Most of the items Zane asked Lingwind to buy were raw materials.
For example, gunpowder for making explosives, as well as naloxone and Xingnaojing.
Naloxone could be used to create a sustained-release stimulant.
If he took one before the experiment, he could wake up midway through it and possibly gather more information.
The only drawback was that he would have to endure the pain himself, but he did not think that would be a big problem.
These things were easy to obtain on the black market, but to avoid suspicion, he told Lingwind to go to a more distant market the next day.
Xavier Young was extremely sharp. After so many years in the black market, he would immediately notice something unusual about those materials. Zane did not want to take that risk.
...
The next day.
Before dawn, someone knocked on the door.
Derek Su opened it with sleepy eyes, looking utterly worn out.
After racing for so long the day before, he was exhausted.
After all, when he was inside Stella and Imperial Scale, his mind had to stay fully focused on the track instead of anything else.
It was like having a beautiful woman right beside you, teasing you openly, while you were leading your team to secure Baron and push for the win.
In a sense, it was pure mental torture.
"Hi, Boss Su. Good morning!"
Zane stood at the door, full of energy.
He was dressed in a tank top and athletic pants, showing off his thin arms and legs.
He looked like a scrawny middle-aged man.
"It's not even daylight yet." Derek Su glanced back toward the bed.
Stella was sprawled out, her pajama top rolled up to reveal her pale stomach and small navel, still sleeping soundly.
Zane grinned. "Boss Su, the day starts in the morning. If you're not busy with anything else, then get up and go for a run."
Derek Su fell silent.
In the end, he still got up and ran with Zane for an hour.
By the time he came back and finished showering, Stella and the others were already awake.
After breakfast, Zane finally explained why he had dragged him out so early.
The training to increase the probability of becoming a Techmaster was entering the next stage.
Just as Derek Su had expected, this stage required him to locate a ping-pong ball using only his sense of perception, with his eyes covered and ears blocked.
To be honest, he was not confident.
With both sight and hearing gone, it was basically complete sensory isolation.
He could not possibly rely on his sense of smell to locate a ping-pong ball.
"Derek Su, if you can pass this stage, it proves you have the potential to become a Techmaster."
Zane arranged for him to sit in an empty room on the second floor of the club.
At that moment, Derek Su sat on a stool, his ears not yet blocked.
Zane continued, "With your eyes and ears covered, you are essentially in total darkness. You need to learn to sense everything around you. Even though you cannot see, you can use your imagination to reconstruct the room in your mind. Picture Imperial Scale, Stella, and Purple Lightning standing around you. Picture them throwing ping-pong balls at you. Move from imagining to sensing. Sense the room, sense your Mecha Girls, sense the ball. This is a gradual process."
Lingwind stood nearby, listening.
She had not yet gone to gather the items Zane needed. Once training began, she would leave immediately.
Hearing Zane speak in such an intricate way, she looked at him with growing admiration.
It felt like he really knew what he was doing.
The other Mecha Girls also looked uncertain and impressed.
"Our club actually has a method to fast-track Techmaster training?" Absolute Shadow whispered to Stella, her eyes full of shock.
Stella did not really know either, but since Absolute Shadow asked, she lifted her chin proudly.
"Of course. Let me tell you, joining the Stella Club was the best decision you have ever made. Zane is nothing. My Master is even more amazing. He... anyway, he is just incredible."
Absolute Shadow clicked her tongue in amazement.
She had assumed that since the Stella Club was newly established, it would be lacking compared to other clubs.
She had not expected it to be this impressive.
They even had a method to fast-track Techmasters.
Did that mean they could mass-produce Techmasters in the future?
As expected of the club led by The Magician. It was truly formidable.
Now, in Absolute Shadow's eyes, the Stella Club was not only an ideal place but also something mysterious.
...
After Zane finished explaining everything he had carefully thought through the night before, he announced the start of training.
Stella stepped forward and personally placed a pair of earplugs into Derek Su's ears.
These earplugs had been specially made by Zane for training, and their soundproofing was extremely strong.
The moment he put them on, Derek Su felt completely cut off from the noisy world.
Darkness filled his vision, and silence filled his ears, blending into a suffocating void. He felt like a small boat sinking deeper and deeper into it.
An ordinary person would have panicked.
But under Zane's intense training, Derek Su had already developed a level of perception far beyond normal.
As he continued to sink into that state, the room gradually took shape in his mind.
He looked around.
He knew it was all simulated, not real.
Stella stood about five meters away in front of him, holding a ping-pong ball and smiling.
Imperial Scale stood to the left, expression calm, crimson eyes fixed on him.
Purple Lightning stood to the right, looking shy and hesitant.
Everything was still, like a vivid painting.
Outside his mind, Zane signaled Stella, Imperial Scale, and Purple Lightning to begin.
"Hey!"
Stella was the first to throw a ping-pong ball.
At that exact moment, the still image in Derek Su's mind began to ripple like disturbed water.
The imagined world twisted and started to collapse, like colors blending together.
Yet within it, small points of light flickered.
Derek Su instinctively reached for them, but they moved quickly, darting away like playful butterflies.
"If I can touch those lights, does that mean I can catch the ball?"
He had long been prepared for this mental state.
Ever since he gained the ability to precisely react to Stella, he had discovered he could control his dreams, even reshape them at will.
Most people could not do that in deep sleep.
But he could.
If he dreamed of being trapped in a ruined world, chased by zombies, he could immediately make an armory appear behind him.
For a while, he had great fun experimenting with this every night.
Only later did the novelty wear off.
Derek Su could clearly feel that something in his body was changing.
The emergence of this mental world was strange, yet not entirely unexpected.
From Zane's perspective, the ping-pong ball had already brushed past Derek Su.
But Derek Su stood completely still.
"Still not enough?"
Zane watched him and sighed inwardly.
It seemed the training method he and Mr. Liang had developed was still too idealistic.
With both sight and hearing blocked, the demand on perception was simply too great.
Even Derek Su could not master it all at once.
...
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