Chapter 22: Are You Sure That’s a Hoverboard and Not a Plane?
At Seven Light University training base, inside the chief’s office of the training division office building, a middle-aged man and a seventeen or eighteen years old well built young man were talking to each other.
“It’s been two days. How is your experience in Seven Lights, Knight?” the middle-aged man asked the young man sitting opposite him. He wore the smile of an elder caring for his junior, and even though he was simply sitting, his every movement spoke of his qualities as a soldier.
Traces of impatience appeared on the face of the young man called Knight. But he was facing a senior after all, so his tone wasn’t overly rude, “One word: Boring!”
“Seven Lights isn’t a military academy after all. There’s no way they would let students come in much contact with firearms and mechs. Even when they do, there isn’t much firepower involved, nor any large scale mock battles. Still, Seven Lights’ online training platform is pretty good.” the middle-aged man expressed his helplessness about certain matters.
“But ultimately that isn’t the real thing. There’s a difference between facing down a real gun and a simulated one. Plus, the people here have terrible constitutions!” Knight’s face was filled with disdain. He had fought a few rounds with some high grade students for the past two days, and although some of them were barely passable, that was all there was to it. None of them were truly worth his attention. If he wanted to improve his fighting abilities, he could only seek out the people from the training division . Some of the people in the police and training division were transferred over from the galactic army. Unlike the ones in an academy, the killing intent of a soldier in combat greatly excited Knight.
“This isn’t a military school after all…” The man was helpless as well. He couldn’t remember how many times he had repeated this for the past two days already, “How about apologizing to your dad and taking the opportunity to have him arrange for you to go a Sector C military academy? You haven’t registered here anyway.”
“Impossible! I’d rather be bored until graduation than apologize to him! Not to mention I wasn’t wrong in the first place! Those bastards should be beaten! They deserved to have their asses kicked!” The moment the matter was brought up, an air of hostility immediately rose from Knight’s body. Wasn’t it just a small case of beating up a bunch of noisy, pretentious spoiled brats? The next time he sees them, he’d beat them just the same.
The middle-aged man smiled wryly. This father and son duo sure were similar to each other. The moment that stubborn temper of theirs acted up, it was difficult to change their minds. As he was about to say something, his communicator suddenly rang, and he motioned for Knight to give him a moment. Looking down, it was a number he didn’t recognize, and it wasn’t even a video communication, just a voice call. Wondering who it was, O’Neill picked up his communicator and spoke with the vigor of the chief of the training division, “This is Huo Neil.”
“Ah, Little Nail…”
The moment he heard the voice, Huo Neil abruptly sprung up from his seat, pressed his feet reflexively into a standard military pose and answered with a powerful voice, “YES SIR!”
The shockwave nearly caused Knight to tumble from his seat. Open-mouthed, he gaped at the man, whose elderly demeanor had completely vanished, standing rigidly at attention while listening intently to the person lecturing him from the other end of the communicator.
“Yessir… yessir, don’t worry sir, I will notify the police division to act immediately… yessir, I know, don’t worry sir… yessir, take care of yourself, sir!”
Once the comm call had ended, Huo Neil’s body finally relaxed a little. His expression was bitter; far bitter than the one he wore when he spoke with Knight earlier. Why did Sir Mo change his number again? Speaking of which, Sir Mo has been changing his number more and more frequently as of late. It’s probably because the number of visitors had increased with the deluge of new students…
‘Uncle Huo, what happened?”
“We’ll talk later!” Without waiting to explain too much to Knight, Huo Neil turned and called the police division. It didn’t take long for the comm link to be established.
“Huh? Why are you looking for me at this time, Nails? You got bored and wanted to get some practice in?” The other party joked.
Huo Neil ignored his teasing and said seriously, “Gerrard, I’ve just received a report about a robbery at the trade zone’s global train station. Two flying cars robbed the backpack of a student waiting for the train…”
On the other side, Gerrard couldn’t help but press a hand to his forehead. Normally they couldn’t care less about such a thing. It was just a minor issue between students and almost nothing major ever came of it. The mess’d be over in the blink of an eye. Plus, a stolen backpack was hardly anything important, not to mention those rich kids speeding on flying cars didn’t lack money at all. Still, someone who could mobilize the police division through Huo Neil obviously had some weight of their own. What annoyed Gerrard was that it would be terribly irritating if it turned out that the police were getting dragged into a quarrel between the offspring of any of the big families.
“Nails, just give me the word. Who made the report?”
“Our old boss General Mo’s father; Seven Light’s vice headmaster Sir Mo…”
Before Huo Neil could finish, Gerrard immediately replied in full righteousness, “How dare they committed something as atrocious as a flying car robbery under broad daylight? This is downright heinous!”
Huo Neil: “…”
Gerrard turned towards the window and roared at his subordinates practicing outside, “Alright grunts, round up! We’re mobilizing! Anyone who’s slow will be stripped, dumped outside, and forced to run naked around the whole city!” Finished, he then turned back towards the communicator, “Nails, tell Sir Mo not to worry. We’ll mobilize and take care of those itchy little bastards immediately!”
After he turned the communicator off, Huo Neil pressed a control button on his hand and entered a few coordinates. A screen rolled down, and a few pictures appeared. They were satellite images of the two flying cars and Cillin riding a hoverboard captured from the top, sides and front. Knight had also crept closer to watch curiously.
There was a no man’s land between the trade zone and the Sleepless City of the entertainment zone. A green wave was set off by the three red, yellow and blue vehicles as they raced across the boundless forest landscape.
“Fuck, what the hell is in the bag? That brat actually chased us this far on that shit hoverboard of his!” The guy in the bright yellow flying car complained.
“It’s all food other than a newspaper, a tablet and some clothes. The materials of these clothes look a little rich, but other than that, there’s nothing valuable.” The other guy in the crimson car flipped through Cillin’s bag and answered.
“Holy shit, he chased us this far just for these? It’s another one of those hotheads; god knows how many high efficiency batteries he’s used!”
These people had assumed that the reason Cillin was able to chase them this far was because he used high efficiency batteries.
“Yeah right? Tsk, a mere shit hoverboard wants to catch up to a flying car? Not even a hundred high efficiency batteries will be enough! That kid totally has a brain fart!”
“Forget him. Let’s speed it up. That kid probably isn’t going to last much longer, plus that shit hoverboard of his has a poor tolerance for high efficiency batteries. He better not explode mid-chase!”
“Haha, that’ll be fun. Let’s wait and watch that kid’s hoverboard explode into smithereens then! Woohoo~~”
The two youngsters whooped insolently as they sped up further.
Cillin’s eyes narrowed into slits. He increased the strength beneath his feet and adjusted his body into an angle that would minimize drag. An invisible cone shaped aura had surrounded Cillin, helping him break through the air. He wore no goggles, but this speed could not affect Cillin’s vision in the slightest.
The sound of his foot pushing the hoverboard forwards broke through the air again and again. It was as if Cillin had merged with the hoverboard right now. Like a blue homing bullet he flew with speed and flexibility.
Cillin was calculating the other party’s car speed, the push force he needed to use, the number of pushes and the hoverboard’s tolerance. This hoverboard could not have caught up to those two flying cars at the front with just its energy and maximum speed. That was why Cillin had decreased the energy’s thrusting power and used his own strength to push forwards instead.
Inside the training division’s office, Huo Neil and Knight stared at the screen intently.
“This kid is pretty unusual, eh?” Huo Neil asked.
“He didn’t use the manual rudder and controlled his movements completely through his own will. From the way he deftly dodged the obstacles,you can see that his mental control is very high. Moreover, in order to conserve energy, all of the energy originally reserved for the manual rudder has been used to maintain the hoverboard’s flight. If he had started chasing from the train station at the trade zone, and was able to chase this far without being thrown off by the flying car, it means that his stamina is pretty good. From the shockwave he generated when pushing the hoverboard, you can see that this guy is very strong.” At this point Knight’s eyes were brimming with strong fighting will, “Who is he?” Such a person couldn’t possibly be unknown.
Huo Neil entered a series of passwords and coordinates on another screen. Through identifying and locking on to the position of the Seven Lights card, he could confirm the identity of the cardholder.
“Cillin Douance? He’s from the Douance Family?”
On the other side, a dedicated passenger car was flying from the trade zone to the entertainment zone in mid-air. A few students were idle, and so looked at the endless greenery outside the window.
Suddenly, one of the students’ eyes grew wider and wider, “Holy fuck, is that a hoverboard that guy is riding?!”
The people beside looked outside the window, and the scene of the hoverboard chasing relentlessly after the two flying cars fell into their eyes. In fact, they quickly overtook the passenger car.
“Are you sure that’s a hoverboard and not a plane?”
“Well duh, is there a plane that’s shaped like a hoverboard?”
“Actually… I think they’re advertising the hoverboard, aren’t they?” Again someone expressed their opinion.
Someone looked around and said, “But I don’t see any shooting crew around?”
“If it really is a hoverboard then I’m going to buy one just like that. I just don’t know what the brand is.”
“Don’t worry, I took a picture just now!”
Regardless of the discussions of the people on the passenger car, all Cillin wanted right now was to smack the two robbers and fish for compensation. It was likely that his hoverboard would be unusable after this flight.
The two flying cars at the front continued to accelerate, and Cillin too increased his pushing force and frequency. The sounds of his foot detonating the air with loud bangs could be heard clearly even by the passengers inside the passenger car.
Before long, the three red, yellow and blue figures had vanished before the passengers’ eyes.
Not good. The hoverboard is about to reach its limits. Cillin swiftly calculated in his mind the angle of his next step and its success rate.
Suddenly, the duo chatting inside their cars heard an explosion from their backs.
“Hah, it exploded! That kid’s hoverboard had exploded!”
The guy in the crimson car was overjoyed as he started to turn his head around (T/N: Never do this while speeding, people) and enjoy the miserable sight of the kid behind him. But after he heard a sudden bang, his eyes blurred, and the flying car slammed uncontrollably towards the ground.
The next moment yet another bang occurred, and the other bright yellow flying car too was kicked into the air while performing many high difficulty rolls.
Huo Neil and Knight, staring at the screen inside the training division office, was dumbfounded.