Time flew, and a year"s time was over just like that.

This entire year, the First Men"s Military Academy had seemed extremely peaceful and uneventful. That air invasion of the academy a year ago had put a damper on the initially tense and compet.i.tive atmosphere of the academy. Those 8000 cadets who had died in the battle had come from multiple factions, which almost encompa.s.sed all the factions in the military academy. Certain factions were hit particularly hard and were devastated by the loss of members.

Under this sort of slump, all the factions were in no mood to fight over anything. They all took the time to rest and recuperate, biding their time. The New Cadet Regiment was probably the faction which lost the fewest members in the air invasion incident. With the exception of a minor few who had died in battle with the enemy, Ling Lan"s decisive arrangements had allowed most of the members to survive the crisis.

It could not be denied that those New Cadet Regiment members who had survived the battlefield found their mecha control skills improving on a vertical line within this one year. Quite a few intermediate mecha warriors successfully advanced to advanced mecha warrior level, but since they had not officially gone through a mecha practical training session, the academy instructors did not know about it yet. It could be imagined that when the members of the New Cadet Regiment finally entered their mecha practical training courses, they would certainly shock the entire military academy.

Successfully entering the second year meant that the New Cadet Regiment had said goodbye to the chapter of their lives as newbies — they would now officially enter the formal courses of their chosen specialization. This also meant that they now had the right to establish mecha clans that the academy would recognise.

Wu Jiong, Li Yingjie, as well as the other team leaders of the New Cadet Regiment all felt that it was better to establish a mecha clan earlier rather than later. By taking advantage of this time when the old factions had not fully recovered, the New Cadet Regiment would be able to set down secure roots within the military academy.

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 behaviour of the New Cadet Regiment was bound to be thwarted. This was because the establishment of a mecha clan required the applicant group to pa.s.s an a.s.sessment 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 a.s.sessment would at worst consist of advanced mecha warriors but were more likely to be all special-cla.s.s operators. Although the result of the a.s.sessment 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-cla.s.s mecha operator battle clan?

However, the final outcome left everyone flabbergasted — the Lingtian Mecha Clan pa.s.sed the academy mainframe"s a.s.sessment in one go. Everyone wanted to know the content of the a.s.sessment, but the Lingtian Mecha Clan cruelly set their a.s.sessment as a top secret doc.u.ment. Even the academy"s princ.i.p.al himself could not access the battle logs of this a.s.sessment; 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 a.s.sessment within a military academy?

And so, this a.s.sessment 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 a.s.sessment 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 ...

After the Lingtian Mecha Clan was officially established, the various smaller teams within the mecha clan began submitting their applications one after the other in close succession to the academy mainframe to form their own battle clans. The establishment of a battle clan also required a mainframe a.s.sessment, and the missions given to the various potential battle clans were not necessarily the same. Ling Lan had originally already established the Lingtian Battle Clan within Mecha World; after she submitted her application, she actually did not need to take an a.s.sessment for the academy mainframe immediately approved it.

This made Ling Lan suspect that Mecha World, which allowed the public to enter and practise their control, was in fact overseen by the military. And that mainframe of Mecha World was very likely the mainframe of the military itself. In reality, the fact that the military academy"s mainframe was a split segment of the military mainframe itself was an open secret in the military academy.

Of course, there was one other reason for this speculation of Ling Lan"s. The rank of her approved battle clan in the real world was exactly the same as the one in Mecha World, instantly leaping up to 5-star.

This coincidence compelled Ling Lan to be suspicious — how else would this 5-star ranking have come about? Could it be that the military academy"s mainframe just happened to suffer a seizure and specially decided to gift her such a grand present? It was impossible just thinking about it.

After the battle clan was established, the original Lingtian Battle Clan members immediately joined again. However, there was one unexpected guest. When Li Lanfeng joined this time, he dragged his good friend Zhao Jun along.

In all honesty, Zhao Jun had not actually wanted to formally join the Lingtian Battle Clan. He had only wanted to sign a one-year temporary contract, but who was Li Lanfeng? His heart set on helping his rabbit increase the strength of his battle clan, Li Lanfeng naturally would not let this super-valuable combat warrior Zhao Jun go.

Thus, under Li Lanfeng"s purposeful verbal provocation, Zhao Jun was unable to resist and issued a direct challenge to the clan leader Ling Lan, setting a wager for their fight along with it. If Ling Lan could defeat him, he would join the Lingtian clan and pledge his loyalty as a member of Lingtian without any reservations.

Zhao Jun was a confident person — among the cadets, only about 50 or so had managed to advance to become special-cla.s.s operators, and Zhao Jun"s battle strength had always been in the top three of these 50 or so special-cla.s.s operators. Additionally, even adding in the one and only cadet who had advanced to become an ace operator, the Thunder King Qiao Ting, Zhao Jun"s ranking in terms of battle strength had never dropped out of the top five. This was also why even though he was not someone from Wuji, the Wuji Mecha Clan still had no choice but to lay down their pride and seek him out for a partnership.

As Zhao Jun was from a third-rate planet, he had very weak backing, and though he himself had no mind to take power and wield authority, he was still an ambitious person who did not want to randomly join some unproven, lame battle clan. He wanted to be a member of some legendary battle clan — therefore, for him to submit, the clan leader needed to have strength on par with the Thunder King Qiao Ting at least. Of course, because of Li Lanfeng, Zhao Jun also hated Qiao Ting with a pa.s.sion, which was one reason why Zhao Jun had not joined the Leiting Mecha Clan.

With regards to Zhao Jun"s challenge, Ling Lan naturally was not afraid. Over this past year, unlike Qi Long and the rest, Ling Lan had not had to attend physical fitness cla.s.ses during the day; her entire focus had been on training her mecha controls in Mecha World. Her efforts over the year had raised her status in Mecha World from intermediate mecha warrior to ace mecha master, finally reflecting her true strength in the real world.

Thus, as soon as Ling Lan logged into Mecha World and operated an ace mecha onto the arena stage set up for the both of them, Zhao Jun knew that he had lost. Reality proved that Ling Lan"s ace operator status was not just for show — her control skills were so powerful that it was scary. Zhao Jun only managed to last 20 moves under Ling Lan before he was KO-ed by a sword right through his c.o.c.kpit.

This kind of power thoroughly convinced Zhao Jun. After he logged off the virtual world, he shook Li Lanfeng in excitement, asking him how in the world he had found such an aberrant clan leader. Just think — Thunder King Qiao Ting had only broken through to ace operator status in his fourth year, but Ling Lan was currently only a second year, so he had beaten Qiao Ting by two years. Do not underestimate these two years ... the younger the age, even the difference of one month was enough to display the difference between the talent and potential of two people. Zhao Jun knew very well that Ling Lan"s future was certain to be even better than Qiao Ting"s. If Qiao Ting could be said to be the second Ling Xiao, then Ling Lan was very likely to achieve becoming the first Ling Lan.

Li Lanfeng looked at Zhao Jun who was now somewhat hysterical from excitement and found himself rather speechless. Frankly, he had been able to tell with a glance that Ling Lan had already taken it easy and shown some mercy during the fight with Zhao Jun in order to leave him some face. Otherwise, based on Ling Lan"s methods, Zhao Jun would never have been able to last more than 10 moves against her. Li Lanfeng had no idea how he could tell Zhao Jun this — if he stated it bluntly, would Zhao Jun crumble from the shock and fall into a slump?

Besides, his rabbit had already become an ace operator in the first year. If he told Zhao Jun this, would his good friend be stunned silly from the overwhelming shock?

After musing about it for a long while, Li Lanfeng decided that in order to preserve the sanity of his good friend and save him from losing himself due to shock, he would mercifully keep the truth concealed for now. Li Lanfeng felt that he was truly such a kind person ...

In this manner, Zhao Jun was whole-heartedly convinced into joining the Lingtian Battle Clan, and so within the early days of its establishment, the Lingtian Battle Clan already had 10 members. Of course, there were still many waitlisted members yet to be added to the ranks. When the first year ended, Han Jijyun and Luo Lang went back home once, and they returned with several strong requests from various people.

It turned out that Luo Chao, Han Xuya, and the original members of team 072 all sent word that they would officially join the Lingtian Battle Clan once they entered an army division. In particular, Han Xuya threatened Ling Lan with extreme violence that he was not allowed to say no!

Of course, Ling Lan"s plans to go to the 23rd Division had been conveyed by Luo Lang and the others to the members of team 072. Aside from a few with excellent grades who decided to apply for enlistment to the 23rd Division along with Ling Lan and the rest at the First Academy in their fifth year, the others could only wait till they properly graduated before applying.

Ling Lan naturally would not refuse these scattered companions of hers who wanted to reunite with them. Rather than taking in some unfamiliar outsiders, Ling Lan was more willing to trust these companions who had grown up together with her. Right then, Ling Lan was also secretly rejoicing that they had managed to complete that SSS-rank mission back then, promoting the clan"s level up to 5-star right away so they could take in so many more people. Otherwise, she would have had to start worrying over these next few years how she could raise the level of her battle clan as soon as possible to accommodate these companions.

Having settled the matter of these outside companions, Ling Lan began to fret over the current internal members. Ling Lan had no need to concern herself over Qi Long and the other four of her original team — many years of cultivation and training had already ensured that their combat power and rapport with one another were outstanding.

However, the newly joined Chang Xinyuan was a huge problem. Even though he was extremely hardworking and tenacious, his mecha control talent was truly not that great. Over this past year, although Qi Long and the rest were still advanced mecha warriors, they had already touched the doorway to becoming special-cla.s.s operators. They were now just waiting for a lucky chance, like when Li Lanfeng had encountered during the air invasion, to break through into the ranks of the special-cla.s.s operators.

For an intermediate mecha warrior to advance to become an advanced mecha warrior, there was no need for any special insight. As long as they obtained enough experience and trained their control hand speed up to a certain standard, they would successfully advance. Basically, there wasn"t any particular threshold in advancing from intermediate mecha to advanced mecha.