Chapter 237: Combat Style!

Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr

After the 10-second protection period, Ling Lan did not wait for her opponent to make the first move like in her previous match. Ling Lan believed that [All-Rounded Expert]'s irreverent att.i.tude made him unqualified to even operate a mecha into battle.

Thus, Ling Lan operated her rabbit mecha to leap forwards without any hesitation. With a powerful spring, her mecha flew like an arrow parallel to the ground. In an instant, she had removed the carrot-sword from the rabbit's mouth and swung it forwards fiercely, drawing a brilliant red trail of light through the air, slas.h.i.+ng at the c.o.c.kpit of the humanoid mecha.

"Warning! Danger!" The other's mainframe only had time to give this one warning before the initially brightly lit c.o.c.kpit was plunged into darkness. Then, the system's voice rang out, "You have died in battle. Please choose whether to continue to the next match or to leave?"

[All-Rounded Expert] blew a gasket at this unexpected outcome. He believed that his opponent must definitely have used some illegal controls in this attack, otherwise how could he have been insta-killed in just one move 1 ? This rabbit was really too despicable! No wonder the team had sent out a kill order on it. Hmph, and to think he had even felt sorry for the other ...

[All-Rounded Expert] decided that he would go back and seek the other out again to teach him a good lesson, letting the other understand that one could not live in such a despicable manner. [All-Rounded Expert] chose to withdraw from the matchups and look up his own battle records, trying to seek out information on that rabbit. Unexpectedly, the other had chosen to remain anonymous. This further cemented [All-Rounded Expert]'s belief that the other had come prepared to use some underhanded rule-breaking methods to rob him of his points. He was filled with indignant rage, immediately raising an objection to the mecha world's system, hoping that the system would disqualify the other's win. Not only that, he also complained that the other had used illegal methods which broke the system's rules.

Very quickly, the system responded. The system judged the match valid; [All-Rounded Expert]'s objection was refuted. Furthermore, the contents of his complaint were judged by the system as groundless a.s.sumption, a form of false accusation.

With regards to false accusations, the punishment was extremely severe both in the real world and in the virtual world. [All-Rounded Expert] was immediately deducted 2000 points, and was given a 10-match ban by the system. This outcome made [All-Rounded Expert] even more infuriated. Mad from anger, he could not control himself, curses and profanities pouring endlessly from his mouth. And then, a greater tragedy occurred — this behaviour of [All-Rounded Expert] made the virtual world system kick him out, along with the notification that he had been banned from entering the virtual world for 3 days.

[All-Rounded Expert] stared at the red-worded warning on his screen and kicked open the virtual world login pod in a towering rage. Crawling out from it, he roared, "Blasted mainframe! I'm so p.i.s.sed off!"

Right then, the hatch of the login pod beside his suddenly opened. A young man sat up from inside and asked with a baffled expression, "Qiao Lin, why have you come out? No wonder I could not find you in the mecha world."

He had tried to contact [All-Rounded Expert] in the mecha world, but was informed by the system that the other was unreachable. Out of worry, he had then decided to go offline to check on the other, and sure enough, the other had left the virtual world.

Qiao Lin looked at the other and then, as if finding a confidant, he immediately broke out into a rant telling the other everything that had happened in the mecha world.

The other youth frowned slightly, disagreeing with Qiao Lin's point of view. He said, "Since the mainframe did not find anything wrong with the other, that means the other didn't cheat. Perhaps you just took your opponent too lightly."

Qiao Lin retorted angrily, "How could that be? Even if I did not take the other seriously, as peer trainee mecha operators, is it possible for him to insta-kill me? It's not like I entered a cross-grade challenge match." At the heart of it, he just could not believe that he could be killed instantly by a trainee mecha operator of the same level. He could not accept this outcome.

At these words, the other youth paused. Knowing that Qiao Lin could not accept this result, he tried to counsel him gently, "It's likely that the other is a hacker, and did something the mainframe cannot see through. Your anger is wasted for now. Why not save it and look for a chance to take revenge in the future?"

Although the youth was comforting Qiao Lin this way, a trace of disagreement could be seen on his face. The mecha world was renowned to be the most secure virtual world — hackers would never be able to manipulate anything inside it unless they were the even more terrifying spectres. However, spectres relied on directly damaging an opponent's spiritual power to obtain victory ... seeing Qiao Lin's hysterically exuberant demeanour right now, that possibility could be excluded. The truth was very likely as he had guessed — Qiao Lin had been too careless and, by sheer fluke, this insta-kill was the outcome.

If Qiao Lin had not been the Thunder King Qiao Ting's younger brother, he would not have even bothered with these comforting words. Glancing at the bristling Qiao Lin, he could not help but sigh. Even though they were brothers with the same bloodline, their talents were completely incomparable. The Thunder King Qiao Ting was the prodigious mecha operator in the limelight, while Qiao Lin was an incapable fool, only able to bank on his elder brother's reputation to act like a prince ...

After spending a little more time consoling Qiao Lin, the youth then said goodbye to the other and laid back into the virtual login pod. In that instant before the login pod closed, a mocking smirk suddenly appeared on the initially discontented face of Qiao Lin ...

********

Over the next two days, a piece of news went viral among the lower mecha operators. In the newcomer matchups, a particular trainee rabbit mecha had consecutively killed over 40 other newcomer trainee mecha operators in one day, immediately leaping to the top of the newcomer rankings.

40 consecutive victories was not any great news — many people before this had also achieved this type of results. Though of course these people did not accomplish it in one day ...

Indeed, in terms of time, the rabbit mecha's achievement was rather remarkable, but this was not the reason for the uproar. The reason why the entire mecha world was so shaken, was that this rabbit mecha had managed one-hit kills against opponents of the same level. Not just once, or twice, but every single time. These results were certainly unprecedented — though it could not be known whether this feat would not be replicated in the future, within the near future at least, no one could do the same ...

Moreover, this was not some cross-grade arena fight, where it was easy to get a one-hit kill due to the great difference in strength between the two fighters' levels. In a newcomer matchup, as both sides were newcomers, it was very rare to see such an overwhelming difference between partic.i.p.ants. Many people suspected that the rabbit mecha must have stayed back at the mecha training hall to keep polis.h.i.+ng its basic controls, waiting until it was honed to the max before entering the mecha world 2 . This would explain why its strength was so high.

Of course, there were also people who suspected that this was the alternate account of some expert. However, this supposition was soon outright refuted by the official authorities, because the mecha world did not allow alternate accounts. Every person's brainwaves and spiritual power was unique, and they used that to login to the virtual world, so it was impossible for someone to have a second account.

Even hackers with spiritual self-mutations or spectres could not modify their brainwaves and spiritual power to establish a new account. They could only use s.h.i.+elding methods to hide their true ident.i.ties from the system. However, they too could not change the facts, for example, changing their level from a mecha expert to a trainee mecha operator ...

The declaration from the authorities only escalated the matter further. More and more people were leaning towards the idea that the rabbit mecha had trained within the training hall for several years to achieve this grand debut. In the meantime, the rabbit mecha did not stop its winning streak. In the second day, 60 people fell to its sword, pus.h.i.+ng its total victories to 100 matches. Each and every one of these 100 matches were finished with one-hit kills.

This achievement caused those lower level mecha operators to grow even wilder — many of them were filled with regret for not training properly in their basic control, for not appreciating their first mecha, for switching over to a better mecha before they were fully familiar with their first mecha. Quite a number of people began idolising the rabbit mecha, even believing that one day, he would become the most talented mecha operator of the Federation ... it was highly likely that another prodigy like Ling Xiao had appeared.

On the third day, just as everyone was eagerly antic.i.p.ating the rabbit mecha's continued victory streak, they found that they could no longer see any sign of the rabbit mecha in the newcomer matchups ... just when everyone was boggled by this, someone calculated the rabbit mecha's points and found that the points from the 100 consecutive wins was enough for the rabbit mecha to advance to lower mecha operator.

In other words, the rabbit mecha could not join the lowest tier of cross-grade challenges. Many people a.s.sumed that the rabbit mecha would definitely partic.i.p.ate in a cross-grade challenge, but soon found that the mysterious rabbit mecha had truly disappeared from the entire arena. It was as if its fervent battle exploits of the previous two days were just a dream, a ma.s.s hallucination.

********

"Li Lanfeng, you've recently been researching the combat methods of the rabbit mecha. Did you find anything?" In the 4th year dorms, the regular visitor Zhao Jun, who came to see Li Lanfeng studying those videos again, could not help but ask.

"Just as everyone is saying, their basic control is close to perfect. Not a single move is wasted. It's so clean and efficient that it's scary," replied Li Lanfeng with a serious expression.

"Looks like, the other's combat style is very similar to yours!" Zhao Jun understood Li Lanfeng. His good friend was also someone who pursued the perfection of basic controls. This was the reason why Li Lanfeng had still not yet advanced to special-cla.s.s operator. Staying as an advanced mecha warrior for two years was so that he could train in the advanced mecha warrior basic controls until he mastered them till perfection. Otherwise, Li Lanfeng's current mecha level would have already been the same as his. Two years' time was enough for him to peek into the doorway to the secrets of ace operators.

Zhao Jun had always thought that Li Lanfeng had a sort of problematic obsession with basic controls; he himself did not think much of it. Everyone knew that the more advanced a mecha operator was, the more complex the manoeuvres they could learn would be, with a corresponding greater power. Many people would not want to waste time on the basic controls of lower mecha — in Zhao Jun's eyes, the basic controls of each level need only be learned until one was familiar with them; it was completely unnecessary to hone them till perfection. Zhao Jun was of the firm opinion that Li Lanfeng was wasting his time.

However, Zhao Jun would not force Li Lanfeng to change his ways. Compared to Li Lanfeng's mecha control skills, he trusted and valued the other more for his brains and strategic mind. In fact, he felt that Li Lanfeng was better suited to be a strategist rather than a full-time mecha operator.

"Yes, this style is indeed very similar ..." mused Li Lanfeng, who seemed to be recalling something, his gaze distant.

"Could this be someone from your sect?" asked Zhao Jun jokingly, still remembering Li Lanfeng mention before that the perfect mastery of basic controls was the hard-and-fast rule of his sect.

At these words, Li Lanfeng blinked, startled, as if realising something. He very quickly regained his composure though, to say, "Zhao Jun, you have finally said something useful. Perhaps, that rabbit mecha really has some relation with our sect."