Crossing to the Future, it's Not Easy to Be a Man

"It shouldn"t be. The Thunder King is in Closed Door Meditation right now, preparing to advance to ace operator — he should not have the spare time to bother with this sort of trivial thing," Xie Yi suddenly cut in to say.

News of the Thunder King"s Closed Door Meditation to advance to ace operator was pretty much known throughout the whole First Men"s Military Academy. Even they as new students had also heard a thing or two about it. After all, such a super talent emerging from the military academy — the news was worthy of being widely promoted.

A thought stirred in Ling Lan"s mind at those words. She said hurriedly, "Wait, let me think. This may be an opportunity for us to develop."

Ling Lan"s words made the group"s eyes light up. They suppressed the excitement in their hearts, afraid that they would disturb Ling Lan"s train of thought if they spoke up.

Mind you, the new cadet regiment seemed to be doing well right now, without being especially pressured by the other factions. But in reality, those factions were like a sword hanging above their heads — they were constantly under threat. Because they could not know when those factions would decide to make a move to apply pressure on them, to force them to have no choice but to join those factions in the end.

The students of the Central Scout Academy had always been a bunch of extremely talented students, hence they were all extremely prideful. They were unwilling to go against their personal wishes due to external pressure — this was why they had so quickly reached a consensus to establish the new cadet regiment.

Initially, the Central Scout Academy faction which Zhang Jing-an represented would have been a great haven for them. Unfortunately, the grade that Zhang Jing-an represented was the one who had been defeated by them back then in the grand armed melee. Thus, the new cadets did not want to let someone who had once fallen by their hands to lead them now. At the heart of it, they did not think much of Zhang Jing-an — this was also one of the reasons why Zhang Jing-an had failed to convince anyone to join his faction.

Of course, Ling Lan"s existence was another reason why they were unwilling to join Zhang Jing-an"s faction. If Ling Lan had not been around, many of them would have at least temporarily joined Zhang Jing-an"s faction for security due to the pressure. However, Ling Lan had come to the First Men"s Military Academy. In the new cadets" eyes, Ling Lan who had led them to victory in the grand armed melee, and who had successfully s.n.a.t.c.hed the administrative rights of the s.p.a.ceship, was undoubtedly much more worthy of their trust. This was also one of the reasons why the new cadet regiment was established so successfully.

"Jijyun, tell me, the other side being so open with their provocation, without even trying to hide which faction they came from ... is it really only to make an example out of us?" Ling Lan began to suspect the other"s motives.

Typically, in order to achieve greater deterrent effect, one side would create a moral high ground for themselves, pushing the responsibility of instigating the conflict to their opponent. In the end, they would further prove their superiority with a one-sided victory — at that moment, riding on the wave of that success, they would find it much easier to attract some exceptional new cadets into their ranks ...

However, Leiting had acted in a rather impatient manner this time. They were obviously trying to incite the anger of the new cadets as quickly as they could — their methods crude and rough. Even if they won in the end, Leiting would still incur the bad reputation of picking on the weak and bullying the freshmen. This may end up making the other uninvolved new cadets grow worried, afraid that they would be bullied as well, and would instead negatively affect Leiting"s efforts in recruitment. It just did not make sense no matter how Ling Lan thought about it.

"If not, then for what reason? Could it be that they simply want to beat us into submission to make us join them?" Jijyun could not think of any other explanation. "Although we have more people, it is still far from the numbers of all the new cadets. Every year, the military academy takes in up to 7000 new cadets."

Something abruptly occurred to Ling Lan at Han Jijyun"s words. She suddenly asked seriously, "What if, they knew the a.s.sessment results of us new cadets?"

The results of the new cadets" a.s.sessments would be recorded in the students" respective files, and these results would affect the mentorship and material resources the military academy would invest into the cultivation of the individual students. In fact, it was already being reflected in reality now. Their group of students had all been placed into the best cla.s.ses of their respective specializations, having access to the best teachers as well as the best material resources in their studies and training.

For example, in Ling Lan"s Mecha Piloting Cla.s.s-A, not only were the various instructional teachers all the most outstanding in that field, even the teachers in charge of the practic.u.m portion were all mecha operators of ace level and above. Not only that, when it came to the distribution of the real-world training mecha, the students would often be given one of the best mecha the school had to offer. Of course, how good of a mecha would still depend on how well they performed in their virtual mecha training practices.

At these words, Han Jijyun seemed to think of something, and his expression shifted slightly, "The other side has our new cadet a.s.sessment results? There"s a hacker ..." The military academy had a specialised hacker training cla.s.s, so it was extremely believable that there would be hackers within the various factions.

"Won"t the military academy have put up proper defences?" Knowing well that there were hackers among the students, Han Jijyun would be somewhat dissatisfied with the protective measures of the school if they so easily allowed others to access the information of the new cadets.

"Perhaps, this is also a test the military academy has set for the hacker students." In contrast, Ling Lan did not find it strange — defences were built to be broken; the only difference was in whether others succeeded in breaking through or not.

Ling Lan"s words enlightened Han Jijyun; this was a distinct possibility. In order to spur a hacker into putting their all into cracking a defence, there must be sufficient incentive, and the a.s.sessment details of the new cadets were undoubtedly a most attractive prize. After all, even if the hackers themselves were unconcerned, the organisations they belonged to would want it, which gave the hackers no choice but to comply.

"From the looks of things, Boss Lan, your suspicions should be correct. They are not trying to make an example out of us ... their real objective is in factus. This fight, it looks like we cannot avoid it." Ling Lan"s deduction made Han Jijyun realise the truth of the situation, and he could not help but begin to worry.

"Leiting is determined to get us. That"s why even though the Thunder King is in Closed Door Meditation and thus lacking a leader, they still want to make us join them by force as soon as possible. They are afraid the other organisations will also find out about this news and intervene." Ling Lan had basically figured out Leiting"s entire purpose by now, "From the looks of it, our a.s.sessment results are still unknown to the other factions ..."

Right then, Ling Lan instructed Little Four within the minds.p.a.ce to go to the military academy mainframe and take a look, to see if someone had already broken through its defences to steal their data.

Very swiftly, Little Four returned with an answer. There was indeed someone who had succeeded in accessing the database to download a doc.u.ment with their info. Additionally, that person had left behind a defensive layer of their own. Currently, there were several other hackers working on cracking that defensive layer — based on their progress, they would probably only succeed a week from now and get their information.

Since Ling Lan now knew about this, she naturally let Little Four put extra security around their information. She did not wish for their data to once again be obtained by others. The more people who knew, the more danger the new cadet regiment would be in. This was because they were like infants holding onto treasure chests — without sufficient strength to protect the wealth that belonged to them, their final outcome could only be to watch as others stronger than them came and took it away ...

Receiving Ling Lan"s orders, Little Four scampered over to handle it. Of course, he patted his puffed up little chest and guaranteed that, in this world, no one would be able to steal the data from under his protection, aside from those in the military academy who had the right to view the data.

"Still, no matter why Leiting is doing this, their challenge towards us this time is not entirely a bad thing for us." After resolving this latent problem, Ling Lan let out an internal sigh of relief. Now, she need only focus on handling Leiting. Even if Leiting was the top faction in the school, as long as it was just one faction, the pressure was much reduced.

An idea flashed through Han Jijyun"s mind, and he hurried to agree, "That"s right, this clash is indeed not a bad thing for us."

Qi Long"s head felt like it was waterlogged from all the subtext embedded in the conversation between his boss and his sworn brother. He could not help but open his mouth to ask, "What in the world are you two talking about? What good thing bad thing?"

In an uncommon turn of events, Han Jijyun did not answer Qi Long"s question, instead continuing to say to Ling Lan, "Due to the uncertainty of the situation, the other factions in the military academy are likely waiting to see the results of Leiting"s advance on us."

"If we are unable to fend off Leiting"s attack, even if we do not want to go to Leiting, it is unavoidable for us to end up joining some other faction. The final outcome of our new cadet regiment would definitely be to split up and be separately absorbed into the other factions," Ling Lan calmly laid out the final outcome of their new cadet regiment, "However, if we can survive this advance, even though we"ll be pitted against Leiting, as long as our a.s.sessment results are not found out by the other factions, they will not risk fighting against Leiting and angering the Thunder King to intervene. After all, we aren"t the only new cadets. They would be perfectly happy to see us at odds with Leiting, each at the other"s neck, giving Leiting no mind to bother with the other new cadets, so they would have better luck in their own recruitment."

"Going up against Leiting, although we might very likely lose terribly, it is also an opportunity for us. Leiting can become our opponent, but they will also become our protective talisman." Han Jijyun then added, worried, "But, how can we ensure our data isn"t obtained by the other factions?" 

"On this matter, don"t worry. I will handle it," replied Ling Lan decisively. Only then did Han Jijyun remember that their Boss Lan was most likely an unfathomable hacker — this had already been proven on the s.p.a.ceship. A smile instantly broke out on his face.

At this time, the others had also figured things out. Xie Yi asked, "Does this mean that, even though things look bad for us, the situation is actually not as terrible as it would seem on the outside?"

Ling Lan shook her head, "Well, we can"t say that. At most, the chances of winning and losing are half and half."

That said, Ling Lan turned her head to look at Han Jijyun and instructed, "Jijyun, go and contactthe regiment commanders of the new cadet regiment1. Ask them to gather at our villa. Since we have decided, we need to let them know."

"Yes! Boss," replied Han Jijyun. However, he was still a little concerned as he asked, "What if this makes them cower?" This was not like during the grand armed melee — Leiting"s strength and numbers really exceeded theirs by too much. Furthermore, they had just arrived at the academy, and had not yet properly established their foothold. It was a legitimate concern that many of the new cadets would be plagued with doubt and fear.

"Just tell them first. If they don"t want to be involved, let them withdraw," said Ling Lan dispa.s.sionately, "I have never expected them to make any moves anyway."

Han Jijyun was visibly taken aback by these words, and then his eyes lit up. "Boss, are you saying ..."

Ling Lan did not respond, but Han Jijyun too did not expect Ling Lan to answer, because he already had a vague answer in his heart.

Meanwhile, at this moment, in the living quarters of the military academy of a particular year, quite a few people were glaring angrily at the person in the head seat. From among them, a young man with a hard expression yelled angrily in interrogation, "Lin Zhidong2, what the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing? If Regiment Commander Qiao finds out about these things you did, you can just wait for the regiment commander to skin you alive!"