Chapter 324: The Mystery of Drug Injections, Practical Combat Class

“Magic power level is certainly important, but physical strength is essential too! Only then can you raise your tolerance limit and combat ability, increasing your chances of becoming a magical girl!”

She looked around the entire group, raised her chin, and declared proudly, “I’ve said it over and over: a natural body and organs tempered through countless trials don’t necessarily lose out to prosthetics! Compatibility is what matters most!”

This was the norm at Neon Fourth Magical Girl Vocational Middle School.

The girls here came from reasonably well-off families, but they still couldn’t afford magical prosthetics that required expensive maintenance and had to be replaced as their bodies grew.

Prosthetics so lifelike they could grow along with the body were even further beyond the means of girls in their social class.

So the vast majority of Fourth Middle School students relied on drug injections to strengthen their natural bodies.

After all... if you didn’t have the money, you could inject less, or not at all. It was up to you how much you spent.

Only a few people in the group stood quietly in place without doing anything.

Vivi was one of them, of course.

At that moment, another private message popped up on Vivi’s glasses.

【Katsumi: Why aren’t you doing anything? Oh, right, you don’t even have a brain-computer interface. Injecting drugs directly means your body absorbs a pitiful amount. You can only stupidly drink those painfully slow oral medicines. You really are a hopeless country bumpkin.】

【Katsumi: And you can’t afford body-enhancement drugs either, can you?】

【Vivi: You motherless piece of trash think you can talk to me like that?】

She closed the notification without even bothering to check what the other girl replied.

“Don’t you need to inject anything?” Lin Guang asked in her mind.

Although the sight of injections really was frightening and could bring certain things to mind...

At least she could tell that the students who had drugs administered through their brain-computer interfaces were clearly in better shape.

As a mainstream magical technology, it had no significant side effects and was already quite mature.

“Tch, it’s not that simple... Without a brain-computer interface to help, injecting drugs directly into your body means poor absorption, and it’s a lot of trouble.”

Vivi explained to Lin Guang in her mind. “Besides, without a private instructor to plan things out, just blindly injecting whatever they feel like, the way they do, could very well hurt their prospects in the future...”

The white-haired girl’s tone started to take on a strange edge as she spoke, with a distinct note of envy.

Apparently deciding she couldn’t fool Lin Guang, she finally fell silent for a moment before speaking in a slightly strained voice.

“To put it plainly, a penniless girl like me can’t afford to hire someone to make a plan, or to buy those drugs.”

“.........”

She looked toward the burly female teacher. “Tian Zhiya privately lends money to students to sell them drugs. She forces them to buy the drugs together with her training-plan courses. It’s pretty much the same kind of racket as those training centers outside.”

“I wouldn’t know how well it works. I’ve never used it. She tried approaching me once or twice before, but when she realized I was broke and couldn’t afford it, she stopped coming to me.”

“Then where did you get the medicines you used to drink?” Lin Guang asked.

“I have other connections,” Vivi replied in her mind. “I’ll take you to see them sometime.”

At that moment, Tian Zhiya stood in the middle of the plaza and began giving instructions.

“Today’s class will be practical combat training followed by free practice.”

“Once you’ve completed the one-on-one match I assign you, you can spend the rest of the time practicing freely. I’ll start announcing the matchups now...”

She began reading out names one by one. Before long, she called Vivi’s name and assigned her another girl from her class.

Hearing her opponent’s name, Vivi’s brows drew together slightly, and she looked in one direction.

The girl with snake scales on her face and a green-and-white tail behind her.

The one who had just been acting so close with Katsumi.

“Is she strong?” Lin Guang asked.

“Not really... She’s only at magic power level six, about middle-of-the-pack for this class.”

Vivi pursed her lips, clearly not entirely sincere. “I just find her annoying. That girl’s mouth is as nasty as that green-haired bitch’s.”

Once the matchups had all been announced, the first two girls whose names had been called immediately walked over to the row of weapon racks.

After each picked a weapon that suited her, they went to the center of the grounds, took up their stances, and began fighting.

Even with the girls’ E-rank superhuman physiques, which far surpassed those of ordinary people, the bout was quite a spectacle. Every move looked almost like a dance.

Many people gathered around to watch with interest, and plenty were already offering commentary.

“Bunny-chan is so skilled with a level-seven weapon? Her stance when casting a spell is beautiful too. She’s improved so much. She must have signed up for some extra classes at a training camp outside. So, which training camp is it?”

“I think it’s Guangxin Training Camp.”

“Is your map at X Company really that short? Who doesn’t know your family handles sales for that training camp?”

“Sign up with me now and you can get twelve hours of free classes...”

“...”

The white-haired girl only glanced over before turning away and heading straight for the weapon rack.

“...Here’s how the rules of this practical class work.”

Standing in front of the weapon rack, Vivi began explaining the equipment to Lin Guang in her mind.

“See how there are lots of identical weapons here? Look closely. The handle of each one has a number printed on it, from zero to ten.”

Rows of gauntlets, short swords, long blades, firearms... There were even shovels, sledgehammers, microphones, and other strange things. Each type of standard-issue weapon had its own row. Weapons of the same type all looked pretty much identical, except for the clearly printed number on the handle.

“These are all magic weapons specially made for practical classes. They can’t be used to kill anyone. They only release almost harmless waves of magic power to simulate magic attacks.”

Vivi skillfully pulled a short knife marked with the number three off the rack.

“As long as you hit your opponent, the system automatically records points. Hitting a vital area is worth more points. You win once you reach a certain score. Anyway, you can think of it as a health bar in a game... I mean, you should be able to understand that, right?”

Seeing Lin Guang give a slight nod, she continued, “The higher someone’s magic power level, the longer her health bar. To defeat her, you have to score more points against her.”

“The numbers from zero to ten indicate how difficult the weapon is to use.”

“The higher the number, the more complicated the weapon’s magic circuits and the harder it is to use.”

“But when you hit your opponent with a high-difficulty weapon, you earn more points.”

Vivi weighed the short knife in her hand, hesitated for a moment, then added in her mind,

“Everyone uses different weapons, depending on the path they want to take in the future.”

“For example, those who want to switch careers and go into construction will pick a shovel or sledgehammer marked with a number as their training weapon. There are also microphone-shaped weapons that can unleash sonic attacks over there. Those are for people who want to take the idol route.”

As Vivi was explaining things to Lin Guang, a sudden chorus of startled exclamations came from the combat arena not far behind them.