This part I have been desperately waiting for ......
Military Academy - Crazily overpowered.
Ling Lan agreed with them, and so not long after the start of the second year, she submitted the application for the establishment of the Lingtian Mecha Clan to the military academy. This application shocked all of the factions in the academy, and many were even of the opinion that this reckless behavior of the New Cadet Regiment was bound to be thwarted. This was because the establishment of a mecha clan required the applicant group to pass an assessment by the academy mainframe.
Just think — even if the freshmen had started training their mecha control in Mecha World as early as they could in their first year, one year's time was only enough at most for these freshmen to achieve intermediate mecha warrior status. Moreover, this was only something extremely talented students could achieve. Meanwhile, the virtual battle clans created by the mainframe as the opponent in its assessment would at worst consist of advanced mecha warriors but were more likely to be all special-class operators. Although the result of the assessment was not determined by winning or losing, how many seconds could a team made up of intermediate mecha warriors last under the attack of the mainframe's special-class mecha operator battle clan?
However, the final outcome left everyone flabbergasted — the Lingtian Mecha Clan passed the academy mainframe's assessment in one go. Everyone wanted to know the content of the assessment, but the Lingtian Mecha Clan cruelly set their assessment as a top-secret document. Even the academy's principal himself could not access the battle logs of this assessment; only high-level administrators of the military at the rank of general and above would have the authorization to view them ... but would the generals even care to pay any attention to a minor mecha clan formation assessment within a military academy?
And so, this assessment became a secret, sealed away for many years. Until that time in the future when Ling Lan had already become a king in her own right — only then did she draw the interest of the high-level people in the Federation military, who then looked up the assessment records. Only then did they come to understand that King Ling had already been crazily overpowered even back during her time at the military academy ...
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"Ling Xiao's son, Ling Lan. He studied in Central Scouts academy till he was twelve, after which he took a break of three years due to severe injuries caused during a Grand Armed Melee at the academy. Here is the list of records and achievements!" A list was passed to the Deputy General of the first division. Similar conversations and meetings were taking place throughout the military and twenty-three divisions were all in deep contemplation. Everyone was trying to gather as much information as possible about Ling Lan before the final meeting with three Marshals and Commander Ren of Flying dragon special forces.
"He was then admitted to First Military academy as a special case student due to First Marshal's recommendations after a request by Ling Xiao. He studied in First Military academy for six years and had countless achievements under his name, the most notable one being the unification of all the fractions under First military academy and gaining the title of sole standing 'Emperor'. After which he selected the 23rd division and activated his own battle clan directly after the training period......."
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Countless files and papers were passed back and forth in the meeting room of the Seventh division which had been Ling Xiao's initial division before he was declared sacrificed for the first time.
There were many opinions being presented. They were trying to estimate Ling Lan's scope of connection and power. What his stand would be after conquering the Lawless Lands? Is there any possibility of turning back for revenge? Or will he return to his home country and sit on his throne of the General of 23rd division? Or will he have any other demands?
More than half of the people in the seventh division believed that Ling Lan won't start a war against the Federation just to seek revenge for his father's death. This opinion might be based on their partiality due to General Ling Xiao's upright image and slight guilt because after Ling Xiao's death they didn't leave a place for him back in their division but nevertheless, the majority of votes were cast for maintaining a neutral stand against Ling Lan and Lawless Lands. To maintain peace until they confirm Ling Lan's stand against the Federation.
"There are many blank areas in which no information can be found or the information is locked for the highest person in charge of the division. He might even be one of the rare people with the most number of secret files prohibited to be seen by anyone below Generals and Marshalls" the person in charge of the intelligence department sighed with a little regret. Ling Lan was a Legendary person according to him, not only because he was General Ling Xiao's son but also because of his own achievements and unbelievable record, the more dug information about this person the more unbelievable he felt.
"You are talking about our role model's son and a man who had the bravery to drive a God Class mech below his level and conquer big pie like Lawless Lands under the watchful eye of countless superpower nations."
"Hmm... in my opinion he's not very smart, he alerted almost all of the most powerful nations as soon as he conquered Lawless Lands. Provoking more than half of these powerful nations at the same time might not be a good move. If he doesn't have the power to back himself up he might end up starting another war and killing all the people under him"
There was a roughly built major general who was looking at the achievements of Ling Lan after entering the 23rd division with stars in his eyes, "Worthy of his name! No wonder he gained the title of King years after defeating Huo Zenyu and Qiao Ting....." he whispered to himself just to get kicked under the table by his friend and eyed to the head of the meeting.
"Ahem! Ahem!" the meeting room suddenly turned silent, "Continue with the report first." the deputy general of the Seventh division narrowed his eyes at the head of the intelligence department.
"The surprising fact is that these white spaces of highest authority start even before he entered First military academy. From the two attacks he had during Central scouts academy." another set of papers were passed to everyone in the meeting room.
"It is written that both the attacks were carefully planned, and are suspected to be arranged from within the military after Ling Xiao's first death declaration. It might be to kill his post-humous child."
Everyone sucked in a deep breath filled with shock and hidden anger! Who would try to kill a child after the death of a sacrificed soldier, that too a figure like national idol Ling Xiao!
Although they could understand that there may be people to resented or envied Ling Xiao and might try to exact revenge on his only child when he was not present. It was fairly common to see such cases in the military or even in the history of the human race right from ancient times till this day.
Yet when such cases are brought to light it's always suffocating to some extent, not to mention when they thought about something like this happening to the child of their nation's idol, who happened to be a member of their division initially yet they failed to protect his child after an incident happened to him, they all felt anger brewing up in their veins.
This also strengthened their resolution to protect Ling Lan. To maintain a neutral standpoint and to try to negotiate before taking any actions.
"This reminds me even you are from the first military academy right Zuang Ro? What are your opinions about Ling Lan's behavior back then? What was his nature like in the military academy?" head of staff department of the Seventh division turned to look at the Major General who was still looking at the achievements list.
"Yes. Ling Lan must be my junior by four years. Although I haven't interacted much with him, I was fortunate enough to witness his fight with Huo Zenyu in his first year. He shocked the whole academy when he won against the strongest physical skill expert that year. His attitude....... I would define it as cold, calm, and domineering. Also as much as I could witness that year he must be an exceptional and trustworthy leader. This can also be concluded by his later achievements- starting a Grand Armed Melee in Scouts Academy, making his own regiment in the first year of military Academy, and a five-star Battle Clan in Virtual world just after the Clan formation mission--"
"Wait what!? A five-star Battle Clan can be made after a Clan formation mission? But isn't the Mecha World directly under the supervision of the Military to monitor the various talents? What mission did the complete that the mainframe granted a five-star battle clan after a single clan formation mission?" the Cheif of special forces of the Seventh Division looked up at the head of the Intelligence Department in curiosity.
The head of Intelligence sighed regretfully yet again, "Another highest authority restriction."
At this time everyone looked at the column of battle Clan formation in Ling Lan's profile with curiosity.
The Special forces Chief eyed his subordinate to investigate, seeing his actions the head of intelligence twitched his lips. 'Who doesn't have hackers? Want to hack into the system to find the mission of a Military academy Cadet? Hehe... it might be more difficult than finding what the new training routine of the flying dragon special forces is!'
It couldn't be helped since before leaving the military academy little four had added another layer of protection to all the Boss's information. So other than the basic information, the information which was easy to find became more secure and the one which was harder to find became almost impossible to hack unless the person with enough authority checks into it.
But for the most part, before the news of Lawless Lands being conquered, no matter how outstanding Ling Lan was in the military no one in the position above Deputy General will really be interested or have the leisure to look into the School or Academy records of a Soldier, and the members of her team were very closed-lipped about their battle formation mission. This way most of the recorded information about Ling Lan and her team's hair raising mission remained hidden for many years.
The Deputy General also logged in his ID out of curiosity to look at the Clan formation mission, just to narrow his eyes and sigh"I'll ask General for providing some light on this!"
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"... But I still don't think Ling Lan will cause any harm to the common public or the Military of Federation, or sort to any violent measures against any of the countries just for seeking revenge after acquiring Lawless Land. He believes in precision and won't take any unnecessary actions before investigating the matter properly." Qiao Ting thought back trying to descript Ling Lan's true motive behind his actions. He was sitting alone in Third Marshal's office in Third Division. In the middle of the night after the information about the Lawless Lands reached the military headquarters of Federation, Third Marshal had called a Qiao Ting with all the generals of his fraction and other important and promising officers. After the meeting Qiao Ting was asked to stay back in Marshel's office, remembering he was acquainted personally with Ling Lan.
For a person who proclaimed to be the lifelong rival of Ling Lan although he admitted he was not as daring or madly risk-taking as Ling Lan but to the very least in all years of his understanding about Ling Lan, he was sure of Ling Lan's character- he was a cunning but not unscrupulous person who would take actions rashly without thinking.
"I believe he only acquired Lawless Lands as a form of a safety net because he no longer believed in our claims of his safety and needed a bargaining chip to make people not dare to take any action against him even if he comes back. He wants to investigate but not get 'accidentally' killed as soon as he lands on his motherland" the more he thought about it the more uneasy he felt. For a person who was respected in a high position, cold and domineering, to suddenly face so many threats in an unsafe environment.........
He knew a part of such experience when Ling Lan defeated him in the military academy, a King falling from his rule, even the lowest class of people who didn't dare to open mouth against him started mocking and insulting him, betrayal, suffering, feeling of depression and loss.
Without Ling Xiao's support, many people would be after his life, regardless if he had offended them or not.
A tall tree catches the most wind. Apart from just the enemies, the people in higher positions will try to use him as a scrape goat or a puppet to control the power underneath him. Even Ling Xiao became a general at the age of forty under the fraction of First Marshal and still was suppressed using his age as junior, not to mention Ling Lan who was much younger than Ling Xiao at that time. For him sitting in General's position without any support will be like sitting on a thorned chair with his wings cut off and eyes covered with a veil.
"You seem to be very positive about Ling Lan's character and purpose, I assumed he was not that close to you seeing that you called him a lifelong rival, Qiao Ting," said Third Marshal with narrowed eyes and a thoughtful smile.
Qiao Ting straightened his back and nodded expressionlessly"Yes, he is one of the juniors cadets in my last two years of attending the military academy and although I know a little about his character, we are not that close. I do respect him and consider him as my rival, but if any situation occurs that he acts against our nation and I have to fight against him as an enemy I won't hesitate, sir!"
Third Marshal nodded and his smile became a little more genuine, as he passed another one of the minor tests, he then gave Qiao Ting permission to go back.
"Thank you, sir." But before going out Qiao Ting suddenly stopped with a little hesitation he turned back, "Marshal, I would like to make a small request."
After receiving a nod from the Marshal to continue he spoke again, "The intelligence teams are not able to complete Ling Lan's database as they are getting many restricted areas where the highest authority permission is required. We are not able to evaluate Ling Lan's current level of mecha talent or assessment of physical strength. I believe this information with the highest authority permit will enable us to reach a breakthrough, considering an individual who touched the edge of the domain stage at seventeen---"
"At Seventeen? Qiao Ting are you sure about this information?" Third marshal couldn't help his voice from raising a vocal higher. The youngest individual to attain domain realm has changed and he was not even made aware of this. First Marshal 'that cunning snake' hid too deep!
"Yes... I'm positive about the information Marshal" Qiao Ting said with some hesitation but didn't elaborate and say he was present at the time when it first happened. Although the public information about this didn't change he always assumed the three Marshals were aware of this and helped General Ling Xiao conceal it, he never knew.......
"Marshal please help us obtain these highest authority files." Qiao Ting requested the Third Marshal who had already sent a message to his assistant and the generals under his fraction on the communicator.
He nodded solemnly to Qiao Ting, "You'll receive a copy of the information in an hour. Good job. We will have a discussion about this in the evening."
On the planet of the Third Division, it was already noon, one could imagine the importance Third Marshal gave this matter by the urgency of it.
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Everyone who looked through the information of Ling Lan was stunned. Even more stunned were soldiers who had secretly entered the swift dragon base that year under the disguise of NPCs to investigate the abnormality, but till the time they submitted the information to their superiors, the mainframe already had the detailed information about the incident.
Even when the rescue mission was performed most of the evidence and enemies had already either managed to escape or were destroyed by the mainframe. Those cadets were so sneaky that even they did not realize how they snuck into the base and returned to the safe zone without either them or enemy nations realizing that there was another invader.....
Now they finally had the answer to why they were too late to report the incident or why the mainframe took the actions so swiftly.
Those cadets must have entered the base the same way as them, yet they returned harmless without a scratch on them, not only that but unlike them who were only able to verbally inform their superiors of the urgency of the situation, those cadets even submitted a damn recording from the enemy programmers!
For so long the recording had been kept top-secret document by the mainframe as proof against the invaders that year!
'Not only this, there are chances that because of them the T-virus didn't erupt in the Federation's mainframe!' the commander of the mission that year thought but then dismissed the idea... how can nine cadets with no recorded hacker or spect destroy the T-virus?
But he still doubted himself, since no one thought a person would be able to conquer Lawless Lands in a few years' time, that's why Ling Lan did the impossible task with ease under the eyes of all these nations. Maybe there is more to the story that they still don't know about!
As for what exactly happened to the T-virus no one knew but Ling Lan who still had Little Bloom as a companion along with Little four.
The Second and the Third Marshal were furious at the First Marshal keeping all this under wraps for so long. While the First Marshal was stunned after he got this information. He only knew half of it from his contact with Ling Xiao and secret monitoring he kept of him. No wonder Ling Xiao would still try to keep Ling Lan after his injury and even protect him at the cost of death.
He started contemplating for a moment, was his decision to use Ling Lan as bait the wrong one? Was it too soon to assist Ling Lan's strength and use it as a test for Ling Xiao? Did Ling Xiao really sacrifice his life as a selfless act of paternal love or did he had seen Ling Lan's impossible potential and wanted to continue his legacy in the most glorious ways? Doubts started consuming his brain and he started questioning many things around this matter from beginning to end, even doubting his own knowledge about Ling Xiao's character.
But right before it could become a mental demon he stopped his thought process. What decision was taken was already done and he could not change it! So better control the situation from accelerating. Ling Xiao had become too big of a threat to leave alone, either his son or he had to perish to maintain the power balance in his fraction.
Nevertheless, since Ling Lan is alive he can also be used to stabilize the situation and return the stable footing of his fraction, compare to the other two fractions. He called his subordinate to confirm the whereabouts of Lan Luofeng and whether she had any contact with any one of the Lingtian Independence Army.
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This new information was indeed too shocking, everyone in the twenty-three divisions and even the flying dragon special forces were in another round of heated discussion on Ling Lan.
Ren Feiyu- now Ling Xiao's devour personality who was sitting alone in the headquarters of flying dragon special forces had a devilish smile on his face as he laughed proudly, 'She not only conquered Lawless Lands in less than three years of time but also built enough military force to alert other nations! My daughter is wonderful!' if he had both his talents fused together like earlier he might have laughed happily and hugged Lan Lufeng with stars in his eyes with a perfect example of 24- filial piety father.
Ling Xiao believed that the other nations might have noticed something odd while their informants in Lawless Lands changed but couldn't discreet the difference unless they send someone there again. If they really send someone there, those people who entered Ling Lan's territory would become hostages for extracting information about the outside world. Having an extra source of information is always good. Besides that, if the Federation knows about the change in the authority of Lawless Lands Ling Lan must have developed enough military power to counter any problems in case of sudden hostile attacks.
He sighed, he had only hinted his daughter to seek refuge in Lawless Lands until she came up with a good plan to return, a little bit of backing and authority would give her a stable footing in Federation and a retreat in case of emergency. Who knew she would gain a strong footing in her own domineering way....
He chuckled in a proud manner thinking about his daughter..... but soon his eyes turned sharp and frigid as he turned to look into the other device which had the surveillance on the First Marshal's subordinates responsible for keeping an eye on Lan Luofeng. Since his daughter is fine he better stabilize the situation to keep his wife safe