Chapter 83: Opening Ceremony
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
The walls and floor of the training room were made of reinforced metal, then outfitted with a thick layer of soundproofing boards. Anyone inside the room would not be disrupted by any noise outside, so those from within could completely devote themselves to their training and cultivation.
Xia Fei was exactly in his element inside the very training room as he cultivated the Spirit Beast Codex.
The Spirit Beast Codex taught both ocular cognition and telepathy techniques. Ocular cognition was the constant use of certain techniques to genetically optimize or even restructure his visual capabilities.
Taking a deep breath, Xia Fei slowly opened his eyes. By all appearances, they did not look any different from normal, but they were actually a lot sharper now.
However, having such eyes was very strange, for they seemed to contain something that could evoke fear in people, enough to make them quake. His gaze was akin to a pool of cold lakewater, deep and bottomless, and any light would be absorbed into this unfathomable water, sans any path of escape.
Xia Fei used these seemingly normal yet strange eyes of his to scan his surroundings once, then shut them as he regulated his breathing; his pupils dilated before returning to normal.
“How was it?” Phantom was lying beside Xia Fei, stretching his back lazily, when he asked this.
Xia Fei’s face was filled with excitement, nodding vigorously. “Yes, I’ve advanced to the second stage and will soon reach the third stage in my cultivation to acquire telepathy.”
The first two stages of the Spirit Beast Codex contained ocular cognition, and he needed to reach the third stage to learn the more powerful telepathy technique. Xia Fei had already mastered the first two stages, so while he was still unable to communicate with exotic beasts, he could now use his ocular cognition to observe the Spirit Beast Fire inside an exotic beast.
Looking at the Spirit Beast Fire allowed Xia Fei to determine a beast’s rank, its physical status as well as its emotions. Furthermore, when encountering midsize or large exotic beasts, he could rely on his ocular cognition to force them into retreating, resulting in him evading their attacks.
“Good. The Spirit Beast Codex is a star-tier secret manual, and it’s hard to cultivate. To be able to break through the second stage in three months’ time, such progress is already decent,” said Phantom with satisfaction.
Xia Fei’s seventh brain region had been one hundred percent opened up, thanks to that deadly bottle of gene optimization fluid. Not only did he nearly lose his life in the process, he even got deprived of the capability to proactively advance his special ability.
Still, the advantages of a fully-opened seventh brain region were beginning to show now. Be it his cultivation, studies, or even intuition and judgment, every aspect of Xia Fei far surpa.s.sed the average living being.
This was what it meant to be lucky. Xia Fei was not very talented, as truly gifted individuals would be able to open their seventh brain region by cultivating the ancient astral arts. Only the untalented individuals like him would need the aid of a gene optimization fluid to tap into that part of his brain.
In the highly developed extraterrestrial planets, no one would consume the gene optimization fluid unless they had no other choice. Even though consuming such drugs would allow people to open their seventh brain region, the stimulation of the optimization fluid would make further cultivation difficult, keeping the ability user in the initial ranks their whole life.
Xia Fei might be lucky, but the risks he willingly bore could not be ignored. He only managed to get to where he was now all due to the effort and diligence he continuously put in alongside his luck.
The green light in the training room suddenly lit up, which was an indication that someone had rung his doorbell. Since the room was one hundred percent soundproof, it used two indicator lights, one for the doorbell and the other for the phone, to alert the people inside if someone
was attempting to communicate with them.
Taking a look at the time, Xia Fei saw that it was 4 a.m. He got up and made his way out of the training room, all the while feeling puzzled. “Who could it be at this hour?”
Opening the door, he saw Moon Song excitedly looking back at him. Beside her were Beihai, Manjun, and Chen Dong.
Moon Song wore a sky-blue skirt, which made her look more radiant than a sunny day. Beihai, who was in loose pajamas, groggily leaned against Manjun. The two were yawning, their eyes red, looking as if they were close to tears.
Chen Dong wore a pair of shorts. Though he did not look as tired as either Beihai or Manjun, he did look rather sleepy. He sighed, then helplessly shrugged his shoulders at Xia Fei.
Moon Song shoved Xia Fei to the side as she told the other three, “Come in quickly; I have something important to discuss with you guys.”
The three innocent victims swayed into the room, collapsing on Xia Fei’s couch. Beihai was hugging Chen Dong’s arm, while Manjun had his hairy legs crossed over Beihai’s chest.
“Miss Moon Song, what is it that you can’t wait till it’s the morning proper to share with us? This is the time when people sleep; my head is hurting really badly,” Manjun unhappily protested.
Moon Song laughed deviously. “No can do. Yours truly have spent a couple of dozen hours drawing up our battle plan. All of you, sit tight—you, too, Xia Fei.”
Xia Fei sighed. He was also at his wits’ end with Moon Song’s nonsense. He headed to the beverage dispenser and got himself a cup of coffee before sitting next to Chen Dong.
Moon Song turned on the computer and pulled out a file to display on the holographic screen.
She pulled out a cuc.u.mber and used it to point at the screen. “What you are seeing here is the partic.i.p.ant list for the extreme hovercar race, as well as each team’s specialty.
“The race this time will be different from those before as the training camp has invited a professional racing team to compete with us. Have you guys heard of the motor team Twin Dragons? They are the five-time consecutive champion in the Star Region Extreme Racing, so they can be considered the top racing team across this star region.” Moon Song happily told them this. She had invested a lot of effort into this compet.i.tion.
Xia Fei furrowed his brows. “Twin Dragons are here only to be the highlight of the race, and their involvement won’t impact the ultimate champion. Even if we fail to win against them in the race and come in second, the prize will still go to us, so they can be ignored.”
Moon Song shot Xia Fei a glare. “Is it you or me who’s doing the talking now?”
Xia Fei took a sip of his coffee and remained on the couch. He softly answered, “You continue.”
Manjun and Beihai were nearly falling asleep on the other side of the couch. Moon Song walked over and pinched the thighs of these two men. “Be serious; we’re discussing our battle plan right now. No sleeping!”
Beihai and Manjun yawned and quickly sat up straighter, no longer daring to fall asleep, yet both were still fighting to keep their eyes open.
“It’s what Xia Fei said; the Twin Dragons can be ignored, though there are two other opponents we can’t ignore.” Moon Song resumed speaking.
She tapped on the screen, and the image changed to a man with an overgrown beard standing next to a young man with long hair. “The bearded man is called Nie Wei, the best racer in the mechatronics division. The curly-haired man next to him is called Charles, the best a.s.sembler in the mechatronics division. With these two as the core, team 73 is our main rival right now.”
Xia Fei shook his head, interrupting, “Comrade Moon Song, can you simplify this and just tell us your plan and arrangement straight?”
Moon Song folded her arms and stared at Xia Fei coldly. “Why are you always interrupting when people are talking? I spent a whole night collecting all this information. If you’re going to be so impatient, why don’t you come up here and do the talking?”
Xia Fei thought about this for a moment before smiling. “That works, too.”
Xia Fei really got up and walked right to the screen, even as Moon Song backed to one side, feeling rather uncertain.
“I’ll just need five minutes,” Xia Fei said. “First, I’ll tell you guys something. The betting companies have several different wagers for this race, and we’re ranked number one to be the team that was most likely to retire from this race and to be in an accident.
“That means the betting companies believe that there’s a very big problem with our racing hovercar, so much so that it won’t last throughout the race.”
Xia Fei thought to begin with an interesting anecdote, and it was far more effective than Moon Song’s scare. Everyone got curious; Beihai and Manjun perked up, rubbing their eyes vigorously as they carefully listened to Xia Fei’s every word.
Moon Song found it hard to believe. She thought she had done very detailed research of the matter at hand, but even what Xia Fei revealed greatly surprised her. The information about betting companies was not in the trove she had collected at all.
‘Could Xia Fei have already made preparations?’ Moon Song quietly wondered.
Xia Fei lit a cigarette and took a few drags. His finger tapped on the screen a few times and displayed the information of the five teams along with the photos of their members.
“There are a total of five strong motor teams I’ve identified in this race. Three of which are from the mechatronics division; they’re teams 21, 73, and 149 respectively. These three motor teams basically have no obvious weaknesses and have been longtime teammates; simply put, they’re very familiar with one another on the track.
“Our racing hovercar will be able to outperform them, and that is our advantage, while theirs are experience, familiarity with the racecourse and terrain, and group coordination.
“As such, we must be clever and pa.s.sively deal with them by taking advantage of our superior acceleration to pa.s.s them in one fell swoop. As for their group tactics, I’ll elaborate on that later.
“Besides those teams I’ve just mentioned, we have to take special notice of team 201, too, which is Bai Ye’s motor team. From the opening handicaps the betting company has in place, Bai Ye’s odds are shockingly low, and that might very well be due to some inside information that the betting companies are privy to, believing him to have a great chance of coming in first.
“He’s a complete wildcard, and like us, this his first time partic.i.p.ating in a race. We don’t understand his team, and his team doesn’t understand ours. We’ll just have to adapt to changes on the fly in order to deal with his group.”
“The vanguard division’s team 33’s hovercar has decent specs, though they lack a good driver, so they’re the least threatening out of the five strong teams.” Xia Fei rounded off.
Moon Song was grinding her teeth. The fact could not be any clearer; Xia Fei had already done his homework about this race before Moon Song, and it had been a lot more detailed and comprehensive than hers.
“There are a total of forty teams from the mechatronics division partic.i.p.ating in the race. They will definitely be working together to suppress the other teams. This is the toughest challenge we’ll face for now; if we need the racing hovercar to adapt to whatever is happening in such a situation, the other members not involved must give accurate reports on the race, and we’ll have to take those into consideration.”
“Next, I’ll be a.s.signing everyone their task,” Xia Fei said somberly. “This race track is about eight hundred forty-one miles long, with a total of three levels. Though the race organizers will have a monitoring system to check the condition of the track, there’s no way for the drivers to keep an eye on such a long track, which is why we’ll need three observers, each reporting what’s happening on every level in real-time.
“Beihai, you’ll be in charge of monitoring the first level, and Manjun, you’ll be on the second level, while I want Chen Dong to oversee the most important third level. There’re a total of hundred twenty-eight continuous hairpin turns in that level alone, and it’ll be the hardest part of the racecourse, so you must keep a close eye on it at all times,” Xia Fei said.
Beihai, Manjun, and Chen Dong all gave Xia Fei a hard nod.
“I’ll be in charge of the racing hovercar and the driving itself, so you guys just have to do your parts well and we should be alright. I’ll be sending you guys a copy of the details on the race track. Inside are the important positions I’ve already highlighted, as well as some guidelines you should follow in case of emergency situations. Alright, dismissed.”
Xia Fei was like a commander handing out a.s.signments. He had considered every possible scenario, and the instructions he had laid out were clear and detailed. Furthermore, he had provided specific tips for his teammates’ responsibilities.
Actually, Xia Fei had already finished all the preparation work before Moon Song and was about to a.s.sign everyone their roles tomorrow, but thanks to her dragging everyone out of their beds now, he decided to inform them ahead of time about all these.
Moon Song furtively glanced at Xia Fei, not at all put off by his serious att.i.tude but impressed, instead.
Xia Fei used his practical actions to establish his position as their team’s leader; what role someone should play in a group was not dependent on what they said but what they could do.
Joining this race was not Xia Fei’s idea, but when the team was in trouble, he had taken it upon himself to carry the team by a.s.sembling a working racing hovercar, gathering the necessary data, drawing up a battle plan, and giving his teammates their a.s.signments.
Everyone admired him inside for what he was doing now, so when Xia Fei handed a.s.signments to them like a leader, no one spoke against it. Xia Fei’s ability, as well as his solemn att.i.tude, was for all to see, and they knew this deep down.
After Xia Fei was done a.s.signing tasks, he flicked his cigarette ash into the ashtray. “Alright. Tomorrow is the opening ceremony. Let’s all get some sleep.”
“That’s all?” The dumbfounded Moon Song suddenly pouted. “They’ve all gotten their a.s.signments, then what about me?”
Xia Fei momentarily froze. This time, he had really forgotten to consider Miss Moon Song, and though she was very enthusiastic, Xia Fei simply did not feel at ease leaving anything to her.
Inspiration struck him then, and Xia Fei very seriously said, “Moon Song, your job is very important. You need to provide Chen Dong and the others with food and beverages to ensure that they won’t end up hungry or thirsty.”
Moon Song nodded, excited. “Yes, I’ll definitely accomplish—”
Halfway through her words, she realized the implication of her role and angled her hip as her nostrils flared. “Good one, Xia Fei; you actually dared to make yours truly serve others like a waiter.”
…
The opening ceremony of the Heaven Execution Training Camp was held in an auditorium with a capacity of a hundred thousand.
Xia Fei changed into the training camp uniform and joined Chen Dong and the others at the venue.
The ceremonies that Xia Fei could recall always had leaders coming up on stage and say a bunch of nonsense from the podium before having some student representatives express words and ideas that they themselves did not believe in.
Fortunately, the cadets were more experienced. Pretty much everyone had a microcomputer, and they adjusted the screen in a way that they could sneakily browse using it to pa.s.s the time while the orientation commenced.
Even more tragic was that there were hardly many good-looking people among the over ten thousand crowd, and those girls, who had pa.s.sable looks, were around Bai Ye.
Actually, Moon Song was not ugly, but as she was still mad at Xia Fei for a.s.signing her the role of a server toward their team, she actively ignored him.
After some time, Ye Jingshan brought a few men with him to the stage.
Xia Fei suddenly felt his heart seize. He narrowed his eyes as his brain began rapidly processing what he saw.
Aside from the supervisors of the various divisions, there were three other people beside Ye Jingshan whom Xia Fei was very familiar with.
Xiao Haili, Bosingwa, and Queiroz. The magnificent members of Team 13 were all present.
Because of the incident with Xiaoyong during the Crisis grade a.s.sessment, Xia Fei had once had his suspicions regarding Xiao Haili, and now they were about to b.u.mp into each other again, which was proof of the saying, ‘Enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road.’
“Why are they coming here?” mumbled Xia Fei under his breath.