Ren, the head of the Student Merchant Guild, looked at Sunny with a skeptical, almost pitying expression. In his heart, he was actually somewhat apprehensive. He knew the value of the Dual-Core Blueprint Sunny had staked. The saying 'greed blinds the wise' could very well be true. Although the Guild thrived on high-risk bets, betting a prime storefront against a student's crazy theory felt like walking on a wire.
"You think 120km/h is just a number?" Ren scoffed, adjusting his monocle. "For a Wind Tiger? Easy. For a heavy-armor Siege-Stag? That's breaking the laws of physics. Friction alone will cook the beast alive."
Sunny looked at the two skeptics with a bored expression.
"What's so impossible?"
Hearing Sunny's words and seeing the young man's disdainful look, which seemed to say 'NPCs who haven't seen a Ferrari,' Jett could only force a dry laugh before speaking, "Sunny, do you even know why heavy beasts are slow?"
Sunny frowned instantly, put on a disdainful look as if unwilling to answer, and directly turned to Instructor Vex. "Are you going to let them lecture me on my own property?"
Vex had already sensed the terrified submission of the Siege-Stag towards Sunny through her scanner, and at this moment, she completely believed in Sunny's madness.
This kid was actually a Genius Maniac! However, it seemed that this Genius Maniac was not in a very good mood at the moment.
Vex frowned and also turned to look at Ren and Jett. These two guys had just lost face and were now trying to regain ground with technical jargon. In the end, weren't they just incompetent and envious of the capable?
"Explain the technical limitation, Ren," Vex ordered, crossing her arms. "If you want to bet the Storefront, you need to justify the odds."
Ren felt helpless. If the Volatile Fire Crystals were safe to use, he wouldn't have offered them.
"It's the Core Meltdown issue," Ren explained, scratching his greasy chin. "To reach those speeds, you need propulsion. But biological beasts can't handle continuous explosive thrust. I once hired a Master Alchemist to fuse Blast-Crystals into a Rhino. It ran at 100km/h for ten seconds. Then it exploded. The biology rejected the mechanical stress."
Suddenly, everyone present understood. Jett, standing to the side, snorted disdainfully:
"So you're saying Sunny is going to blow up his Unique Beast? Fine by me."
Ren felt a bit smug. "Exactly. The Volatile Fire Crystals I'm putting up... they are unstable fuel. High energy, but dirty. If you put them in a biological core, it causes mana poisoning and eventual detonation. That's why this bet is free money for me."
Vex nodded, falling into thought. Then, she finally turned to Sunny:
"Cadet Sunny, you've heard it. Although you stabilized Fire and Ice, adding explosive propulsion is a different beast entirely. You need to consider this carefully. If your beast dies, you fail the tournament automatically."
What more was there for Sunny to consider?
In truth, during this brief period, he hadn't really heard what these individuals were saying; all his attention was on the crate of red crystals Ren was holding.
Defects? Core Meltdown? To others, these might be critically important, perhaps even rendering the method suicidal. But for Sunny, with his [Chimera Lord] Class, he could even analyze the atomic structure of a spoon, let alone a crystal!
As long as the Fusion Interface confirmed compatibility, Sunny was absolutely confident that the System could force the biology to accept the physics!
Propulsion! This is indeed the most exhilarating step in creating a living tank.
However, facing everyone's probing gazes, Sunny pretended to ponder for a while, tapping his chin as if doing complex math.
"I can try," Sunny nodded slowly. "Perhaps I could... bypass the biological rejection."
His face showed the unique confidence of a young god, radiant as the rising sun. He seemed entirely unconcerned about the possibility of blowing himself up; instead, his focus was already on the Storefront Deed peeking out of Ren's pocket.
Such confidence made Vex sigh, and she even candidly laughed:
"Hahaha, Sunny, if you can achieve this if you can make a Heavy Tank move like an Assassin without killing it never mind anything else! I'll personally recommend you for the Junior Artificer license. That allows you to sell modified items legally in the city!"
A Junior Artificer License! That was worth its weight in gold. Usually, you needed five years of study to get one.
However, Jett clearly wasn't buying it, snorting dismissively:
"Didn't you just say he hacked the system yesterday? Now you're offering him a license?"
Sunny was taken aback. Vex, looking somewhat embarrassed, touched her glasses and quickly said:
"Jett, results speak louder than rumors. Sunny, what do you reckon your chances are?"
Sunny, seeing everyone's eyes turning to him with tension, felt a rush of dopamine. He thought this was a chance to completely crush their spirits.
"Oh, about ninety-nine percent," Sunny said casually. "The one percent is if Ren gave me fake crystals."
The moment these words were spoken, Jett choked on his own spit, and Ren's breath grew rapid. No one would doubt Sunny's arrogance anymore; the best proof was the dual-cannon monster behind him!
Ren made a decisive comment, desperate to secure the Dual-Core Blueprint before Sunny changed his mind:
"Fine! Ninety-nine percent? I like a confident mark. Here are the crystals. Here is the contract for the Storefront. The deed is in escrow with the Guild. You have three days. If that beetle doesn't hit 120km/h on the radar gun, the Blueprint is mine!"
Sunny had no intention of refusing. During the days he was broke, he had learned how challenging business could be without a proper HQ. Anything that could make money for himself was a good thing!
He snatched the crate of crystals from Ren.
"Pleasure doing business," Sunny smirked.
Ren and Jett left quickly, looking like men who had just secured a winning lottery ticket but were terrified of losing it. Vex stayed for a moment longer.
"Sunny," she warned, her voice low. "Don't blow up my school."
"No promises, Teach."
Once they were gone, Sunny didn't waste a second. He kicked the crate open.
Inside, twenty jagged, red crystals glowed with unstable mana. They hummed with the sound of contained explosions.
[Item Detected: Volatile Fire Crystal (High Grade)]
[Attribute: Explosive / Fire]
[Potential Use: Fuel, Bomb, Propulsion.]
Sunny turned to his Thermal-Shock Siege-Stag. The beast looked at the crystals and chittered nervously. It knew those things were dangerous.
"Don't worry, big guy," Sunny soothed, placing a hand on its cold obsidian shell. "We aren't feeding them to your stomach. We're putting them in your legs."
He opened the System Interface.
[Chimera Lord Tier 1.]
"Ren said biological beasts reject mechanical thrust because of stress," Sunny muttered, his eyes glowing blue. "You are a Chimera."
He pulled up the Obsidian Spike-Stag's original blueprint. He highlighted the rear legs and the exhaust vents of the magma cannons.
"System, fusion proposal."
[Target: Hellfire Siege-Stag Leg Structure.]
[Material: Volatile Fire Crystals.]
[Goal: Create Magma-Jet Thrusters.]
[Compatibility: 85%.]
[Risk: Leg fractures due to G-Force.]
[Solution: Reinforce with Iron-Hide Core?]
Sunny grinned. He didn't have an Iron-Hide Core. But he had Gorn.
"Gorn!" Sunny shouted toward the dorms. "Get your fat Boar out here! I need to borrow some Earth Essence!"
Gorn stumbled out, toothbrush in mouth. "Wha?"
"We're doing surgery!"
...
Two Days Later.
The deadline was approaching. Ren sat in his office, staring at the clock.
"He hasn't come out," Ren muttered, polishing his abacus. "He hasn't shown his face in two days. He failed. He definitely failed."
Jett sat opposite him, looking anxious. "Or he died. If he died, do we still get the Blueprint?"
Suddenly, a massive vibration shook the entire campus. It sounded like a jet breaking the sound barrier.
Ren and Jett rushed to the window.
In the distance, at the main track field, a blur of purple and red light was tearing up the asphalt. It moved so fast it was hard to track.
The blur passed the radar gun setup by the instructors. The digital display lit up.
[SPEED: 145 KM/H]
Ren's monocle cracked.
"145...?" Ren whispered, his knees giving out.
On the track, the blur drifted to a stop, kicking up a cloud of burning rubber and dust.
The Thermal-Shock Siege-Stag stood there. But its legs were different. Massive, crystalline thrusters were fused into its rear calves, venting blue flames. It looked like a drag-racer crossed with a nightmare.
Sunny hopped off the beast's back, checking his datapad.
[Transaction Complete! Storefront Deed Transferred to 'Sunny'.]
[Sender: Student Merchant Guild Escrow.]
Sunny looked up at the Faculty Tower, knowing Ren was watching. He waved the datapad in the air.
"Thanks for the shop, Ren!" Sunny shouted, his voice amplified by mana. "I'll name it 'Ren's Regret'!"
[Ding!]
[Quest Complete.]
[Reward: Storefront Acquired.]
Sunny patted his beast's smoking thrusters.
"Now," Sunny's eyes turned to the Tournament Stadium. "We have a Semi-Final to win."