Mystical Journey

There were boxes marked by various labels. Among them, practice matches were for free and the number of users was also the highest. The space behind the words Practice Match was marked by Levels, which indicated the Levels of the opponents inside.

‘Please choose whether you want to open a room or join other users’ Battle Rooms’, the mechanical voice sounded again.

Feeling as if he’d really entered a Mech, Garen chose a practice match at Level 1.

‘Entering the Battle Room…Arena, rocky land…Weather, sunny’

‘Loading data…. Please wait for a moment’

After a moment, Garen saw that the circular window in front of him had brightened up. The dark starry sky was replaced by a clear blue sky and a huge white planet hung in the sky, emitting a slight white glow.

He quickly directed his Willpower into the interface that served as a controller for the Mech.

He suddenly became dizzy and felt like he’d been transported out of the Mech and now stood on a piece of red land. The ground was full of craters of different sizes without any sign of life. Other than the craters, all he saw was red soil. The surrounding was barren.

The ground that was full of craters seemed to have stretched to the ends of the horizon.

Moving his body, Garen felt as though he was immersed in a very sticky glue making it very hard for him to move.

He raised his hand with a lot of effort. Only then did he realized that his hand was a red mechanical arm. The surface of the Mech was reflecting a red glow due to the sun rays.

“This is the manipulation of Willpower? It’s almost the same as controlling my own body in real life… Such a realistic simulation technology!” Garen admired.

“Are you done adapting? Can we start now?” a female voice sounded from afar.

Garen looked up.

On the other side, a dark armored Mech was standing beside a huge crater. The Mech was like a muscular giant at six meters tall with a black ax in its hand. One look and anyone would know that it specialized in melee.

There were more than one hundred meters of distance between the black and red Mechs. Compared to the other Mech, Garen’s Mech looked like an unbearably thin child that had gone through a stunted growth.

“Let’s begin,” Garen slightly adapted to the movement of the Mech without the Moonfang’s support.

‘Practice Match begins, the loser will be penalized 100 Universal Units.’ the mechanical voice sounded again.

Garen was stunned, Universal Units were money, and it had to be paid even for this ordinary practice match?

Without giving him any more time to think, the black Mech on the opposite side suddenly sprinted and rushed towards him with a ‘peng peng peng’ sound. The black ax in its hand was brandished in front of its body like a shield.

“Another rookie,” inside the black Mech, Gladys calmly stared at the opposite red Mech, watching it slowly taking out a laser gun, disappointment in her heart.

Only by battling with experts could she improve and become stronger. This was Gladys’ motto. Although there were wins and losses, when she was confronted by a rookie, winning too easily made things meaningless.

“That name was right on point, totally a goof,” she looked at the name on top of the Mech’s head, “a melee Mech is closing in and yet he hasn’t distanced himself.”

The black Mech was approaching the red Mech at a very fast pace.

The distance was rapidly shortening.

50 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 10 meters…

Peng!!

The black Mech rolled to the right side and made a backflip, the black ax in its hand swiping out.

Chi!

Only then did Garen managed to lift the laser gun. Although he had made the lifting motion when he saw that black Mech coming, but his Willpower was too weak, causing his instruction to be delayed by a few seconds before his instruction was fully communicated to the Mech. It was too late when he finally managed to lift the muzzle to point at his opponent.

With a crack sound, the red Mech was split into two from the shoulder downwards causing a huge explosion to occur.

Garen’s sight blurred. Coming back to his senses, he had returned to the cockpit and outside the window was a boundless starry sky.

‘Battle ended, you lost. Duration of battle is 21 seconds. 100 Universal Units was lost. 9754 remained.’

Sitting in the cockpit, Garen recalled the brief battle just now. He finally knows the reason Nonosiva was unable to separate from the little Moonfang.

“The Willpower without the Moonfang was totally a target that cannot move. The time between the Willpower issuing instructions to the Mech receiving the instructions was at least five seconds. Five seconds. It was totally enough time for any Mech to sprint to the front and go for the kill. Replacing it with a long-range Mech, one shot can settle it.”

“Look at the remaining 9754 Universal Units, the common students did not have that much money. It must be what Nonosiva had gathered to buy training method. With the Moonfang at his side, even if it was at this Simulation Network, he could win more than he lost with some caution. This money must have been saved by him little by little,” Garen thought.

He looked at the previous battle records of Nonosiva.

The previously recorded battles filled up his sight, right beside the list was the time and date. Roughly looking through, there were at least hundreds of battle.

“Only arriving at the real Level 1 can the Mech be operated freely. Otherwise, it’s a motionless living target.” Garen judged the situation and took out the little Moonfang in his pocket.

Although there were cracks in it, once he took it out and hold it in his hand, Garen suddenly felt comfortable all over his body as though an electric current had spread all over his body.

At this moment, he felt that sitting in the Mech was a lot easier.

“Let’s try again.”

He randomly clicked on a Level 1 practice room.

Hiss….

‘Entering the Battle Room…Arena, rocky land…Weather, cloudy’

‘Loading data….please wait for a moment’

Similar to the environment just now, there were craters of all sort of sizes on the red earth. A Mech without the flight function could only pay extra attention to the craters on the ground. Once they fell into the crater, the battle was as good as over.

Garen looked across the distance.

A white slender humanoid Mech was standing there with two half-moon shields on its arms and within its hands were two silver machetes, looking quite beautiful.

“Another melee Mech?” Garen moved his body. This time the movement was no longer slowed down but pretty smooth.

His hands slightly flashed and two laser guns appeared in his hands.

A series of tips on the long-range shooting was quickly recalled in his mind.

Although he had always been a master at melee, he had also dabbled in long-range shooting too. As long as he took into account his opponent’s moves in countering long-range Mech, it would be alright.

“Let’s begin,” Garen said.

“Ok,” a male response came.

‘Practice Match begins, the loser will be penalized 100 Universal Units’ the mechanical voice sounded again.

Once the voice fell, the white Mech on the other side suddenly rushed here, not by using its legs but using the blue jet thruster behind its back. The speed was astounding.

Chi Chi Chi Chi!

Four laser beams shot out and directly hit the head of the white Mech in front. Even with this high-speed movement, the shot was still amazingly accurate.

Unfortunately, it was ineffective on the armored head of the white Mech that was made of an unknown material. The laser that was shot out only made a few red sparks on it.

Garen raised both his guns and retreated backward but the opponent was too fast. The speed was on a different level.

He could only keep changing the direction he turned. At the same time, his laser guns were shooting non-stop.

The red laser was actually not a real laser but the so-called high-energy beam. This kind of beam was also categorized by levels of lethality. His firearms were of the lowest levels and so without hundreds of shots, penetrating the armor of this opponent was definitely a pipe-dream.

Garen rolled and evaded the two machetes’ chops. In the middle of it, he hurriedly shot twice at the opponent’s waist. Sadly, it was still useless.

He suddenly understood that this opponent was an expert in using expensive protective Mech armor. High-cost Mechs could only be afforded by those rich second generations students. Together with their exclusive training methods, the combined effects were naturally not something that common Mechs could easily break through.

Shooting two more times accurately on the same spot at the waist of the white Mech, it was still ineffective. There was totally no damage that could be seen. The level of lethality was far inferior to the defense provided by the armor of the opponent.

Even if it was also a Level 1 Mech, there was still such a large gap between them. This was not the gap in Willpower but the gap in Universal Units that was thrown into their Mech.

“Too weak! Hahaha,” in the opposite Mech, a voice sounded, “Why are you so lame? Tell me, why are you so lame?” the other party began to mock him.

The machete abruptly accelerated and drew two silver line towards Garen.

The jet thruster behind the white Mech’s back spewed out even more blue flames and produced an instant burst of speed, flying straight towards Garen.

With a clang sound, a white line flashed by. The white Mech had rushed through the side of the red Mech. The silver line that was drawn by the machetes instantly cut off half of Garen’s torso. A little bit more and the red Mech would be split in half. Bursts of sparks came out of the red Mech’s waist.

The white Mech turned around. The jet thruster behind it burst out blue flames again and it pounced towards the opponent. However, it discovered that the red Mech had run away quite a distance.

“Still running? Die!! Stupid Prick!”

The jet thruster at the white Mech’s back spew out a large amount of flames and with a roar, the speed became even faster.

At this moment, Garen turned to the side slightly and incredibly avoided the white Mech’s rush by a few millimeters and swiftly passed by his side.

“Eh…” the white Mech was stunned.

Not only that, Garen lifted his foot and kicked forward.

Peng!

The huge force from the kick combined with the explosive instantaneous force from the jet thruster, and in front was a huge and deep crater….

Without any buffer to stop its momentum, the white Mech crashed into the crater.

It was followed by two laser beams hitting accurately into the opening of the jet thruster. Immediately, an explosion was triggered and the jet thruster was blown to smithereens.