Chapter 306: Accepting a Mission!
Chapter 306: Accepting a Mission!
Translator:ryuxenji
Editor:H2dH2mr
In this first meeting, Qi Long and the other four as well as [No Mecha Unrepaired] all felt that [Self-Defined Destiny] was a pretty decent guy. His demeanour was warm and gentle, making others feel as if graced by a spring breeze. Only [Priceless Kinship], a.k.a. Li Shiyu, was still a little puzzled, because the other's aura gave him a sense of familiarity and affinity, just like how Li Lanfeng had made him feel back when they first met ...
Li Shiyu could not help but mentally shake his head, laughing at himself for being a little too sensitive. Perhaps this person was just a pleasant-tempered person like Li Lanfeng, which was why he would give him this feeling of similarity ... Li Shiyu knew well that the reason he was so attuned to this sort of aura was that his eldest cousin brother radiated the exact same type of aura. His eldest cousin brother just could not become a mecha operator in reality like Li Lanfeng, nor could he enter Mecha World to become an advanced mecha warrior like [Self-Defined Destiny].
Although Mecha World was a virtual world, its advancement levels also drew from the true physical condition of the players in real life. If one's physical constitution in the real world did not meet the standards for advancement, one would also be unable to successfully advance in the virtual world.
Thus, Li Shiyu had never even considered the possibility that his eldest cousin brother might have entered Mecha World and become an advanced mecha warrior. This type of habitual thinking caused him to miss this earliest opportunity of discovering the truth. It was only many years later when he would come to realise that he had actually already touched upon the truth from the very beginning — he had merely brushed it aside.
After the few of them got to know one another, Ling Lan led them in a sprint towards the manor of the city lord of Grandsweep City. That was the place where one could accept the mission to build a battle clan. Ling Lan wanted to complete this mission today.
In the square, all the unaffiliated mecha operators watched as the team sprinted towards the city lord's manor, and they could pretty much confirm that the party was on their way to build a battle clan. They could not help but sigh ... why could they not be one of the members in that party?
One mecha operator who could not abide seeing others do well could not help but curse them silently in his heart,"I hope their luck is bad and they don't get a mission ..."
In Mecha World, the mission to establish a battle clan was not that easy to obtain. At present, the sources for these missions as posted on the official forums were trulyall kinds of strange1, different in so many ways. Some could be accepted directly from the city lord, with some of those being received at the official hall of the city lord's manor. There was even one battle clan which had been oddball enough to receive the mission from the janitor at the city lord's manor, while there were also clans that visited the manor multiple times to no avail ... not only that, the missions received also varied in difficulty. Some battle clans had a burst of great luck, managing to receive a supremely easy mission. It could be as easy as merely having to deliver a letter to obtain the clan formation token, thus successfully building one's battle clan. In contrast, there were some missions which were loaded with challenges — they might not be completed even after many attempts where the clan members would be wiped out again and again.
Thus from jealousy sprung hate — the unaffiliated players without a battle clan could not help but be resentful, hoping that these teams which qualified to establish battle clans would fail in their missions.
After speaking with the mecha operator guarding the gates of the city lord's manor, they found out that only the team leader could enter to accept the mission. So Ling Lan asked the others to wait for her at the gates before speaking with the mecha operator once more to choose the option of establishing a battle clan. The next second, she was transported into the city lord's manor. The moment one entered the manor, one would automatically be ejected from one's mecha to appear with one's regular appearance. Otherwise, the large hulking mecha would certainly have destroyed the city lord's manor.
The location one was transported to was utterly random, just like the way one could receive a mission. The place Ling Lan came to was a corridor. Ling Lan could not help but frown — the best spot to be transported to was the great hall of the manor. That way, it would be much more convenient to find the official hall or the city lord's office, and the success rate of obtaining a mission would be much higher. In contrast, it was hard to tell with this corridor, because you would not be able to tell which doorway you should choose. This was completely a test of luck.
But was it truly just a test of luck?2Ling Lan did not rush to look for a way out, instead standing where she had landed to think things through rationally.
Common sense would dictate that there should not be that many restrictions in the way of forming a battle clan. After all, the formation of a battle clan would band unaffiliated mecha operators together, greatly cultivating the cooperation and rapport between mecha operators, which would bring more potential out of the mecha operators within a clan. It could be said that for this type of battle clan that was established early, when enlisting as a clan into an army division, they could clearly skip the period new troops needed to acclimatise to work with one another. They could become an extremely efficient battle unit in a very short period of time.
Without question, this was an excellent model to foster a nation of soldiers. At critical junctures, even the common public could swiftly turn into extremely capable old hands at fighting, equipped with the ability to work in groups to boot.
In that case, why would such a brilliant model have so many restrictions placed on it? With even the process of accepting the clan-formation mission being so abstruse? Ling Lan could not help but recall the associated tests back during the enrolment for the scout academy and the military academy. A flash of insight coursed through her mind — could this also be a type of test? However, the ones being tested this time were them, the incipient clan leaders ... what the Federation needed were exceptional leaders who could lead their team members to grow and develop together. Were they trying to weed out those applicant clan leaders who did not have the ability and were only here muddying the waters, to prevent them from destroying the futures of their clan members?
Thinking about it this way, everything made sense — it could be explained why there were so many restrictions involved in the formation of a battle clan now. Ling Lan even felt that those party leaders who were unable to obtain a mission were in fact not unlucky as most believed. After entering the city lord's manor, their choices and actions must have been evaluated by the mainframe of Mecha World and found unsuitable for the role of clan leader. Perhaps that's how they lost the right to receive the mission?
In other words, right when one entered the city lord's manor, the assessment for the party leader had already begun!
At this point in her train of thought, Ling Lan could not help but sweatdrop. How much did this world love its hidden tests? Even when they were playing agame3, they could not avoid this hurdle ... Having reached this conclusion, Ling Lan naturally raised her guard up to 120%. After all, this would determine whether or not her battle clan could be formed. Even if she did not do it for herself, she would need to take responsibility on behalf of her followers and friends!
"Little Four, split the corridor into several smaller screens. Do not overlook any single small corner. I need to understand everything about this area," Ling Lan finally spoke up to give Little Four instructions.
Without demur, Little Four broke the image of the corridor into countless smaller images and displayed them to Ling Lan in her mindspace. Ling Lan began to study each picture carefully, clicking through them one by one. It didn't take long before she was done scrutinising all of the images.
Ling Lan's brow scrunched up tighter and tighter because she could not see anything strange on any of the images. It should be said that the corridor was absolutely normal. There were only two doorways — one was behind Ling Lan, so it should be the entrance, while the other was at the end of the corridor, so it should be the exit ...
Am I just overthinking things?Ling Lan could not help but wonder. Suddenly thinking of something, she abruptly clicked back to one of the images. It was an image of one corner of the corridor — right beside it was a large flower garden, and there was a gardener busy at work inside.
For a person to randomly appear like that in the flower garden, just when she was looking to accept a mission, Ling Lan felt that this was very suspicious.
"Little Four, this gardener, investigate them for me," Ling Lan instructed Little Four as she pointed at the sweat-drenched gardener.
Little Four obeyed immediately, beginning to flip through and investigate everything he could about the existence of the gardener. In the end, he returned jubilantly, eyes sparkling as he looked at Ling Lan, to say adoringly, "Boss, it's as you suspected. There is a huge problem with this person." If not for his boss sensing something strange about the situation, Little Four, who had not thought of taking the initiative to investigate, would have completely missed this opportunity to discover the truth.
At Little Four's response, Ling Lan's eyes lit up. "It's good as long as there is a problem. Who is he exactly?"
"He's no gardener. He's actually the lord of this manor, the city lord of Grandsweep City, Luo Yixuan," answered Little Four smugly. As long as it was something he wanted to find out, no matter how hard the Mecha World mainframe tried to conceal it, the information could never escape hiskeen fire-gold eyes4.
"So, the clan-formation mission should be on him." The corner of Ling Lan's lips quirked. What a windfall ... her luck was truly pretty good! Still, the mainframe of Mecha World was really quite despicable, actually disguising a city lord as a gardener. If she had not carefully studied the situation in the corridor, perhaps she might have walked all the way to the end and went off to god knows where. It was likely that she would not have ever obtained a mission then.
"For him to appear in this path you must go through to obtain a mission, Boss, and with the fact that he is the head here, that's probably close to the mark." Little Four agreed with Ling Lan's analysis, believing that the mission must be with the city lord.
Since she had found her target, Ling Lan quickly walked over to the gardener's side and silently waited for the gardener to finish up what he was doing. Ling Lan's patience was excellent, and she believed it was better not to disturb someone as they were working.
The gardener finished planting the tree sapling in his hands and was just turning around to pick up another sapling when he was startled greatly by Ling Lan standing behind him. His expression changed and he pointed at Ling Lan angrily and asked, "Hey, why are you standing behind me?! Don't you know that's very frightening?"
"Frightening? If you were a normal gardener, perhaps that might be true. But is Your Lordship really just an ordinary gardener?" said Ling Lan casually. Framed by that cold stony face of hers, it did not come off very friendly. However, Ling Lan was oblivious about this, because her demeanour when speaking was always like this regardless of whom she was speaking with.
"If I'm not an ordinary gardener, then who am I? You impudent punk. I must go report to the city lord and chase you out ..." This seemingly impolite expression and tone of Ling Lan instantly drove the gardener to anger.
Hearing this, Ling Lan's eyebrows lifted and the corner of her lips twitched up slightly. "Aren't you the city lord, Elder?" This expression of Ling Lan's was blatant mockery in the gardener's eyes. It seemed to be saying — was there really any point in this idiotic charade?
The gardener's expression instantly turned ugly as rage welled in his heart. Hells, this punk was truly too arrogant! Actually daring to laugh and mock me; not at all knowing how to respect his elders ... and so, his impression of Ling Lan dropped straight from neutral to a negative value.
Poor Ling Lan had long become accustomed to sporting this frozen face of hers. In fact, that little tilt of her lips had been forcefully squeezed out by Ling Lan in hopes of improving the city lord's impression of her. She was hoping that this would prompt the city lord to swiftly assign her a mission, one that was not too hard. However, this effort of hers was destined to go to waste. Sometimes, the best intentions could in fact lead to even worse outcomes ... just as it was with the current Ling Lan.
The gardener did not seem to want to give Ling Lan a mission. Even though Ling Lan had already uncovered his true identity, he still pretended he had heard nothing. He simply asked Ling Lan to leave the garden so she would not disturb his work.
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1. all kinds of strange - 千奇百怪: Literally 'thousand strange hundred weird', so 'super super weird'. :p
2. But was it truly just a test of luck? - T/C: Good, Ling Lan, always look underneath the underneath.
3. game - Remember, Mecha World is a game.
4. keen fire-gold eyes - 火眼金睛: This phrase has been explained before in chapter 289, though altered more there to suit the context. Look up the chapter again if you want a refresher. (Hint: Sun Wukong)