“That's why Little Four, wake up, I need you!” This was the first time Ling Lan said that she needed someone. The Ling Lan now was no longer the strong and invincible commander in everyone's eyes. She was no longer the dominant Boss who all of her comrades believed that she could fight off thousands of soldiers. Now, she was a girl who needed someone to rely on.

“I'll give you one chance. If you don't wake up now, I might not need you anymore.” Ling Lan's demeanour suddenly turned cold and her expression turned indifferent. She slowly took back her finger, as if the weak expression she just showed was an illusion.

Her weak self was extra baggage. Faced with the loss of Little Four, she went back to demeanor of the Ling Lan from her previous life. The weak version of Ling Lan that was dependent on everyone else around her to survive, that was sad that everyone showed concern for her but no one actually felt concerned for her, and that was lonely.

If staying here being all weak wasn't going to do anything, then she would be going to do what she needed to be, a cold and heartless commander.

Just as she turned around to leave, the corner of her sleeve was suddenly pulled on by a chubby little hand.

“Don't… leave!” Little Four's weak voice rang from behind her.

Ling Lan's body shook and her eyes instantly teared up.

She rapidly blinked her eyes. The blinking immediately erased the immense joy she had along with the weakness she shouldn't have had or rather shouldn't have shown.

She turned around and flicked her finger lightly, “Dumb Little Four. You finally slept enough.”

The Little Four hovering in mid-air groaned in pain. Then, he immediately jumped up and held his forehead with a look of being wronged. With a sad look on his face, he said, “Boss, I'm a patient right now, can't you be a bit more nice to me?”

“Nice?” The bones on Ling Lan's finger began to make cracking sounds. She then spoke in a cold tone, “Do you need me to give you a ma.s.sage personally?”

It was clear that this 'ma.s.sage' would definitely make Little Four be in so much pain that he would rather die.

As an intelligent ent.i.ty, Little Four was, of course, not related the word 'dumb'. He shook his head furiously.

Right as Little Four was about to cause himself to faint from shaking his head too much, a hand suddenly held his head and stopped his shaking head.

Ling Lan's head caressed Little Four's head. This sudden warmth stunned Little Four.

“Boss?” Little Four raised his head in surprise.

In the next second, Ling Lan used all of her might to hug him. The hug was so tight that Little Four actually felt as though he was suffocating.

“Little Four, it's good that you're fine.” Ling Lan's calm voice flowed into Little Four's ears. Despite it sounding cold as it had always been, Little Four still managed to hear the happiness and gratefulness in Ling Lan's heart.

As the hug continued, Little Four could feel his body warming up to the point where his main CPU might overheat.

“Next time, I won't allow you to take such risks again. Even if it is for mom or dad or even me. I won't allow it. Don't ever do that again, do you hear me?” said Ling Lan sternly.

She hoped that Little Four would always exist even at her pa.s.sing. Even if one day she weren't to exist anymore, she still hoped Little Four would continue to exist in this world and live without any worries.

Little Four felt himself short-circuiting for a moment. The two top level restrictions of the learning machine actually somehow went against each other which made his circuits go haywire.

The first responsibility of the learning machine was to protect the life of the host, and the second responsibility was that it couldn't go against the orders of the host.

Ling Lan, who was holding Little Four, felt that Little Four's body had frozen stiff. Upon realization, she quickly and gently placed Little Four down. When she saw a sleeping Little Four again, she felt her mind was about to collapse.

“Instructor Number One!” Ling Lan quickly shouted.

Number One appeared in an instant.

“Instructor Number One, what's wrong with Little Four?” Why did Little Four suddenly stop responding to her. His originally bright and lively eyes actually darkened. It was as though he was a robot that suddenly lost its power.

Instructor Number One lightly pushed down on Little Four's head and frowned slightly. “He actually began evolving right after he woke up. He really is a piece of work.”

Evolving an intelligent ent.i.ty like Little Four required work to be done in advance to prepare for it. Usually, it required months of dedicated research and careful experimentation of the direction of the evolution to increase the chance of success, otherwise, the evolution would fail easily.

Instructor Number One thought Little Four was too impulsive to evolving himself after sensing he could evolve. How could he know that it was because of some of Ling Lan's actions and words that caused Little Four's original restrictions to have a terrifying flaw? In order to repair this flaw, Little Four naturally chose to evolve after sensing the room for an evolution. This was actually a method Little Four used to protect himself.

“Is Little Four in danger?” Ling Lan said worriedly.

“At most, he would just fail and waste this opportunity to evolve that you managed to acquire with great effort,” said Instructor Number One frustratingly.

“That's fine.” Ling Lan was no longer worried. As long as Little Four was fine, no matter how wasteful it was, Ling Lan wouldn't mind.

Number One understood the meaning behind Ling Lan's words. He shook his head silently. With a host who pampers her own intelligent ent.i.ty without thinking about any of the risks… Number One felt his head hurt.

Each and every one of them weren't easy to deal with.

Little Four's evolution wasn't something that could be done in just one or two days. So, after getting a.s.sured that nothing would happen to Little Four, Ling Lan left the room.

She used her spiritual self to scan the entire rainbow palace to discover that everyone was systematically going about their work.

Seeing this, Ling Lan was no longer worried. She took a deep breath before taking a step forward to arrive beside Instructor Number Five.

Instructor Number Five was studying Little Blossom's situation closely. After sensing Ling Lan's arrival, he said, “A portion of Little Four's energy was devoured by Little Blossom. I'm not sure if Little Four was affected or not.”

This was the result after Instructor Number One and Number Five a.n.a.lyzed them. Otherwise, with Little Blossom's terrible state, things wouldn't get better so suddenly.

“Little Four just woke up, but now he's evolving himself,” said Ling Lan calmly. “Also, without Little Four's consent, Little Blossom can't devour Little Four's energy.”

Ling Lan was much more knowledgeable of the relations.h.i.+p between Little Four and Little Blossom compared to the two instructors. Although Little Four bullied Little Blossom, Ling Lan knew that Little Four actually cared a lot for Little Blossom. It was probably when Little Four sensed Little Blossom was in danger, he voluntarily sent energy to Little Blossom.

“If he's fine, that's good,” Number Five had a nonchalant look on his face. He was now more interested in Little Blossom. The way he looked at Little Blossom was like a wolf watching its prey… as if he was hoping to get a bite of him.

“Instructor Number Five, I want to enter the virtual time dimension.” Ling Lan's words instructor made Number Five retract his gaze.

“Why?” Instructor Number Five had a stern look on his face.

“I want to find the catalyst to advance into the G.o.d-realm,” Ling Lan said in a serious tone.

“No,” Number Five instantly refused.

“Instructor Number Five,” shouted Ling Lan with determination.

The two of them stared at each other. After a few minutes, Instructor Number Five wiped his helpless expression with his hand and said in dismay, “Convince me with a good reason.”

“Lord Qian,” Ling Lan only said those two words.

Number Five was silent for a while, then said, “You should know where your problem lies.”

This time, it was Ling Lan who was silent. Having been stuck at the peak of the imperial realm for so long and not being able to touch up the G.o.d-realm, she ,of course, knew the reason.

She advanced too quickly. Although the advancements were carefully done, her basics were still clearly less solid than those who have had decades or even centuries of time to build it up. Even if there was the learning s.p.a.ce's time machine speeding things up, giving her more time to train, it still wasn't enough to make up for centuries of work.

Advancing into the G.o.d-realm required enough power in layers. Otherwise, if the layers were too thin, it wouldn't work. That was the issue Ling Lan had. Her amount of power was not enough, so she couldn't get close to the door of the G.o.d-realm.

Slowly, gathering power was the best method to advance into the G.o.d-realm. Unfortunately, Ling Lan couldn't wait!