Chapter 273.2 – The End of Group Training
There was no disputing this fact, especially after several interactions with the Copperfield Academy. Regardless of Emily and the rest, or even the somewhat eye catching Scarlet and Milami, they could feel the disparity between them, with their overall insufficient strength. Relying on Wang Zhong’s group battle strategies and the powerful Grai might allow them to bully those second and third class groups like Adolf or Saxon without Paul. If they were matched up against a truly powerful squadron like Copperfield, however, they would easily shatter into pieces. Without Wang Zhong’s and Laura’s participation, the three internal matches would all be won by the Copperfield side. They only needed to restrain Grai, and Tiankin would be completely unable to put up any resistance.
With their average standard being their borderline members and their captain being absent all day, the presence of the entire Tianjing squad grew weaker and weaker during group training. Grai was the only one that drew second glances as there truly was no freshman stronger than him this year, or at the very least, not within the entire Eastern Area. Being able to counter the celebrity participant Sully, and even obtain victory in a 1v2 situation was a talent that caused people to sigh in admiration at him. It was a pity that he ended up in Tianjing. If he had entered other squadrons, like Austin Academy, it was truly like a bird shotgun being replaced by a cannon.
Admittedly, squadron cooperation was important although not omnipotent. Essentially speaking, the CHF was an elite competition which would look at everyone’s capabilities.
Quite a few squadrons thought about moving Grai into their ranks, as the CHF had not officially started yet and the roster was still modifiable. There were quite a few squadrons that had tossed out olive branches, including some of the big shot families in Copperfield, all of them having various kinds of objectives. All of them were successively rejected by him without a single exception. One look at Grai’s temperament and one would know that there was a leviathan standing behind his back. It was extremely understandable for a person like him to not be easily lured. Seeing this, other people could only sigh in helplessness at their lack of fortune compared to Tianjing.
On the return trip to Tianjing, the squad wasn’t as relaxed and cheerful. The main reason for this was the few internal matches they had against Copperfield Academy.
Indeed, Wang Zhong’s conventional combat strategies could fully allocate and utilize the entirety of Tianjing’s strength, such that they were able to defeat Adolf and Saxon’s cruel formation. This caused the squad’s pride to swell up, however, the internal matches against Copperfield had taught them some lessons.
Their overall strength was imbalanced. They had a strong will to bring about the destruction of the weak, with the weak being unable to protect themselves… being able to recognize their inadequacies was a huge harvest. During the two day journey back, everyone pondered their personal questions and problems. They would undoubtedly need more than just Grai alone if they wanted to advance further in the CHF, with existences of superlevel experts on the level of Divian and Carolyn that brought along giant squadrons possessing strength a level higher than Laura and Paul. In front of such a powerful squadron, Tianjing would not be able to raise even a single finger. No matter what they did, even if they had another Grai, it would be impossible to change the fact that they would die.
Wang Zhong could see the pressured atmosphere of the squad. Nevertheless, he didn’t intervene as he had already done what he needed and should do. Wanting the squad to transform entirely wasn’t something that could be done by relying on his own mouth. There were many times where being strong and powerful actually hinged on the inner thirst of an individual!
Even desire!
On the second day after their return to Tianjing, Old Potter arrived. His entire journey was kept completely secret in consideration to the fact that Wang Zhong had just arrived yesterday. The Old Potter didn’t even contact the latter to inform him of his arrival, only notifying Moore and Greene. With a whole carriage filled with equipment, it was not possible to move it by himself.
Dean Moore and Headmaster Greene headed down early in the morning, both concerned about the Old Potter’s arrival this time.
Old Potter’s research thesis of living runes was already formally registered in the Federation’s Institute of Science. Up till now, however, the information available was only the title, with nobody knowing anything about the contents. This included assistant Moore who had been invited for this research project. Old Potter didn’t reveal too many of the details to Moore, only giving an approximation of the situation. The only thing Moore knew was that the topic was huge with an extremely wide range of scope, possibly even affecting the innovation of runic technologies as a whole.
At the very start, Greene and Moore had already attached great importance to this matter, since the latter was also a fanatical researcher while the former knew about the weight of the research. Choosing Tianjing as the location of research felt like millions of Easter eggs had rained down from the sky and landed on Headmaster Greene’s head.
Why? Isn’t Copperfield better than Tianjing in every way? If it was because of Moore, just a single Skylink message from Old Potter would have ensured that the former would immediately rush over with red eyes. Despite this, the latter had especially brought over his entire set of extremely expensive equipment, all for the sake of preparing a research lab in Tianjing… Is he planning to offer such a huge gift to Tianjing Academy?
Ever since the day he heard the news, Greene had felt slightly dizzy and short of breath. After researching with Moore for another two days, they were still unable to figure out the where exactly the critical element was.
After returning back yesterday, however, Greene managed to hear some interesting things from Scarlet.
“I’ve heard that Wang Zhong had some special ideas on runic technologies that have gained recognition from Headmaster Potter. During group training sessions, Headmaster Potter would often pull Wang Zhong away to assist his research.” Hearing that, Greene had thought, “Could it be due to Wang Zhong?”
With a laugh, Moore replied, “That idea is even more farfetched. Although Wang Zhong has pretty good theoretical knowledge, his attainments on the aspect of runes is too shallow with little depth in his understanding. If he put his heart into research for a few years, it wouldn’t be hard for him to obtain some results, however, wanting to be the assistant for the old headmaster with his current standards? That’s really far away.”
Greene nodded in approval, feeling that this idea was somewhat more reasonable. After listening to Scarlet yesterday, he felt that his students really took things too far from the gossip they heard. Old Potter definitely had other goals for moving his research to Tianjing. In truth, there was no need to make wild guesses as he would be able to see for himself in the near future.
As the two of them chatted, metallic sounds rumbled. Old Potter had arrived.
A special carriage was indeed different. Compared to the one Wang Zhong took which had arrived two days ago, this one had only taken a dozen hours to arrive at Tianjing.
“Ha ha! Greene, Moore! Long time no see!” Old Potter stepped off the carriage in an informal grey shirt, followed by Laura.
“Headmaster Potter! Welcome, welcome!” Greene enthusiastically greeted them before shaking his hands. Being headmasters, they often bumped into each other during large gatherings on some Federation education systems as they were both part of the Eastern Area’s A region, although they didn’t communicate much. Furthermore, the public’s opinion of them both were pretty good. Not only did they recognize each other mutually, they praised and appreciated one another.