Chapter 127: Surprise
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
After cleaning the upper floor of the library, Xia Fei went down the bas.e.m.e.nt with the two keys in hand.
There were two rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt. There was the room on the left with the rare book on the introduction to robot coding stored inside, which Xia Fei already knew about, but he had no idea what was in the room on the right.
The robot coding book was priceless, and Qin Mang allowing Xia Fei to clean the room meant that he trusted him now; he would not entrust him with these incredibly important keys otherwise.
Xia Fei headed into the room on the left first to give it a good cleaning. The room was just as before, with the ma.s.sive gla.s.s cabinet standing right in the middle of the room, where the heavy book resided.
After shutting the door, Xia Fei came to the room on the right. It was of a similar area to the previous room, but it was obviously messier, stocked with plenty of old tables and stools as well as many other things.
Xia Fei was slightly disappointed. He thought that the room would have some kind of rare book, but it seemed like an average storage room.
He quickly scanned the room before arranging everything in order. Xia Fei was just about to leave with a vacuum cleaner in hand.
All of a sudden, something popped into his mind; it was so shocking that he stood there in place.
“Why are you standing there?” asked Phantom.
Xia Fei did not reply and just walked around the room using the number of steps to try and estimate the size of it.
“Is something wrong?” Phantom was puzzled.
Xia Fei furrowed his brows. “The two rooms aren’t the same size.”
Xia Fei walked outside and measured the length of the hallway; he felt even more weirded out.
“The hallway is about sixty-seven steps long, but the rooms combined are about forty-five steps. About twenty-two meters are unaccounted for,” Xia Fei said in a deep voice.
Phantom finally realized what was going on. The length of this hallway was way longer than these two rooms. Could it be that there was another room in the bas.e.m.e.nt which was undiscovered?
Xia Fei placed his hand on the wall, observing as he felt it up in hopes of discovering the reason for this discrepancy.
This wall was clean and smooth; nothing that suggested the existence of a secret door. The walls also had the same paint. Evidently, the work was done at once.
After walking back and forth twice, Xia Fei decided to give up his search, and he returned to the upper floor filled with questions. After returning the tools, Xia Fei went back to Qin Mang and poured himself a cup of tea as a break.
“Is Old Porter from the wars.h.i.+p graveyard doing alright?” asked Qin Mang.
“He left the wars.h.i.+p graveyard because he has something to do. His factory has been put on the market; I think he won’t be returning anymore.”
Xia Fei quickly went over Porter’s situation, leaving out the part where the latter left him an ultra-long-range receiver.
Ultra-long-range receivers were only one-way, meaning that only Porter could contact him, whereas Xia Fei would be unable to contact the old mechanic.
“Oh,” Qin Mang nodded, looking as if he felt sorry about the whole situation.
“Oh, right, I’m supposed to inform you that you’ll be joining the internal division on the first of next month.” Qin Mang suddenly recalled.
Xia Fei almost spat out his Dahongpao tea.
“Old man, are you saying that I’ll be joining the internal division?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never submitted an application for that, and I haven’t joined any type of exam, either. Why would I be chosen to enter the internal division?”
Xia Fei did not understand the situation at all. Apparently, entering the internal division was incredibly difficult, so why was he chosen to enter it when he had not done anything? Did the saying not go: ‘The sun rises from the west’?
“Who told you that one needs to submit an application or take a test to enter the internal division? Did you think it’s a fight, where whoever wins joins?” Qin Mang rolled his eyes at Xia Fei. “If you don’t want to join the internal division, I’ll let Xiaoshanzi—I mean Commander Ye knows that you’ve declined.”
Because of how sudden this was, Xia Fei struggled to believe it. It was not that he was dumb; he knew what it meant to join the internal division. Setting aside how comfortable the conditions were, the weird Stygian Training Center alone was enough to catch Xia Fei’s interest.
They were training rooms that mimicked the energy found in Heart of Spirits, which could help accelerate Xia Fei’s rate of absorbing the medicinal residue, would greatly increase his rate of improvement. n.o.body with half a brain cell would decline this opportunity.
“Hold your horses, old man; I’d never decline a chance to enter the internal division, I just wanted to clear things up,” said Xia Fei with a laugh, then he poured Qin Mang a cup of tea as thanks.
Qing Mang shook his head and explained slowly, “There’s a lot that goes to enter the internal division. Unbeknown to you, the selection process starts the first day one enters the training camp. Someone is chosen to enter the internal division every month; at the same time, someone leaves the internal division.
“As for how you got chosen to join the internal division, I have no idea, either. In any case, you won’t be coming to the library starting next month; just focus on your training in the internal division.”
Xia Fei lit up a cigarette and thought for a minute. “Of course, I’ll go to the internal division, but I’ll report to you every day as usual.”
Qin Mang was puzzled. “Why? Are you addicted to being a librarian? Don’t you care about other people ridiculing you?”
Xia Fei shook his head. “It was my decision to become a librarian, anyway, and I don’t regret it. Moreover, why should I care about what others think? It’s not my problem what they think.”
“You’re not worried that your work at the library will interfere with your training?” Qing Mang seemed to gain interest in the matter, for he asked this while squinting.
“I’ve been to the internal division. The thing that interests me the most is its Stygian Training Center. Training there is quite nice, but I realized that it’s not a good thing to stay in the training center for too long. Humans are like a bottle—there’s a limited amount of water a bottle can contain; once overfilled, the excess will just flow out. That’s what I discovered when too much energy entered my body at the training center.
“I plan to train there during the night and come to the library to read some books and clean the place during the day. Plus, I can’t just leave you when you’ve been treating me so well.”
Xia Fei praised Qin Mang without any subtlety at all, leading to the latter letting out a hearty laugh. “Alright, boy; I still don’t know what you are thinking, but I know that you being unwilling to leave me isn’t the reason. You want to stay with this sea of books in the library?”
“Hah, you got me again,” Xia Fei said with a smile. “I think having skills isn’t enough to become an elite warrior. Take the journal full of retrofitting methods given to me by Old Porter; if I hadn’t read that, there was no way I could’ve won the race, which means that I wouldn’t have had that chance to visit the internal division.
“And if it hadn’t been for the s.p.a.ce station emergency handbook, I’m afraid that I would’ve died during the last mission. That’s why I think that being mighty isn’t the be-all and end-all. A pa.s.sionate and hot-blooded person only knows how to scream and kill, but that’ll just be pure courage. Without the proper knowledge and theory, hot-blooded can quickly turn into dog-blooded.”
Qing Mang’s cloudy eyes lit up, laughing. “Hot blood turning into dog blood—I like that.
“Over the years, the Alliance has developed a strange concept. The more elite the warriors are, the more they look down on machines. They think that strength alone can conquer everything.
“But they never seem to realize that if a person has incredible strength and also possesses knowledge in various techniques, won’t that make them stronger? If you want to become the strongest, why exclude technology that can make you even stronger?”
Xia Fei laughed. “Heh, perhaps the ancient civilization being destroyed by their very creation strikes fear in them, and that’s why so many look down on technology.”
“What a joke,” Qing Mang said with a cold snort. “The ancient civilization was destroyed because they crossed the line. Nature gave humans life; humans gave machine life, but the ancient civilization tried to play the role of nature. Obviously, they got punished for that. Who else could they blame?”
Qin Mang’s ideologies would certainly be considered treason outside. The Pan-Human Alliance had always held a certain level of reverence toward their ancestors, and it was wrong and almost unheard of to criticize their mistakes. However, this also meant that Qin Mang was incredibly trusting of Xia Fei, not worrying that the latter might betray him at all.
Xia Fei remained silent. Qin Mang composed his emotions before continuing. “For the last thirty years, you’re the only cadet who volunteered to be a librarian. I hope that you won’t be ignorant like the others. Remember: The more elite the warrior is, the more knowledge and technology they should master compared to others.”
Xia Fei nodded. “Of course, if I only recognized strength like other cadets, you would’ve never let me stay in the first place.”
Qin Mang took a sip of his tea without speaking, silently admitting to it.
Back in his dorm, Xia Fei received a notice to enter the internal division at the beginning of next month. The notice briefly went over where Xia Fei should report after entering the internal division and nothing else.
After escaping certain death from the s.p.a.ce station and chasing an insectoid s.h.i.+p to the shocking events in the Wild Star Region, Xia Fei’s life finally returned to normal.
Every day, he would do some cleaning at the library, do some reading, then chat with Avril at night before ending his day with his routine training. His days were simple yet fulfilling.
The only regrettable thing was that Chen Dong and Moon Song had already been accepted into the internal division, so there were only Xia Fei, Manjun, and Beihai during meal times. It was quite quiet without the bossy Moon Song around.
Time flew by, and it was not long before the day Xia Fei was supposed to report to the internal division came. Xia Fei woke up early that morning. He stored all his belongings in his spatial ring before utilizing his speed ability to go to the internal division.
He could see from afar a lady standing on the white stone arch bridge within the internal division. She spat at the river, then watched her spit flow down it. This lady also had a thick cuc.u.mber in her right hand, taking big bites at it from time to time.
Xia Fei walked over with a smile. “What are you doing, Moon Song?”
Moon Song turned around and looked coldly at Xia Fei. “It’s none of your business; definitely not waiting for you, though.”
Mistress Moon did not change at all as she still had her fierce look. Xia Fei did not mind her and merely continued walking.
Upon seeing that Xia Fei did not care about her, Moon Song stomped her feet bitterly as she walked beside him. The two of them remained silent.
A distance away was a group of fifty or so internal division cadets. They were gathered in an open s.p.a.ce, with many of them holding weapons in their hands; who knew what was going on?
“What are they doing?” asked Xia Fei.
“Oh, they are off to explore C-grade ancient ruins,” replied Moon Song.
“Ancient ruins?”
“That’s right. Ruins exploration is one of the perks of the internal division. It’ll soon be the turn of the cadets who entered the internal division this year, so you’ll probably have a chance at it,” Moon Song said casually.
Xia Fei was shocked, not realizing that the internal division had this type of privilege.
The ancient ruins referred to the remains left behind of the early human civilization, which were very valuable, so it was incredibly worthwhile to explore them. Xia Fei’s ancient machine killer Golden Cicada was excavated from one of such ruins.
Those ruins were divided into different levels according to how many times they had been explored as well as their area, with A-grade being the highest to E-grade being the lowest
Basically, A-grade ruins were the most dangerous but had the highest chance of having valuable ancient relics, while E-grade was the safest but had the lowest amount of loot.
Most of the ruins within the Alliance were controlled by powerful countries or organizations like the Adjudicators. Ordinary people had no chance of exploring them at all.
Unfortunately, the huge profits from the relics found in those ancient ruins had attracted many lawless thieves. All for the sake of finding valuable items, they had no hesitation whatsoever when taking risks, using various methods to get into those ruins which could make them rich fast.
These cadets were about to enter some C-grade ruins. Although it was not the most dangerous, there was still a high chance to obtain valuable relics from it. They would be rich if they found even one or two high-tier weapons.
It should be made known that the ancient civilization was much more developed than humans right now. Be it in terms of weapons or martial arts, they were much stronger compared to the people of today.
“Those guys sure are lucky. You mentioned that we will have a chance to explore ruins in the future, too?” Xia Fei asked Moon Song.
Moon Song nodded. “Everybody in the internal division will have an opportunity to visit ancient ruins. First years can visit E-grade ruins once, while second years and third years can visit D-grade ruins once. Since they are in their fourth or fifth year, they get to explore C-grade ruins.
“And do you know what the best part is?” Moon Song asked slyly.
Xia Fei shook his head. It was his first time hearing about the internal division being able to explore ruins, so he was clueless about it excluding that.
“Those ruins are exclusive areas of the Adjudicator Union. n.o.body has done a comprehensive search in them; that means that they are all practically virgin sites.”
Moon Song deliberately put emphasis on the word ‘virgin’. Xia Fei could almost imagine this lady extending her devilish claws at an innocent girl in the middle of a dark, windy night, and a creepy feeling crawled up inside him.