Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
In the lively celebratory atmosphere, Lin Ling stood quietly aside while she watched the other recruits cheered happily.
In any past tournament, second place was already celebratory worthy. But when the first place winner was from the East Asian military, the majority had seemed to forget that the second place was also from the same East Asian military. And just not long ago, everyone once had high hopes on this second place participant to emerge as the champion.
Lin Ling didn’t leave but neither did she join the celebration team as she watched quietly at a corner. It was as if all of this had nothing to do with her.
Qin Fen squeezed through the crowd toward Lin Ling who stood still in her position.
Both of them looked at each other.
“You are the champion.”
Lin Ling spoke with her usual voice. From her voice, there wasn’t any happiness or disappointment.
As a person involved with the event, the words spoken by her seemed to describe a fact that was completely unrelated to herself, like a robot presenting its report.
From her calm words, Qin Fen was unable to sense any emotion. He was at a loss of words on how to reply to her.
After a slight moment of daze, Qin Fen said, “Congratulate me then.”
“Congratulations.” Lin Ling smiled without any feelings as usual. She just made a fake smile like a movie star facing cameras. It looked sincere but there were no real emotions behind it.
Qin Fen wanted to know what kind of training this woman had received so that he was unable to find any true feeling of a human being within her.
“Are you going to participate in the other shooting competition?” Asked Qin Fen with anticipation. If this woman didn’t create a result that was near impossible to break during the opening match, he wouldn’t have had to take weird methods to clear the mission.
“Yes I will. I need to be the champion at the other events.”
Lin Ling replied without showing any frustration after defeat. It was as if she wasn’t the one who had just been knocked down from the first place in a flash.
Looking at Lin Ling’s calmness, Qin Fen began to understand what the trainer was thinking when training Lin Ling.
When a person didn’t care about anything, the brain would be able to maintain calmness, allowing the person to enter a state with almost no weakness.
Emotions could be a catalyst for the surge in combat power but also a poison that destroys battle intent.
An emotionless person might not be able to experience burning battle intent and maximize their peak potential but at the same time, they wouldn’t be shaken by any circumstances, allowing them to maintain a stable state in their ability.
This state, whether in a real war or in the Recruit Tournament, was a very good state.
“We are the champions, we are the champions…”
With all the recruits still screaming wildly, Qin Fen looked towards Xue Tian, who was in the crowd. Since when did this guy start hugging a female soldier while celebrating? Once she recovers from the celebration high, will she realize that she had been taken advantage of and chase him with a knife for at least five blocks down the road?
He looked back and Lin Ling had already left.
Qin Fen also walked towards the passage that leads to the exit of the stadium. Since Lin Liqiang and Song Jia came to participate as an audience and cheer for him, naturally, he should be with them for his celebration.
Super Eight.
An economical fast chain hotel with many years of history.
As humans began to leave earth and enter the interstellar era, Super Eight followed the development of society and expanded their chain throughout the entire Federation.
In a small cafe within the Super Eight Hotel, three cups of Tieguanyin green tea was exuding hot steam.
Eight.
Eight.
The Arabic numerals written by Lin Liqiang described Super Eight. He believed that with Qin Fen’s intelligence, Qin Fen would be able to solve this simple riddle.
“Why didn’t the both of you tell me in advance that you guys were coming?” Qin Fen asked while he single-handedly turned his teacup. “We were on the phone last night and you did not notify me earlier.”
“Old Qin, you’ve misunderstood Jia Jia.” Lin Liqiang took a sip of tea. “She only received my invitation via telephone after she put down your phone. She was being grounded by Grandpa Song but she snuck out from there.”
“Snuck out?” A surprised Qin Fen looked at a Song Jia who felt her cheeks blush. Under the dim light, the fair lady appeared to be more feminine.
“Old Qin, you shouldn’t worry about Jia Jia first,” replied Lin Liqiang while he refilled his tea. “You should worry about yourself if you have the time. Jia Jia, who snuck out, will only be grounded upon her return. You, however, are in big trouble. Being the reason of her sneaking out will probably make Grandpa Song furious once again. Since the Recruit Tournament is currently ongoing, he will probably spare you out of respect for the Federation. But once the Recruit Tournament is over, regardless of your results in this tournament, you better expect trouble coming towards you .”
“Trouble?” Qin Fen stared at his cup of tea as a slight water ripple appeared in the clear tea. “This seems to be a destiny that I can’t escape. Besides, I never had plans to escape. So what if I’m born poor? Does that mean I can’t bring happiness to Jia Jia?”
“It is good to be mentally prepared. It is just…” Lin Liqiang still had a bit of worry shown in his frown. “Old Qin, I’ll be honest. You are the most hard-working person I have ever seen. You have extraordinary endurance. Your determination and hard work even had obtained Old Yin secret praises.”
Qin Fen nodded as he knew Lin Liqiang still had something to say.
“But your talent is still lacking compared to the real top talent just by a little bit.” Lin Liqiang sighed. “I don’t know how you attained such improvement in your martial art skills in such a short period of time, you’ve exceeded my expectations. Perhaps you have encountered an incident or perhaps you have an unwavering perseverance that far exceeds my predictions. There are tens of billions of people in the Federation. Therefore to have more than one genius to appear wouldn’t be anything surprising.”
Qin Fen nodded while he refilled his cup of tea.
“Even if there are equally talented young martial artist compared to you, they are equipped with an advantage that you don’t have.” Lin Liqiang said very seriously. “It is medicine! For people who have your equal talents combined with having a strong influence to back them up, means that they’ve surely taken some enhancement medicines to boost their foundation since young. The price of these medication, even for one pill, would be scarily extravagant to you. Since young, they have been taking these medications to establish a better foundation. As they grow up, since they have a better foundation, they are able to achieve breakthrough more easily compared to their peers. ”
“When they encounter bottleneck situation during a breakthrough, the expensive medicine will appear in front of them. If one pill can’t make it, then they will take the second pill, if second pill can’t make it, then they will take the third pill!” Lin Liqiang said while he sighed. “In short, right now, at our age, is the prime time for our martial strength to take off and we should never underestimate anyone. It’s not an exaggeration to say that those who lost to you yesterday might not lose to you today.”
Qin Fen gently lifted the teacup. Some gratitude didn’t need expression through words.
Everything was in the tea.
A small cafe with thick brotherhood brewed.
In the meeting room of the European recruits’ residence, both sides of the long conference table were filled with the participants from the recruit tournament. The silent atmosphere pressured any berserk impulses silent.
At the end of the conference table, the leader of the participants, Major General Okosa glanced at all the recruits in the conference room with a gloomy expression. Everyone else focused on the space in front of them as no one dared to look up to see the cold stare of the Major General.
Today is definitely a gloomy day for the European recruits.
The defending champions of pistol shooting competition for many years only placed third today with only one point! In the past, the European recruits got at least three points from getting first place in this event! Occasionally, they would get the second place as well, walking away with five points directly.
Even in the history of the Recruit Tournament, Europe has had a six-point record sweep in the pistol shooting competition.
However today, they only got third place with a pitiful one point. This kind of result was enough to make all the European recruits disappointed for the whole day.
But, the bad luck of the European recruit team didn’t stop there.
Compared with the one point gained from the pistol shooting competition, the European recruits were more discouraged by the aerial combat team.
This European aerial combat team was recognized as the top favorite among the other military regions. Even the Trash Team that was rarely praised others had commented pre-game that this team of European recruits sent to participate was the team with the highest skills and ability ever to have been deployed throughout the history of Recruit Tournament.
Such a champion-worthy team had withdrawn from the tournament without informing him, the Major General. He only knew about it after he had woke up.
As for the reason? Okosa asked around for the whole day and finally figured out parts of the reason. On the night before the match, the East Asian military sent someone to provoke the European aerial combat recruits and with a complete sweep in terms of points, destroyed the confidence of the aerial combat team.
Shameless! Sinister! Mean!
When he learned the reason for the withdrawal, Okosa quickly thought of these three words in his mind.
The Recruit Tournament was linked to the dignity and honor of the various military regions.
There had always been cases of demolition between sides that occur outside of the tournament.
As long as there were no backstabs or injuring of the opponent with an ambush during the period of the tournament, this trivial matter that undermines the bottom line of the game rules should not be a problem.
On the contrary, the majority of the military regions encourage their recruits to provoke recruits from the other continents. If you could eliminate the opponent’s confidence before the match, it would be something that the commanding officers would be very happy to see.
It had almost become a hidden rule in the Recruit Tournament.
The European aerial combat team went to East Asia’s aerial combat team with the intention to get a taste of the oriental beauty as well as to crush the opponent’s confidence.
In this usual clash based on the unspoken rule, however, had resulted in something that never occurred before: the withdrawal from the tournament.
In the history of the Recruit Tournament, there was yet to be a recruit team which arbitrarily withdraw from the tournament just from the provoking process.
Okosa was clear that there was no wall that could cover the wind completely [1]. Even if the European recruits didn’t announce their withdrawal, why didn’t the East Asian recruits spread the withdrawal rumors around?
In the past Recruit Tournament, the East Asian recruits always appeared to be in a lethargic and weak state compared to the European recruits. In almost every event that both of them participated, they never had an advantage.
Now with just one provocation from the East Asian recruits and the European Aerial Combat Team withdrew from the tournament? With such a hot issue, why didn’t they boast about it?
Even if it wasn’t announced publicly, it would surely be spread through various private channels. He believed that everyone in the entire Recruit Tournament would know about the withdrawal soon.
When that happens… Okosa’s foresaw a dark future. How am I going to face the other leaders from the other continents? It’s highly likely that I’d probably end up as the laughing stock when they see me.
“No! We need to bounce back!” Okosa slammed the table with both his fists. With a fierce glance, he looked at the recruits. “Where are the recruits from Caesar?”
“Gen… General…” A stuttering recruit replied, “The recruits from Caesar sent someone and submitted a leave application to research more about the opponent.”
“Research?” Okosa’s angry eyes became calmer. “Although the attitude shown towards this meeting is inappropriate, to act upon the disadvantageous situation we are facing is very good, very good. All of you listen now, our goal is not to finish with second place in this Recruit Tournament. Our goal is to dominate the Recruit Tournament and emerge as the champion! So, in all of your next game all of you must work harder, do you understand?”
“We understand! Sir!”
Listening to the enthusiastic replies from the recruits, Okosa nodded with satisfaction. He raised his hand and gently rubbed his chin. He whispered, “The impact of the aerial combat team is very damaging and we must recover from this situation. We can never let those East Asians take this opportunity to make a fuss about it.”
Okosa leaned against the back of his chair and stared at the ceiling of the conference room. It’s already an opportunity for me to lead the team this time. If we get excellent results, I can finally get that promotion to be a lieutenant general.
But if the results turn out to be bad or if I’m unable to reverse this after-effect influence from this terrible withdrawal situation of the Aerial Combat Team, I am afraid that I will die with the Major General rank in this life.
“A rematch…” Okosa frowned slightly. “Aerial combat is probably no longer an option. So, why not have a match using mobile armor?”
Okosa suddenly sat up straight and ordered the assisting commanding officer who sat beside him, “Go! Immediately get me the information regarding the East Asian participants for the mobile armor competition.”
The assisting commanding officer hurriedly left and returned quickly with the requested information placed on the table in front of Okosa.
Okosa carefully read the collected data but he was still not at ease. He read the information three times thoroughly as a smile slowly began to appear on his face.
The mobile armor recruits were the same as the aerial combat team recruits, where they must be soldiers who had completed the recruit period and had serviced each unit for a year before participating in this event.
In the past, the champion throne of the mobile armor was always held by the American recruits.
This term, as the European team plan to be the overall champion, they had set their eyes on being the mobile armor champion since the beginning. Once they had completed their recruit period, the recruits with the most talent will be selected to join “Crusade”, the mobile armor team that the European team takes the most pride in, to learn and practice.
“East Asia’s mobile armor team is the ‘Red Dragon Army’?” Okosa smiled with his eyes. “Red Dragon Army” is indeed very powerful, but these recruits are not like our European recruits who immediately joined “Crusade” upon completion of the recruit period. These recruits from the “Red Dragon Army” had the longest term served with less than three months…”
Bam…
Okosa slammed the conference table strongly with his right fist, sending a vibration that made the cup on the table leave the table surface and make a crisp impact sound upon its return to the table.
