It's Not Easy To Be a Man 210+

295 & 296

 295: <Wind’s Shadow>!

Translator: ryuxenji  Editor: H2dH2mr

Ling Lan was oblivious to the things happening within Mecha World because this news had been announced a second before Ling Lan logged in, so she just so coincidentally missed this alert. If Ling Lan had known about it, she definitely would not bring her dad gallivanting all across the town …

Very swiftly, Ling Lan received a friend request from [belief]. Seeing that familiar name, Ling Lan could not help but sweatdrop. How much did her dad love this name really?

After she accepted, the other party instantly sent over a private chat request. When Ling Lan accepted it, she heard her dad’s warm voice coming through, “Ling Lan, where are you?”

Ling Lan immediately told her dad her location — when she had logged off previously, she had been outside hunting monsters. Not because she wanted to collect any points from the monsters, but because in her mission to advance to advanced mecha warrior, she needed some items which would drop from these monsters.

The route Ling Lan was taking was different from other people — she never ever looked for monsters to level up, instead mostly choosing to enter the arena fights for cross-level challenges to gain a large amount of experience points in one go. This was also why Ling Lan had been able to earn enough points to advance to advanced mecha warrior in such a short amount of time. Of course, Ling Lan’s personal mecha control skills were already high enough in terms of standards, allowing her to bring out the greatest combat power of the mecha she piloted, which was why she could take this shortcut.

If she had been like Qi Long and the others who had started from zero, she would have had to take her time and accumulate the fruits of hard practice. Thus, Qi Long and the others had spent a full three years to train up from trainee mecha to advanced mecha warrior. Meanwhile, at Ling Lan’s speed, it would not be long before she caught up to Qi Long and the others. However, Ling Lan was planning to pause once she hit advanced mecha warrior level, because she wanted to lead Qi Long and the others personally at that point. Through verbal teachings, self-modelling, and sparring with them using mecha, she wanted to push them into mastering all the control skills of advanced mecha warriors so that they would be able to transition smoothly into the realm of special-class operator.

Well aware of the importance of foundational controls, Ling Lan did not want her companions to fall into the common pitfall of neglecting those skills. Once they had all successfully mastered those, at that time, it would finally be time for her to let them spread their wings and fly freely.

This was because once one entered special-class operator level, one’s mecha piloting would begin to display one’s individual style and character. No one else would be able to help with the development of these control skills — one could only rely on oneself to contemplate and seek insight. This was also the true reason why special-class operators were also called mecha masters, while advanced mecha operators could only be called mecha warriors.

However, entering special-class operator level was still only the first step. Only by advancing into ace operator status could one prove that one’s personal control style had matured and become complete enough to be considered a distinct style of its own. Many mecha masters had ended up being stuck at this level — many people would only be able to be half-assed special-class operators for their entire lives, unable to push through to find a place among the ranks of those who held true strength, ace mecha masters.

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It had to be said that Ling Xiao had left Mecha World almost twenty years ago, so he had to be rather unfamiliar with this Mecha World which had been updated countless times since then. Whatever the case, Ling Lan had to eliminate the monsters in the area she was in a whole 26 times before she saw Ling Xiao’s mecha landing beside her, fashionably late.