Blank Slate Recruit

Mu Fan rubbed his head. When the light returned, he realized he was back at the entrance to the metal revolving door.

What kind of boot camp was this? Didn't Fatty say simulated battles were pretty meaningless? How could there be such a brutal recruit training ground?

Looking around, Mu Fan confirmed that he was no longer in that Training Base filled with the stench of death and let out a breath.

When he looked back at the electronic screen by the entrance, it now displayed a red no-entry symbol and began counting down. After calculating, he estimated it would reach zero at midnight the next day. He could probably enter again then—the next day the mysterious Fighter had mentioned.

How could it be so humanized? The technology was actually this advanced! Filled with deep reverence for technology, Mu Fan walked out of the Training Camp.

Outside was still the oppressive Mechanical City where the sky could not be seen. He glanced at his wristband. "Lemon Balloon—Online—In Battle."

Mu Fan sent a message with one finger: "I'm Mu Fan. I'm out."

Within the City Ruins ten kilometers away, an orange-painted mecha was cowering in a gap formed by a broken wall beside a skyscraper, where rubble had pressed against it.

Fatty was currently gritting his teeth inside the Half-Cycle Cockpit of Lemon Balloon, his Generation 6.5 Fantasy Mecha. "You Bronze Five-Star trash actually want to gang up and screw me over just because my mecha is good. Damn you!"

The truth was obvious: those Bronze Five-Stars on the other side were clearly people using alternate accounts. Fatty's plan to dominate Bronze as a Silver player had completely fallen apart. This had happened at least fifty times, if not a hundred. Every time Fatty ran into it, he died cleanly enough, but who knew this bunch would be obvious psychos? There were six people on each side. The enemy worked in pairs, their aim unbelievably accurate. They blew apart the legs of several allied mechas that did not know how to dodge, then used alloy blades to chop off their limbs, leaving only the torso with the cockpit intact. Then... those shameless bastards started playing soccer with them.

They had already kicked five of them apart. There was no way Brother Fatty was going out there. It was too humiliating.

Suddenly, two red dots appeared on the radar scanner at his front left. Enemies! Fatty gritted his teeth, prayed briefly, and activated silent engine mode.

Good thing my mecha is better. Those Bronze trash are only driving Generation 5 Initial System Mechas.

Holy shit, right! They were using Generation 5s, so what the hell was I afraid of? The gap between our mechas was massive!

When the PO Battle Network conducted twelve-person small-scale team battles, the default matchmaking allowed a maximum difference of only one generation. In other words, if you drove a fourth-generation mecha, the lowest-tier opponents you could encounter would be Generation 4 Initial System Mechas, while the highest would be Generation 5 Initial System Mechas. The system would not arrange teammates or opponents with gaps that were too large, because that would create obvious unfairness. The difference between each mecha generation represented five to eight years, enough to create a fairly noticeable technological gap. At the higher seventh generation and above, the gap between generations could even reach ten years.

This was the fantasy combat zone. Sitting in the quiet cockpit, Fatty kept muttering, "If you're so damn good, go to the Real Combat zone. Why are you messing around here? Driving free system mechas and playing fantasy battles—you're sick."

The two red dots on the radar were closing in. Not good, they found me. Fatty had an unexpectedly sharp talent for sensing danger. Especially when it involved running for his life, he could always perform at his very best.

When he saw the two red dots enter the building behind him, he realized they were going to sneak up and shoot through the wall.

Suddenly, his wristband beeped. "I'm Mu Fan. I'm out."

That fast! Fatty froze. How long had it even been? One match had not even ended yet.

Then Fatty gritted his teeth and said viciously, "You trash, you just had to force Young Master Harry to make a move."

Detonate! War Scorpion Mines!

The ground inside the building behind Fatty's mecha suddenly split open, revealing four soccer-ball-sized holes. Four mechanical scorpions with a white metallic sheen crawled out, then locked their laser beams onto the two mechas that had just shut down active scanning and infiltrated the first floor.

Leap, impact! The four scorpions launched themselves forward at unimaginable speed.

Boom! Boom! Violent explosive shockwaves burst outward, blasting the orange mecha Fatty was in out of its hiding place as well.

As for those two mechas, they had long since been blown to pieces.

"You dared look down on your Grandpa Fatty? These are the highest-spec fantasy active tracking mines available for the Sixth Generation Mecha I bought," Young Master Harry said viciously.

The two red dots vanished from the radar instantly.

"Damn it! Number 3, Number 6, respond! Number 3, Number 6!" The enemy captain called for his teammates over the team communication channel, but no response came.

System Notification: "Lemon Balloon" killed "Qiao Musen"

System Notification: "Lemon Balloon" killed "Sai Erda Ka"

System Notification: "Lemon Balloon" achieved a Double Kill

"Hahahaha! You trash!" Fatty's arrogant voice rang out from the ruins through the loudspeakers.

Bang!

That conspicuous orange mecha was like a lighthouse in the darkness. With a crisp gunshot, a high-powered sniper round tore through Fatty's mecha's energy compartment, triggering a high-temperature energy detonation.

"You son of a..." Before Fatty could finish the last word, he was swallowed by flames.

Fatty reappeared in the waiting area. There were far fewer people here, and he sank into the sofa with a gloomy expression.

"Brother Fatty is exhausted. Those pig teammates!" Fatty was full of resentment over the battle just now. Their coordination had been completely unstructured, utterly chaotic. If not for his superior equipment letting him take down two enemies, this match would have been a pure loss.

Huh, had he forgotten something?

Fatty slapped his forehead. Right, Mu Fan had said he was out. The battle had been so tense that he had not replied, and he had almost forgotten.

"Video request. Accept?" Mu Fan had already been staring blankly at his wristband for several minutes when it finally chimed and he heard the prompt that the video call had connected.

"Mu Fan? Why did you come out so fast? I told you the training was pretty boring." Fatty's gloomy expression had not completely faded.

"Yeah, I finished the training. What do we do now?" Mu Fan did not want to explain too much. It really felt too embarrassing. He had gone in and died twice, and it had all felt so real. Besides, he had never liked explaining himself, so that was that.

Fatty said gloomily, "I was in a battle just now and didn't notice your message. Those bastards screwed me over. We lost, sigh."

Mu Fan did not yet have a complete concept of winning and losing. He asked, "What do we do now?"

Seeing that Mu Fan had completely ignored what he said, Fatty looked miserable. "Wait a moment. I'll send you my coordinates. Go to the Teleportation Point next to the Training Camp and come over to me."

"Ding. You have received a coordinate invitation from friend Lemon Balloon. Synchronize with navigation?"

"Yes." Mu Fan tapped confirm. Soon, a route appeared on the light screen. He raised his head and confirmed the location of the Teleportation Point at his front right. Many people were coming and going there, with flashes of white light flickering constantly.

Mu Fan entered the egg-shaped building. Once inside, he found that there were not many crowded people at all. Instead, he was alone. It seemed the PO Battle Network automatically opened an individual Teleportation Space for every person.

"Please state your destination," asked a floating, elongated automatic control panel.

"Destination coordinates: xxxx, xxxx."

"Confirmed. Player 'Egg Lord,' please step into the teleportation circle. Teleportation commencing."

In a flash, Mu Fan—the Blank Slate Recruit who had not passed combat training and had forgotten there was also mecha training—was directly teleported away from the Boot Camp.