Her team members continued to die and new members continued to replace them. The cycle went on for five more years. Ling Lan was the only one left from the original lineup of the team. No matter how much the other members helped each other, they still died.

Ling Lan came to Ji Sheng"s tomb to visit him again. She brought along his favorite Mandora flower. The Mandora flower was the national flower of the Mandora star system, which was what Ji Sheng wanted to be loyal to.

"Five years have pa.s.sed and I"m still alive," Ling Lan said calmly to the tomb. "Everyone else is dead."

"Why am I still alive when the others have died?" Ling Lan smiled sarcastically. "Because they weren"t strong enough. I finally understood what my mistake was. I should have trained you like how I trained Qi Long and the rest of the Lingtian Mecha Clan. That way, you would have become stronger and stayed alive just like me."

"I took five years to realize this." Ling Lan stared intently at the tomb as she spoke. "Luckily, it"s not too late. If I continue to worry like a mother for Qi Long and the members of Lingtian, they won"t be able to grow. The things that happened to you would happen to them.

"Everyone needs to walk their own path. I need to learn to let go and let them find their own path." Ling Lan"s gaze was clear. At this moment, the clan members of Lingtian were no longer her little children—they were comrades who would fight alongside her.

Ji Sheng"s tomb began to spin when Ling Lan had this thought and she knew then that this was what Number Three had wanted her to understand. She returned to Number Three"s learning s.p.a.ce.

"You finally understood it," Number Three said, smiling amiably at her.

Ling Lan smiled bitterly. "Seems like I was too stubborn."

"Yes. Your reason for becoming strong was too complicated, so it hindered your progress." Number Three sighed. This was not a bad thing, but it had exceeded Ling Lan"s capabilities. If she did not have a calm and free mindset, she would not be able to achieve a breakthrough.

Ling Lan pouted. "Number Three, you don"t have to be so lenient. I"m just too greedy. I wanted to protect all the friends and families around me who loved and cared for me…" She had been thinking too far ahead and placed too much pressure on herself; hence, she had failed in improving herself.

Number Three finally smiled. He didn"t expect Ling Lan to be so harsh on herself. He said, "I am glad that you know this. Remember, your friends and families are your motivation, not your obstacles." Number Three"s words seemed to have a double meaning behind them.

Ling Lan nodded. Number Three waved his hand and Ling Lan was kicked out of the learning s.p.a.ce.

Ling Lan returned to the real world and sighed in her heart. Ever since she graduated from the learning s.p.a.ce, her instructors didn"t like it when she went back. Was she being disliked?

Ling Lan sighed again and started focusing on improving her hand speed again…

Ling Lan moved her fingers and everything went smoothly. Very soon, Ling Lan managed to achieve a breakthrough.

She started the hand speed test, but at the crucial moment, her hand speed suddenly decreased again…

"Beep, beep, beep. Breakthrough failed. Do you want to continue or log out?" The system that measured her hand speed immediately gave a reply when she slowed down.

Ling Lan smiled to herself. "Seems like my heart isn"t calm enough yet, which is why I lost focus at the crucial moment." Ling Lan took a deep breath and cleared the thoughts in her mind, after which she chose to continue.

Her fingers started moving. Her hand disappeared for a moment and appeared again soon after. However, it looked as though it hadn"t moved at all.

Others might not know what was happening, but Ling Lan did. She knew that her speed was faster than the last time; it was her fastest speed so far. She continued her speed for a while. No strange feelings came to her.

"Tap." Ling Lan finished the last operation given by the system.

"Beep, beep, beep. All operations completed. 59.93 seconds in total. You have completed it in under 1 minute. Congratulations, you pa.s.sed." The results that Ling Lan had always wanted appeared on the screen. Her hand speed had gone under 1 minute and this meant that she had fulfilled the minimum hand speed requirement for an imperial operator.

Ling Lan was elated. She had finally managed to achieve a breakthrough in her hand speed after more than a year. After the rush of adrenaline, she suddenly felt pain in her hand. Her hand was still unfamiliar to the speed, so there was a recoil. Ling Lan immediately practiced her Qi exercises and rested her hands. After a few moments, the pain in her hand subsided.

Reaching the hand speed requirement didn"t mean that Ling Lan would advance to an imperial operator immediately. There were three requirements for an imperial operator: the first was hand speed; the second was the fact that she needed to have more than three [S]-rank imperial techniques; and lastly, she needed to upgrade an [A]-rank mecha technique to an [S]-rank mecha technique. Either that, or she needed to upgrade three special-cla.s.s [B]-rank techniques to ace [A]-rank techniques.

Hand speed was the hardest requirement to fulfill. Many ace operators would be stuck at their hand speed for their entire life. Getting an [S]-rank technique, on the other hand, was not so difficult. Some elite ace could cross-level to practice. These ace operators either had an [S]-rank technique, or were capable of upgrading an [A]-rank technique to [S]-rank. Having one [S]-rank technique was the maximum an ace operator could have if they didn"t achieve the required hand speed.

The other obstacle that ace operators faced were the upgrading of techniques.

Upgrading a technique was the same as refining a technique. For instance, if a [B]-rank technique could destroy one thousand enemies, the mecha operator needed to refine that technique so that he could destroy two thousand enemies with it. As long as the military"s mecha technique department acknowledged that the technique was [A]-rank, it would be considered a success. Of course, there were many ways to go about refining a technique. It all depended on whether someone had refined the technique the same way before and whether the refinement was a success.