Silent Crown

Chapter 220 Graduation Work 2

In short, Bai Xi’s work was in her usual style. It was simple, straightforward and crude, totally unlike a little girl’s work. She had practically included all of downtown Avalon’s violence and gathered everything that would make a man’s blood boil. According to Bai Xi’s description, the work would be like this:

Musicians would control two strong men to charge bravely with crossbows. One wore blue pants and the other had red pants. They were shirtless, with a weird ribbon on their head. They would descend from the sky and land on an island taken over by revolutionary soldiers.

Killing the entire time, they would kill the soldiers, kill the more important figures, kill the demons, kill the monsters, kill everything living, and finally kill the general who had already fused with a natural catastrophe.

They would succeed when there was nothing left to kill. Then, they would board a plane and leave the poor island that sank to the bottom of the sea after exploding. Bai Xi had also designed eight secret underwater challenges for the players to find.

However, the difficulty level was extremely high. The two shirtless guys would die from just one arrow or being hit by an enemy. The player had three respawn chances. After that, they could only restart the game…But Bai Xi was the creator, so…she hid a command within. If they inputted the right music note, they would have thirty respawns!

"I told you, you can’t leave a creator’s cheat!" Ye Qingxuan knocked the side of her head. "You’re a little girl. Why are you so violent? Everything is about killing, but can’t you think of something more heartwarming?"

"Heartwarming? Sorry, but I can’t." Bai Xi rolled her eyes. "Why don’t you try?"

"Like a game where a little girl travels the world and changes clothes?"

"Changing clothes for girls? Are you a pervert?"

"Maybe seven girls stood up to save their soon-to-be-abolished academy and after much hardship, they finally became musicians?"

"How is it interesting if no one dies? Why don’t you say they went to India with a monkey to collect music scores?"

Ye Qingxuan was speechless. He really did not understand what Bai Xi was thinking. "Anyway, this won’t do."

"Why not?!"

"One, it’s too violent and doesn’t contain technical skill. Two, the procedure is too long, the mission is too big, there’s too much content, and there’s not enough time. Three, some of the content requires high-level music theory and complex structures for support. Probably only a Resonance musician can complete it, but Professor is busy. So, no."

"Psh." Bai Xi glared at him. "You don’t want this, you don’t want that. Why don’t you just get rid of everything and make a graduation work with nothing?"

"How is that…" Ye Qingxuan suddenly stopped speaking halfway as if stunned. No matter what the others called him, Ye Qingxuan began murmuring something to himself with furrowed brows and a solemn face. Seeing him like this, Charles wrinkled his forehead and fell silent too, sinking into deep thought.

Seeing that those two had gone crazy, Bai Xi curled her lips and ignored them. She grabbed Old Phil and went to play.

Ye Qingxuan looked up after a long time. "You’re thinking the same thing as me, right?"

"I think so."

"…Having nothing at all might work."

"If everything goes according to plan."

"The process is short but can be dragged on."

"Even though the structure is complex, you just need to repeatedly use a single music theory. Even a Rhythm level musician can complete it."

"I did some calculations. It shouldn’t be much work."

"How should we do the specifics?"

"I have a new idea, but we need to split the tasks."

"With just the two of us, working together shouldn’t be a problem, but I have a new idea. What if…"

The two became immersed in brainstorming. As they exchanged ideas, they began drawing music notes on paper and experimenting then and there. Abraham quietly watched as they discussed seriously. After a while, he smiled and left without a sound. Maybe this was satisfaction.

-

It was late at night, two days later. In the workshop of the School of Royalty, Cullen sat down heavily in his chair. With bloodshot eyes, he opened a can of beer and downed it in one shot, letting out an exhausted moan. Beside him, his teammates also drank coffee tiredly as they added last-minute touches to their work.

"We’re almost done. We can do it!" Cullen patted a friend’s shoulder. "I’ll treat everyone to breakfast when we’re done."

"To be honest, I just want to sleep." A teammate raised his tired eyes. "Can anyone give me the energizer? I want the increased amount."

The guy beside him tossed over a beam of frost without even looking. The frost landed on his face and even his hair turned to ice. He woke up immediately.

"Thanks," he said with chattering teeth. "Cullen, are you done with the difficulty control? If yes, come help. I’m the worst at balanced music theory. I think I’m going crazy."

Hearing this, Cullen chuckled bitterly. "Wait a sec. I’ll come over after I do one last thing." He wiped the sweat on his forehead and gathered his spirits—music theory was just like math equations. Sometimes, having one wrong note or being a little offbeat would create drastically different effects. Plus, he was responsible for the most troublesome part of the process—difficulty control.

The last trial of school day was the day after tomorrow. At that time, all graduation works would be presented and the other students would use points to experience them. All points earned from that would belong to the production team and be added to their test grade.

Of course, many teams would give some points to the winners to entice students to try their works. This was the only way for people to come try, and the more players, the better. Of course, the teams had to make sure the works were not impossible to play, and that they could personally succeed in the game.

That led to a problem: how could their raise the difficulty while ensuring that they could pass through the obstacles themselves?

This then led to another question: how could they tempt more people to play after ensuring the high difficulty?

This was something that gave all graduates headaches. They must reach a balance between difficulty and attractiveness. If it was too difficult, most people would be scared away. If it was too easy, they would lose too many points. Therefore, the control of difficulty must be calculated many times. During the long test, time passed second by second…

-

In the basement of the music history department, Charles held his notebook under the lone light and wrote, "4:30 a.m., first test…" Soon, he lifted his head and said, "Start."

Ye Qingxuan nodded and pressed a button. And then…Boom!

Redness swept through and the entire building shook. The basement became a mess. Ye Qingxuan and Charles turned ashy and were slammed into the wall by the explosive air pressure. Thankfully they had protective measures and were unharmed.

In the wall’s human-shaped dent, Ye Qingxuan spat out dust as his ears rang. Charles picked himself up from the ground and looked around dazedly.

"What happened? It exploded?"

Ye Qingxuan did not reply and just glared at Charles.

Charles instantly became dejected. "Junior, you can’t look at me like that! It’s not my fault it exploded! You can’t blame me, right?"

Ye Qingxuan sighed and rechecked the information on the Requiem enchantment. He soon found the reason. "Okay, there’s a conflict in the music theory of the overture. It continuously created unnecessary notes in this structure, which entered the second movement and created an endless loop." Holding his chin, he looked at the music score. "The interval’s structure isn’t stable enough. We need to change it."

But changing it was annoying. It was one of the important intervals in the beginning. Changing it meant adjusting the rest of the music theory. They would basically be starting all over again.

"What about this?" Charles had been looking for a long time. He reached over and gestured on the music score, adding a legato and repeat symbol. Instead of fixing the root of the problem, he had chosen to fix the surface and moved the endless loop to where it was not a problem.

Admittedly, this was cheating and definitely not a proper solution, but with Charles’ quick thinking, he made it work. Ye Qingxuan was stunned. Grinning, he gave a thumbs up. "Nice!"

Charles nodded and stepped back carefully. "Then, let’s start our second test."

Ye Qingxuan nodded. He stood to the side and pressed down the activation button.

And then…Boom!

This time, even the light was blasted away. Charles and Ye Qingxuan were pressed into the ceiling beside each other. They could not even get out… Thankfully they had used temporary Requiem enchantment to create an isolated zone. What happened in here would not affect the outside world. Otherwise, Bai Xi would be kicking down the door now.

"Junior, what’s the problem now?"

Ye Qingxuan hacked out his lungs and wiped the corner of his eyes. He stammered, "The six—sixth interval, why is there a glissando?"

"…Okay, that’s my fault."

"It’s always your fault. Why don’t we add a natural notation?"

"It can work. Then, third test…"

Boom!