It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future

“Dark character?” Qi Long and Jijyun exchanged glances with one another; they were both puzzled.

“Yes. Xie Yi’s two personalities aren’t like Luo Lang’s Alter Ego. Luo Lang’s Alter Ego has primary identity and secondary identities. No matter how powerful the secondary identities are, they will be controlled by the primary identity. For Luo Lang, however, there’s no difference in status between his personalities. The more powerful one will gain control of the physical body,” Ling Lan explained indifferently.

“Then the Xie Yi who always appears before us is the primary personality.” Han Jijyun understood.

“It might not be. It’s just my own opinion. After all, we don’t know what the suppressed personality is like. It might be even better,” Ling Lan replied irresponsibly.

Han Jijyun sent a sullen glance at his boss. No matter how he looked at it, the bright and optimistic Xie Yi should be the main personality. Also, his boss and Qi Long had both said that the suppressed personality had a brutal and destructive personality. These were obviously the characteristics of a dark character. Why was his boss trying to make it complicated?

A hint of fighting spirit appeared in Qi Long’s eyes. “Boss, shall I attack?”

His boss had previously told him that a crisis was a catalyst. The worst way to deal with a power that you couldn’t control was to suppress it, while the best way was to let it explode. Once it fully exploded, one would be able to find a chance of survival. In the past, the boss had used this method against Luo Lang and released all his other personalities, and this enabled Luo Lang to gain control of his Alter Ego.

Unexpectedly, though, Ling Lan rejected Qi Long’s proposal. “No need.”

“Are you planning to do it yourself?” Qi Long asked curiously. If his boss did it himself, the chance of success would be higher.

“He’s very afraid of me.” Ling Lan shook her head in response. “I can’t force him out.”

Ling Lan’s words made Qi Long puzzled. His boss meant that it was useless for himself to do anything, so why didn’t he let him do it? Did he have other plans? Qi Long started thinking about it carefully.

Han Jijyun had his head lowered, also in in deep thought.

Ling Lan didn’t say anything. They needed to understand some things themselves. If she told them everything, they would never grow.

Very soon, Han Jijyun came back to his senses. Ling Lan didn’t give them a lot of information so he could faintly make out something. Although he hadn’t understood entirely, he wasn’t in a hurry. Since he didn’t understand it at present, he might as well put it to one side. Who knew—perhaps he would be struck by sudden inspiration.

It was then that he remembered something else; his boss had given him a mission this morning.

“Boss, I have asked Regiment Commander Wu. Currently, in our mecha clan, including our battle clan, we have a total of 21 people who managed to become special-class operators.” There was a hint of pride on Han Jijyun’s face. They were all third-years, so the fact that they were able to become special-class operators so quickly proved their ultimate talent in mecha piloting.

Ling Lan nodded at his words. “That’s enough.”

Han Jijyun had a sudden thought. His eyes lit up as he asked, “Boss, are you preparing to act?”

“What am I preparing for?” Ling Lan asked in return with raised eyebrows.

Han Jijyun could not contain his excitement anymore; his face turned red from his feverish emotions. After scanning his surroundings and confirming that no one was looking at them, he whispered, “Uniting the factions in the military academy and becoming the ultimate king?”

Han Jijyun’s words cause a glint to appear in Qi Long’s eyes, too. He remembered his boss’ firm and arrogant declaration when they were first years. He looked at Ling Lan with anticipation and waited for the boss to give a confirmation.

“A situation will take its course regardless of our wishes! Even if we don’t want to attack them, they won’t let us go. In that case, why not we make a move first?” Ling Lan said coldly. The air around her suddenly turned frosty as she emanated a hint of killing intent. Han Jijyun almost became frozen by the atmosphere, and even Qi Long felt a heavy weight pressing down upon him.

The greater his capabilities became, the more he understood how scary his boss was. Last time, their capabilities had been too far apart so he was not certain about how powerful his boss was. Qi Long had never asked Ling Lan before, but he was certain that his boss was definitely in the Domain stage.

Without a doubt, the fact that his boss was in the Domain stage had broken the record of Federation again. However, he also knew that if his boss didn’t say anything, he had his reasons. Hence, he kept this secret to himself and didn’t tell anyone; including his best buddy, Han Jijyun.

In the Leiting Mecha Clan headquarters, Lin Zhidong sat in the regiment commander’s office as he settled the matters in the Leiting Mecha Clan. Ever since Qiao Ting had gone to the Third Division, he finally managed to get his dream position as the clan’s regiment commander and become the person with the highest authority in Leiting. He had finally managed to experience what it was like to hold he in the position of the highest authority.

“Beep beep beep!” The A.I. on the office desk beeped. Lin Zhidong asked happily, “What is the matter?”

“Regiment Commander, the Lingtian Mecha Clan has sent us a letter of challenge.” His deputy’s voice came from the A.I..

“Letter of challenge?” Lin Zhidong almost fell from his chair upon hearing this news. He quickly grabbed onto the table and took a deep breath before saying, “Come in.” What was Lingtian doing? Leiting hadn’t sent them a letter of challenge, so why were they sending one over instead? Also, they were already the first faction. What was the point of challenging Leiting?

The deputy entered the regiment commander’s office and passed a paper card to Lin Zhidong.

Lin Zhidong opened the card to take a look, and he saw a nicely written sentence on the card.

Letter of Challenge

Target of Challenge: Leiting Mecha Clan!

Challenger: Lingtian Mecha Clan!

Time: Star calendar 4746.5.20

Regards,

Ling Lan

“It really is a letter of challenge…” As Lin Zhidong gazed at the letter of challenge in his hands, astounded, he had a sudden thought and realized the intention of the other party.

Lin Zhidong was furious—he slammed the table and gritted his teeth as he uttered, “Ling Lan, your appetite is too big! You actually intend on trying to have us merge with you.”

In the First Men’s Military Academy, there were rules with regards to sending out letters of challenge. If a faction in a lower position challenged a faction in a higher position and won, they would exchange their positions. If they lost, they would have to pay for the sending out the challenge. There were no other consequences. This was the most common form of challenge that made up 90% of the mecha challenges in the school.

But there was another kind, which was rarer; a faction in a higher position challenging a faction in a lower position. The purpose of this kind of challenge was to merge the two factions. In other words, if the faction in the higher position won, the one in the lower position would have to merge with the other side without any retaliation. If the lower position faction won, they would swap position with the other faction.

These rules apply to all mecha challenge competitions. All the factions had to follow the rules strictly. An example would be the time when Qiao Ting challenged Lingtian. He had planned on merging Lingtian with his faction but in the end, Lingtian was more powerful than him and Leiting had to give up their position as the first faction.

Of course, there were other non-mecha challenge competitions in the military academy. For example, during first year when they just formed the New Cadet Regiment, they were asked to battle it out with their physical skills. These challenges were mostly based on bets and once both parties accepted the terms, it would be done. There were no rules that said they had to accept such challenges.

Lin Zhidong’s words allowed his deputy to understand the situation as well. He looked at the letter of challenge that was thrown to the floor by the angry Lin Zhidong. Lingtian was trying to get them to merge with them? Were they being delusional? A small mecha clan that was just founded was trying to touch the most powerful mecha clan that had been around for a few hundred years?

The deputy had forgotten that their position of number one faction had been taken away by Lingtian one year ago.

At this moment, the rest of all the other mecha clans had received a letter of challenge from Lingtian at around the same time. This signified that Lingtian was preparing to unite the military academy. However, no one was optimistic about Lingtian. All the mecha clans thought that Lingtian was being whimsical and daydreaming… numerous mecha clans were planning to drag Lingtian down from the position of number one and let them understand how stupid it was for them to underestimate all the mecha clans of the military academy.

Ling Lan’s actions caused Lingtian to become the thorn in the side for the entire First Men’s Military Academy; they couldn’t wait to destroy her. A few number of small clans had harbored good feelings towards Lingtian, as they felt that Lingtian would understand their hardships since they all came from a similar background and that they would protect them. However, this letter of challenge broke all their hopes and their attitude changed immediately—they couldn’t wait for Lingtian to stumble and made a fool of herself.

While all these people were scolding them, Lingtian was intensely preparing for their first battle. Their first target was not the small and weak clans; it was the biggest and most powerful clan, the Leiting Mecha Clan.

Ling Lan arranged it this way because she hoped that they would be able to strike the more powerful clans while they were still unprepared and take them down instantly. After they managed to take down all these old and powerful factions, they would be able to intimidate the other smaller factions and win without even having to fight. Ling Lan didn’t plan to let Lingtian take on all the battles one by one. They didn’t have the strong foundation that the old factions had, and neither did they have a larger number of mecha operators.

“The challenge mode is out.” The next day, before Leiting could catch a breath, the challenge mode was sent to Lin Zhidong by the mainframe.

“Twelve-man team mode!” Lin Zhidong’s heart dropped at this piece of news. With this number of people, they would not be able to showcase their strength. Leiting lacked a powerful mecha master like Qiao Ting, who was capable of winning against everyone with his techniques. The twelve-man team mode put them at a disadvantage.

Leiting immediately held a meeting for clan members at captain level and above. In the meeting, Lin Zhidong asked, “We need to send out twelve of our most powerful mecha masters. But the most important question is: who has the confidence of being able to defeat Ling Lan?”

The meeting room fell into a dead silence. During last year’s Grand Mecha Tournament, Ling Lan’s amazing long-range operation, as well as his personal-name technique that was confirmed after the tournament, had made them feel hopeless.

“Do we have no one that can defeat Ling Lan now that Regiment Commander Qiao Ting has left?” Lin Zhidong asked angrily.

“Even Regiment Commander Qiao Ting lost to Lingtian too,” someone refuted softly.

“That’s because my big brother fell into their scheme. Otherwise, how could he have lost to such a young brat? Regiment Commander Lin, don’t worry and leave that brat to me.” An unruly youth stood up and shouted with an angry face.

Lin Zhidong looked at this situation and felt speechless. Qiao Lin was Qiao Ting’s younger brother. Compared to his talented elder brother, however, this Qiao Lin was utterly wasting his good physique and good talent; he was already a third year, yet he had only just achieved advanced mecha warrior level. When Qiao Ting was at his age, he was already invincible in the special-class operator level. If it was not for Qiao Ting, he would not have let this stupid person hold a captain position.