Chapter 279: The Aftermath!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
These few old beasts were filled with worry, unsure whether this Domain master was still within the school planning his next act of destruction. What bothered them even more was — for what reason had the other come to the military academy to do such a thing? Also, were the defensive capabilities of the military academy really as foolproof as they had imagined? If it were, then how in the world had this Domain master gotten in?
They just could not figure it out, and so one of them said, "Let us return and discuss this with the principal!"
This suggestion was agreed upon by all those present. They might not be overly clear on what was going on in the academy, but the principal of the school should know better. Perhaps he would be able to give them an answer. They left as quietly as they had come — no one else at the scene even knew that some supreme strong masters had been there to investigate the scene.
********
The emergency assistance system of the military academy was extremely efficient. It had not even been 5 minutes since the building had collapsed when the first batch of relief workers had rushed to the scene, beginning to rescue the students trapped within the rubble ...
Right then, Ling Lan, who was already far from the scene, was sitting with Luo Lang in a hover car, swiftly flying towards the destination that Little Four had set. At the very moment those old beasts had appeared, that was when Ling Lan had gotten into the hover car and left. If she had been later by just one second, she might have been caught by those old beasts. No matter how composed she was normally, Ling Lan could not help but feel cold sweat running down her back at this time.
It was unexpected that this seemingly laid-back academy actually had so many powerful masters holding the fort 1 . Luckily, she had escaped swiftly enough with Little Four's spot-on assistance — any bit of error, and she would have become a turtle in a jar 2 .
Of course, Ling Lan had already taken precautions against this right from the start. She was well aware that there would definitely be some super strong masters holding the fort inside the military academy — even the Central Scout Academy already had a few Domain masters in-house, not to mention the First Men's Military Academy 3 . Thus, Ling Lan had made arrangements beforehand, choosing to begin running the moment the first explosion was set off. Reality proved that her decision was correct.
Escaping by the skin of their teeth, Little Four breathed out a great gust of relief. With some remnant fear, he patted his little chest and said, "Gosh, Boss, that was too close! I can't believe we really managed to escape right under the noses of those Domain masters."
"It's all thanks to you, Little Four, for finding the best escape path, as well as getting a hover car here in time." Ling Lan could not help but pat the hover car they were riding, filled with admiration at Little Four's accurate calculation ability.
Even if she had run at full strength, without Little Four's flawless coordination in getting this hover car here to cover them, she would not have been able to escape from the other side's powerful sensory range. She would certainly have left some energy vibrations of her own on the roads she travelled, and they would have been the evidence which would expose her.
Praised by Ling Lan, Little Four joyfully clapped his hands to his face and wriggled his bum, taking a good long while to calm down again. Then, he thought of those patrolmen who had been knocked unconscious by his boss, and could not help but ask worriedly, "Boss, will there be any problems with those people you knocked unconscious?" It was not that Little Four cared whether they lived or died — as an intelligent bio-entity, he had no feelings 4 — Little Four was just worried that his boss would be burdened by guilt if anything really happened to them.
"They're fine. The supports of those areas where I stashed them, I did not sabotage. Even though the building collapsed, those few rooms will be alright," replied Ling Lan evenly. Although she had destroyed the entire Tianji building in revenge, she would not let these uninvolved people die in the process. She was someone who clearly discriminated between justice and mercy.
"Boss, you're really awesome! Actually planning so thoroughly." Little Four resolutely began sucking up, fully slipping into the role of a brown-nosing lackey, fanning Ling Lan's mood even higher. It should be mentioned that, the moment Ling Lan succeeded in destroying Tianji's headquarters, her mood had already become all kinds of amazing.
In the meantime, those supreme masters of the school had already had a round of discussion with the principal, but still had not received a satisfactory answer. Very soon, another piece of news arrived — according to the info they had gleaned from those members of the monitoring team of the Tianji Mecha Clan, before the building collapsed, it was suspected that their Tianji headquarters had been hacked by an imperial level hacker.
As more and more people were rescued out, a number of clan members were found trapped in the wreckage who had had parts of their brains ravaged, leaving them as mentally-handicapped people. Among them, one member who was from the hacker specialization was gravely injured; he was reduced to a vegetable instantly. The Military Medical Research Centre determined that there was no possibility of him ever waking up again.
The discovery of these people made the masters speculate — in this incident, had there been a fearsome spectre involved as well? Three people with exceptional skills in their respective realms appearing at the same time at the military academy ... this possibility caused chills to run through those masters.
Where in the world had these people come from? Which faction were they affiliated with? With their capabilities, they could have taken down the mainframe of the military academy if they wanted — why had they chosen to strike out at a group of a small faction within the school?
For a time, all sorts of conspiracy theories ran rampant among the upper ranks of the military academy. There were even some who cast suspicion on the other military academies — they speculated that the other schools were trying to affect their First Academy's results in the great assessment this time, and so had purposefully created this disruption. Those schools must have been trying to make the students panic and lose all mind to prepare for the exams, thus affecting the final test results and causing the First Academy to lose their secure spot at the top ...
These speculations received quite a significant degree of agreement from those of the upper ranks, leading them to spread their investigation out far and wide, indirectly helping Ling Lan out.
Of course, there were still other possibilities being considered by the upper ranks of the administration, but no one even thought to consider the involvement of any cadets.
In truth, there was indeed no one who would even suggest the possibility, for anyone who voiced this possibility would most probably be laughed out of the room. Oh please, what do you take a Domain master for? And what of an imperial level hacker? How could a mere academy cadet become such a horrific existence? If they really were at that level, would they still need to come study at the military academy? They would have long been snatched away by the various army divisions ...
As for the spectre? That was even more unimaginable. Mind you, anyone who possessed this kind of horrifying ability would have already been taken in as the secret weapon of the federal military since birth — how could they be hiding within the ranks of cadets in the academy?
It had to be said that the upper ranks of the military academy were taking things a little for granted; sometimes, the truth just really happened to be those things that seemed completely preposterous and impossible ...
In order to settle the collapse of the building this time and allow the students to prepare for the upcoming exams without any worries, the administration suppressed the entire incident. They also gave a plausible explanation to those members of the Tianji Mecha Clan who had reported the attack by the imperial level hacker. They said that their investigations showed that this series of errors had occurred because the military academy mainframe had malfunctioned.
As for why the Tianji building collapsed, they used the excuse of the building being too old, paired with a lack of proper maintenance. Although this building had been built about 100 years or so ago, it should be known that the current passing standard of a building was at least 500 years. Using this kind of excuse, did it mean this building was constructed with tofu pulp?
Regardless of whether the cadets believed it or not, or had any complaints, the military academy stuck with their answer. The incident of the Tianji building collapse was quelled just like that.
Subsequently, the Tianji Mecha Clan suffered a great decline due to this incident. For a very long period of time, they did not recover. Meanwhile, the 3rd rank Wuji Mecha Clan and the 4th rank Doha Central Mecha Clan took advantage of the situation to challenge the Tianji Mecha Clan to a mecha clan wagered fight, in order to fight for their ranking ... Lacking capable fighters, and with their morale low, the Tianji Mecha Clan lost both battles, aggrieved. They slid down from their position as 2nd faction straight to the 4th faction, becoming the laughingstock of the military academy for a stint.
Under these circumstances, the Tianji Mecha Clan's Regiment Commander could only swallow this humiliation with silent resentment ... it was a shame that he did not know that the main culprit of Tianji's downfall was Ling Lan of the New Cadet Regiment — if he knew, he would most certainly have used all his strength for revenge.
It should be said that Ling Lan's operation this time was very perfect. She had finished off every single person who had participated in Luo Lang's abduction, but the Tianji Mecha Clan had no clue that the source of all their woes was Luo Lang. She had kept Luo Lang out of this incident perfectly.
All of Ling Lan's detailed planning was to protect Luo Lang. Even though Luo Lang had not suffered any significant damage, she did not wish for her beloved younger brother to be the sideshow of the military academy and be gossiped about. This would place an unneeded burden on Luo Lang's spirit.
Reality proved that Ling Lan's worries were not unfounded. After Shi Mingyi's innate talent had been destroyed by Ling Lan, those 'lovers' of his who had been enthralled began to regain their clarity of mind. When they recalled everything they had done, they were exceedingly appalled and regretful, as well as filled with a burning hatred for Shi Mingyi. If they had all been level-headed people with high tolerance and resilience, perhaps this matter would have blown over in silence. However, as luck would have it, there was a student with an extremely fragile soul among the group of victims. He could not take the humiliation, thinking that his life had been utterly ruined.
That night, carrying an army knife he had created himself, he slipped into the treatment centre when the staff members were unguarded. He then dragged out Shi Mingyi from his healing pod and rapidly slashed and hacked at him till he died before committing suicide. By the time a staff member found them, it was already too late.
This incident raised a great uproar within the military academy, until the investigation team of the school found that student's suicide note and will in his dorm, thus revealing the truth of the matter. Subsequently, the spiritual mutation research instructor in the military academy specially looked up Shi Mingyi's spiritual mutation ability, and found that Shi Mingyi had the ability of hypnosis 5 .
Only now did everyone see the true colours of Shi Mingyi. Because of this incident, the reputation of the Tianji Mecha Clan dropped once again — many members stated that they could not accept that one of their clan's vice regiment commanders was a person like that, and chose to quit the mecha clan. This was yet another nail in the coffin of the Tianji Mecha Clan.
Of course, there were also some residual effects from these events. Among those ex-subordinates of Shi Mingyi, those of them who were good-looking were all labelled as ' brokeback 6 ', causing them to receive all kinds of strange looks within the academy. Other than one extremely tough and resilient cadet who managed to bear it all to graduate successfully, the others all found various reasons to drop out and leave the school. It could be said that these excellent youths with their bright futures had all had their futures ruined by Shi Mingyi ...
On the other hand, due to Ling Lan's conscientious planning, Luo Lang was not caught up in any of this. When Luo Lang regained his awareness, he was extremely grateful, and vowed silently to himself that he would repay Ling Lan's many instances of great kindness by dedicating his future to Boss Lan!
Of course, all of this would occur only after Luo Lang was aware again. Right now, Ling Lan's great mood from demolishing Tianji's building was abruptly dampened, because she found that in the backseat of the hover car, Luo Lang's condition was deteriorating.