Chapter 124: IPA
Translator: Double_L Editor: Tehrn
Mankind might not be able to outrace the Zergs in terms of the speed of their evolution, yet from Moon expeditions to the recent voyages across the galaxies, mankind had proven to be the ones having the greatest imagination throughout the universe.
General Li Feng once said that the power of the imagination is what drives the development, and no man should stop imagining because there would be a day for that dream to come true.
Carl was a unique existence amongst the group, given by the fact that he was the least talented one, even he, himself, had no idea why he was chosen in the first place. However, he wasn’t a low self-esteem person that would be discouraged easily; instead, he always had plenty of fight in him, and he would be preparing a rather eye-catching topic: The School of the Carl-nism.
No one knew what that was, but it had to be something big since he had used his own name as the title. Carl began to prepare his thesis report in high spirit.
Gansus was impressed by Carl because of his unbound imagination. The boy might be goofing around from time to time, creating hundreds of jokes, but if one of them came true, it would be powerful enough to change the world. Of course, Carl might not be the one who would reshape the world, but with that personality and attitude of his, someday people would definitely be amazed by his achievements.
Gansus believed that he would rather spot the wrong person than miss one of them with potential; it was okay for one to take it slow in learning skills and talents, as long as his morale remained high.
The academic atmosphere in Ayrlarng was getting better, which was actually what a high-ranked academy was supposed to look like.
Even teachers had begun to notice that the students were more eager to learn, especially amongst first graders. The victory against Bernabeu had uplifted their will of self-improvement, they had even sworn not to disgrace the name of Ayrlarng.
Wang Tong didn’t need Ma Xiaoru’s one-to-one tuition anymore, if there was anything unclear, he would ask in the middle of the class. Most importantly, he had mastered the basics, and to him it was more than enough because he didn’t intend to become an all-rounded genius. As a student of the Command Force, METAL Combat and Battlecraft Combat were the most crucial subjects that needed to be covered, and in order to expand his knowledge of these two subjects, he would also have to excel in the Ecology of the Zergs and Galactic Navigation. However, there was no need for him to also master the other theoretical stuff since he was a fighter and not a scientist.
Rumi, however, was the complete opposite. She was very weak in METAL Combat since her skills and abilities to fight were close to zero, but she was outstanding in Intel Programming Battle, and if she were to further her studies in this subject, someday she would be able to create her very own inventions.
A week has passed.
To Wang Tong, it was indeed a week of continuous studies as there were barely any extracurricular activities; however, he didn’t complain because he had been as busy as a bee with his practices on the delicate control of the GN Force and also the training on various skills and techniques. Normally, people would have died of fatigue for taking on such hectic training, yet Wang Tong was as energetic as always as if he was equipped with an unlimited supply of strength.
A wise man once said: "One must possess a vigorous amount of energy in order to strive for success." Wang Tong had mastered the basics of the Tactics of the Blade since he was younger, even though it didn’t have any effect before being mind opened, yet it granted him higher energy level than most people. Wang Tong used to complain about wasting his time training hard every day for that little effect, but right now he had finally understood its benefits. Not only it had set the basics for him to practice the two hundred and fifty-six nodes version of the Tactics of the Blade, but it had also enhanced his body condition significantly.
Wang Tong wasn’t raised in a rich family, so no one had ever modified his genes with high-tech equipment, and no mystical treasures were awaiting his inheritance, not to mention that there weren’t any Einherjars that had ever helped to boost his inner circulations. Wang Tong’s greatest treasure, however, was actually his persisting practices of the Tactics of the Blade since he was a kid.
He missed the days when he was younger. Sometimes he would wonder how Old Fart was doing, yet he was never worried because he was certain that Old Fart was blessed with longevity, and he knew that Old Fart would live well wherever he went.
Scholarships were awarded to the students who had participated in the tournament against Bernabeu, and Wang Tong who had obtained two first places in the monthly assessment was also awarded additional scholarships for his excellent performance in each subject. This amount of money might be nothing for some students, yet it was definitely a lifesaver in the eyes of Wang Tong. Together with his paycheck, he was sure he would be able to survive for another two years if nothing major happened. Nevertheless, Wang Tong was still saddened by the fact that he and Zhou Sisi were not rewarded with the bounty from the police department, but they were commended instead, sometimes Wang Tong would still be complaining about how stingy was the police in his own dreams.
Wang Tong would only visit DREAM Heaven during the weekends, not because he was busy, but because he didn’t want to spend too much on games. Anyhow, Wang Tong finally got to taste what being rich felt like with his double scholarships; hence he decided to satisfy his own desires after receiving the money from his teacher on Friday. Instead of going to the canteen, he went out to the stores for his daily necessities. Now that Wang Tong had Zhou Sisi helping him to clean up the room, he was able to live in peace, and he was okay with Zhou Sisi coming into his room whenever she wanted since he had nothing to hide from her. Of course, to return the favor, Wang Tong had given all his effort on helping Zhou Sisi with her Cloning Technique.
Everyone was looking forward to the first meetings of "S" on Saturday and Sunday since all of them had been preparing their sharings throughout the week, luckily there were not many other things to attend to on this week, or else they would have barely finished their preparations. Since Friday was the only day that he was left with some spare time, Wang Tong decided to pay DREAM Heaven a visit after a feast.
The shopkeeper smiled as he recognized Wang Tong, and he was surprised to see him wearing a new shirt today instead of the same old T-shirt he would wear every time. Even though that kid had never ordered any food or drinks in his shop, somehow the shopkeeper would feel happy whenever Wang Tong walked in. As if he was some sort of lucky charm, ever since he had started to show up, his business had been getting better and better.
"There you are, room No.5 is still vacant, I suggest you take it now before the bunch of PA fanatics arrives." The shopkeeper laughed.
"Haha, thanks, Mr. shopkeeper. How’s business lately?"
"To be honest, about a month ago, rumor had it that DREAM was planning to reduce the servers of the PA due to its high cost and poor outcome. It was mainly because the TPA players were not spending a dime in the game and they refused to interact with the IPA players, causing its amount of players to plummet drastically. However, recently some dude named Einherjar Wannabe showed up and reheated the hype of the PA, so I guess DREAM will carry on with this game, this business is all I have, so fingers crossed everything will be alright."
The shopkeeper said with a smile as he handed Wang Tong the access card.
"Haha, I kinda like the PA too, and I hope this game will carry on."
"Indeed, since DREAM is already a huge corporation, it would be okay for them to earn a little lesser, but if they close it down, how am I gonna survive?" the shopkeeper carried on talking happily; however, their chit chat was forced to stop as customers came rushing in, everyone came for only one reason, which was to sit and wait for Einherjar Wannabe’s appearance.
"It’s all your fault for giving up waiting last week, there’s no way we would have missed the epic battle if you could have hung in there a little longer."
"F**k you, it’s not me, it’s my mom’s fault you idiot!"
"So have you informed your mom about not coming home tonight?"
"Relax dude, I told her that we’re studying together at your place tonight!"
"... But I told them I was going to your place."
The kids stared at each other, and in the end, they decided to leave it alone, no one would ever found out as long as both of their parents didn’t call each other.
Wang Tong shook his head as he saw what happened, he couldn’t believe kids were so bold these days, and apparently, he really has gotten quite popular recently.
Wang Tong was quite surprised to see the stunning new domain of PA when he logged in. Perhaps DREAM was actually earning money, but it was not enough to cover what they had invested, which explained why the board of directors of DREAM were so mad since they were expecting the huge amount of money they invested would snowball gradually. Moreover, it would be impossible for them to force the TPA players to take on the IPA players even though there was quite a lot of TPA players in the community. The corporation had tried everything, but nothing seemed to be working, not until the debut of Einherjar Wannabe.
After his appearance, somehow both IPA and TPA communities that hated each other's guts began to feel like getting to know each other. However, this could only be sustained as long as Einherjar Wannabe stuck around.
Again, Wang Tong was bombarded by his massive inbox upon logging into the PA, but today he wasn’t here to fight. He opened his inbox and realized that it needed to be cleared since upgrading would cost money, and Wang Tong had no extra dime to spend. He decided to delete those unwanted mails, but before that, he had to check his system notifications.
Wang Tong seemed to be interested in the latest system notification. Apparently, it was a summarized report of the tens of thousands of challenge invitation, and it managed to list out ten of the most unique challengers for his preference.
This was what Wang Tong wished for since he too wouldn’t want his time to be wasted on meaningless fights.
Out of those ten, five were IPA players, and the other five were TPA players, which proved that there wasn’t any symptom of discrimination in the administration. Wang Tong had no problem with IPA or TPA as both sides had their own uniqueness, and he was happy to learn from these two communities. Since he had challenged a TPA fighter last time, this time he decided to pick one of the five IPA players.
Wang Tong was impressed by the summarized report as it had the battle records and personal details of these five challengers, and the report was even attached with their official reviews.
He was immediately drawn to one of the challengers with the ID: Wings of Heaven, a thirty-six-year-old player who possessed a Dream-ranked METAL Suit called the Throne of Titan. However, it was the video clip of his fight that had caught Wang Tong’s attention, he was amazed by Wings of Heaven’s magnificent combo of punches that directly sent his opponent into a perfect knockout.
Wang Tong had been trying his best to avoid using weapons ever since he returned to Earth because he was afraid he might go berserk again. Soon, he was interested in heavy punch martial arts upon coming into contact with the Fist of the Racing Tiger, but besides learning, he was also interested in the methods of countering these punching techniques. By doing so, Wang Tong wished that he would be able to understand more about the utilization of strength and also to perceive the greater meaning of martial arts.
That was actually what Einherjar Wannabe had once said instead of Wang Tong’s thought, it was indeed something deep, but somehow it made sense.
After running a few thoughts, Wang Tong decided that today would be a day of peace as he dropped by just to check on a few things. Since he had received his double scholarships, of course, he had to give himself a treat. As for his regular fight of the week, perhaps he could do it on Sunday night if there was time. But suddenly, he remembered those few people that he bumped into a while ago, if he were to log out like this, those guys would be spending two days waiting for nothing.
Sometimes Wang Tong would be overflowing with kindness. In the end, he decided to send a mail to his soon-to-be opponent, mentioning that he would be accepting his challenge at 8 pm on Sunday, which would give everyone enough time to be prepared.
Wang Tong signed out from PA after sending out the mail, then he randomly scrolled on some other information; apparently, he wasn’t very good with having fun, not to mention that most entertainment would also cost money. Old Fart would’ve spent every single penny he had to get drunk, while most of other people would be attracted to idols, celebrities, and all sorts of movies, yet he wasn’t interested in any of that. After two big yawns, Wang Tong logged out.