<h4>Chapter 10: Dummy Ends</h4>


    Trantor: - - Editor: - -


    I actuallypleted the training!?


    Ye Chong’s brain jammed for a bit seeing the notification on the interface. How the heck did he even get it done?! He hopped onto Raven and started going through the training programs, disregarding the number of tries and the ways he had done them. The parameters were all fulfilled, which perplexed Ye Chong.


    How did I even make it?


    …


    Ugh, nevermind!


    He wasn’t that keen to get to the core of this mystery anyway! What was more importanty in fact that there was noteworthy advancement made in his piloting skill and most importantly, no liquid diet the following week! Oh joy!


    He did not stay any longer and ejected himself from the virtual web. To the marble training! The marbles were waiting for him! Though he had recovered from the desynchronized body movement symptom, Mu added marble training to his daily training schedule ever since Winnie got damaged. It might seemed meaningless at first, but after the training, Ye Chong learned the fact that speed was indeed… not everything!


    Returning to the virtual web, Xuelin was trying to calm her poor cousin down, as she probably was intimidated from her near-death experience a moment before. Xuelin held great appreciation towards YC. Thanks to him, Cousin Shew was saved right at the nick of time.


    Imagine if this YC guy was never there, oh the tragedy that could have happened. Wait… Her mind drifted to another perspective of this incident. He was at a location further away from her yet he managed to make it there before her. Add to the fact that the velocity of his machinery was apparently higher than her… Fear shrouded her thoughts in which immense curiosity soon dipped through. How did he elevate his ability at this rate? Or the match with him was just one of his warm-up activitiesst time? Was there indeed a let up from him?


    Her pupils quivered in anxiety, her hair slid over her shoulder tussled in worries, while her body shuddered in thin fragility; Cousin Shew’s pale face frigidly portrayed the panic that lingered in her heart, like a distressed flower bud trapped in a storm of winter, pitifully arousing the empathy of its witnesses.


    Xuelin lovingly caressed the poor flower,bing her smooth hair with her fingers. Cousin Shew couldn’t hold it in anymore as she meltedpletely in Xuelin’s embrace, sobbing out her every horror. Xuelin’s fingers slipped through her shoulder,forting her like a big sister.


    In actuality, their ages did not differ much. Cousin Shew was just younger by about 10 days, but her fickle innocence justified her rtionship with Xuelin, being the little sister walking behind Xuelin the whole time. In fact, Xuelin too, loves and cares about her little sister, for she was stronger in nature and was aided by her father’s teachings.


    Under her protection, nobody would even dare touch the petite flower. To Cousin Shew, she is her protector. About two years ago, her aunt and the entire family moved out and so they forcibly parted, yet her dependency on Xuelin never faded.


    “Now, don’t cry, don’t cry, Shewie, let’s go home first okay? G-o. H-o-m-e!”


    She nodded in obedience and exited the virtual web under her cousin’s escort. Xuelin took a nce at the battlefield before clicking the exit button…


    Did he notice me? That I was the one who shot him… Was the nod for me? When I wasnding…


    Confusion cloaked her once more, without her even knowing why.


    …


    The second day, Ye Chong resumed his daily training with a brand new parameter to be cleared. This time, there was a different content in a different room. On the first day, it was still this parameter that was crudely executed by Ye Chong even though he was fully attentive. He was hard at work absorbed in his training that he did not see two uninvited guests approaching him. They had observed him for quite some time.


    Was that even the YC guy I knew from the battlefield yesterday? This guy that caused me anxiety? It was Xuelin, whose mouth gapedrge enough to fit in a hard-boiled egg as she watched on. She couldn’t believe her eyes upon seeing that YC guy that was doing everything… so clumsily.


    From an expert falling to an amateur again, even if this was conducted in the basic training field, it was still as shocking as a human eating an aliens, not to mention the training was something she had aplished when she was about 8 to 9 years old.


    Yet, his performance was extremely uncoordinated. The shock in Xuelin just skyrocketed from surely, to very, to immensely, and to extremely, and it was still multiplying!


    Hasn’t he done his basic course? If he did, why is he still here? And doing it this badly? If he did not, how in the world could he execute expert-only wavy steps? Beginner’s luck? Is he hacking?


    The only conclusion that these clues could lead to was - this was really an oddity!


    Cousin Shew had her eyes fixed on that Raven-in-training. In her eyes sparkled the biggest mystery of mankind, and of what she was thinking. The YC guy might have been unskillful, but he still had the attention from the two girls on the stand throughout the training.


    “Hey, what? Shewie, why are you still here? Are you going to do your training?” Xuelin managed to pull her eyes away and asked. Shewie, thess, was standing all upright, watching that man piloting his Raven, while not even moving a muscle of her own. “Don’t tell me… you were frightened by the incident yesterday? Were you?” This connected the circuit back in Cousin Shew’s head, her face reddened right away, “Ah! Uh, um, ah, uh, uhh, I… I’ll… I’ll do it right now!” She tripped on her way to her Raven.


    Likewise to her pilot tripping, the Raven tripped a few times in the air as well, seemingly about to fall down again anytime soon, “Don’t worry Shewie, it’s going to be alright, just calm down, I’m here, right here!” in cold sweat she said.


    The Raven was bewildered as it entered the field. “What’s wrong, Shewie?” Xuelin asked, seeing the Raven just hovering in the air. She then heard sniffs and sobs, “Xuelin, I think I… I… I… I forgot everything I learned yesterday!”


    …


    …


    ……


    Holding her forehead, Xuelin breathed deeply, those words were a strong fainting spell. Ye Chong with his focus about all the meals he could possibly have for the following weeks literally failed to notice the interesting sisters at the stands doing their Titanic git. If the sisters were toe closer, they might have overheard the madness in the cabin of the training Raven, “Meat. Meat. I need meat. Hand me the meat and no one gets hurt…”


    Mu Shang was such a stern and demanding teacher. Even Ye Chong’s toes could tell that, the training this time must be another bottomless trap hole of hell difficulty where he had to crawl out by wing his way with his Raven. He repeated his monotonous training and lost the sense of time. He only found his stomach rumbling inside him due to his hunger when Mu Shang decided to give him a kind reminder of his dinner time.


    Exit. Ye Chong pressed, leaving the interesting sisters staring at the nk spot he left, astonished.


    Ever since then, it seemed to have be their additional routine to check the YC guy out daily.


    Of course even a so-called “ipetent” greenhorn like Ye Chong would have noticed. Being alert anytime, anywhere was the survival sense ingrained in Ye Chong. But the two mechs were merely watching him from afar, hovering in the air quietly, with no other interferenceing from them.


    He feigned ignorance. But still… he did not get it. The content of his training had nothing sophisticated, in fact, it was also minimal. Weren’t they annoyed by it?


    It was none of his business anyway.


    He just continued training as they watched on. He told himself that if he did not work hard enough, the muddy pile of unknown substance would await him at the dining table when he got home. Liquid diet for the next week! The trio never talked to each other, at most, they nodded at each other.


    Time passed and Ye Chong made a breakthrough in his training. He could manipte 10 metal marbles at once for one and a half hour continuously, along with his improved physique. He could feel the strength increasing with certainty. Speed-wise, he was 5 times faster, and strength-wise, he was 7 times stronger. As for reaction speed, he became 11 times fasterpared to the past. The puzzling part of his development was that his weight had hardly increased. Even Mu Shang did not expect this.


    By then, Ye Chong could already hunt simple creatures on his own without relying on any mech. He could prove his strength in this aspect.


    He was holding a thin de in his right hand and a nicely roasted drumstick from the engulfer, as he swiftly sliced pieces of them with the de while they formed circles as they fell. He gently picked them up with the point of his de, and tossed them into his mouth. As he got faster and faster, it almost reached the point of a bazooka firing multiple slices of meat into his mouth. Ye Chong thoroughly enjoyed the sensation of such a feast.


    In the process, he discovered that if he could slice the meat thinner than ever, the scent of the grill could be retained while the texture would turn softer, like a heavenly touch on his tongue melting away into wonderful grease. The thinner the better!


    The drumstick shrunk over time, and soon after that, only a stalk of bone remained in his grip. It glowed brightly, looking clean as if it had been washed, wiped and waxed.


    He exhaled and tossed the bone away, stretching his back. “Mu, all things listed in the basic course werepleted yesterday. What is there for today?”


    The training days seemed tough yet it was more aplishing than the days he had lived before. However, losing sight of his goal had made him dazed once again.


    And that was the time he recalled the SP-II and Raven he saw every time, hovering over the field. We didn’t even speak… I just nodded when they nodded too! I wonder if we would ever meet again… A sense of longing suddenly grew in Ye Chong for the two strange yet familiar friends he made.


    I think I ought to tell them that I will no longer go to the training field tomorrow onwar- Wait. Maybe not, meh. Ye Chong decided against it right away. Friend? Pfft. What if we were just acquaintances? I guess I’m the one who has been thinking too much. We aren’t from the same world in the end! Seems like it would be better to leave it just like this. If I were able to leave Trash-12, maybe I would still stand a chance, but…


    Ye Chong started his wild imagination on the scenarios of the what-ifs if he did or did not befriend them officially.


    Mu Shang on the other side of the room mumbled, “Practical. We are doing practicals. Gain some experience from it, then we can proceed to the more advanced courses.” The answer from Mu Shang was more exciting than the silly fantasies in Ye Chong’s head, in which he ended instantly.


    “Practical? Alright! I love practical! Man do you know how boring it is to train all day and night?”


    After training all this while, he could finally obtain the opportunity to unt his moves. Ye Chong looked forward to his practical day with much enthusiasm!