Chapter 131: Mount Upgrade Complete

The beautiful cashier was speechless. She had expected this guy to buy a few dozen books at most, but he had asked for thousands right off the bat. It gave her quite a shock; under normal circumstances, apart from schools purchasing large quantities of textbooks, no one ever bought so many books at once—let alone just any books!

"Are you sure? 5,000 books? Nothing above high school level, and no duplicates?"

"I'm sure," Chen Yun nodded.

"Well... alright then. Please wait a moment. I can't make this decision on my own; I need to report this to the manager." The cashier, who hadn't been working there for long, was overwhelmed by such a large order and decided to consult her manager.

"Sure, I'll wait here. Please hurry," Chen Yun said, sitting down in the lounge area near the counter.

"Okay, I'm going to find the manager now. Sister Lin, please keep an eye on things for me while I go to the office." After saying this, the cashier headed upstairs.

"What did you say? Someone wants to buy 5,000 books?" The manager stood up in surprise.

"Yes, Manager. He said as long as the content doesn't exceed high school level and there are no duplicates, any book will do. He's waiting downstairs right now."

"Come on, take me to see him."

On the first floor, in the bookstore lobby, the cashier pointed toward the lounge area. "Manager, that's him."

The manager walked over, eyeing the young man—who looked no older than twenty—with confusion. He couldn't fathom why anyone would want so many books.

"Hello, I'm the manager of this bookstore," he said, reaching out to Chen Yun.

"Hello," Chen Yun replied, standing up to shake his hand.

"I'm curious, what do you need so many books for?" the manager asked.

"It's a secret," Chen Yun said with a smile. He couldn't exactly tell the manager he was grinding skills and stats, could he? The manager wouldn't believe him anyway.

"Haha, you're quite the humorist. Fine, if you don't want to say, I won't ask. Xiao Zhang, have the entire staff help him gather the books."

***

Two hours later, in the hotel's garage.

Chen Yun sat amidst a mountain of books, using them one by one. It didn't take long for him to grow annoyed.

"It would be so much better if I could learn them all at once. At this rate, who knows how long it'll take?" Looking at the mound of books, he grumbled to himself while continuing the process.

"Player Chen Yun, would you like to activate the batch item usage function?"

"Hey!" Chen Yun was thrilled. He didn't expect the system to actually have this feature. He thought to himself, "Activate batch item usage."

"Player Chen Yun must place the items into the inventory before they can be used in a batch."

...

Chen Yun wanted to cry. Damn it, what was the difference between that and just using them? If he had to put them in his inventory first, he would have used them up in the process anyway! What was the point of this extra step?

Five hours. For five full hours, Chen Yun repeated the same motion: bend down, pick up a book, use it, bend down, pick up another, use it. By 11:00 PM, he had finally finished all 5,000 books. Looking at the tens of thousands of points in his Intelligence and Spirit stats, along with the several titles he had earned, Chen Yun let out a sigh of relief. It was worth it!

"The system has detected that player Chen Yun is mass-grinding stats. To maintain game fairness, 99% of the Intelligence and Spirit stats gained through this method have been frozen until the player reaches level 61."

What?

Chen Yun was furious. He cursed, "System, go to hell! What do you mean by 'maintaining fairness'? When you throw bosses at me that can kill me in one hit, you don't talk about fairness. Every time you screw me over, you don't talk about fairness. Damn it, now that I've finally gotten strong, you pull this on me? Come out here, I swear I'll beat you to death!"

...

"Damn it, don't think I'll let you off just because you're playing dead. Come out!"

...

"I worked hard for five hours and you just stripped it all away with one sentence? Doesn't your conscience hurt? Get out here!"

...

"Screw you..." Seeing that the system remained silent, Chen Yun lay in the garage, speechless and filled with bitter frustration.

"My tens of thousands of Intelligence points! My tens of thousands of Spirit points! System, I curse your ancestors!"

***

The next day, Chen Yun lay in his hotel room in a foul mood, only opening his eyes when he received a system notification.

"Mount 'Aerospace Combat Vehicle' upgrade complete. Please view details."

"Aerospace Combat Vehicle +1. Level 4 upgradable Pink-grade mount. Mental control. Control range: 10,000 meters. Sea, land, and air amphibious. Speed: 0%-2200%, adjustable by player's will. Attached skills: Form Conversion, Hyper-speed Flight, Indestructible, Energy Shield, Laser Beam, Barrage Bombardment, Auto-stealth, Self-destruct. Durability: MAX/MAX. Price: Unknown."

"Form Conversion: Can switch between Normal, Mini, and Combat forms at will. Normal form includes Marine, Land, and Flight modes. Mini form is the original toy car state with unchanged functionality. Combat form includes: Normal Combat and Transformed Combat. (Transformed Combat form can change into a 150-meter-tall, 2000-ton Optimus Prime-style robot, equipped with the Blade of Judgment, increasing attack bonus by 150%. In this form, attributes are multiplied by 2000%. Duration: 20 minutes.)"

"Hyper-speed Flight: Current speed * 7, duration 40 seconds. Consumes 8% of total mana per second. Cooldown: 10 minutes."

"Indestructible: No durability consumed under normal usage."

"Energy Shield: Automatic skill. Forms a shield that negates physical/magical damage equal to Player HP * 100. Requires 3 hours to recharge after use."

"Laser Beam: Active skill. Fires a laser at enemies. Damage: Magic Attack * 8. Mana cost: 150. Cooldown: 1 minute."

"Barrage Bombardment: Active skill. Fires 200 micro-bombs within 1 second, hitting all enemies in a 150m x 150m area. Can also lock onto a single target. Damage per bomb: Magic Attack * 1. Mana cost: 300. Cooldown: 2 hours."

"Auto-stealth: Automatic skill. Automatically enters stealth mode when flying. Undetectable by those below Level 2 Heaven Cultivator. Consumes 3 mana per minute. No cooldown."

"Self-destruct: If the mount absorbs over 2 million damage within 12 hours, it will eject the player, lock onto the enemy, and trigger a self-destruct, dealing equal damage to the enemy. One-time skill."

Chen Yun drooled as he looked at the upgraded Aerospace Combat Vehicle, his eyes gleaming. After the upgrade, the mount's combat power had nearly doubled!

The mental control range had doubled, it gained a Mini form, and all skills were strengthened. The shield could now negate 70,000 points of damage, and the 12-hour self-destruct absorption cap had reached a terrifying 2 million points. Now, as long as he didn't run into an insanely overpowered boss, all he had to do was hop into his vehicle, and no one could touch him!