"So it was actually a Tier Five fighting a Tier Four..."
After a long silence, Wan Chen slowly picked himself up from the floor.
The injuries he sustained while suppressing his life tier could not be rapidly healed, even now that he had returned to Tier Five. A dull ache lingered throughout his body, pulsing most fiercely in his chest. He was certain a few of his ribs were broken.
He glanced at Lan Hao. The other man had yet to calm down, his face still etched with shock. Lan Hao looked as though he harbored countless questions and desperately wanted to speak, yet could not form a single word.
Shaking his head, Wan Chen issued another command, pulling up Lin Yue's previous combat records.
Sure enough, during her initial matches in the fair combat mode, Lin Yue had also been completely crushed.
Even later on, when she imdiately entered her class fusion state from the very start and exhausted all her trump cards, she had only managed to exchange a few blows before going down.
The latest combat recording he had initially watched was actually from a point after Lin Yue had suffered nurous miserable defeats. She had abandoned the fair combat mode and attempted to fight using her full Tier Five strength instead.
Because he had not carefully checked the settings beforehand, a subtle misunderstanding had occurred.
"His speed is far too fast, his explosive lethality is terrifyingly high, and he is also in a class fusion state. Just how many combat-related special classes does he possess..."
He stared at the blurry combat footage, speculating based on the intense pressure he had just experienced firsthand.
The combat style of this training projection was not entirely fixed. It adjusted and optimized its battle state as it accumulated more combat data.
For instance, when the projection first fought Lin Yue, it had relied solely on its sheer speed.
Only later did it formulate the most simple and direct thod of attack, exactly like the devastating strike he had just faced.
"If I don't use my strongest state right from the start, that terrifying speed will leave completely powerless to resist," Wan Chen muttered.
Being instantly killed just now was, to a certain extent, due to his own underestimation of the enemy. Wan Chen secretly estimated that if he went all out in an extre clash, he might be able to last ten moves. That was the highest appraisal he could give himself.
"No wonder..." Watching the recording to the end, Wan Chen could not help but smile bitterly. The divine sentience of the Exalted Lord of Crimson Flas and Resounding Thunder truly had not chosen the wrong person.
"He has secrets. He shouldn't have this level of strength." Lan Hao had walked over at so point, his emotions fluctuating wildly as he blurted out. "Do you even need to ask?" Wan Chen sighed, his expression complex. "Everyone thought it was just his absurdly high compatibility. Now it seems even the Ancient King might not have anticipated that his combat prowess could reach such a terrifying level."
"The Dust Star Sea has never had a record of soone becoming a Morning Star chosen one solely based on compatibility. How could such an unprecedented exception suddenly be born on a barren planet?"
"We should have known earlier. He definitely had other extraordinary qualities."
Wan Chen sighed repeatedly. Currently, Su Chen's only shortcoming was his innate Twin Black Jade aptitude. However, aptitudes were sothing that could actually be improved with the right thods.
"No wonder Lin Yue's attitude changed..." Wan Chen said softly. At the end of the day, absolute strength was the only truth that mattered.
He had a decent impression of Su Chen, but after the young man was chosen as the designated successor, he had felt sowhat indignant, believing Su Chen was unworthy of the position.
Now, however, he was thoroughly convinced.
Sensing Wan Chen's complex emotions, Lan Hao felt an even greater sense of reverence toward his own father's foresight.
"About this..." Lan Hao hesitated to speak. He was not as quick-witted as Wan Chen; at the very least, he would never have thought of finding Xia Jie to roll back the system data.
Now that they had uncovered this information, what were they supposed to do next?
"Just wait and see," Wan Chen replied apathetically, shooting him a brief glance.
If Su Chen's true strength were exposed, the faction's internal stance would inevitably shift.
At the very least, the vast majority of the ignorant masses would no longer jump out to claim he was unworthy of his position.
And without a widespread consensus against him, the difficulty of targeting Su Chen would skyrocket. The Ancient King's protection was not a joke, either.
"Wait and see? See what?" Lan Hao asked blankly. But Wan Chen clearly had no intention of explaining further and walked out, looking utterly crestfallen.
He truly could not understand how a barren planet shrouded in the Nether Fog could suddenly produce such a monstrous freak.
"The blood of an Eldritch God is needed to ignite the Morning Fire. I wonder how much blood will be required to cast a Holy Class."
"With my current frail body, it's absolutely impossible for to hunt an Eldritch God. I'll have to see if the faction has any in stock. If all else fails, I could always disguise myself as a believer and trick a few Eldritch Gods into handing so over..."
Having just returned to his room, Su Chen glanced out the window at the bizarre, srizing streams of light.
This so-called warp channel was essentially a shortcut forged between two cosmic coordinates. Thanks to years of technological refinent, traveling through it was considered quite safe.
Even if a star gate on either end of the channel were to suddenly close, it wouldn't cause any severe impact.
"We can't establish any outside contact while inside the warp channel, so all we can do is wait. There probably won't be any issues." Su Chen locked his door and set the indicator light outside to "Do Not Disturb."
He took the sap of the Undying Ancient Tree out of his storage space. Just as he was about to apply it, a notification suddenly popped up on his interface: [Your training projection has overwhelmingly defeated the recognized candidate, Wan Chen, who suppressed his life tier. You have completely subjugated your opponent. The Exalted Lord of Crimson Flas and Resounding Thunder feels imnsely pleased. The 100% boost to class developnt efficiency has been extended by three months.]
Su Chen froze, his face blank with confusion. What the hell?
Why was his training projection causing trouble again?
Su Chen furrowed his brows. Ever since Lin Yue had accessed it last ti, he had explicitly forbidden anyone else from pulling up his training projection.
How was it suddenly accessed again?
Although his double-experience buff had just been extended by another three months, he still disliked these sudden, unforeseen events. It ant that soone was still scheming against him in the dark.
"Wan Chen, why are you joining the fray now?" Su Chen sucked his teeth in annoyance. Left with no other choice, he stored the sap away and headed out the door.
Arriving at the lower-level training room, he saw the indicator showing it was still in use. He walked over to the corner at the end of the corridor to wait.
It didn't take long for the cabin door to slide open. A dejected Wan Chen walked out.
Lan Hao's voice echoed from inside the training room, calling out several tis, but Wan Chen did not react at all. He simply kept his head down and trudged up the stairs.
Shortly after, Lan Hao also stepped out. Looking deeply troubled, he followed him up the stairs.
"Those two actually got together," Su Chen muttered, suspicious. Were they teaming up to pull so sort of stunt?
He waited until both of them had left before entering the training room. Glancing around, he asked, "Copper Star, did soone just access my training projection?"
"Yes, Sir Su Chen," the cold artificial intelligence replied.
"Didn't I issue a command forbidding anyone from using my training projection?" Su Chen frowned. The lights in the training room flickered briefly before Copper Star answered, "My apologies, Sir Su Chen. No such command can be found in the system."
"You..." Su Chen faltered, speechless. "What kind of artificial idiocy is this? That was just last month..."
"My apologies, Sir Su Chen..." Copper Star paused for a mont. "A data rollback operation has been detected. This may have caused the loss of so data."
"A data rollback?" Su Chen was stunned for a second before he caught on. "Who initiated the operation?"
"My apologies. You have insufficient privileges."
Su Chen furrowed his brow further and ordered, "Pull up the combat record between Wan Chen and my training projection."
"My apologies, Sir Su Chen. Sir Wan Chen has sealed his combat records."
Su Chen was at a loss for words. "So he gets to fight my training projection, but I'm not allowed to watch it?"
"My apologies."
Too lazy to argue with this artificial idiot, Su Chen turned and walked out. He pondered quietly, 'There shouldn't be many people on this ship capable of executing a high-level operation like a data rollback. Qing Cang... Xia Jie...'
After so thought, he decided against returning to his room. Instead, he wandered through the cabins until he spotted Xia Jie just stepping out of the engine room.
"Sir Su Chen..." Xia Jie looked a little surprised. He casually locked the engine room door behind him and asked curiously, "What brings you here?"
"About the training room..." Su Chen began, testing the waters.
"You're here about the training room too?" Xia Jie asked in surprise.
'Too?' Su Chen imdiately understood. He straightforwardly asked, "Did you perform a data rollback on the training room?"
"Yes." Xia Jie nodded. He felt a faint sense of oddity but explained anyway, "Earlier, Sir Wan Chen claid so of his training data went missing and asked to see what I could do."
"Why?" Xia Jie seed to realize sothing. "Did the rollback cause any issues for you?"
"Don't worry, I backed up all the previous data. It can be restored at any ti."
"It's nothing." Su Chen shook his head, then asked, "Did Wan Chen co to you alone?"
"Yes," Xia Jie nodded. "However, when I went to the training room, I noticed Sir Lan Hao was there as well."
Thinking back on it, Xia Jie's eyes flickered slightly; sothing felt off about the whole situation.
Su Chen understood now. This Wan Chen was truly clever, actually coming up with a trick like a data rollback. So, it seed he just wanted to fight Su Chen's training projection. Was it because Lin Yue had tipped him off?
But it didn't seem to have anything to do with Lan Hao.
Having figured out the whole story, Su Chen was secretly speechless. Wan Chen and the other two had quite a lot of petty sches going on behind closed doors.
He accompanied Xia Jie out of the lower deck, finally preparing to return to his room.
"Sothing must have happened," Xia Jie murmured to himself.
He stared at Su Chen's retreating back. If Wan Chen had been the only one to seek him out, Xia Jie wouldn't have thought much of it. But now that Su Chen had also co asking about the training room, he realized sothing was wrong.
"I need to go see Sir Qing Cang..." he muttered under his breath. As the head of security, it was his duty to identify and eliminate any potential security risks.
The families of Wan Chen's trio wielded imnse power, and Su Chen possessed a highly unique status. He couldn't afford to offend any of them, leaving him no choice but to report to his superior.
Hurrying up to the control room on the upper deck, he found Qing Cang still there, examining a star map.
"Sir Qing Cang..." Xia Jie called out softly as he approached.
"What is it?" Qing Cang put the star map away.
"It's like this..." Xia Jie recounted the entire sequence of events, from Wan Chen approaching him for a rollback to Su Chen coming to question him just monts ago.
"Do you think there might be so underlying conflict between them?" he asked cautiously.
"A conflict over the training room?" Qing Cang frowned slightly. These juniors were young; it was perfectly normal for them to constantly compare themselves and compete in secret.
The goal of Wan Chen and the other two had always been to beco the chosen successors. Naturally, they would harbor so resentnt after being beaten to the punch by Su Chen. He had anticipated as much.
As long as they didn't take things too far, he couldn't be bothered to intervene.
But had the conflict escalated?
He then recalled the unusual attitudes Lan Hao and Lin Yue had displayed toward Su Chen recently.
Could those three be teaming up to play him for a fool or inflate his ego just to destroy him?
Qing Cang's frown deepened. After all, Su Chen hailed from a barren planet. There were many things he simply didn't understand or know about. Even with a resolute mindset, it wouldn't be surprising if he fell prey to the treacherous sches of those three.
If by chance...
"Let's go take a look." Qing Cang's expression darkened. He decided to visit the training room first to see exactly what those youngsters were up to.
Xia Jie hurriedly followed close behind.
With a chanical hum, the cabin door slid open. Qing Cang strode into the training room and issued a command, "Copper Star, enter Administrator Mode."
"Command received from supre authority user, Qing Cang. Please verify biological credentials."
Qing Cang walked over to a terminal on the side and pressed his finger against the scanner. A small cut opened on his fingertip, squeezing out a drop of blood for biological verification. The artificial intelligence soon spoke again, "Verification passed. Respected administrator, please issue your command."
"Pull up today's task logs."
With a soft hum, a virtual screen materialized in front of Qing Cang. Streams of data rapidly refreshed as he scanned through them. "The requests to access Su Chen's training projection and Lin Yue's combat records were all rejected. These were Wan Chen's commands..."
"After the data rollback... Hmm? A request to access the combat records between Lin Yue and Su Chen's training projection?"
"Then another request to pull up Su Chen's training projection, also issued by Wan Chen..."
"An inquiry about the combat mode... Issued by Lan Hao..."
"...Half an hour later, Su Chen requested to access the battle between Wan Chen and his own training projection, but was rejected."
The task logs recorded every single command issued by everyone with absolute clarity.
"Are they fighting over this training projection?" Qing Cang sensed sothing was wrong.
Wan Chen initially tried to access it but was rejected. It was only then that he thought of finding Xia Jie to bypass the restriction via a data rollback.
"He wanted to fight Su Chen's training projection." Qing Cang's face darkened. "How incredibly... petty-minded!"
Beside him, Xia Jie felt his scalp tingle. That little brat was truly devious.
Su Chen must have refused Wan Chen's invitation for a direct duel. Unwilling to give up, Wan Chen must have resorted to fighting the training projection instead.
But apart from venting his frustration, what was the point of such a battle?
After the fight ended, Wan Chen had likely sought out Su Chen to say sothing—probably so form of mockery. That was the only reason Su Chen would co asking about it.
"Wan Chen..." Qing Cang snorted coldly. "And here I thought he had inherited his father's grace."
He considered whether he should go and give Wan Chen a stern warning. However, his eyes snagged on Lan Hao's command, and he felt a faint sense of oddity. Why would Lan Hao inexplicably ask about the combat mode?
He glanced again at the final log entry, the one where Su Chen tried to retrieve the combat record between Wan Chen and the projection.
After a mont of thought, he issued a command, "Pull up the combat recording of Wan Chen fighting Su Chen's training projection."
"Understood."
As the supre authority user, Qing Cang possessed the clearance to inspect all data aboard the ship.
The virtual screen in front of him rapidly switched to the combat recording.
Xia Jie couldn't help but look over as well. He was curious to see exactly what Wan Chen had done to prompt Su Chen to seek him out so quickly.
In the footage, Su Chen's phantom projection began to materialize. Qing Cang also felt a flicker of curiosity; he was genuinely unaware of Su Chen's true combat capabilities.
"Wan Chen's foundation needs no explanation. His family's 'Violet Firmant Magnetic Polarity State' is a Holy Class that excels in combat. He's likely already preparing for his third special class..."
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