He had been friends with Wen Ni for the past 8 years. During that time, Wen Ni was his best safeguard ensuring his survival. Wen Ni was like a gentle and kind old man, and had always helped Ye Zhong out when he needed, without a word of complaining.
There was something throbbing painfully inside of Ye Zhong. The last time he experienced it was when his foster father passed away. Was it grief? He wondered that himself
How's father on the other side of the world? He rubbed his chin and pondered
Ye Zhong found a place with no people, and sat there quietly for the whole day.
Once he reached the Master's consciousness training base, he called out for Mu Shang and said with a calm voice "Mu, I want to see the list of subjects"
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Sun Xuelin was in a bad mood.
She had been searching high and low for that unpredictable YC guy in every combat room in the whole area for the past few days.
Another day without any results disheartened her, but she wouldn't give up just yet, just as how YC faced failure one after another. Sun Xuelin cheered herself up. Today, she still hadn't found him yet.
Sun Xuelin was feeling discouraged, and was thinking of inviting her cousin Xiu out. Maybe she was at the basic training area. Her cousin Xiu was the daughter of her second eldest aunt, they had been close since a young age. Cousin Xiu couldn't pass the controlling mecha subject for a few times already, so second auntie had asked Sun Xuelin's father, Sun HaiNing, to tutor Xiu. Since Sun HaiNing was extremely busy, normally, most of this tutoring tasks were on Sun Xuelin.
There were only a few people scattered around the basic training area. To be fair, it's difficult to verify the effectiveness of the consciousness training, contrasting from the quick results from actual training. Moreover, most people had gone through the basic training, thus there were even less people coming here. Sun Xuelin glanced through every room nonchalantly, and quickly found her cousin Xu. She headed straight into the room.
Inside was a vast empty space, with obstacles that were neatly arranged. Cousin Xu was there, she struggled a lot and moved about sluggishly.
Seeing that she was giving her best efforts, Sun Xuelin didn't want to bother her, so she went up to the viewing platform instead.
Ah, there is someone else there
A black shadow slithered between the obstacles like a snake, with such amazing speed. Why would they still train when they had already reached such high level? Feeling a bit skeptical, Sun Xuelin paid more attention to it.
Suddenly, as if she was struck by lightning, she just stood there dumbfounded.
YC! That's definitely YC! Sun Xuelin jumped up in excitement. That's definitely him. There was still the trace of the gunshot wound on his Black Bird's shoulder and a scratch on its left hip.
Everything came to those who waited, Sun Xuelin muttered to herself.
Ye Zhong went through the statistic listings of the Black Bird, only a tiny bit more and he could have reached Mu's requirement. However, he had failed several times so far to achieve this "tiny bit".
"Ye Zi, with your learning aptitude and your foundations, finishing the basic training isn't difficult, actually, it's rather easy. However, if that's enough to please you then you will never be able to drive me.
Most people don't appreciate the basic trainings, but they are making a huge mistake"
Mu Shang's smug expression when he was saying this irritated Ye Zhong big time.
"I have already calculated, 99.328% of higher level techniques are transformations from the basic movement. We can deduce that the basic movement is from the soul of the Master' technique."
Ye Zhong looked rather pensive
Mu Shang took out a detailed list "Ye Zi, this is the training requirement I created based on Black Bird's functionality. Just follow those"
Mu Shang's electronic eyes sparkled " Ye Zi, you should remember that, there are no such things as "limits".
Ye Zhong cheerfully supported Mu Shang's view. He had been living on the dump planet, he was opened to any methods that could improve his skills.
Now he had to watch out for Mu Shang's cunning schemes. After this training session, Ye Zhong realised that all of the required parameters were of the highest levels, reachable, with Black Bird. Exerting himself throughout day and night, to the point of almost vomiting blood, Ye Zhong finally achieved one of the parameters. That brought him close to tears.
Mu Shang gently said "Not bad, not bad, Ye Zi, but you need to increase your speed. In order to motivate you further, I need to set up a reward and penalty system. From now on, if you can't finish one subject, your diet for a week will be the organic liquid food."
Ye Zhong couldn't retaliate, even when Mu gave him such devious look. Since Wen Ni was no longer usable, he had to rely on Mu for hunting food. Gifts blinded the wise!
In order to avoid the organic liquid food he had detested since a young age, Ye Zhong tried desperately to reach Mu's targets.
This was now the last day of the week, if he couldn't have accomplished it, he would have to live on the organic liquid for the entire week. Ye Zhong cringed just at the thought of it.
What is the problem? Ye Zhong understood Mu really well, if it was given by Mu, Ye Zhong should be able to achieve it with Black Bird.
Then why am I still lacking a tiny bit? Ye Zhong was miserably thinking about this matter.
While practicing, A Xu saw her cousin on the viewing platform. She gleefully controlled her Black Bird to wobble towards where Sun Xuelin was. However, her technique was disorganised, with a careless moment "Bang" the Black Bird bumped into a metal bar hanging above. A Xu freaked out, screamed out loud, thanks to her mecha, the sound echoed throughout the room.
That startled Sun Xuelin, breaking off her focus on YC. When she turned her attention to her cousin, only at the right time to see her mecha falling down from the air. This is bad, exclaimed Sun Xuelin in her head. Cousin Xu had been fearful from a young age. Her body was weak, thus she kept mechas at a distance even though she adored them. After this incident, not only could she have gotten injured, it may also have traumatized her, and future mechas would upset her. In the blink of an eye, Sun Xuelin standing on the platform called forth her Shadow Phoenix, heading to her cousin Xu with the highest speeds in hope that she could catch Xu before crashing down to the ground.
It wasn't easy with a variety of obstacles along the path. She could see that the distance between cousin Xu and the ground was shortening, but she was still too far from the scene. Sun Xuelin almost tore up.
Xu's scream disrupted Ye Zhong's thinking who was standing not too far from there. It was just enough for him to see that another Black Bird just like his was plunging downwards.
Ye Zhong didn't have much time to think, his arms started moving. His Black Bird was like a gale blowing towards his fellows.
Maybe deep in his mind, it's was the reason he had helped. Since he had only Mu as a friend, Ye Zhong had always wished to meet another human being.
The messy obstacles brought him back to the hunting times on the dump planet. The key point of his harsh training this week had just dawned on him. As if he was awoken from a deep sleep, unconsciously moved his arms systematically, not too fast or too slow, his arms actually slowed down much more than usual.
Ye Zhong's Black Bird was like a zephyr, gliding smoothly through the mess of obstacles, freely and comfortably.
When the Black Bird was about 3 meters away from the ground, it got caught by Ye Zhong's Black Bird and he slowed down his speed, and followed the momentum for a while. Only then could he have stabilized the Back bird, and prepared for landing.
Ye Zhong calmly consoled "it's alright. Everything is alright" and let the Black Bird down.
Two seconds later, a Shadow Phoenix II approached, maybe it was a friend of the other Black Bird. He was admiring their friendship. Suddenly Ye Zhong felt as if there was something familiar about this Shadow Phoenix II. Ah, Ye Zhong recognised the mecha that he had fought with the first time here. When he noticed that the Shadow Phoenix was staring at him, Ye Zhong's nodded his head signalling his greetings. As per his habit, he looked at the top of the mecha, and stood there dumbfounded.