Chapter 128: Payout

The exam that was supposed to be a few hours took more than half a day.

And the examinees only managed to leave their pods after the last match ended.

Some even had to be woken up after sleeping through the remainder of the time.

But there were those like Luca who managed to make the most of his time by looking at D-29’s newest collection of simulated blueprints.

If Luca had looked at this before, he likely wouldn’t have understood anything, but right now, he had begun appreciating the internals of each mecha.

Now, this was undoubtedly amazing, as a pilot was this interested in mecha manufacturing. And it would’ve been an ideal scenario had it not been for a certain guardian mecha who could only pray every time the new master exclaimed about a new idea.

While everyone else was probably resting their minds and bodies while waiting for the exam to finish, Sid was actually on the verge of a mental breakdown.

He’d been teetering for hours, in fact, and if mechas could sweat, he would’ve had buckets by now.

The ideas were really novel and, in fairness, would typically result in stat optimizations; he just couldn’t understand why it had to look like that.

So, when he was suddenly called over to discuss modifications, the guardian mecha felt like overheating.

“Modifications, Master?” Sid asked, hoping he was hearing wrong.

“Yeah, but I guess we can’t call it modifications since all we’ll do is patch those damaged areas. But hopefully, we’ll get that self-healing attribute.”

Luca thought hard about this. While it’s been a while since he made progress on that front, he hadn’t forgotten his original goal of helping fix the guardian mecha.

But he was obviously unskilled in that department and didn’t want to accidentally damage Sid the same way his hands almost got eaten away.

His solution: Buy a modification blueprint from the Trove.

However, the little system and the anxious mecha didn’t know that and were both waiting for the Master’s following words.

“I once saw a self-healing modification blueprint and figured we could try using it.”

Honestly, it cost a lot.

A whole 20,000CP for one mecha aspect. But Luca figured he could repurpose it, provided he got to actually learn the logic behind it.

D-29 nearly short-circuited, and Sid almost blacked out after holding it in for so long. But hearing their Master’s words turned off the light at the end of the tunnel.

It seems like they could go back instead of passing on.

That alone was enough to calm the mecha, which was so anxious he was ready to crumble. From that moment on, he just agreed every time the Master announced his ideas and possible color combinations.

It was not going to be used on him anyway, so he should be fine.

For now.

But that was another tale for the future, Sid, who hopefully knew better.

At this point in time, Luca had a sudden shift in his priorities as they got a prompt that the exam had ended and the virtual pods were about to open.

The little money grubber was back, and his identity as an avid researcher was shelved until the most critical item was secured.

His investments.

Luca nearly flew out of the virtual pod as he looked around, trying to see the leaderboards, which were surprisingly empty.

Huh???

Was this some sort of mistake?

It was actually Kyle who noticed Luca’s frantic behavior as the guy stared at the empty leaderboard and figured he would have to inform him before Luca started weeping.

“It’d be empty until they finish calculating the betting winnings,” Kyle explained before noticing Jax’s odd behavior.

“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked with a raised eyebrow.

“People are afraid. But of what?” Jax looked around, wondering if there had been an attack while they were taking the test.

He had keen senses and could quickly tell that people were extremely wary of something.

It was just that they seemed afraid of them.

Of course, they wouldn’t know.

None of them knew the kind of mental shadow they’d left on everyone watching.

It was like the gathering of the pillars of destruction, which was predominantly centered on the shortest one.

Jax even noticed how a few people flinched the moment Xavier approached, only to be greeted by Luca, who was dying of curiosity.

But his question didn’t get to see the light of day as the leaderboard suddenly started shuffling with letters, rearranging into the results that everyone had been waiting for.

And on top of it all was Xavier, who ranked one just as he promised.

*Ding!*

It was a notification from his terminal, and Luca looked down to check this sudden message.

The little money-grubber froze.

He once survived a brain freeze after tasting ice cream for the first time, but he had never heard of a money freeze until he experienced one today.

1,100,000,000.00 Star coins.

It was from his 100 million bet on Xavier, whose fractional odds stood at 10/1.

While the chipmunk had seen staggering amounts of money in the communal account, he had never directly received this amount of money in his very short life.

Actually, this life nearly ended after he saw the numbers, but he still managed to ask D-29 to take a photo as proof in case someone decided to take it back!

Luca actually had a whole retirement plan by now, but after rearranging his thoughts, his initial concern was whether they could retake the test again.

Was it possible to have another exam to bet on?

“What’s wrong?” Asked the approaching mountain giant.

Xavier figured out what was happening and tried snapping the chipmunk from his extreme daze before he started plotting something dangerous again.

But he was obviously a little too late as the chipmunk asked a question that was thankfully only heard by a handful of other students.

“Do you think we’ll be allowed to retake the test? They have this every now and then, right?” Luca’s eyes had a glint of longing and hope, and Xavier couldn’t give the exact real explanation.

There really was a way to retake the exam, but that only happens when a student loses their privilege after accumulating enough demerits.

Xavier was so afraid of triggering something in this terribly excited chipmunk, so he withheld the information for another time.

Thankfully, another notification prompt distracted the shorty from forcing the information out of Xavier.

*Ding!*

*Ding!*

*Ding!*

It was 600,000,000.00 Star coins this time. But Luca didn’t expect it to sound three times in total!

Then Luca looked at the account Xavier shared with him and saw an additional 1.8 Billion Star coins from three different bets.

The money grubber looked at Xavier, who explained what had happened.

“You didn’t want to use the funds here, so I bet on your stead. You likely forgot about betting for yourself and those two idiots.” Xavier shrugged, knowing that Luca nearly clawed his eye out when he upped the bet to 100 million.

So, when it came time to vote for the other places, Xavier just used their communal funds.

And communal funds meant more Luca funds, right?

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