Senior Colonel Mi brought Ling Lan into the mecha combat hall. Ling Lan had to choose a mecha that she wanted to use. Currently, Ling Lan had 5 different ace mechas in the virtual world. They were the , , , , and .
Ling Lan looked at her ace mechas and pondered for a moment. She chose the in the end.
When Senior Colonel Mi saw a balanced mecha appearing at the spot where Ling Lan was, he knew that was ready.
After waiting for a while, Ling Lan received the room number and the passcode from Senior Colonel Mi.
Ling Lan entered the room. She was among the stars. She got a shock. Her past battles were mostly on the ground and within the atmosphere. She didn't have much experience fighting in this environment. She was at a disadvantage.Ling Lan scanned her surroundings and her radar showed no signs of abnormality. She felt like she was the only person in the universe. Loneliness in a vast space might result in agitation and frustration if a person stayed in space for too long. This was why space missions were mostly team missions. There were elite team missions in space too but there were no solo missions.
It was forbidden to enter the universe alone. If a person wanted to wander around the universe, he needed to join a battle team.
After waiting for three minutes, the system reminded Ling Lan, "You have entered the universe. Please immediately activate your oxygen producing equipment to maintain the level of oxygen in the mecha. You only have three hours before your oxygen supply is depleted. Please take note."
A cold light flashed passed Ling Lan's eyes when she heard the reminder. "Was it started already?" She quickly used her radar to scan her surroundings again. There was still nothing within the range of her radar. It was dead silent outside. It seemed as though she was the only one in this entire universe. Of course, there was another possibility that her opponent was outside her radar range.
Ling Lan smiled and pressed a button. Strong interference waves were activated.
Ling Lan operated her mecha and changed her stance. With this stance, she would be able to defend herself even if someone sneaked an attack on her.
In the audience seat, Senior Colonel Mi heaved a sigh of relief when he saw how Ling Lan handled the situation. He turned his head and looked at the other end of the universe. An ace mecha was currently rushing towards Ling Lan's location.Senior Colonel Mi was surprised. Besides himself, he only knew three other people who were able to activate the chameleon system the moment they enter into a battle. However, from the way this mecha operator piloted his mecha, it did not fit any one of them.
Was it a talented young person? Senior Colonel Mi immediately dismissed this idea. If there was someone who was able to operate like this, he would have heard about him. There was only one possibility. This person became famous before him so he didn't have the chance to interact with him.
Who is he? Where did the commander get such a powerful ace mecha master from?
The people watching the battle were able to see both mechas clearly. Hence, Senior Colonel Mi saw the two mechas the moment they entered the battle. However, when he realized that Ling Lan had not noticed the other mecha, he guessed that Ling Lan's opponent had activated the chameleon system.
Luckily, Ling Lan knew that his opponent was here even though he didn't see him and made the necessary precautions.
But, if Ling Lan was unable to crack the chameleon system, he would be in a dire position. He might be beaten up badly by his opponent and it would seriously badly affect his score. Senior Colonel Mi didn't want Ling Lan to fail his first mission. It would be a huge blow to him…
Senior Colonel Mi started to worry for Ling Lan. He felt that his general was too harsh on Ling Lan. Why did the general want to have Ling Lan suffer like this? Even if he wanted to train him, he didn't need to be so ruthless. What if the child couldn't take the blow?
Senior Colonel Mi thought that Ling Lan was like all the other recruits from the military academies and never had any setbacks in his life before…
At this moment, Ling Lan managed to see a flickering red dot on her radar. It lit up for just a split second and disappeared thereafter. If Ling Lan was not focused, she might have missed it.
"Seems like my opponent is here. In order to activate the chameleon system the moment he enters the battle, he must be stronger than me." Ling Lan accurately predicted her opponent's strength. She felt depressed. Her confidence dwindled.
"I guess father doesn't want me to pass the mission so easily." Ling Lan pursed her lips in frustration. Her father indeed loved to make things difficult for her.
However, she would not give up just like this. Ling Lan grabbed the long-range beam gun attached on the back of the mecha and aimed it towards the direction where the flickering light appeared. She moved her fingers and fired off another interference wave shot out of her mecha.
Senior Colonel Mi saw Ling Lan aiming at his opponent accurately and sat up straight in excitement. "He saw his opponent? Does she have the Hawk eye system on her mecha?"
Qi Yaoyang raised his eyebrows when he saw Ling Lan pointing her beam gun at him. "He saw me? Let me confirm it." In a blink of an eye, he changed his direction. He went to the left side of Ling Lan.
Ling Lan's beam gun followed him without any hesitation.
Qi Yaoyang knew that Ling Lan had indeed cracked his chameleon system. he said in a depressed tone, "How much allowance did Ling Xiao give his son? He even implanted the 'slightly useless' and expensive Hawk eye system into his mecha…"
Qi Yaoyang also thought that Ling Lan was able to see him because of the Hawk eye system. The Hawk eye system was only useful against the chameleon system. There were no other uses for it and it was very expensive. Hence, many mecha operators didn't want to waste their money on this system. There were not many mechas with the chameleon system in the virtual world so there was not much need for it.
Besides the Hawk eye system, there were other ways to tackle the chameleon system. However, these methods required advanced controls and they were not as accurate as the Hawk eye system.
Ace operators were arrogant people too. Everyone felt that they were the best so they didn't want to install any systems. They wanted to prove their capabilities. This thinking caused lesser people to install the Hawk eye system as they were afraid of being judged.
Thus, the Hawk eye system became a useless system. Low-level mecha operators wanted to install it but didn't have the ability to. Ace mecha masters could install it but they didn't want to.
Senior Colonel Mi saw Ling Lan's actions and slapped his thigh happily. "Good! It is the Hawk eye system."
Although Senior Colonel Mi and Qi Yaoyang disliked the Hawk eye system, they had different feelings when they realized that Ling Lan installed it. They felt that Ling Lan made ample preparations for this battle. He went through all the challenges he might face and thought of solutions for all of them. He must have installed the Hawk eye system just in case his opponent had the chameleon system. He made the right decision.
Qi Yaoyang was happier than Senior Colonel Mi. This proved to him that Ling Lan was a careful and meticulous person. He would make ample preparations and be willing to go the extra mile to make sure that every end was covered. If he was to lead a team in the future, his team would not act rashly and be at a disadvantage because of the lack of preparation.
Qi Yaoyang secretly gave Ling Lan 10 points. The strength of a captain was important but traits like calmness, meticulous, and decisiveness were equally important. He could only allow his son to be under a captain with all of these qualities.
Qi Yaoyang knew that the chameleon system was useless now so he gave up on it. A silver ace mecha appeared in the universe.
"Preparing to attack me forcefully? Did you ask whether I am willing to let you do it?" Ling Lan's eyes turned cold and she pushed her trigger. Powerful beams shot out of her gun. The force of the beams caused Ling Lan to lose control of the gun slightly. When firing the last few shots, her mecha shook.
"One-Point Sustained Shooting!" Senior Colonel Mi frowned slightly. This kind of attack was useless against a fully-prepared ace operator. Was Ling Lan nervous or was she using these attacks to find a loophole in her opponent?
If it was a normal ace operator, Ling Lan's beams might have caused him some alarm. However, Qi Yaoyang had reached the status of the imperial operator 17 years ago. He was just hiding his abilities so he remained as an ace operator for the last 13 years. Hence, these attacks were nothing to him.
Just as Qi Yaoyang was about to dodge the last beam, the beam exploded. The sudden change caught Qi Yaoyang but surprise. His expression changed and his fingers froze on the spot…
"Bang!" A loud explosion occurred.
In the last second, Qi Yaoyang activated his light shield and managed to block the surprise attack by Ling Lan.
The A.I. flashed a reminder on the screen in front of him. Qi Yaoyang was elated when he saw the reminder. He activated the light shield 0.003 seconds before the beam hit him. This meant that Ling Lan had a chance of successfully hitting him just now. Ever since he became an ace operator and the Sky God of the Federation, only god-class operators were able to successfully hit him.
It was natural for ace operators to reach the imperial operator status after an accumulation of experience and time. There was no real improvement in abilities. This was why Qi Yaoyang was able to pretend to be an ace operator for so many years and no one saw through him. He had to advance to an imperial operator status in the end because he was already at the peak level of the imperial operator status, and was only a step away from being a god-class operator so he couldn't hide his abilities anymore.
Qi Yaoyang loved fighting. He hid his abilities because he knew those imperial operators had to return to the Federation and protect the headquarters along with the god-class operators. However, he wanted to stay at the frontline. He couldn't bear the thought of not being able to fight anymore. Qi Long's love for fighting must be inherited from his father.
"That must be a modified Synchronous Shooting. Interesting." Qi Yaoyang's eyes lit up in excitement. He was in a battle mode now.
At first, Qi Yaoyang only came because Ling Xiao had invited him to assess Ling Lan's strength. He had no interest to fight Ling Lan seriously. But, the beam shot perked up his interest and he was willing to have a serious battle with Ling Lan now.
Senior Colonel Mi was dumbfounded. The exploding beam stunned him. "This is not the One-Point Sustained Shooting!" This was a skill that only ace operators could operate——Synchronous Shooting!
How could he be fooled? Was it because of the standard One-Point Sustained Shooting stance?
"This is not the stance for Synchronous Shooting. I overlooked it and I was fooled by it." Ling Lan's opponent was fooled too. That was why he activated his light shield. Senior Colonel Mi shook his head and exclaimed, "The youngsters these days are getting powerful. I didn't expect Ling Lan to combine the actions for Synchronous Shooting and One-Point Sustained Shooting. It was so perfect that it could fool people into believing that it was just One-Point Sustained Shooting."
"Also, he modified the Synchronous Shooting technique. This should be an A-rank modification, right?" The more Senior Colonel Mi thought about it, the more he admired Ling Lan. He was such a daring person. He only just advanced to ace level but he already succeeded in modifying a technique. Improving his hand speed shouldn't be a problem for Ling Lan, right? He was really a talented operator. Senior Colonel Mi envied Ling Lan. He had been stuck with his hand speed for a long time.
However, Senior Colonel Mi didn't have the time to think about anything else. His attention was attracted by the battle.
The two mechas were having close combat now. Qi Yaoyang was using a close combat mecha. His operation skills were strong and his mecha had been strengthened to support his amazing hand speed. Within a short period of time, he successfully closed in on Ling Lan and forced her to give up on her long-range attacks.
