Chapter 422 - Trust!
Chapter 422: Trust!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
Ling Lan had used the simplest and most energy efficient way to eliminate those Leiting members. However, thinking back on Ling Lan’s combat style, everyone was confounded, because no one could see anything from Ling Lan’s fights. The spectators had only seen how cunning, sly, and imaginative Ling Lan’s combat tactics had been …
“His control skills should be equally strong, otherwise he would not be able to do this much that perfectly,” said Tang Yu, somewhat tentatively. Even though he knew Ling Lan was a special-class operator, he could not tell which stage of special-class Ling Lan was at.
“Interesting as expected.” The principal chuckled. This style was really like Ling Xiao’s … back then, that fellow Ling Xiao had been just as unpredictable. When Ling Xiao had first joined the army division, even the principal had not been able to figure out which level Ling Xiao was at. All of the information everyone knew about Ling Xiao was merely surface details and could not be taken to be fully accurate …
“The second Ling Xiao … other than his son, who else could do this?” These words of the principal were practically mumbled through closed lips — even seated beside him, Tang Yu could hardly hear him. Tang Yu raised his head curiously and asked, “Principal, what did you say? Are you talking to me?”
“Nothing. I just think that this match is very interesting. Our military academy really has a lot of good seedlings.” The principal burst out laughing at his words — to ensure the safety of his good friend’s son, he could not tell Tang Yu the truth.
Tang Yu nodded in agreement — this year was indeed rife with talent, almost dazzling his eyes with it all. Unfortunately, in order to guarantee the proper cultivation of the students, the academy had regulated that each instructor could take in no more than 5 students. And he, due to Lin Zhong-qing, had already asked the principal to make an exception for him once; he could not be greedy anymore.
Although Qiao Ting did not notice Ling Lan’s appearance immediately, Qiao Ting was after all an ace operator. Very soon, he discovered Ling Lan’s presence several 100 metres away. He whipped around, and when he saw the perfect, gleaming appearance of the special-class mecha, which was somehow fearsome and formidable at the same time, he could not help but shout through clenched teeth, “Ling Lan!”
Ling Lan looked at the beat up, no longer humanoid mecha of Qiao Ting and said with a cool expression, “I did not expect that after our members’ consecutive self-destructs, your mecha can still hold on. Colour me surprised.”
Frankly, after resolving those final three Leiting members, Ling Lan had rushed to the scene. However, in order not to affect Li Lanfeng and Qi Long, she had been observing this fight from about a kilometre away.
Of course, Ling Lan could have chosen to join the fight. With her abilities, she definitely could have killed Qiao Ting off and welcomed victory together with Li Lanfeng and Qi Long. However, Ling Lan did not want to do that, because she wanted to see how her leopard and the follower she had painstakingly cultivated would perform. Moreover, she hoped that the both of them would gain something from their fight with Qiao Ting.
It had to be said that Ling Lan was a worrier. She had taken Li Lanfeng and Qi Long to heart, so she wanted to increase their strength to the best of her ability. As such, she was willing to drag out the fight and even forsake the favourable scenario to her team at this moment in time, all so that Li Lanfeng and Qi Long would have the chance to truly exchange several moves with Qiao Ting.
Reality proved that Ling Lan did not make a mistake. Li Lanfeng’s performance amazed her; she had not expected her leopard to actually keep what she had said offhand so close to his heart …
That had been during the time after the enemy air invasion on the academy …
Not having to attend classes, Ling Lan was rather bored, so she had put all her attention onto Li Lanfeng and his physical constitution problem. During that period of time, Li Lanfeng finally experienced the Boss’s exclusive hellish training Qi Long and the others had mentioned. Every day, he would be trained by Ling Lan until he collapsed from exhaustion.
In contrast to Qi Long and the others’ attitude of avoiding it as much as they could, Li Lanfeng was happy to experience it. Every time, he was practically crawling as he left the virtual login pod, but the next day, he would still appear in full spirits before Ling Lan. This made Ling Lan suspect at one point whether Li Lanfeng was a masochist, but Li Lanfeng’s indefatigable performance had also given Ling Lan a deep taste of the pleasure Instructor Number Five felt when training others …
Sure enough, tormenting others was really very interesting! Of course, every time Ling Lan felt this way, she would crush the feeling mercilessly, not allowing it to flourish. She would then chastise herself sternly that she absolutely did not have that perverse mentality of Instructor Number Five — she was only so strict with her leopard all for his own good.
Finally, after some agonising torment, Li Lanfeng’s physical constitution took a turn for the better and was now already extremely close to that of the average mecha operator. But if it came to a high-intensity battle, his stamina would still be stretched rather thin.
Ling Lan was not too concerned about this, however, because she knew that this constitution problem was not something that could be resolved in just a day or two. Back then, she had also spent a whole three to four years’ time to fully resolve the latent issues caused by her excessive spiritual power. For Li Lanfeng to have accomplished this much in several months’ time, Ling Lan felt that he had already done very well.
Ling Lan may not be anxious about the matter, but Li Lanfeng was. That said, he was not rushing to solve everything in one go and eradicate his constitution problem completely. This was because Li Lanfeng knew very well that this problem could not be solved in a short period of time. Now, with Ling Lan’s help, he had almost resolved the constant threat of his body breaking down which had plagued him for many years. Just this point alone was enough to satisfy him.
Li Lanfeng’s anxiety was revolving around the upcoming Leiting vengeance match. He was afraid that his stamina problem would hold the others back. To that end, he had once asked his rabbit how he could do better on the battlefield.
Frankly, whether Li Lanfeng performed well or not did not matter much in the large scale of things for Ling Lan. However, when she saw Li Lanfeng’s eyes shining brightly, eager to perform well, Ling Lan just could not bear to speak honestly.
In the spirit of not harming an old friend, Ling Lan considered things seriously and then said to Li Lanfeng that, if he wanted to last longer in battle, he would need to treasure every bit of his stamina. He could not throw his stamina around profligately like that stamina monster Qi Long; he needed to carefully calculate every move he made and strive to make sure his every attack was effective.
Ling Lan’s advice made Li Lanfeng feel rather lost. So, Ling Lan kindly hinted to Li Lanfeng that if he could not be a berserk warrior, then he should become a swordsman or an assassin …
These words of Ling Lan’s had left Li Lanfeng in deep contemplation. On her end, Ling Lan had promptly forgotten about it after saying it, not taking the matter to heart. But today, seeing Li Lanfeng’s combat style, he had completely walked onto the path Ling Lan had outlined for him and he had performed outstandingly.
Ling Lan was greatly moved by this. She was touched over Li Lanfeng’s trust in her — it was due to this trust that he would take her words so seriously and even change his combat style accordingly … Li Lanfeng’s outstanding performance proved that he had put in a lot of effort in secret to research these things and had not just changed things blindly. In order to accomplish his mission, Li Lanfeng had even quietly sought out Chang Xinyuan to design this trap together. It had to be said that this idea of Li Lanfeng and Chang Xinyuan’s worked wonderfully in tandem with her planned tactic. Ling Lan could not help marvelling at their creativity and innovativeness.
Li Lanfeng’s performance had exceeded Ling Lan’s expectations, but Qi Long’s performance had not disappointed Ling Lan either. Lurking, grasping the timing to attack, and other aspects, Qi Long had done all those things well. The only pity was that his mecha’s speed was just too weak. If the speed of Qi Long’s mecha could have been increased by just a hair, perhaps she would not even have had to take part in this final fight. Li Lanfeng and Qi Long might have been able to finish off Qiao Ting on their own.
Such a shame … Ling Lan felt rather regretful. She was not Qiao Ting; she did not really care whether she could be in the limelight. Compared to all this, she was more concerned over her members’ performance — if Qi Long and Li Lanfeng had been able to eliminate Qiao Ting on their own, she would have been even happier.
Ling Lan decided that she would definitely increase the speed of Qi Long’s mecha and make Qi Long a close combat king with both speed and power.
At this moment, Qi Long, who had already been ejected from the field, suddenly felt a chill run up his spine. He could not help but shiver and immediately circulate his Qi-Jin to chase the chill out even as he muttered in confusion, “That’s strange. Where is this cold feeling coming from?”
Qi Long did not know that his boss could not tolerate his tortoise speed and was already planning to “torture” him well …
Opposite her, Qiao Ting did not know that Ling Lan was feeling regretful over the fact that her leopard and follower had not been able to finish him off themselves. When he heard Ling Lan’s disdainful words, he almost exploded in anger. When had he, Thunder King Qiao Ting, ever been looked down upon by a mecha newbie who had just risen to their second year and had yet to even touch real mecha?
“Just those rookie team members of yours … even though they used this type of despicable self-destruct methods, they won’t be able to defeat me. In this military academy, no one can defeat me. No one,” declared Qiao Ting vehemently, eyes bloodshot. He, Qiao Ting, was an undefeated king!
“Is that so?” Ling Lan could not help but raise her eyebrows at his words. Looking at Qiao Ting’s battered mecha, Ling Lan did not know where the other’s confidence was coming from. Even if her mecha was mistaken to be a special-class mecha, comparing her almost undamaged mecha to Qiao Ting’s dilapidated mecha, anyone with eyes could see that the odds were on her side.
“Honestly, dying at my members’ hands would have been luckier for you.” Ling Lan studied Qiao Ting carefully before speaking again. Her voice was as cold as ever, but all the spectators could hear how seriously she meant what she said.
Ling Lan’s words caused an uproar among the audience. Even though Ling Lan’s chances looked better, Qiao Ting was still the acknowledged number one in the academy after all. As long as he could still operate his mecha, no one could be certain that they would be able to defeat him. Ling Lan’s words were obviously rather arrogant and presumptuous, raising the hackles of many in the audience. In particular, the administrators of the academy undoubtedly felt as if Ling Lan’s words were smacking them in the face.
“This punk …” The principal could not help but shake his head. He had originally thought that this child had inherited Ling Xiao’s low profile manner, but now, from the looks of it, Ling Lan was still a little too young and unbridled.
In truth, the principal was blaming Ling Lan unfairly. Ling Lan had really meant no disrespect to Qiao Ting with her words, nor had the words contained any so-called arrogance. The fact was that Ling Lan was merely speaking the truth. If Qiao Ting had died under the consecutive self-destructs of her members, he would still have been able to use the excuse that Lingtian’s tactics had been too despicable. However, if he died at her hands without being able to resist, Qiao Ting would have no excuse, and Ling Lan truly did not want to deal such a heavy blow to the prideful heart of this aberrant talent.