Ku Wai, who was wearing the old Gearbox upper exosuit, entered the room with Jin and the military vendors were chatting incessantly whether this was a good idea to purchase. The bulky design was not exactly viable based on the specification sheet that was given by Yang Ling way before the presentation.
The military vendors were only here to give her the respect she deserved as a direct family member of the Royal Zodiac Tiger. They initially thought, it would be a waste of time, except for the opportunity to meet Ke Loong, until Yuan Ba came along as well.
“How were the refreshments?” Jin asked casually and many agreed it was only savoury and filling for the stomach. Nothing else, especially when it was given the perception of just some free refreshments. “Guess I could not expect much from a bunch of people, who only appreciate expensive looking food.” Jin thought to himself as he was aware that these sort of vendors were always given the best of the best food from companies that were trying to lick their boots. In any case, it was a good thing the System still produced these products even without the aid of Lynn, the new Chef in his store. The only disadvantage was that it was not as impressive as Lynn’s new ability for enhancing attributes.
“So where is the presenter? We don’t have much time to spare. I purposely woke up early to travel all the way to Shenzhen just for this.” One of the vendors grumbled and Jin told them to follow him. With another door inside the meeting room, they were all teleported to another dungeon instance. Ke Loong in his head was still trying to figure out how it could be possible to connect so many instances in one go. Yet the moment he entered the next instance, his mind was once again blown away by the monstrosity he was being shown.
It was a stadium, no doubt, but the thing was, Jin had replicated the entirety of the Beijing National Stadium that once hosted the Olympics. The sheer size of replication made Ke Loong’s feet wobbled like foam in the middle of the stadium that the door brought them to.
“This is the Trial Stadium. Whatever kind of test you want to do, the Stadium will provide the necessary testing ground.” Jin said.
“We will do the standard military test.” One of the military vendors said as he called one of his aides forward. “My aide will be acting as the standard of the test.” The vendor added, but suddenly Yuan Ba interrupted the aide from coming through.
“No, that is unnecessary. I shall be the standard for the test.” Yuan Ba declared as his grand stature terrified even the aide himself. Yuan Ba walked towards Ku Wai, who was used to Yuan Ba’s presence and bowed towards him with respect and grace.
“Sir Yuan Ba, I must apologise, but I am not the one who will be demonstrating the gearbox technology.” Ku Wai confessed with his head still lowered. “Princes- Yang Ling is the one doing the honours.” The moment Ku Wai finished his sentence, he could sense the ominosity from Yuan Ba.
“Do not fuck with me.” Yuan Ba spoke in a slow manner tone as he positioned himself closer to Ku Wai.
“He did not.” A female voice loudly echoed through the national stadium as they saw a wheelchair bound person rolling in through the west gate of the national stadium. It was indeed none other than Yang Ling herself. However, her whole attire had changed. She was initially wearing a sleeveless office dress, but now she was wearing a tracksuit with a blanket covering her legs.
As she came closer, Yuan Ba was frustrated believing Yang Ling was so desperate, that she wanted to pull some sort of prank in front of the military vendors, as a last effort of petty revenge. “Are you making fun of me? Are you making fun of the Royal Zodiac Tiger’s namesake?!” Yuan Ba shouted but before he could say any more, Yang Ling removed the blanket from her legs, and it revealed a slick of metal attachments running along her legs, sticking on top of her black sports tights.
Yang Ling removed her tracksuit and she was only wearing a singlet and sports undergarment along with more metal attachments running along her back, shoulders and arms. The design of this prototype was not the same as the one that Yang Ling gave Jin. Jin used her data and asked the System to analyse the design to purposely remove all the unnecessary circuits making it more efficient.
Considering that the System had come in contact with Yang Ling through her use of the dungeon via the Music Theatre Instance, it had her sizes, weight and height. Hence, allowing it to be custom made for Yang Ling alone.
Not just that, the Three Headed Bear in the Weapon Store had created an attachment inscription that allowed her to wear it with ease as compared to the prototype. The Three Headed Bear used the high grade metals that were obtained from the Dungeon World, mainly from that facility ruins. The crawlers were all surprisingly made of steel, copper and a mythical metal, Mithril. Though there were only traces of it in each crawler, the bear had enough of a stock and managed to melt it sufficiently to be used as plating for the Gearbox (Jin’s Modified Prototype Version) which Yang Ling just called it Gearbox V3.
Yuan Ba had not imagined, that Yang Ling was keeping such a secret to herself, making her look weak and desperate, when she actually had such a trump card in her hands all along. He suddenly felt stupid falling for her plans. Yet, Yuan Ba also smirked at the fact that his little girl had grown all up.
However, the best had yet to come.
Even before Yuan Ba had a chance to question it, Yang Ling lifted up the footholds of the wheelchair and placed her legs on the grass. “Yang Ling what are you doing?” Yuan Ba could not reckon the next moment when Yang Ling held onto her wheelchair handles and she pulled herself up, to stand upright.
Her father was at a loss of words, seeing Yang Ling able to stand with grace… taking the first step towards him, and the second then third… Yuan Ba became so moved, that he uncontrollably teared in front of Yang Ling. “…You really can walk again?” He asked her as Yang Ling continued to take her steps slowly but more and more confidently towards her father, who had let down his guard and raised his arms worrying that his little girl could fall over at each step.
“Come. My little tiger cub. Come.” Yuan Ba whispered softly. He had already lost hope, that there would ever come a day he would be able to see his little darling to walk again. The Royal Zodiac Head Doctor explained, that the loss of cultivation lead to the loss of the usage of her legs after the accident. Even under the angry desperate threats of Yuan Ba, the doctor was melancholic, but he told the father, that these injuries would be permanent and no spell nor cultivation manuals could help her.
It all had happened when Yang Ling went on an overseas school trip, where she was caught in a bus accident. She had been cultivating on the ride and was fully immersed in it. She had been on a bottleneck for some time, and wanted to push through it, to surprise her father with her new Grade before they arrived back. The crash had happened moments before her breakthrough and one of the metal bars got bent pushing right through her spinal cord.
Her cultivation became a saving grace for her, as her breakthrough came just in time to increase her vitality enough to let her barely survive. However, it also became a burden. The metal rod happened to burst one of the major chi points, causing the chi cultivation breakthrough to result as a backlash, which prevented the metal bar from going in any further. The backlash unfortunately also fused part of the metal bar inside her, blocking the chi point recovery.
Yuan Ba tried uncountable other alternative methods to get her back on her feet again, but through the years, the more he tried, the more dejected he became and thus at one point he had simply given up. Only Yang Ling had never given up, hoping that through the Gearbox technology, the use of artificial chi and mana circuits that she would ultimately be able to walk and use her cultivation once more.
But right now, seeing her father suddenly so vulnerable, Yang Ling could not help wanting to hug him back …Although in the end she did not.
Instead, she walked past him, towards the military vendors and presented the new Gearbox exosuit to them. Yang Ling had denied the embrace of her father, even though she had wished for this warm premise on multiple occasions throughout the years. Even though she knew better, she still somewhat blamed him for pushing her to attend that overseas trip.
“It’s not time yet. I have to stay strong and appear competent in front of those vendors. Do not show your weak side to him!” Yang Ling assured herself, as she ended up remembering the better days, when her father was used to be kind, joyous and fun to be with, before he became cold hearted the moment she lost her legs and cultivation.
Even though Yang Ling could see, feel and understand that her father was trying his best to cure her, she knew it was incurable. In addition, Yuan Ba always seemed like he did it grudgingly as if it was a pain for him to help her. However little did she know that Yuan Ba was doing all this, because he too could not allow himself to show weakness as the Head of the Royal Zodiac Tiger.
Yuan Ba sighed, but had a slight smile on his face even though his tears still flowed down for a while longer. Luckily his back was showing to the vendors, so before he turned around he wiped them away with one swipe and told Yang Ling, “1500m sprint with no cultivation. Show me what your Gearbox can achieve.”
