Ling Lan did not hold back that heavy breath in her chest. She let it out slowly, finally settling the discomfort she felt. Although Ling Lan had successfully withstood one spiritual blow from Ling Xiao, she only became more convinced of Ling Xiao"s unfathomable power. This was because Ling Xiao"s spiritual charge had been so effortless on his part, so casual that it was frightening to consider.

This was the second time Ling Lan had felt like this after encountering Instructor Number One. It was as if she would not be able to catch up even if she worked hard her entire life. If Ling Lan had not been through all kinds of perverse torments under Instructor Number Five, causing her mentality to be extremely secure, this clash might have caused a flaw to appear in her mental state.

From the sidelines, Mu Shui-qing chuckled and said, "Ling Xiao, what do you think? Ling Lan"s heptashield is very impressive, right?" Mu Shui-qing"s tone was undoubtedly smug. Inheritance was all well and good, but innovation would undeniably make a master even more excited and pleased. The ultimate goal of a legacy was for a pupil to surpa.s.s their master 1 , after all.

Even the consistently prodigious Ling Xiao was amazed by Ling Lan"s innovative breakthrough. The smile on his face grew even more radiant as he nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes, it"s too unexpected. I never knew the heptashield could be used this way." He looked at Ling Lan with pride, "This should be the results of your own research, right? What a great idea."

The heptashield had always been categorised as a defensive ability, with basically no offensive capability. Only in the later stages, once one became extremely proficient in its use and had the power to back it, could one use the heptashield"s mobility to deal some small attacks to an opponent. However, in comparison to Ling Lan"s improved reflective shield, the offensive power of that was insignificant.

Ling Xiao"s praise made Ling Lan somewhat shy. After all, this successful outcome was the result of the combined research of Little Four, the instructors, and herself. Ling Lan now knew that Little Four"s so-called calculations and planning were actually all the work of the instructors. The instructors had just not wanted her to know that they could learn from the techniques of the real world and study them and modify them, and so had made Little Four take credit for them.

Ling Lan rubbed her nose, and then began to explain the thought process behind the instructors" and her modifications to the technique. "Because I didn"t want to pa.s.sively wait for an opportunity, so I thought, if I could attack even as I was defending, wouldn"t that change the flow of the battle? I was just thinking how I could make a shield have offensive capability ...

"I tried many things, having also tried to use the shield as a weapon to attack the opponent. I found that it was all useless, because once the attack failed, it would switch into spiritual charge form. The shield would break apart on its own." Speaking of her past failures, a small smile appeared on Ling Lan"s lips. During that period of time, the instructors had all had troubled expressions — even Instructor Number Five had not been able to maintain his typical perverse smile, becoming somewhat frenzied by their consistent failures.

"Later on, after happening to see the movement of a trampoline, I wondered if I could make the shield become like a trampoline. As it defended, could it also make the force it received bounce back? After studying it for quite a while, I finally managed to come up with this type of shield. As for why the surface is like a mirror ..." Ling Lan trailed off here, a mischievous smile faintly appearing on her lips.

Ling Lan did not clarify, instead bringing out her heptashield once more. She positioned the three shields right in front of Ling Xiao, and then quickly changed all of them into the palm-sized mirror-surfaced small shields ...

"Can all of them reflect?" asked Ling Xiao, irrepressibly curious.

"Attack and see," said Ling Lan, "Try to use as little strength as possible." The current defensive shield was not as strong as the original version of the heptashield; if Ling Xiao used too much power, he might not be able to see the effect.

Ling Xiao nodded and casually unleashed a spiritual charge. The force and pressure of this spiritual charge were not as strong as that of his previous one. The spiritual power broke through the first shield, and then broke through the second ... but again met obstruction on the third shield, and the remaining power was reflected.

"The defence power of the mirrored surface is greatly weakened, and not every surface has the ability to reflect. Looks like the reflective ability is not because of the mirrored surface ..." With this one strike, Ling Xiao had found the strengths and weaknesses of the shields. He understood that the appearance of the shields was not the most important thing — all of it was a show that Ling Lan wanted others to see.

The three mirrored shields destroyed, Ling Lan merely condensed three new shields before her. This time, the three shields did not change at all, looking exactly the same as Ling Xiao"s heptashield.

At this point, Ling Xiao did not need Ling Lan to prompt him. He immediately sent a spiritual charge at the shields. The attack once again broke through the first and second shields, but was obstructed at the third shield, where the force was reflected back once more.

"This time, the reflective shield looks exactly like a normal heptashield. That means that the reflective ability is not due to external factors but an internal quality ... but, why is it always the third shield which reflects? Are you free to choose which shield has the reflective ability, or is it restricted to the final shield? Or can all three shields have the power to reflect?" Gaining new information, Ling Xiao just had even more questions.

"I can only control one reflective shield at present, because the spiritual composition of the reflective shield is different from the original heptashield. As for which shield is reflective, that is up to me to choose," answered Ling Lan, "The reason why I place it on the third shield is because your power is too strong. Without the two shields before it to whittle away some of the power, I am not confident the reflection would succeed. Father, you should know that the reflective ability of the modified shield has its limits. If an attack exceeds that limit, the shield will just break and fail to have any reflective effect."

Listening to Ling Lan"s explanation, Ling Xiao could not help but nod along. When he heard his daughter say his power was strong, he couldn"t help but preen internally. Could this be considered his daughter"s roundabout way of acknowledging him as her father? Ling Xiao was being overly optimistic about this. Ling Lan was just stating the facts, without any other thought in mind.

"Also, the defensive ability of a reflective shield is lower than that of a normal heptashield. Till now, I have not found a way to solve that issue." A trace of regret appeared on Ling Lan"s face. If she could make the defensive power of the reflective shield equal to that of the original heptashield, only then would her innovation be considered successful. Right now, it was still an unfinished product.

"Ling Lan, you are still young! You still have so much time to perfect this technique," said Ling Xiao, "The creation of a new technique must go through countless experimentations and revisions. Don"t be impatient."

This advice startled Ling Lan — that"s true, when did she become so impatient? Instructor Number One had plainly told them before that developing a new technique required the test of true combat. In the process, countless adjustments and revisions were doubtlessly necessary. What remained in the end would definitely be the result of countless reforging.

"Thank you, father!" Even if she was unable to call Ling Xiao "daddy" so intimately right now, Ling Lan would not be stingy with the address of "father".

Emotion flashed through Ling Xiao"s eyes. This was a good sign! His daughter"s tone seemed to be softer than it had been previously — did this mean that his daughter had already accepted him?

Ling Xiao decided to strike while the iron is hot, and take the chance to interact well with Ling Lan now, so he began asking more about the spiritual construction of her reflective shield. Ling Lan had never thought to hide this information, so when Ling Xiao asked, she began describing all her findings to him.

Mu Shui-qing looked at the father and daughter pair before him discussing the command of spiritual power, and the heart-warming scene made his eyes feel a little damp. In the past three years, he had fantasized before how wonderful it would be if Ling Xiao still lived! Who would have thought that three years later, his fantasies would become reality ... the heavens were truly kind to this old man for letting him see this scene ...

********

Time pa.s.sed swiftly; a month"s time over in the blink of an eye. Sometime during the month, the acceptance letter from the First Men"s Military Academy arrived as expected.

However, on the day the letter was collected, another case of domestic violence occurred in the Ling family. Seeing the acceptance letter rekindled Lan Luofeng"s dormant grudge with a new dose of anger. She instantly gave Ling Xiao a kick, not forgetting to add on an elbow attack as well ... As Ling Xiao was afraid that he would harm Lan Luofeng accidentally, he did not dare to use Qi to protect himself. So, Lan Luofeng"s attacks landed squarely on Ling Xiao"s body, causing him to grimace in pain.

Not just that, that night, Lan Luofeng staunchly refused to let Ling Xiao into her bedroom. However, early the next day, Ling Lan was lucky enough to see Ling Xiao being kicked out of Lan Luofeng"s bedroom, so she knew that Ling Xiao had still managed to sneak into Lan Luofeng"s bedroom successfully last night!

In contrast to Lan Luofeng"s anger, the main victim in question, Ling Lan, seemed not at all concerned. Since Ling Xiao had said that he would be able to help her handle all those tests and training that could expose her gender, what else was there for her to worry about? Besides, she was actually quite curious about the First Men"s Military Academy.

Meanwhile, in this one month, Ling Lan had often sparred with her father Ling Xiao. Of course, this was just a nice way of putting it — in fact, she had been one-sidedly bullied by Ling Xiao via all manner of torments. When it came to combat, Ling Xiao showed no mercy. This made Ling Lan miss Qi Long and her band of companions terribly — because when she fought with them, she would be the one playing Ling Xiao"s role.

However, Ling Lan"s fate of being tormented ended after a month. This was because Ling Xiao had finally succ.u.mbed to military headquarters" consecutive desperate summons, finally being summoned out of the Ling family mansion back to military headquarters. A week later, the military would hold a large press conference for him, where they would announce the official commencement of the formation of the 23rd Division. Just like that, Ling Xiao transformed from an extremely free house husband and male nanny extraordinaire into the busiest great general in the Federation.

Accompanying Ling Xiao to military headquarters was the still fuming Lan Luofeng. Of course, Lan Luofeng had not intended to go with Ling Xiao at first, but she had been bundled up and sent on her way with Ling Xiao by Ling Lan. Mind you, in one more month, she too would be setting off for the First Men"s Military Academy to register. Was Lan Luofeng supposed to be left all on her own then at the mansion to guard an empty nest?

Furthermore, Ling Xiao was now the most eye-catching superstar general of the military, neither lacking in looks nor reputation. The number of people who liked Ling Xiao must be staggering — if Lan Luofeng continued to sulk and make things difficult for Ling Xiao, what if another woman found some opportunity to wedge her way in? Wouldn"t Lan Luofeng regret that to death?

Ling Lan clearly knew that Lan Luofeng was the type that was unyielding on the outside but soft on the inside 2 — if not, during this one month, her dad would not have constantly been kicked out of her mum"s bedroom in the morning ... Ling Lan did not have to wonder to know what they had been doing during the night.

However, a few times, Ling Lan had seen Ling Xiao rubbing his knees inexplicably. This made Ling Lan suspect her great father had been punished by her great mother to kneel on a mecha circuit motherboard ...

Ling Lan had seen that thing before — it had lots of parts sticking out vertically on it, all of them very solid and very pointy. At this thought, Ling Lan could almost feel her knees aching in sympathy. She could not help pitying Ling Xiao — her great mother was actually quite the black-bellied character.