It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future

The waiting referees suddenly grew excited. The main referee looked at the time on the communicator on his wrist, smiled and said, “The first to reach their base camp, using 1 hour and 59 minutes. The amount of time they took is pretty short, but unfortunately, they still didn’t manage to beat the shortest time record.”

Upon hearing that, one referee couldn’t help but argue, “General Ling Xiao made a record of 1 hour and 37 minutes back then. That is already infinitely near the fastest theoretical speed. How can anyone be able to break this record?”

The main referee thought about it and believed it to be true. If someone really did break the shortest time record General Ling Xiao had created, then that would be a surprise. The main referee and the others didn’t know at the time that if Ling Lan hadn’t waited 30 minutes to make sure of her predictions, it was possible that Ling Lan’s group could have beaten Ling Xiao’s record and made a record of their own.

Tossing aside the small suspicions in his mind, the main referee turned his head and asked the referee in charge of monitoring signal transfers, “How long until we know which military academy is at G17?”

“The A.I. is now receiving the beacon’s signal. It is at 90% right now. The answer will be known soon enough,” the referee reported as he continued to watch the progress bar go up.

A “beep” sounded right as he finished speaking—the signal received had reached 100%. Following that, the Area G17 which had lit up showed a familiar academy emblem. “It’s the First Men’s Military Academy!”

“Holy sh*t, the First Men’s Military Academy is pretty strong this year. Their score from before already left the other military academies behind by a large margin. As long as their performance in the battle royale isn’t too bad, this year’s first place should theirs. Heh heh heh, it’s been almost 7 times, right? The first place that was far out of their reach for more than two decades should return to the First Men’s Military Academy now,” one referee exclaimed.

Right then, another referee seemed to have realized something and laughed out loud. Everyone looked towards him with surprised looks, not knowing what he was laughing about.

That referee quickly explained, “I just thought it was a coincidence that two decades ago, General Ling Xiao led the First Men’s Military Academy and obtained the most glorious first place. Two decades have passed, and General Ling Xiao has come to visit the mecha tournament and as luck would have it, the First Men’s Military Academy’s performance is remarkable beyond comparison. Doesn’t this mean that General Ling Xiao is the First Men’s Military Academy’s lady luck? If he’s around then everything will go smoothly, right?”

These words that held a bit ridicule made everyone smile inside. However, it was just as what that referee had said—it was really a coincidence. After the tournament in which General Ling Xiao had made a glorious achievement, Ling Xiao didn’t appear in the seven tournaments that followed. The performance of the First Men’s Military Academy was always poor and they were pressured into second place for seven straight seasons by the Second Men’s Military Academy. This time, however, General Ling Xiao came and from the start of the tournament, the First Men’s Military Academy’s performance was overwhelming and suppressed the other military academies. And now, they were also the first ones to reach their base camp location, giving themselves more time to organize the defenses of the camp. The future prospects of the First Men’s Military Academy in the battle royale were looking good.

Right then, noises suddenly came from the outside and someone repeatedly exclaimed, “General Ling Xiao’s here.”

Everyone in the main monitoring room was very surprised. Although everyone knew General Ling Xiao would visit the main scene, everyone still believed that the busy General Ling Xiao would only come to watch in the later parts of the battle royale. They hadn’t thought that General Ling Xiao would come when the tournament hadn’t really started.

Soon, the people in the monitoring room saw General Ling Xiao, who was full of energy, coming in with a beautiful woman. They were none other than General Ling Xiao and his wife, Lan Luofeng.

The two’s love story was always relished by others. Lan Luofeng used to be the person whom all the women in the federation were jealous of. Now that they had seen the actual person, many of the female officers who were present felt better. They kicked themselves for not being the woman who was standing beside General Ling Xiao.

Of course, there were many officers who came along with General Ling Xiao, such as lieutenant Qiu Yue, the first advisor of the 23rd Division, He Xuyang, other representatives from other divisions, and also the representative belonging to the Federation—the Vice President.

Everyone moved in front of the large screen with the help of the person in charge from the organizers. Ling Xiao saw the only area that was lit up and seeing the familiar school emblem, he smirked. He hadn’t thought that his own daughter would have arrived at their headquarters location this quickly. He uncontrollably glanced at Qiu Yue, who stood beside him, with a hint of disdain in his expression.

Ling Xiao’s glance made Qiu Yue scratch his nose awkwardly. On their way here, he had told Ling Xiao about how he tossed commander Ling Lan into the Yin Yang Sea. He had no choice but to do so, as he was worried that the First Men’s Military Academy would not be able to see through the mysteries of the Yin Yang Sea, fail to discover the real path and get regrettably eliminated. That was why he had wanted to give Ling Xiao a heads up, in case he got mad at the end.

As for Ling Xiao, he was very satisfied with the performance of Ling Lan’s group. On the side of First Men’s Military Academy’s cadets, once they arrived at the base camp, they began to get busy. Everyone split the work and cooperated, while Ling Lan specially called for the modification team. Led by Chang Xinyuan, they began to modify some of the lighter weapons. It was because of this group of people that Ling Lan had forgone exchanging for heavy weaponry at the beginning, choosing instead the light and easy to carry weapons. With these mechanics, their headquarters would not be lacking in weaponry.

Ling Lan didn’t rest either. She asked Lin Zhong-qing to take out the light sources and handed 100 of them to Qiao Ting. Light sources were very useful in dark environments and could be used to illuminate areas. After Qiao Ting received the light sources, he quietly took his team and left.

According to the original plan, Qiao Ting’s 24-man team was responsible for being the vanguard. They were to take over other areas, regardless of whether there were people there or not, and gain as many points as possible. On the other hand, the defense of the headquarters was the responsibility of Ling Lan, Han Yu, Mu Shaoyu and the other teams.

After seeing Qiao Ting’s team off, Ling Lan decisively connected to Han Yu and Mu Shaoyu’s comm-link. “Captain Mu, Captain Han, I need to talk to you guys. Please come over.”

Upon hearing Ling Lan’s summons, the two teams that were just patrolling and looking at the situation of the area quickly came over.

Seeing that Ling Lan had come out of her mecha, the two of them did the same as well. Ling Lan gave out two pieces of paper which she had prepared earlier, one to Mu Shaoyu and one to Han Yu.

After the two of them each took a piece of paper, their eyes showed a hint of confusion, not really understanding what it all meant.

“You guys can look at each other’s,” Ling Lan prompted them.

The two of them instantly had a thought and exchanged their pieces of paper. They simultaneously read the details of the piece of paper they were handed and saw that Mu Shaoyu’s piece had G14 written on it, while Han Yu’s piece had G20 written on it.

The two of them had now gained some understanding of the papers’ meaning, but they were still slightly confused. They looked towards Ling Lan, waiting for her explanation.

Ling Lan opened the map in her hands and signaled the two to come closer. She pointed at the two areas that were between the Area G17 and a few others and said, “These areas are actually, as I remember, all uninhabited. I don’t want our headquarters to be exposed in front of everyone. The two areas that I just gave you are very good places for providing us with cover…”

Ling Lan quietly explained her thoughts to Han Yu and Mu Shaoyu. The two of them nodded as they listened, their eyes lighting up increasingly. Ling Lan’s arrangement was evidently a strategy of a city within a city, in order to prevent others from finding the location of their headquarters.

“In the mountain areas, we have three opponents. One is at G6. Captain Mu Shaoyu is responsible for that side. One is at G12, which is close to the side that Captain Han Yu is responsible for.” Ling Lan pointed towards the areas that were somewhat far from where they were and told them where the enemies were lurking. She then also pointed towards the furthest corner of the mountain ranges that were very far from them. “And there’s this one, at G2. This one doesn’t really matter because here, here, and here, all have military academy headquarters. They have to face these opponents before they can expand towards our side.”

Mu Shaoyu and Han Yu felt that Ling Lan’s analysis of why the third opponent would not be a problem was very accurate. Firstly, they were too far away from them compared to the Area G6 and G12 which were much closer. Secondly, the military academy in Area G2 was really unlucky. In the four areas that were adjacent to them, other than G1 being uninhabited, the other three areas, P3, P4 and P5, were all unlucky and became a headquarters for the military academies. The military academy in these four areas would either form a temporary alliance and expand outwards together, or fight each other until the strongest was left, taking over all four areas.

However, Ling Lan didn’t think that they would be able to successfully form an alliance. Other than that area where they were all squished together, the rest was a large portion of uninhabited areas. They would definitely not be able to maintain their alliances. It would only be an illusion and the end result would definitely be of one betraying the other and stabbing each other in the back, leaving only one team in the end.

Han Yu and Mu Shaoyu left with their orders and began to build headquarters outside the real headquarters in order to confuse the other military academies. As for what the headquarters would become, Ling Lan did not concern herself with it. It would have impossible for Han Yu and Mu Shaoyu to have each become a leader of the four great factions if they didn’t have anything up their sleeves. Ling Lan always used the people that she trusted and never those that she didn’t. She notified Lin Zhong-qing that as long as their requests were not too overboard, he should fully satisfy the needs of the two faction leaders.

After organizing everything, she saw that Qi Long’s bunch had already come beside her. Qi Long was even low spirited and discouraged.

“What’s wrong?” Ling Lan asked.

“They all went out. But as for us, are we really just going to sit in headquarters and wait for others to attack? That’s so boring.” Qi Long wanted to go out and fight. For him, being on the defense was not as thrilling as being on the offense.

“When I finish arranging everything, I will take you guys out to walk around,” Ling Lan said speechlessly. She knew these guys couldn’t take just sitting around. This was fine since she hadn’t been intending on defending their base camp to the death, to begin with.

Ling Lan pinched the object in her bag. They could lose everything if she was wrong, but as for everything they stood to gain… Ling Lan’s mouth curled slightly—she had already made up her mind.

In a battle of life or death, her will to gamble was still this strong! Just let all her team members play something stimulating with her then!