Chapter 167: Drawing a Snake Out of Its Lair?
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
"No matter what the situation is as they fight, we can only observe from the sidelines and try our best to avoid cases of death and bloodshed ..." said the teacher solemnly, with regret. Back when they had been scouts themselves, they had never gone through such a stirring incident like this grand armed melee.
Each holding onto a student, the two teachers swiftly left the scene. Like they said, no matter how much their hands itched to do something, they could only do their duty as a transporter — moving students who had failed off the field, watching dumbly as the students fought each other until the grand armed melee ended.
Zhang Jing-an felt that immense pressure disappear, and knew that the opponent must have distanced themselves once more after succeeding in their attack. His eyes narrowed as he quickly forced himself to calm down. His initiate instructor had once told him that, on the battlefield, no matter what the situation was, one had to remain calm. The moment one loses their calm, one would be at death's door.
His entire being quietened, and then a surge of energy burst out from within him, spreading out. The melodies on the wind of this energy surge flowed towards Zhang Jing-an like musical notes. Abruptly, Zhang Jing-an turned to stare in a particular direction and said coldly, "Are you still not going to come out?"
Since she had been discovered, Ling Lan did not waste time hiding any further. She walked out from behind a large tree, and coming to stand about 20 metres away from Zhang Jing-an, the two of them stared evenly at each other.
The other was wearing the same red uniform as he was, and the number 7 glinting on the other's chest proved that he was one of the rival 7th graders in this grand armed melee. However, that elegant and cold face was not the 7th grade top rank, Qi Long, whom they were familiar with. A thought flashed through Zhang Jing-an's mind, and he said, "Qi Long's boss —— Ling Lan!"
Ling Lan quirked a brow, as if surprised that Zhang Jing-an knew her name.
"The uncrowned king of the 7th grade is no secret. If one wants to know, then one will know," said Zhang Jing-an tonelessly. That said, if it were not for the grand armed melee this time, he might not have known that such an exceptional expert was hiding in the 7th grade. Originally, he had thought that no matter how strong the other was, he would at most be at the level of the 9th grade Lu Jing. But now, from the look of things, he had miscalculated.
"Looks like you were already aiming for me from the start! This situation right now should be your doing. We can finally face off one on one ... however, you really think you are a match for me?" Zhang Jing-an remarked with a half-smile. In his eyes, Ling Lan's planning was undoubtedly a little too self-conceited.
Ling Lan did not answer Zhang Jing-an, but only continued to stare at him emotionlessly, causing Zhang Jing-an to be unable to figure out what Ling Lan was thinking.
In truth, Ling Lan was actually conversing with Little Four in the mindspace. "Little Four, where are those people now?"
Apparently, just now, Little Four suddenly alerted Ling Lan to the fact that the people he was monitoring had finally started to move.
"About 3 kilometres from here," responded Little Four, confirming the others' position. Little Four was currently in sharing mode with the academy mainframe — everything within the academy was at his fingertips. Also, according to Ling Lan's wishes, he did not apply any concealment methods onto Ling Lan. Therefore, as long as someone wanted to, they could easily find out where Ling Lan was.
"Little Four, looks like the things you discovered were accurate." A murderous glint flashed through Ling Lan's eyes. Another big reason she had initiated this grand armed melee was to lure the snake out of its lair — and now, from the looks of it, the opponent had not been able to hold back, as expected.
However, she first needed to handle this fellow in front of her as fast as possible ... Ling Lan glanced at Zhang Jing-an standing before her. Even though this person was very cocky and arrogant, and his personality was nothing great, Ling Lan still did not want to involve him in the cat-and-mouse blood sport of her and her enemy, and cause his death by unlucky chance. Thus, she decided on a speedy fight to end things quickly, and eliminate him from the grand armed melee as soon as possible.
Right then, Zhang Jing-an was thrilled — the faint sense of Ling Lan's natural force of presence let him know that the other was an expert — he was glad to find a worthy opponent. Ever since the seniors had graduated from the academy, he had had the feeling of being a large mountain surrounded by molehills. Especially when he became ever more proficient at using the mutation of his spiritual self, he had thought himself unrivalled among the academy students! While this made him proud of himself, it also made him feel somewhat dejected — it was not a pleasant feeling to be alone at the top of the world without a match who could rival him.
Perhaps this youth before him now could give him a good fight and loosen his joints! Although Zhang Jing-an felt that Ling Lan could bring some colour into his life, he never even considered the possibility that Ling Lan could defeat him.
Zhang Jing-an wanted to fight, so he charged in directly. He did not use a rubber bat or any so-called fancy moves — he attacked with a simple punch. Perhaps Zhang Jing-an felt that victory was within his grasp, and so thought that there was no need for any complicated moves, that his strength alone was enough to steamroll the opponent.
It looked as if Zhang Jing-an only took a single unassuming step, but this simple one step actually carried him across the entire 20 metres of distance between the two combatants — in an instant, he was already right in front of Ling Lan.
In fact, this was just a trick of the eye — Ling Lan could clearly see Zhang Jing-an take ten steps within this short period of time to come right up to her. Meanwhile, Zhang Jing-an's right fist was already flying towards her face.
Whether in terms of his crossing over or this final punch, his speed had reached an extreme — Zhang Jing-an even had the misperception that in the very next second, his fist would strike the opponent and send the other flying ... the smile on his lips had just begun to blossom when time froze.
Because, he felt his fist being detained by a gentle force, preventing him from moving any further.
It turned out that right at the moment Ling Lan was about to be struck, she too made a fist and met Zhang Jing-an's punch with a punch of her own. Although the two fists seemed to collide violently, no sound was produced. It was as if there had been no power behind the two punches at all, making the collision seem like a friendly fist bump.
Zhang Jing-an knew his own strength — he had definitely used about 80% of his strength in that punch of his. A situation like this would only occur because the opponent had met his punch with a corresponding amount of power, hence neutralizing the power of his punch with amazing gentleness.
This punch of Zhang Jing-an's did not create his desired effect, instead pushing him into a deadlock. Now, his choices were to either pull back his strength and try again, or push more force into his punch to continue pressing forwards. As long as his strength could overpower the opponent's, the deadlock would be broken, and the combined forces of both of them might even crash down completely on his opponent.
Zhang Jing-an naturally was unwilling to just pull back; from the start, he had considered himself the stronger party. So, with a soft shout, his entire face instantly flushed red. He abruptly sucked in his belly, and then with several consecutive shakes of his wrist, four silent and invisible energy waves were sent flying towards Ling Lan.
This was an ace in the hole given to him by his initiate instructor — he could unleash four hidden energy waves instantly, and each wave would stack onto the force of the wave before it so that by the time the final wave struck, it would carry the terrifying power of eight times the force of his personal strength. Of course, his initiate instructor warned him repeatedly to not use this move unless absolutely necessary. However, Zhang Jing-an felt that this was the perfect time to use it — because this was a battle of pride between the strongest of the 10th grade and the 7th grade!
Just by looking at her opponent's hand movements, Ling Lan could tell that the opponent had likely used a power-stacking technique. She decisively used One-Inch Punch — the two hidden forces clashed repeatedly, until finally, neither force could suppress the other, and so both of them blew up simultaneously.
Ling Lan and Zhang Jing-an were blasted backwards into the air by this massive backlash of energy. Even the stout tree they were standing by was destroyed instantly by the blast, its broken branches falling from the sky to crash into the ground.
With a reverse plank in mid-air, Ling Lan stabilised her body, landing firmly on the tree fork of another large tree not too far away. On the other hand, Zhang Jing-an did not have as good a time of it — only after flying out for about 5 to 6 metres did he manage to grab hold of a random tree branch with his left hand and, with that as leverage, pull himself back onto a tree to find stable footing again. Still, his right arm hung low, swaying freely with his body movements.
Ling Lan pressed her own right arm with her left hand, and said coldly, "As expected of the number one of the 10th grade, breaking my right arm with one move."
At the same time, Zhang Jing-an was also gripping his own right arm, expression unsightly as he said, "You're not weak either!" Similarly, his arm had also been broken by the other. That last move could be considered a loss on both sides. At this time, Zhang Jing-an no longer had any of the sense of superiority he had at the start; he now knew very well that Ling Lan was an expert at the same level as him.
"Still, even so, we must determine who is stronger!" Ling Lan seemed set on having a clear winner and loser — the moment she finished talking, she stomped forcefully, then borrowing the rebound from the tree branch, she flew forwards like a cannonball at Zhang Jing-an, completely ignoring the injury of her right arm.
Zhang Jing-an's expression was solemn. He knew that this time, it was time to determine a final outcome. For combatants like them at the Qi-Jin level, victory and defeat would be determined in a split second — it just came down to whose Qi-Jin was better.
This time, Ling Lan chose to attack with her left hand. Of course, she could only use her left hand now, but, she seemed to not be very confident in her left hand, choosing to attack with a rubber bat.
Zhang Jing-an too chose to attack with a rubber bat. Gripping it tightly with his left hand, he moved to meet her attack. The two were just about to clash, when Ling Lan's face suddenly revealed an expression of great shock and she shouted, "Dodge quickly!"
Zhang Jing-an was unmoved by this, his left hand and the rubber bat in it still moving forwards with the strength of his entire body.
Hmph! Thinking to trick me like this? No way! This notion had barely brushed through Zhang Jing-an's mind when he felt the back of his head being struck a heavy blow ...
He instantly felt as if his body were drained of all energy. As he fell down, with his last remaining bit of consciousness, he saw Ling Lan across from him choosing to turn tail and run, as if seeing some frightful being ...
Hells, so he wasn't trying to trick me ... At this moment, Zhang Jing-an's heart was filled with regret. If only he had listened to the other's warning. Would he then have been safe from this sneak attack?
Zhang Jing-an tumbled down from the tree he was standing on, but before he could crash into the ground, a figure swept by to catch him and set him down gently on the ground. At the same time, the figure pressed Zhang Jing-an's surrender button, and then disappeared instantly without a trace.
Somewhere 1000 metres away, a team of five dressed in instructor garbs were pausing for a moment. One of them, a 27 or 28 year old young teacher was activating his spiritual power to delve into the nearest monitoring signal, trying to locate the position of their target with all his might.
"The other's position right now has changed. From the initial southeast direction, he has moved towards the north," the teacher opened his eyes and said to a 35 or 36 year old male teacher beside him.
Translator's Thoughts
ryuxenji ryuxenji
For those who have questions about the premium system, please check out 'Never's FAQ' on the webnovel forums (https://forum.webnovel.com/d/4559-never-s-faq-3rd-edition/2).
But here, let me give a few key things on premium with regards to this novel:
1) You CAN still read for free at a rate of 1 chapter a day. You just need to resist the temptation of the extra locked chapters after the free chapter while you wait for the next day.
2)There will no longer be an ad option for locked chapters. Price per chapter is determined by webnovel. Rate is 1 SS/200 words as far as I know. So, for this novel, you should expect to be using about 10-13 SS per chapter.
3) You should not have to use more than 300 SS total for the upcoming mass release. (Like, I don't think I can translate that much by then anyhow, so this is a generous estimate.)
IMPORTANT! Please note that if you do decide to unlock any chapters with SS, you will then have to continue using SS to unlock any future chapters unless you want to wait for the free release point to catch up. What this means is -- let's say the free release is at chapter 5. If you use SS to unlock the next 10 chapters which were mass released and run out of SS, then you would have to wait 10 days for the free release to catch up, because chapter 6 would be the free release the next day, which you have already unlocked with your SS.
So ... this is my advice.
For free readers - If you are only following 1 or 2 premium novels including this one, you can go ahead and unlock chapters at the mass release, because your daily logins should give you enough SS to support your reading moving forwards. However, if you are reading many premium novels, then I would suggest choosing just 1 or 2 to keep updated with, while just following the free release rate for the rest. If you choose to keep with the free release rate for this novel, then you should not unlock the mass release chapters. You could always unlock only at major cliffhangers, and then skip a day or two till the free release catches up again.
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