What’s the point of cultivating immortality if you don’t have money?.

Chapter 571: Blueprint design completed, simulation test underway (Thanks to '木白金玉' for contributing to the Fu Ji alliance)
The test was held at a colonel's residence, which was about the same distance from all ten of the top universities.

Zhang Yu was then led into a closed room to wait for the test to begin.

During this period, he didn't even see a single other contestant, let alone the judges.

As soon as the test officially began, and the test content and rules appeared in his eyes, Zhang Yu felt his connection with the spirit world suddenly break.

Is it required to disconnect from the internet during the test?

Zhang Yu looked at the test rules and, as expected, it stated that the public network of the spirit world could not be connected during the test.

However, the competition organizers provided a local spiritual network for users to access reference materials prepared by the organizers.

After reviewing the test rules, Zhang Yu looked at the specific test content.

He summarized in his mind, thinking, "Hmm, I need to design a magical artifact that can search for, store, retrieve, and transport items in a complex terrain where lightning and fire are constantly falling..."

"After the design is completed, a simulation test of the magic weapon will be conducted in the spirit world."

"The more items you pick up and transport within the allotted time, the better your score."

Zhang Yu's gaze shifted slightly as he looked at the description of the testing site in the spirit world simulation.

It was a simulated area in the spirit world, about 10 square kilometers in size, including different terrains such as sand, forest, and lake.

The contestants designed a magical artifact to search for specific items in this complex terrain and transport them to different designated locations.

Zhang Yu looked at the items that needed to be searched and transported. In addition to the various colored spheres, cubes, cylinders and cones scattered throughout the test environment, there were also some designated grasses, trees and rocks, various medicinal materials, minerals and plants, and even liquids and gases at designated locations.

Looking at these specific requirements, Zhang Yu thought to himself, "This magic weapon must have the ability to resist lightning and fire."

"It must have the ability to move at high speeds in complex environments."

"It also needs to be able to retrieve items of different colors and shapes, including various appearances, in complex backgrounds."

"Then it also needs to be able to pick up and transport items of various shapes, including liquids and gases..."

Zhang Yu's gaze grew more serious as he read through the requirements: "The last and most crucial point is that the cost must be kept below 30 spirit coins."

After mentally summarizing all these requirements, Zhang Yu sighed inwardly, "This test is practically an assessment of the test takers' basic skills in crafting magical artifacts."

"If any aspect of a magical artifact—its movement, detection, load-bearing capacity, transportation, durability, or cost—is flawed, its performance will be very poor."

"Even for me, it's very difficult."

Instead of immediately starting to design the magic weapon, Zhang Yu began to formulate a work plan in his mind.

He understood that relying solely on his existing basic abilities to design the product might not guarantee a top-ten finish.

"Fortunately, I am exceptionally talented, and with the assistance of the Heavenly Craftsmanship and the Spiritual Essence of the Artifact, it is perfect for use here."

While pondering, Zhang Yu flipped through the reference materials provided by the organizers and found that in addition to various materials on weapon crafting techniques, there were also blueprints of various magical treasures that could be used for reference.

"Judging from the reference materials provided by the organizers, they also encourage the contestants to learn while competing, and do not expect us to rely entirely on what we have accumulated in our minds from beginning to end."

Zhang Yu had gradually formed an idea: "First, screen the blueprints and find out the various magic weapon blueprints that can meet the test requirements. Then, use the Spirit Essence Core to fuse the blueprints and obtain the blueprint that is most likely to achieve good results in the test."

"Then we use the 'Exploitation of Nature' to optimize and improve the design flaws."

Thinking of this, Zhang Yu nodded slightly: "Then the most important thing now is to choose the blueprints."

Zhang Yu understood that the Spirit Essence Artifact Core also had a limit on the number of times it could be used within a certain period of time.

After all, every time he uses this talent, it consumes inspiration from his brain.

According to his own attempts, he could only use it a dozen or so times at most in a period of time. The more he used it, the more he felt his mind became rigid and he could no longer operate the spiritual energy device. He often needed to rest for several weeks to fully recover.

"After completing the design of the Wind God Half-Faced Corpse type power boots last time, I have never used the Spirit Essence Core again."

"Using it ten times now shouldn't be a problem."

Zhang Yu understood that since the Spirit Essence Artifact Core had a limited number of uses, the selection of the fusion blueprint was very important.

"Similar types of drawings are more likely to produce good results."

"But if they're too similar, what's the point of merging them?"

Zhang Yu understood that he needed to control the timing and intensity of this process himself.

Six hours passed in the blink of an eye, and Zhang Yu finally completed the design at the last minute.

He rubbed his head, which was feeling throbbing and dizzy, but a satisfied smile gradually appeared on his lips.

……

Inside a conference room in the spirit realm, the figure of True Lord String Sound appeared, and before him, the spirit realm projections of the other judges also appeared one by one.

The Demon Lord of Tianmo University said calmly, "Everyone, the design drawings of all 15 contestants have been completed and have been included in the database."

"Next, the righteous gods will conduct a simulation of the spirit world, and complete the simulation test of 15 magical treasures in the spirit world environment."

"This test was conducted in strict accordance with the testing rules, adhering to the principles of fairness, impartiality, and transparency."

"From beginning to end, everything, including the students' design process and all the judges' conversations and scores, will be recorded."

"I hope everyone will do their best to select outstanding talents for Kunxu."

"Let me also make a statement here. No matter how the students perform, no matter what big shots are backing them, if they are good, they are good, and if they are not good, they are not good. With me here today, no one can mess around in this design competition."

Listening to the words of the Evil Lotus True Lord, the String Sound True Lord felt that the other party was implying something, as if he was talking about the matter between the Magnetic Extreme True Lord and Zhang Yu.

However, at the moment, True Monarch Xianyin had no confidence in Zhang Yu, and with countless righteous gods recording from various angles around him, he dared not speak rashly.

True Lord Xianyin could only think to himself, "Magnetic Pole, you'd better give this Zhang Yu a good make-up class. At least he should be able to get into the top 10. Otherwise, he'll lose face big time in front of other universities and the Heavenly Court."

The next moment, with a flash of light in the conference room, the simulation test officially began.

The conference room in the spirit world seemed to teleport instantly, arriving above a mountain forest in the blink of an eye.

As True Lord Xianyin lowered his eyes, he could see a sandy area not far beyond the mountains and forests, and then a lake not far from the sandy area...

This complex terrain, spanning ten kilometers in radius, is a test environment simulated in the spirit world.

At the same time, True Monarch Nie Lian said, "The first magic weapon to be tested was designed by Leng Wuyai from Tianjian University."

Before the judges, Leng Wuyai's design drawings appeared one by one.

Xuan Yin Zhenjun glanced at it and thought to himself, "A flying sword?"

The next moment, countless substances appeared out of thin air above the test site.

Then, as if accelerated hundreds or thousands of times, the weapon-forging process was completed at an unbelievable speed, revealing the flying sword from the design blueprints to everyone.

With a soft whoosh, the flying sword broke through layers of sound barriers, gliding across the test site with a thunderous roar.

Although streaks of lightning and fire fell from the sky from time to time, they were all easily dodged by the flying sword.

Tianzhi Zhenjun from King Kong University commented: "With multiple layers of restrictions, as well as the design of the Sky-Piercing Sword and electromagnetic thrust, this flying sword can maintain supersonic cruise for a long time."

At the same time, the flying sword shot down towards the ground with a whoosh, beginning its high-speed flight close to the ground.

The True Lord of String Sound praised, "With its anti-gravity design and adaptive flight control, its evasion ability is very strong. It can fly close to the ground and search for targets even in complex terrain."

The next moment, streaks of sword energy shot out from the flying sword, engulfing the cubes within them.

Watching the sword energy suddenly slow down after enveloping a large number of cubes and fly towards the target location, Bloodfall True Monarch of Netherworld University said indifferently, "Sword energy merging into one, is this manned technology? It's completely inefficient for cargo transportation."

The Marrow-Eating True Monarch from the White Bone University shook his head and said, "In the end, flying swords are fine for reconnaissance, but that's not how you transport things."

Tianzhi Zhenjun guessed, "He probably wants to rely on speed to transport goods more frequently. However, he didn't design terrain memory, so he has to re-detect each time, which makes the transportation frequency too low."

True Lord Xianyin thought to himself, "Although the transportation aspect wasn't outstanding, it at least completed all the functions, so it's acceptable to give it a passing grade."

As the test concluded, the judges present gave their scores one by one. There were five judges in total, and each judge could give a maximum score of 100 points, so the maximum score for all five judges was 500 points.

The total score for this flying sword is 322 points.

Next up is a work by a student from King Kong University.

A large armored vehicle was seen rampaging across the test site, unleashing its inner energy to break through obstacles, collect target items, and finally deliver them to the target location.

Lord Nie Lian commented: "Use high-strength materials to withstand lightning and fire, maximize capacity and load-bearing capacity to collect as many items as possible, and then transport them to the designated location."

"It's a good idea."

"But it's too slow and doesn't adapt well to the terrain."

Lord Nie Lian shook his head: "We collected a huge amount of stuff, but in the end, we didn't even finish delivering a third of it before time was up... 65 points."

As the five judges scored the vehicle, the final score was 329 points.

After several more contestants, Zang Xingye, a student from Youming University, made his appearance.

Looking at the contents of the design drawings, True Monarch Xianyin's heart skipped a beat: "Demon-descended bionic technology?"

(End of this chapter)