Hyperdimensional Warlock

Chapter 4328 Creating Man
According to the Spirit of the Citadel, homunculus beings cannot be created out of thin air like other creations; they need to be manufactured in a specific location.

This specific location is in the basement of the school administration office.

Having nothing else to do, Angell went to visit the "Homo Man Factory".

The space here is exceptionally spacious, with countless steel-cast life support pods neatly arranged on both sides of the walls; and in the very center of the site stands a human-creating platform made of an unknown silver metal. Its shape is highly symmetrical, with cold yet sculpted lines, subtly exuding a solemn sense of ritual.

Angell counted them roughly; there were a total of sixty-six life support pods.

Each life support capsule has a register hanging outside, which records the usage status of the corresponding life support capsule.

The vast majority of life support pods have records.

Angel glanced through the records; they were all very simple, such as "Cleaner No. 17, one day of life support in Cabin No. 3, partial map of the Academy City, daily work route marked, permission granted to leave the cabin," or "Pipeline Repairman No. 2, three days of life support in Cabin No. 1, pipeline route in the Academy City, repair area marked, permission granted to leave the cabin."

His earlier guess was correct; all those dedicated to maintaining the city's normal operation were androids, and they originated from here.

However, there is currently no one in the life support pod.

Or rather, the entire android factory is empty.

The Spirit of the Citadel told Angor, "All the androids here were created a long time ago. This place has never been in operation since I awoke."

"Why?" Angell asked. "Is it because androids consume a lot of energy?"

The Spirit of the Citadel denied this, saying, "No, the energy required to create an android is far less than that required to build a conventional building."

"The reason why this place is not currently operational is because the creation of androids requires a special kind of energy."

"Special energy?"

"Yes, I don't know exactly what kind of energy it is. However, according to the information I received after I woke up, when members of the Academy complete any task, they can accumulate this special energy."

"When you have saved up enough, you can start having children."

Accumulate special energy by completing tasks? Angell was puzzled after hearing this. Could there be any potential energy generated from the act of "completing a task"?

Also, is it possible to do all tasks?
Now that all tasks are available, as the principal, he can easily use his authority to post various simple tasks on the forum and quickly acquire special energy.

The Spirit of the City: "According to the information I have received, there are no restrictions on the type of mission. High-difficulty missions can accumulate a large amount of special energy, while low-difficulty missions will accumulate less energy."

Upon hearing the Spirit of the Citadel's reply, Angor immediately addressed the air, saying, "Spirit of the Citadel, I'm giving you a task now: go check on Mona's progress in drawing the school emblem."

The spirit of the city was silent for a moment, then said softly, "I can carry out the master's instructions, but that doesn't count as a mission."

Angell: "?"

Didn't you just say there were no restrictions on task types?

The spirit of the Citadel seemed to sense Angor's confusion and explained, "While the type of mission can be quite flexible, the mission must be formal. If it's just a verbal mission, it's not formal."

What does "formal" mean?

Simply put, this means a task that must be released through official channels.

Currently, the only official channel is the task hall in the forum.

"So I need to post missions in the mission lobby?" Angell asked.

The Spirit of the City nodded: "Yes, there must be a specific task format, task objectives, and rewards for completing the task."

"Only in this way can the corresponding special energy be accumulated after the mission is completed."

Angel muttered to himself, "You can't just issue missions randomly. You have to issue them through specific channels, and they have to go through a whole process... This sounds like some kind of ritual."

"Could it be that this so-called special energy originates from rituals?"

Angell was somewhat suspicious, but he decided to give it a try.

He picked up the crystal device, ready to post a task on the forum.

However, before issuing the mission, he asked the air, "I forgot to ask you, can you accept the mission?"

The spirit of the city took a long time to say, "I just did a brief self-examination, and I couldn't find the relevant answer in my memory."

Angell: "Unrestricted means possible."

The Spirit of the City: "...I don't know, but if it's the Headmaster's order, I can give it a try."

Angel nodded, then turned and began writing the task format in the forum's task hall.

"The Message"

"Overview: Inquire about Dean Mona's current progress on the design of the school emblem and college emblem."

Access Restrictions: None

Countdown: None

After finishing writing it, Angell instinctively wanted to publish it.

At this moment, the spirit of the academy suddenly spoke up: "Headmaster, the mission requires a reward."

Angel suddenly realized, "That's right, the missions must have rewards. The reason he failed to complete ten missions before was because he didn't set any rewards."

"The amount of the reward also determines the accumulation of special energy."

When the Spirit of the City said that, Angor was immediately put in a difficult position.

To experience the "special energy" more directly, generous task rewards must be given; however, task rewards cannot be given arbitrarily and must match the difficulty of the task.

Tasks like this "message relay" are almost effortless, and the rewards are naturally minimal.

"Never mind, even if it's negligible, I'll just do it once and see if I can sense it." Angell chose the Academy Points as the reward for the mission.

He first set the reward to 100 Academy Points.

—The purchasing power of 100 points in the city can roughly meet the living needs of an average person for a week.

When the submission was attempted, the system rejected it directly, and the publication failed.

He frowned and lowered the reward to 10 Academy Points, but the result was the same.

The "Passing on a Message" task is not even worth 10 Academy Points.
In the end, he simply reduced the reward to the lowest level of 1 point.

This time he was able to release it, but then he thought about it again and added a City Crystal to the rewards list.

After all, the Spirit of the City said that as the inventor of the Crystal, he was free to decide the added value of the Crystal.

Unexpectedly, with the addition of the crystal device, the task could no longer be published.

Angel patiently debugged the system repeatedly and finally figured out the pattern: the reward for this task was either only 1 Academy Point or only Academy Crystal, and the combination of the two would trigger the restriction.

This also confirmed one thing for him: although he could freely decide the added value of the crystal, the added value could not be zero.

The crystal itself has basic value, and when combined with the 1 Academy Point, the total value exceeds the carrying capacity limit of the "Passing on the Message" mission.

After a moment of silence, Angell ultimately chose 1 Academy Point as his reward.

Because he didn't have any other crystals, making one would be a waste of energy.

After the quest was issued, Angor signaled the spirit of the city to accept it.

A moment later, the spirit of the city said with some surprise, "Headmaster, I have successfully accepted the mission!"

Angell was not surprised by this, just as he had said before, there are no restrictions.

Since the Fairy Realm's powers did not impose any task restrictions on the Spirit of the Academy, it should be able to accept the task.

But the next sentence from the Spirit of the City caused Angor to show a look of surprise and doubt.

"I saw a task box with an overview of the task. But it's strange, I don't have a body right now, so how can I 'see' it with my eyes?" The Spirit of the Citadel was puzzled by what was happening to him.

Taskbar?
A thought flashed through Angel's mind: Could the Spirit of the City have been referring to... the text box?

Does the Spirit of the City also have a text box?

Angel thought for a moment and said, "When you finish the 'Passing on the Message' task later, please ask her if it was displayed on the task list when she accepted the task of designing the school and college emblems."

The spirit of the city was puzzled, but still said, "No problem."

Then, the Spirit of the City stopped speaking, clearly having gone to communicate with Mona.

About two minutes later, the Spirit of the City's voice rang out again: "Headmaster, Dean Mona and I have confirmed that after she accepted the task of designing the school emblem, the task was indeed displayed in the text box."

After a pause, the Spirit of the Academy asked curiously, "Headmaster, was my task window also a text box?"

Angell: "Perhaps, but it's not certain yet."

"What exactly is the text bar?" the Spirit of the City asked.

Angell: "That's a bit hard to explain..."

Angel didn't hide anything from the Citadel's spirit, briefly explaining the meaning of the text panel. But like discussing television with an ancient person, without a genuine experience, the Citadel's spirit still found it difficult to understand.

“You’ll naturally find out as you interact more with the faculty and staff of the Academy City,” Angell said. “Let’s talk about the message-passing mission first.”

Spirit of the Citadel: "Okay, I just asked Dean Mona, and she said that it's already in the design phase... about 10% complete."

As soon as the Spirit of the City finished speaking, he felt the words "Mission Completed" appear before his eyes, but there was an additional sentence: "Upon inspection, there is currently no City account. Please apply for a City account before claiming the reward."

It quickly explained the situation.

After listening, Angor was basically certain that the "task box" seen by the Spirit of the City was most likely the text box.

An NPC with a text input field?

Hmm... Although it's a bit unique, Angell can accept it because of the precedent set by the observer.

Moreover, Angor had no time to pay attention to the Citadel Spirit's message board, because the moment the Citadel Spirit completed the "Message Transmission" task, he clearly sensed the appearance of "special energy" on the Creation Platform.

Yes.

Special energy appeared directly on the creation platform, like water, and slowly merged with it.

The moment Angell sensed the "special energy," he finally understood the truth behind it.

He previously thought the special energy was the energy of some kind of "life ritual" because androids have a life force.

But after he cleared away the fog, he realized that the so-called special energy was actually... the power of authority!
Yes, it is the power of authority!
Although it was only a tiny wisp, even more faint than a wisp of smoke.

But Angell was far more familiar with the power of authority than anyone else!

That power, a mixture of nightmare aura, dream realm aura, and mirror realm aura, was something he couldn't possibly mistake! It was definitely the power of authority!

No wonder, you have to complete tasks to accumulate "special energy", because the tasks in the text box are closely related to "power".

Every challenger, whether accepting or completing a task, will be surrounded by powerful information.

In essence, empowerment information is textual information carried on the power of authority.

Under normal circumstances, when a challenger completes a task, the power information will be broken down into two parts: text information will be integrated into the text bar to show the task progress; while the power will merge into the world and disappear.

However, a new situation arose in the Fool's City.

The text information was integrated into the text field of the corresponding challenger, while the remaining power was put into the creation platform.

This is the truth about "special energy".

However, after personally unveiling the mystery of this special energy, new questions arose within Angell.

Why does the creation of humans involve the use of power?
With this question in mind, Angell decided to create a person himself to try it out.

"The Headmaster wants to create androids?" The Spirit of the Citadel looked surprised. "However, the special energy accumulated so far is not enough."

Or rather, it's far from enough!
The spirit of the city cannot sense the power of authority, but it can confirm the accumulation of special energy through the backend of the city system.

If displayed as a progress bar, the current special energy accumulation is less than 0.01%.

This slight increase in progress was only due to the completion of the "message relay" mission.

Angell: "I have a way to obtain special energy; all you need to do is prepare to create humans."

As Angell spoke, he walked to the vicinity of the creation platform and gently tapped the air in front of him.

A strong gust of wind blew in.

Such strong winds shouldn't exist in a sealed underground factory.

Without a doubt, these strong winds were summoned by Ingres through the changing of the heavens.

The alternation of celestial phenomena is a power.

Its emergence is inevitably accompanied by the power of authority.

Angell stripped away some of the power brought about by the changes in celestial phenomena and introduced it into the creation platform.

Perhaps because these powers were not "officially" obtained and had not been "whitewashed" through a "mission," the Creation Platform did not even absorb these powers at first.

How could Angell tolerate this? He had already made a boast to the Spirit of the City.

He made a snap decision and directly manipulated his power to forcefully insert it into the creation platform.

If they won't take the soft approach, then we'll have to use the hard one.

The facts show that forcing oneself on someone really works!
After the power entered the creation platform, it finally stopped dissipating.

At the same time, the Spirit of the City also sensed from the backend that the progress bar of the "special energy" was rising at an alarming rate.

In just a short moment, it reached its peak, reaching 100%!

"It really works!"

The Spirit of the City spoke with shock: the Headmaster had merely stirred up a gust of wind on the Creation Platform, and the accumulation had been achieved!
Could it be that the so-called special energy is the power of wind?
But upon reflection, the spirit of the city felt something was amiss; it wasn't inexperienced in such matters...

If it's not the power of wind, then what is it?
(End of this chapter)