The Artificer Is Not Doing Proper Work

Su Ninglong is a cultivator reincarnated into an interstellar era where spiritual energy is scarce. She is raised by her godmother Zou Shuyi, a fierce bar owner. At four years old, Zou Shuyi drags her to a kindergarten distribution center for a Star Alliance test. Su Ninglong hates school and prefers self-study to fix robots, but Zou Shuyi insists she attend kindergarten to make friends and get a head start.

At the distribution center, Zou Shuyi queues among other parents, all anxious about their children passing the test to enter the prestigious Star Alliance. Zou Shuyi believes Su Ninglong has a high chance of passing due to her intelligence and temperament. Su Ninglong secretly wishes to go to the Star Alliance to uncover its mysteries, which the news and drunks in the bar have never fully explained.

A golden-haired Star-awakened man leads Su Ninglong and two other children to Test Room One. The first part is a question session: Su Ninglong correctly answers a math question, gives a clever answer about not being picky, and admits she does not know what a black shadow is, unlike the other children who describe it as a monster. The Star-awakened man is pleased with her and sees potential for her to enter the Star Alliance.

The second test is a role-playing simulation. The children wear helmets and enter a virtual banquet hall with a grotesque fatty at the head table, stuffing rotten meat crawling with maggots. The fatty is called "Hunger Bind." Su Ninglong remains calm, tests the simulation’s realism by touching objects and carving on the wall, and deduces it is a fake spiritual world. The other child is terrified but follows her. When the fatty attacks, Su Ninglong dodges with her ancient combat habits and notes the fatty’s ominous aura resembles a token from her past life. She uses a knife and fork to injure the fatty, then cuts the chandelier rope to trap it. She finally ignites the oily fatty with a candelabra, killing it. The fatty releases rich spiritual energy upon death, boosting Su Ninglong’s Qi Refining Stage by one level. She passes the test with ten seconds left and is determined to enter the Star Alliance to investigate this phenomenon.

The third test involves three tokens imbued with ominous aura. The Star-awakened man instructs each child to hold one for ten minutes. Su Ninglong recognizes the token from her previous life as a useless piece she once tried to modify. She uses mental power to probe it and hears a distracting noise. She asks another child to bump their tokens together, causing ominous qi to intertwine and surge, but she separates them quickly. The other children feel the token growing heavy, but Su Ninglong feels nothing due to her strong core. After ten minutes, she puts down the token and walks toward the final door. The third child hesitates, tempted to take the token because it whispers to him. Su Ninglong exposes his lie and mocks him, making him put it down.

In the corridor, a tall thin black shadow stands with its back to them. It turns slowly, and Su Ninglong senses its perverse desire for her curiosity. She perceives the same ominous aura from the tokens. She has now passed all tests and decides that she must go to the Star Alliance Academy to learn the secrets behind the black shadows, the ominous tokens, and the spiritual energy from the simulated creature. Her ultimate goal is to understand these mysteries and possibly continue her cultivation in this new world.