping wooden eaves, regulating his breathing with his eyes shut tight against the morning chill.

The rhythmic breathing methods detailed in the Three Questions of the Fist Sutra were immensely beneficial to the human body. Long-term practice fortified the internal physique, and when perfectly synchronized with the grueling stance work, the martial results were twice as effective with half the effort.

“Master, I cannot go on anymore,” Fufu whined pitifully.

She stood nearby, attempting to mimic Frez’s rigid stance and breathing rhythm, but her small frame was already drenched in sweat, her chest heaving with heavy pants.

Yixuan lay comfortably on a wooden rocking chair nearby, the open book of the Three Questions of the Fist Sutra draped casually over her face. She had clearly been fast asleep for quite some time.

Getting no response from her master, Fufu glanced sideways. Seeing Yixuan dead to the world, the girl desperately wanted to slack off and drop her aching arms. But then she looked over and saw just how intensely serious Frez was, his muscles locked tight as stone. Shamed into compliance, Fufu forced herself to keep going. Eventually, her trembling legs gave out entirely, and she collapsed onto the stone tiles in a heap of utter exhaustion.

“Standing in this stance all morning is so tiring,” Fufu gasped out.

Ordinary stance work would not have been much of an issue for her, but combining it with that specific, restrictive breathing method made it feel suffocatingly exhausting. However, her martial progress was undeniably rapid, a fact Fufu could feel deep in her bones.

“Fufu? What time is it?” Yixuan finally pulled the book off her face, letting out a soft yawn as she stretched her beautiful curves. Her Six Eyes were already passively recording every microscopic detail of the courtyard and feeding the vast ocean of information directly back to her brain.

Looking at her bathed in the morning light, Frez had only four words to describe the sight: soul-stirringly stunning.

“It is almost mealtime,” Fufu replied, peeling herself off the floor.

“It is time to take a break, Frez, and Miss Kiana,” Yixuan called out smoothly. “Rest for a bit. Yinhu should have dinner ready soon.”

“Time to eat!” Frez cheered, instantly dropping his stance. If a person was not enthusiastic about eating, there was something fundamentally wrong with their head.

Fufu quickly scurried off to help prepare the dining hall. A good amount of the funds Frez had given them for house repairs and new decorations was still left over, and they had unanimously decided to use it to drastically improve their daily meals.

But ever since Kiana arrived on the mountain, that stockpile of money had started to hit rock bottom at a terrifying speed.

“Her waist is not even as thick as Junior Brother Yinhu’s arm, yet she can eat so much food,” Fufu muttered, still deeply shocked by Kiana’s monstrous appetite.

The very first time the girl had visited, Yinhu had gone out of his way to cook a massive feast, assuming it would be plenty. Kiana had polished it off and declared she was not even half full. Frez had casually mentioned that she only eats six massive bowls of rice when she is in a bad mood. If she were actually in a good mood, the sheer volume of food required was unimaginable.

Fortunately, Frez had provided the peak with another hefty sum of money shortly after.

“This time, I specifically cooked three extra industrial-sized pots of rice. It will definitely be enough to fill up Miss Kiana and Eldest Senior Sister,” Yinhu muttered to himself in the kitchen, wiping sweat from his brow.

An hour later, after the meal concluded, Yinhu stood staring down at the completely empty pots. He looked like he was about to cry. They were scraped completely clean, not a single grain of rice left behind.

“Kiana, are you full? If you are not full, you will not be able to cultivate properly this afternoon,” Frez asked, leaning back in his chair.

“It is okay, I am about seventy percent full,” Kiana nodded happily, patting her stomach. Knowing she could not just eat their food for free and contribute nothing, she had decided to join the mountain’s construction team in the afternoon to help mix heavy mortar and repair the courtyard walls Frez had accidentally demolished during his last visit.

“I will take you out to eat some more later then,” Frez promised.

For the next few weeks, Frez and Kiana settled into a comfortable rhythm at Yunkui Peak. They insisted on waking up before dawn every single day to practice their boxing forms, attended rigorous theoretical classes with Yixuan in the afternoon, and practiced their physical strikes again in the evening until the stroke of midnight.

Sometimes, Frez would follow Yixuan down the mountain to complete a few mercenary commissions just for a change of pace, and he would always drag Kiana along with them. Staying tense and cooped up all the time was bad for the mind.

When he had absolutely nothing to do, Frez liked to sit lazily at the Yincha Pavilion, chatting up the clerk Hongdou and offering to read palms. He did not actually know the first thing about palmistry, but Yixuan had plenty of esoteric books on the subject lying around. While he could not learn the actual mystical arts properly, he was perfectly fine playing the role of a smooth-talking charlatan. His fake readings always made the young lady laugh happily, though she still absolutely refused to give him any tea for free.

Tsk, he still needed more practice with his silver tongue.

Nothing major happened within the multiversal chat group during this period. Furina had excitedly planned to host another grand afternoon tea party, but the timing was terrible. Kiana was suddenly called away to film a movie scene, Yixuan had to go down the mountain to handle administrative matters, Frez was entirely absorbed in practicing his boxing, and Wis’adel was buried in paperwork at Babel. No one had the time to attend.

In the end, the grand tea party just fizzled out into nothing.

Back at Yunkui Peak, Yixuan’s other disciple, Ye Shiyuan, finally returned from his long travels. He was a tall Thiren with a large, expressive tail, though his general demeanor was always a bit gloomy and reserved. He did not have much contact with Frez; the two of them were merely nodding acquaintances who passed each other in the courtyards.

The quiet days passed by like flowing water, and soon enough, it was finally time for the system’s character template to refresh.

That night, Frez stayed up late, sitting cross-legged on his bed, expectantly waiting for the digital interface to update.

[Ding! Character template has refreshed.]

[Character of the Month: Quilon, Mahasattvasthavira Empowerment (Does not know Buddhist Dharma, but this poor monk knows a bit of boxing.)]

Volume 1: VIP Release Announcement

It is finally time for the VIP release. First of all, thank you to all the readers for your continued company.

Thank you everyone for your constant companionship and unwavering support. To be completely honest, this book’s overall performance is much better than my last one. I absolutely would not have made it this far without everyone’s support and companionship along the way.

Those of you who have read my previous book know that I will not drop my stories, so please rest assured, this book will not be dropped either.

Also, as per my usual standard, I will drop a massive 30,000 words upon the VIP release, and then I will maintain a steady daily update schedule of 6,000 to 8,000 words.

Some readers asked me to start a reward challenge, so I will officially start one now.

One extra chapter for every single reward.

One extra chapter for every 100 blades.

One extra chapter for every 10,000 points.

Each update is calculated as a full 2,000 words.

The challenge period is active until 11:59 PM on November 30th, lasting for exactly ten days.

The VIP release is tomorrow. Here, I am earnestly asking for first-day subscriptions! First-day subscriptions!! First-day subscriptions!!!

Please.

My deepest thanks to everyone.

[Akarin’s Note: The “Mahasattvasthavira Empowerment” and the joke about a monk who “knows a bit of boxing” is a classic Chinese internet meme referencing overly muscular, physically dominant characters who claim to be peaceful monks but solve all their problems by beating people to a pulp with their bare hands.]