Once the First Men’s Military Academy’s debut ended, this marked the end of the Mecha Grand Tournament’s opening ceremony. Everyone patiently waited for the next event.
At this time, at the centre of the main venue, 100 arenas of equal sizes slowly rose up from the floor. The appearance of these arenas represented the official start of this Mecha Grand Tournament, and the first event to take the stage was the traditional item — physical combat.
“Now, may the participating members of each school advance to the arena number as indicated by the organisers for the scheduled match-ups!” prompted the host.
Seated in his own place, Qi Long suddenly felt his communicator vibrate. He opened it and saw that a message from the organising committee had been delivered. He was actually arranged to be the first to fight at arena 17, and he was also the first one from the First Men’s Military Academy to fight in the physical skills combat to be up.
He quickly informed his boss and then rushed over to arena 17 to prepare for his match.
This time, there were five people from the First Men’s Military Academy who were participating in physical combat. The other four were from Leiting, Tianji, Wuji, and Dwotong respectively.
Wu Jiong watched worriedly as Qi Long went to his arena and asked uneasily, “Qi Long going up … will it be okay?” The physical skills competition of the Mecha Grand Tournament was a place where all the best and brightest of physical skills prodigies of the Federation were gathered. There was even one military academy specializing in physical skills, whose specific purpose was to cultivate physical skills prodigies. Although Qi Long’s physical skills were very strong, he was still somewhat lacking when compared to these prodigies among prodigies.
At this thought, he could not help but cut a glance at Ling Lan. “Boss Lan, the one best suited for the physical skills competition in our Lingtian is actually you. Why did you choose to send Qi Long instead of going yourself?”
Ling Lan glanced calmly at Wu Jiong and said, “Qi Long’s physical skills just happens to be at a bottleneck. A competition like this will be very beneficial in spurring a breakthrough. Also, don’t you think it would be bullying the others too much if I went up there?”
Even though not many knew about her breakthrough to Domain, even when she had been a half step to Domain, she was already unbeatable to anyone below Domain stage. Fighting against these people at Qi-Jin stage would indeed be rather unsporting. Of course, Ling Lan would not really mind this — the true reason why she was not participating was her problem with her force of presence. She was afraid that in the arena, any slip in her control might end up in disaster. But all of this was not something Ling Lan could tell Wu Jiong and the others. She could only bear it in silence and send Qi Long in her place, feigning some high-mindedness in the process.
Wu Jiong decisively turned his head aside — sob, sob, sob, Boss Lan, you’re really too much! Wasn’t he being just a little selfish, wanting his own academy to obtain a few extra first places? Did he deserve such contempt?
Fine … here was yet another clueless child who had been deceived by Ling Lan!
Qi Long’s luck was excellent; his opponent could be considered a weaker one. Without expending much effort, Qi Long defeated his opponent and successfully advanced to the next stage. Perhaps because the opponent was too weak, Qi Long did not seem to have had enough fun fighting, so he was clearly rather moody when he returned to the group.
However, Qi Long’s task for the day was done after his match ended. Now he just had to wait for the second day — once all the participants who advanced to the next round were determined, the mainframe would randomly assign them new opponents. Whether or not Qi Long could progress further would still require some luck. Only if he did not get matched up against those hot favourites to be the winning candidate would he have any chance.
Although the first rounds for the members from Leiting, Tianji, Wuji, and Dwotong had yet to happen, Ling Lan did not plan to continue waiting. If those four participants could not even get past the first round, then they really would not be qualified to be the representatives of the four major factions; as such, Ling Lan was not too worried.
Just like that, Ling Lan led her people from Lingtian as well as the other members who were not interested in watching the rest of the fights to leave the main venue. After that, she turned down Qi Long and her companions’ suggestion to go play at the entertainment establishments around the accommodation area, returning alone to her own room.
Ling Lan was so decisive in refusing her companions’ invitation because she was 80% sure that her father Ling Xiao would definitely come looking for her right after she left the main venue.
Sure enough, not too long after she returned, Ling Lan heard a knock at her door. As soon as Ling Lan opened the door, she saw the smiling face of her dad who had been leaning comfortably against the door frame, waiting for her to open the door.
Ling Lan could not help but quirk her lips at the sight and say in a slightly mocking tone, “Father, isn’t your 23rd Division still not yet established? You actually have the free time to come attend the opening ceremony of the Mecha Grand Tournament?”
Ling Xiao burst out into hearty laughter at her words, reaching out a hand to ruffle Ling Lan’s hair. His tone was somewhat resigned as he said, “What, daddy has come all the way here to cheer for you and you’re still complaining?”
“But why did you bring mum as well?” When Ling Lan brought up Lan Luofeng, she lost her usual cool; her demeanour carried a trace of helpless irritation. Of course, Ling Lan was still very calm and settled outwardly, but who was Ling Xiao? Just from the minute changes in Ling Lan’s tone, he noticed something.
Even as Ling Xiao was surprised by it, he could not help but be jealous. He was surprised that his cold-faced daughter would be as helpless as he was when handling Lan Luofeng. At the same time, he was also jealous of the lofty position Lan Luofeng held in Ling Lan’s heart … the address of ‘mum’ was enough to prove the deep bond between mother and daughter. Just thinking about how Ling Lan still had yet to call him ‘dad’, Ling Xiao’s heart was instantly bitter and sour. Honestly, all those years ago, he really had not intended to abandon his wife and daughter … when exactly would Ling Lan forgive him and be able to truly accept him?
Ling Xiao quickly cast aside these depressed feelings, rallying his spirits to answer Ling Lan. “When your first year ended, you only sent a message home saying that you were staying at the academy and would not go home. Your mum missed you a lot. So, knowing that you will be participating in this Mecha Grand Tournament, you think she’d have let this chance go?”
Ling Xiao decisively threw all responsibility over to his wife — he absolutely would not ever admit that he had come because he missed his daughter too much.
Ling Lan thought back to when she had video-called her mum. Recalling her mum’s crazed expression back then, Ling Lan was instantly left speechless. Alright, this was all her own fault!
“Where’s mum?” Ling Lan saw that there was no one behind Ling Xiao, so she knew that the place for their reunion was definitely not going to be here.
“At the teahouse in the special guests’ rest area!” A trace of a smile appeared on Ling Xiao’s lips. He was relieved that Ling Lan was able to immediately grasp his true intention in coming here.
“Then, father, please lead the way,” said Ling Lan, resigned. Since she could not escape, she might as well go over earlier to avoid her mum exploding from the accumulated resentment. At that time, Ling Lan would only suffer even more.
However, Ling Xiao did not move. He instead continued to lean against the door frame as his smile slowly dimmed. Then, he merely looked calmly at Ling Lan — his piercing gaze made Ling Lan’s heart clench and she felt a powerful pressure pressing down on her, once again stirring up her force of presence.
Ling Xiao’s force of presence was only flashed for a moment and the pressure vanished after that light touch. Ling Lan breathed a sigh of relief and immediately reined in her wild and unruly force of presence with all her might. The effort of it made countless beads of sweat emerge on Ling Lan’s forehead; it was truly exhausting.
Seeing this, Ling Xiao frowned deeply. Ling Lan’s condition was worse than he had imagined. He immediately discarded his initial plans and said, “Let’s go to the combat room here.”
There were many leisure facilities in the accommodation area so that the participating cadets could have a place to relax outside of the competitions. This included a gym for the students to release any pent up frustrations, as well as facilities such as combat rooms.
Ling Lan knew that Ling Xiao had noticed her problem — they were likely heading to a combat room so he could fully explore the issue. Thus, she did not refuse, immediately bringing Ling Xiao to the service counter to request a combat room.
Of course, at the service counter, Ling Lan became unable to sense Ling Xiao for a period of time. It looked like Ling Xiao did not want to be discovered by anyone and had hidden away for the moment. Unfortunately, with Ling Lan’s current level of strength, she was actually unable to grasp Ling Xiao’s presence when he truly intended to hide. She had even tried asking Little Four to use the surveillance equipment here to search for him, but she was still unable to find any trace of Ling Xiao. This left Ling Lan in awe — a god-class operator truly lived up to its reputation as the ultimate fighting force of the Federation. Even the virtual god Little Four could not grasp Ling Xiao’s movements fully.
Ling Lan opened the combat room, and as soon as she entered, Ling Xiao abruptly appeared inside. Almost at the same time, several soft poofs could be heard inside the room. Startled, Ling Lan understood what had happened after a brief pause. Probably, at the moment Ling Xiao had appeared, all the surveillance devices in the room had been instantly destroyed by Ling Xiao’s force of presence.
Although this might cause Ling Lan some minor trouble, as she would have to compensate for these broken devices, this little bit of trouble was nothing compared to Ling Xiao being discovered. Ling Lan immediately shut the doors to the room. From this point on, no one would be able to enter as long as she did not exit the room, and so no one would be able to discover Ling Xiao here.
“Come, Lan-er, let’s spar.” To fully comprehend the extent of Ling Lan’s problem, Ling Xiao would need to have a proper fight with her. As soon as Ling Xiao finished speaking, he did not hesitate to throw a punch at Ling Lan.
Ling Xiao’s speed was too fast — Ling Lan only saw Ling Xiao raise his hand and the next thing she could see was his fist already right before her eyes. There was no longer any possibility of Ling Lan lifting a hand to block, so she could only lean back and raise both her hands at the same time, crossing her arms to withstand this seemingly heavy punch …
With a ‘bam’, Ling Lan was sent stumbling back several steps from the force of the blow and only then did she manage to catch her footing. Ling Xiao remained motionless, however, retracting his fist in an easy manner just as if he had not been using his full strength in that last punch.
Ling Lan’s eyes narrowed. That attack had shown that her dad’s physical skills level was at Domain, both in terms of strength and speed. Moreover, his Domain was absolutely unlike her own rudimentary Domain that had yet to fully develop but was instead a full-fledged perfect Domain. The distance between their realms left her unable to see the other’s actions clearly; she could only defend passively.
Meanwhile, after retracting his fist, Ling Xiao’s expression was rather bemused. He had sensed a trace of a familiar air in that last attack. He was quite shocked, somewhat disbelieving, but he could not suppress the wild joy surging in his heart. His daughter … had she truly entered that stage as he thought?
Ling Xiao stared in surprise at his daughter standing not too far away who was currently holding a defensive stance. He smiled slightly and said, “Lan-er, if you have truly reached that level, then display your full ability.”
The corners of Ling Lan’s lips quirked. As expected of her old man — just a little contact with her Qi-Jin and he had already discovered her secret. This also proved that her father had also achieved that level. Ling Lan believed that Ling Xiao’s Domain realm surely exceeded hers by a great margin. Just standing there, he already gave her a sense that she could never win against him, a feeling that she could only look up to him … Ling Lan could not help but speculate — could her dad have already reached the extreme limits of Domain and had entered that half-god state … half step to God-Realm?
She thought about the top-secret file on Ling Xiao which Little Four had decrypted — his physical skills level had always been marked with a question mark. The military had previously speculated that Ling Xiao might be at the early stages of Domain, but now it looked like they had still underestimated her father Ling Xiao.