Chapter 38

Du Qian's speed was not slow, but he didn't really need to be in such a hurry. It was just past noon, and the bank wouldn't close for a while. He took out five boxes of spirit horns, bought a pile of vegetables, and then returned home satisfied.

Rice in the pot, vegetables chopped.

Indeed, Du Qian was a bit hungry again. The hunger wasn't intense, but it was real. What the hell, he had eaten breakfast in the morning, then another meal when his cousin came, another when the Cold Team arrived, and another when Yao Jing came.

Hmm! After a quick count, Du Qian felt something was off. It was just past noon, and he had already eaten four meals. None of them were small, either. Was he really going to become a glutton?

The rice would take some time to cook. Du Qian sat by the bed and picked up the tester. This little thing, only palm-sized, could test combat power and was also beautifully designed.

The edges were purplish-red, and the front and back were white with pink borders—clearly a color girls would like. The Flying Tiger Team was really rich, even considering gender when buying testers.

Flipping it over, he glanced at the back. As expected, it wasn't an Imperial product. The words "Zhenhai" indicated its origin. The most expensive, best, and most practical, it was definitely a product of Zhenhai.

The soft buttons opened with a light touch. Du Qian quickly found the electronic manual. Despite its small size, most of it was a screen.

As he read, Du Qian's eyes widened, then he looked enlightened, followed by excitement, and finally, he calmed down.

He should have thought of it earlier. The tester Yao Jing gave him was definitely a high-end model. He hadn't thought about it in detail before, which was why he was so excited. What kind of testers had Du Qian seen before? The oldest needle-type testers in school, which could test up to a maximum of ten thousand combat power. In the commercial sector, to save money, the testers were better, but the maximum limit was still ten thousand.

Yao Jing, who was now a Battle King with 220,000 combat power, couldn't be tested by those. After the needle-type tester maxed out, the needle would point randomly, possibly a few hundred or a thousand, but it wouldn't be too high.

The new tester had solved this problem, but the screen could only display up to ten thousand.

The portable tester in his hand, the latest model from the Zhenhai Alliance, was a Battle Master-level tester with a maximum limit of one million combat power.

Not only did it have a high upper limit, but it was also more precise, with an error margin of ten. This might seem similar to the commercial testers, but the difference was significant. One was a million-level, the other a ten-thousand-level, with a hundredfold difference in error margin, indicating a hundredfold difference in manufacturing precision.

"The people of the Zhenhai Alliance aren't great, but this thing is really useful," Du Qian sighed and continued reading.

The portable tester was designed for convenience, small and light, but that didn't mean it was of poor quality. The testing process was just a bit more complicated.

The standing tester was large, with many internal components. As long as a person stood on it, placed their hand on it, and pressed down on the testing handle, they could get the combat power result. The portable tester, however, required a blood sample and was slower.

A little blood, a light prick with the probe, and only a few drops would come out. Du Qian was extremely satisfied with this; it was really convenient.

"Huh? It has this function too?" Seeing the instructions, Du Qian got excited again. His swollen face was red as if it were bleeding.

At the end of the tester, there was a testing strip. By immersing the testing strip and a spirit weapon in water, one could get the spirit energy content of the weapon. The testing time was twenty seconds to one minute.

Du Qian, driven by curiosity, filled a basin with water, took out a spirit horn, and placed it in the water. He inserted the testing strip at the end of the tester into the water, touching the spirit horn. He was a bit anxious; the time passed so slowly.

Finally, the countdown on the screen started to flash, and the result was about to appear.

The spirit energy combat power content of this item, converted to combat power, is equivalent to 9,870. The test result is for a fish spirit horn, with the spirit fish's combat power before death ranging from 19,000 to 23,000.

Du Qian put away the spirit horn and took out a notebook and a pen from his backpack. He thought he wouldn't need them much after leaving school, but who would have thought he would need them just a few days later. Fortunately, he hadn't left all the paper and pens at school when he graduated.

Test Item No. 1: 9,870.

After writing this line, he closed the notebook, leaving out the details. The events happening to him felt a bit strange.

Pressing the activation button on the tester, a probe extended from the top. Setting the combat power base test, he pricked his finger with the probe, which easily pierced his skin, made of some unknown material.

As combat power increased, the human body improved comprehensively, including skin toughness, hardness, and various resistances. Du Qian's combat power had exceeded 6,000, with very high resistance. A kitchen knife wouldn't easily break the skin unless used with great force.

A progress bar appeared on the screen, moving very slowly, the biggest drawback of the portable tester.

Du Qian sat by the bed, staring at the tester's screen, motionless. After two minutes, the screen started to flash, finally showing a number that made Du Qian feel depressed.

6,148? How could it be this number?

It wasn't higher but lower, much lower, about 50 to 60 points less than Du Qian's expected combat power.

Although he hadn't recorded the numbers before, he remembered them clearly, and there was no way he could have remembered them wrong.

At graduation, his combat power was 5,980. After absorbing and converting the first spirit horn, the test result was 6,043, meaning the spirit horn increased his combat power by 63 points.

The second time was with a spirit fragment, which increased his combat power by about 50 points, bringing it to 6,093.

The spirit fragment increased his combat power slightly less than the spirit horn, but in larger quantities, making it more cost-effective, though the absorption speed was slower.

Yesterday, he absorbed two spirit horns, which should have increased his combat power by at least 120 points. The test result should have been over 6,200.

In fact, it was only 6,148, a difference of 50 to 60 points. There might be some combat power from his own cultivation, but in just two days, a 2 to 3-point increase could be ignored.

Rubbing his chin, Du Qian finally figured it out: "Damn tester, damn merchant, deceiving my young heart with a broken thing."

Yes, that was the only possibility. The commercial tester had issues, with a large error margin. A difference of 10 to 8 points once, 20 points twice. Du Qian had calculated based on the commercial tester's standard, equivalent to a four-time error.

A four-time error, each time reaching over ten points of combat power, could there be anything more frustrating? Both the school and commercial testers had marked error values, but these were the maximum theoretical errors. In practice, the errors exceeded the marked limits.

Du Qian finally understood the Imperial testers better. In industrial design and manufacturing, the Empire and the Zhenhai Alliance had a huge gap. As for the products of the Biantian Republic, Du Qian didn't know, but they were likely even worse. Ninety percent of the finished products imported by the Empire came from the Zhenhai Alliance, while 90% of the raw materials came from Biantian.

Next, he needed to perform another test. Du Qian relaxed for a moment, bent over, and slowly assumed the posture to draw spirit energy into his body. He closed his eyes, trying to enter the state quickly.

After about ten minutes, a faint stream of spirit energy entered from the top of his head. At this moment, Du Qian opened his eyes, checked the time, reached into the storage box, took out the spirit horn, and closed his eyes again.

The spirit energy surged from his hand into his body, and a thin stream from the top of his head slowly joined in, circulating within his body. About half of it disappeared in his chest, and the rest dissolved into various parts of his body.

The process was long, at least it felt that way to Du Qian. Unlike the first time using a spirit horn, after the first three absorptions, he had developed some resistance to the intense pleasure.

When the spirit energy stopped flowing from his hand, Du Qian spent a few minutes suppressing the pleasure and slowly opened his eyes. The spirit energy from the top of his head continued to enter his body, but Du Qian no longer paid attention to it. He looked at the time.

Three hours and eight minutes. This was a very important data point for Du Qian.

He took a few deep breaths, stretched his body, stood up, and moved his limbs. After a long period of cultivation, the spirit energy circulated within his body, preventing local blood deficiency, but the stiffness in his muscles and bones still needed to be relieved to eliminate the discomfort.

He opened the tester, pricked his finger, and the screen activated. This time, Du Qian's face was calm as he waited for the result.

6,197 combat power.

Du Qian wrote this number in his notebook and recorded the time. Looking at the numbers, he mentally calculated and tried to guess the pattern.

After a while, Du Qian put down the pen, knowing that guessing randomly was useless. He needed more data to support his calculations. With enough data, even as a graduate of an orphanage school, he could figure out the pattern.

There would be a four-hour window for his body to adapt to the absorbed spirit energy, allowing it to better integrate and eventually become part of his body.

He picked up his phone and absentmindedly opened the Imperial Network Library. Du Qian wasn't really a book-loving good child; his good grades were due to his strong memory.

In the past few days, he had clearly felt that his knowledge was too limited.