“Hmph, he hid that real deep. He’s probably really an operator of a balanced mecha,” snarked Han Yu, a quick flash of envy passing through his eyes. He was secretly hateful that such excellent long-range control talent did not belong to himself — Han Yu was a long-range mecha operator; he knew in his heart that Ling Lan’s operation was better than his by not just a little bit.
However, right then, Ling Lan, who was rapidly flying backwards, was contemplating another matter. She was wondering what that target point she had seen earlier was all about. Ling Lan was well aware that that target point had not been something she had managed to calculate and deduce on her own. It had appeared out of thin air in her mind, just as if someone had specifically told her about it and was just waiting for her to carry it out.
Could this also be an ability of her innate talent Profound Insight? This was the first thing that came to Ling Lan’s mind, and her intuition would not be wrong.
In truth, Ling Lan was still unclear what the innate talent Profound Insight was truly capable of. In the past, during close combat, Profound Insight was able to penetrate and see the opponent’s fatal weakness at a glance. While watching from the side-lines, it could clearly determine the outcome of a battle, and now, if she was not wrong in her speculations, Profound Insight could accurately predict effective target points for long-range attacks …
Ling Lan decided to try it once more and see if her speculations were correct. At this time, she was flying at high speed to pull away from the opponent, and then, with a sudden twist, she turned to face her opponent. Her mecha’s engines abruptly shifted from forward thrust to reverse thrust. Although this operation was extremely damaging to the engines, it helped Ling Lan maintain her original speed and flight path, allowing Ling Lan to swiftly enter attack mode.
Right then, Ling Lan had cut loose — in order to prove her speculations as soon as possible, she did not care if she had to pay some price. Facing that Tongli mecha chasing after her, Ling Lan’s gaze once again turned ice-cold. She had entered an extremely cold and focused mode — this was an ability she had obtained after going through countless massacres inside the learning space.
Her mind was cleared of all distractions; the opponent’s mecha was all she could see … Ling Lan’s finger moved. A string of operations was carried out under her hands, dazzling everyone’s eyes with their speed. At one point, her fingers actually disappeared under the layers of afterimages.
All of the audience could see the right arm of Ling Lan’s mecha hitching up and flicking down, and that low-hanging giant long-barrelled beam gun drew a semi-circle through the air under the mecha’s arm movements. Immediately after, her mecha’s left hand lifted up.
With a ‘pop’, the giant gun’s lower half was hitched up by the mecha’s left arm and its muzzle pointed straight at the mecha running towards her.
Will it be a ranged interception? Or perhaps, like Qiao Ting, Ling Lan would display advanced target-locking arts and seal off all of the opponent’s possible avenues of escape? When everyone saw this, they began guessing at Ling Lan’s next attack. In rapid flight, the gun art that could be displayed were limited to just a few.
Ling Lan aimed at the opponent but did not shoot blindly, nor did she try to calculate or deduce anything. She only concentrated and stared intently at the opponent’s mecha, just waiting for that sudden chance to appear.
“Right there!” Several seconds later, as expected, Ling Lan saw an extremely clear shooting trajectory. This was not the result of careful calculation; she had just been able to see it just like that. For no reason whatsoever, and a reason just could not be found, she had simply been able to see it.
Without any hesitation, Ling Lan pulled the trigger. Whether or not this opening was accurate, the facts would have to prove it. This shot was of the utmost importance.
A beam shot out from the muzzle, so dazzling that it seemed almost able to split the air above the combat field into two parts.
Ling Lan constantly adjusted her shooting position and the target point of her beam shot in accordance with the opponent’s movement. All this showed that Ling Lan’s attack method was still that basic technique — fixed-point shooting.
Everyone was in an uproar. The reason why fixed-point shooting was called fixed-point shooting was that it was used to attack an opponent during situations of absolute stillness, with a fixed and accurate target-lock to ensure a one-hit kill. On the battlefield, it was the best ambush method.
Due to its ambush-like qualities, fixed-point shooting was actually not suitable for a mecha combat match. Ling Lan’s previous successful shot with it had already wowed the audience, and now, this current shot had once again shattered the people’s understanding of fixed-point shooting. Could it be that fixed-point shooting could also be effective while on the move?
Several experienced mecha operators could not help but shake their heads, thinking that Ling Lan had let the previous success go to her head. Actually audacious enough to try creating a new record and a new form of gun art … but how could those things be so easy to achieve?
” What a nonsense move 1 !” The two imperial operators monitoring from above instantly swore out loud at Ling Lan’s unreasonable actions. Ling Lan’s previous outstanding performance had earned Ling Lan their admiration, but his deluded efforts to break the mould now by using a completely unsuitable gun art to deal with his opponent made them very angry and disappointed.
Witnessing this, Ling Xiao could not help but clench his fists tightly. He knew his daughter, so he believed that Ling Lan definitely would not do anything crazy for no reason — she must have some degree of certainty for her to have done this. Some hard to conceal pleasant surprise in his eyes, he waited to see the final outcome …
No one believed that Ling Lan could hit the opponent — that final landing point of the beam she was shooting was obviously wide from the perspective of the onlookers.
“Ah!” At this moment, the audience burst out into exclamations.
The Tongli mecha operator who had obviously been travelling along a safe flight path had suddenly changed the direction of his mecha’s flicker movement and had actually ended up crashing into the range of Ling Lan’s beam. This suicidal action left everyone in the audience gaping in astonishment.
The Tongli mecha operator had just finished his flicker action when he suddenly found that he had charged right into the path of a beam attack. His mecha was instantly consumed by the brilliant beam of light.
“Ah!” The Tongli mecha operator could not help but scream in shock. Being hit under this type of circumstances, caught completely unprepared, anyone would have panicked like him.
“Boom!” The mecha exploded with great force.
Although the Tongli mecha operator had tried his best to change his mecha’s flight path once more to escape the range of the beam attack, unfortunately, when he had jumped into the target zone of the beam attack, his motion was still in progress. To abort the half-complete action, a new command had to be given to first clear the original command. Only after the first command had been erased could the system accept a new motion command. Not just that, when aborting an incomplete action, regardless of how fast an operator’s hand speed was, a special-class mecha would still have some freeze time, and the transition to the new action would also require some buffering time. This series of complicated controls was impossible for a special-class operator to complete in just five seconds. And so, the Tongli special-class operator was doomed to tragedy!
“It hit?”
“It hit!”
The audience members scrubbed at their eyes vigorously, unable to believe what they had just seen. The dissipating smoke and half-destroyed mecha turned their disbelief into acceptance.
With a great furore, everyone took to their feet. Could it be that they would have the honour of bearing witness to the naming of a new mecha technique? They could not help but be excited — mind you, the last time a technique had been named after its creator was over 50 years ago. It had been so long that the people of the Federation had almost forgotten that the Federation still had this naming channel for newly created skills and techniques.
In the Federation, there were two types of naming with regards to mecha techniques. One was for official skills and techniques developed by the Federation military Mecha Skills Research Department. These techniques would all be given an official name, such as Fixed-point Shooting, N-point Blockade, Chain Combo Art, etcetera etcetera. And the other type was for those techniques which had been created by an individual mecha operator. If these techniques were proven to be fully developed and effective in combat or battle, the skills would be named after their creator. Examples of these include the Thomas Fullspin, Yelu Semi-Flight, Louis Double-Cut, etcetera etcetera …
And now, Ling Lan had created mobile fixed-point shooting — building a new gun art on top of the original fixed-point shooting. According to Federation law, the name of this technique would carry her name.
Sitting beside Ling Xiao was the attending military representative, the main organizer for this Grand Mecha Tournament. He abruptly stood up and said emotionally to Ling Xiao, “General Ling, a new technique … a new technique has appeared! I … I must report this to headquarters!”
Ling Xiao suppressed the exhilaration he was feeling, smiling gently as he nodded and said, “Well, congratulations. You all have a new personal-name technique.” Personal-name techniques were in fact also a means to display the might of a nation — it signified that the Federation was filled with talent. The military would certainly use this opportunity to glorify their nation to the rest of the world.
Even as he felt proud of his daughter, Ling Xiao was silently mourning this new headache. The more famous Ling Lan was, the harder it would be for him to free Ling Lan from her current identity. Ling Xiao smiled wryly — he really wasn’t sure whether his blunder in sending his daughter to study at the First Men’s Military Academy was doing her a service or harming her?
Watching the military representative hurry off excitedly to report to his superiors, Ling Xiao began to fret over how he could protect his daughter. He felt that things were spinning further and further out of his control, yet he was filled with joy and pride inside. He even thought that, if he was given the chance to do it all again, he would still choose to let his daughter study at the First Men’s Military Academy, otherwise his daughter’s exceptional control talent would have been wasted.
This kind of thinking made Ling Xiao feel rather guilty. He carefully peeked at Lan Luofeng, hoping that she had not noticed his little selfish thought.
At this moment, however, Lan Luofeng was completely lost. She had not understood the conversation between Ling Xiao and that military representative. The fact was that she really did not understand much about mecha even though she had married a god-class operator.
“What’s going on? What is personal-name naming?” Lan Luofeng would always ask directly if there was something she did not understand. This was also one of the things Ling Xiao liked about her — she would not pretend to be more knowledgeable than she really was.
“That last attack by Lan-er has created a new shooting technique, which is why this technique will be named after her. It’ll be called — Ling Lan Shooting Art!” Ling Xiao’s gaze shone with pride. This was his daughter! How lucky was he!
“Ah!” Lan Luofeng covered her mouth in her joy and surprise. She stared disbelievingly at Ling Xiao, and when Ling Xiao nodded once more to confirm, Lan Luofeng started shaking Ling Xiao in her excitement. If not out of consideration for the time and place, she would definitely have leapt up to scream and shout.
Ling Xiao smiled as he embraced Lan Luofeng, letting the other calm down in his arms. He looked towards Ling Lan still floating in the air, and the growing smile at the corners of his lips could not be suppressed.
Backstage, Qiao Ting and the rest were gobsmacked. Zhao Jun slapped himself harshly and then asked Qiao Ting non-stop, “Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Qiao Ting, that’s a new technique, right? Right? Right? Right?”