Chapter 93: Advanced Starbase Rank

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

The training room was filled with a large quantity of energy, and not only did it help increase the cell movement inside Xia Fei’s body, it even extensively increased the pain he experienced when imbibing the medicinal concoction.

Xia Fei sat in the middle of the training camp, his body trembling non-stop. He would feel hot as if he were inside a volcano one moment, then cold as if he were standing at the center of a snowstorm the next.

After a good while, these two starkly different sensations suddenly separated, and Xia Fei felt like the left side of his body was on fire while his right was being frozen.

Xia Fei slowly adjusted the energy in his body, trying to combine the two sensations that would leave people crazed.

“Don’t try and control them. The medicine is like a catalyst, and it is currently cleansing your body round after round. By the time your body is completely cleansed, the pain that you’re feeling will have also naturally dissipated,” explained Phantom who was standing at one side.

Xia Fei pursed his lips. “You’re not the one experiencing the pain; it’s much easier said than done.”

Phantom grinned at Xia Fei. “You’re right. No matter what, you’re gonna have to learn to enjoy the pain. Using medicines to increase your cultivation is like putting your entire body into an intense refining session. As the quality of the medicines you take increases, the intensity of this refinement also becomes more acute, so you’d better slowly get used to it.”

Xia Fei’s body was racked with a heart-rending pain. He forcefully got up to his feet and tried to train his Sly Thrust technique, pouring his full concentration on his movement and ignoring what he was physically feeling, in hopes that doing so could distract him from it.

Slowly, Xia Fei actually found himself becoming accustomed to the pain.

Xia Fei finally understood that there was only a single solution to alleviating pain, and that was to focus his mind elsewhere. When someone chose to focus their attention on something, everything else would not matter anymore.

Twenty-four hours later, Xia Fei stepped out of the training room, his face visibly pale and his clothes wet from sweat as if he had just gotten out of a swimming pool.

“Are you alright?” Moon Song asked Xia Fei when she saw him in such a terrible state.

Xia Fei chuckled feebly. “I’m fine; I accidentally fell asleep and had a nightmare.”

“Sleep? You actually used this rare chance to sleep? I’ve never seen someone as unambitious as you,” chided Moon Song with folded arms, adopting an attitude as if she wanted to knock some sense into him.

Boarding the elevator to bring them back to the surface, Ye Xiaohan and Xiao Haili were both waiting in the hall, and beside them was the battalion commander of the training camp, Ye Jingshan, as well as an old man whom Xia Fei did not recognize.

The old man looked to be in his seventies with dark skin and high cheekbones. There was not even an ounce of fat on his body, and his arms were as thin as deadwood. His eyes were sharp and shone with vague clarity.

Xia Fei swept his gaze over to them, and he very resourcefully discovered that the expression on Ye Xiaohan and Xiao Haili seemed somewhat strange. The two were standing very far from each other, and neither was looking at the other.

Ye Xiaohan was still giving off that impression of an ice queen, but he noticed that she was constantly biting her lower lip, which meant that her emotions were not being kept in check.

Someone with her personality would keep things close to their heart and would very rarely openly express themselves. The biting of lips might not mean much to a person with a normal personality, but for someone like Ye Xiaohan, just biting her lower lip meant that she was experiencing something very unbearable.

Xiao Haili was even stranger. He would usually be bringing a smile everywhere he went, maintaining that image of optimism, but his smile this time around was very unnatural. It was a forced smile, where Xia Fei could even see the muscles on his face twitching.

Ye Jingshan hailed the freshmen to join him as he asked, “How do you all feel about your experience here in the internal division?”

Moon Song and Chen Dong were of course praising every aspect of the site to high heavens, while Xia Fei said nothing. He was already in a very weakened state, and even walking alone was quite a struggle for him.

“This here is the division supervisor for the internal division, Kingston. If any of you have the chance of joining the internal division, you’ll be a cadet under his guidance.” Ye Jingshan pointed to that lean, old man next to him as he explained this. Division Supervisor Kingston nodded his head, and that counted as his greeting to Xia Fei and the others.

“Oh, that’s right. Your motor team performed admirably this year, and that is why I’ve decided to give you another reward, and that’s to join Team 13 to go out on a mission, get some real combat experience. You’ll all be heading out tomorrow, and the mission briefing has already been sent to your mailboxes. Head back and give it a thorough read,” Ye Jingshan said.

‘A mission with Team 13?’ Xia Fei felt a wave of suspicion washed over him. Though he did not have any proof that Xiao Haili bore ill-will toward him, Xia Fei had heartily decided that he did not like the man, so he was not particularly happy about going on a mission with him.

However, it did not seem that Ye Jingshan was looking to discuss this matter, for he had used a commanding tone to send out the freshmen along with Team 13 in the name of a mission. Xia Fei gave it some thought and did not raise a protest regarding this order.

…

The shuttle landed just outside the dormitory, and several cadets looked at them with envious eyes. That was because everyone knew that Xia Fei and the others had returned from a visit to the internal division.

A vast majority of these cadets did not have any chance of joining the internal division. Even a look at the place would already be a wild wish, yet Xia Fei and the others were given the chance to stay in the internal division for twenty-four hours, so it naturally drew the envy, or jealousy, of the other cadets.

After a quick shower, Xia Fei made his way to the ordinary training center not too far from the dormitories.

“I’d like access to a speed-testing instrument.” Xia Fei handed his ID over to the staff behind the counter.

The staff checked the screen and said, “No. 17 testing instrument on the sixth floor is free to use. I’ve already made the necessary arrangement, so you can head over now to use it.”

“Thank you very much.” Xia Fei took his card back from the staff and made his way up to the sixth floor, then he used his card once more to open the door into the room.

This room had an area of about two hundred square meters, and inside was a speed-testing instrument as well as a sofa for people to rest on.

Xia Fei changed into his Windshade Mark IV combat suit and stood still on the speed-testing instrument. With a deft touch of his finger on that screen, he turned on the testing function.

This speed-test machine was something like the treadmill on Earth. There was a track beneath his feet made out of soft metal, and he could run right on it. The ground would move in accordance with his running, and no matter how fast he went, the track would always be able to keep up with his speed without any discrepancy whatsoever.

There was a screen at the right, which recorded his top speed, the distance he ran, heart rate, blood pressure, and other miscellaneous data.

Xia Fei took a deep breath and slowly warmed his two legs up to a jog on that speed-test instrument, his speed increasing steadily.

Soon, Xia Fei came to a stop and walked over to the screen to check his results.

Previously, Xia Fei’s speed had been determined by solely depending on Phantom’s visual judgment, but no matter how good his vision could be, he was no machine, so there was no way he would be so precise.

“Top speed of 877m/s,” muttered Xia Fei in surprise as he stared at the screen.

The requirement for speed ability users of the Advanced Starbase rank was 711m/s, yet Xia Fei was only discovering now that his speed had already surpassed the standard for the Advanced Starbase rank, and he was almost close to that of a Primary Star domain rank speed user!

Furthermore, this was the result Xia Fei had gotten before his body had fully recovered from his intensive training in the Stygian Training Center. If he had been properly rested, he might very well see a 50m/s increase from this result.

“Hey, the effect of the medicine this time ain’t too shabby,” commented Phantom after he looked at the numbers on the screen.

Originally, Phantom’s top speed merely ranged 380m/s or 400/s, and he had seen it double this time around.

Xia Fei mulled over this before asking, “Phantom, why is Chen Dong’s cultivation already close to the Star River rank, while mine isn’t even at Star Domain rank. Are my qualifications really too low?”

Phantom helplessly shook his head. “Your ability is speed. If you must know, out of all the abilities, speed is the hardest to rank up.

“The speed requirement for Primary Star River rank is 8148m/s, and that is almost 10,000m/s. If you truly have such speed, there’ll be no one out there that can catch up to you. As long as you aren’t trying to contain a speed ability user, everyone else will end up getting played by you. That’s why speed is a very transcendental ability, as well as why it’s the slowest and most difficult to rank up out of everything.

“The speed ability accounts for almost fifteen percent of the total combat ability users, yet those who can truly cultivate it to a high rank are few and far between. Have you ever heard of any speed ability users that managed to cultivate to high ranks?” Phantom asked.

Xia Fei shook his head. There were already few speed ability users in this training camp, so what more of anyone who managed to cultivate it to a high rank? Most cadets in this camp had special abilities, while the two most common abilities of strength and speed were actually the least represented here.

“You must remember, a low rank doesn’t equate to weak combat capabilities. Once a speed ability user manages to cultivate to a high rank, opponents of the same rank will hardly have the ability to retaliate against them, and it isn’t impossible for them to handily take on people of higher ranks,” stated Phantom very solemnly.

“Oh, so it turns out that speed ability users would have such a hard time cultivating,” Xia Fei muttered to himself.

Phantom very gleeful bragged, “Meeting me is pretty much your luck at work. If you had to go about it on your own, I doubt you could even go up a rank your whole life. Of course, if you weren’t so lucky to open the seventh region of your brain completely, the medicines I’ve prescribed to you would be useless even if you drank barrels of them. These two conditions were intertwined and could not do without each other…”

…

In the library, Qin Mang was presently hugging that black cat as it dozed off when he saw Xia Fei return. He narrowed his eyes and asked, “How was it? The internal division’s pretty great, isn’t it?”

Xia Fei nodded, pouring some tea leaves into the teapot and boiling a pot of tea. He brought it back to the desk and poured a cup each for Qin Mang and himself.

“It’s not bad, though it’s a little too quiet. I noticed that the people in the internal division barely spoke to each other, and it wasn’t strange for even those who have been staying there for a really long time not to know each other,” Xia Fei commented.

Qin Mang was unsurprised by this. “They can’t be blamed for that. With such amazing training facilities available to them, they will of course be desperate to try and increase their ranks.”

Xia Fei took a sip of tea and turned on his microcomputer to check for the mission briefing for tomorrow.

Qin Mang was shocked. “Mission briefing? Are you heading out for a mission?”

Xia Fei nodded. “Yes, Battalion Commander Ye instructed us to follow Team 13 out for a mission tomorrow.”

Qin Mang knitted his brows and wondered aloud. “I’ve never heard of the training camp letting cadets go out on an actual mission before.”

Xia Fei lit a cigarette and stared at the briefing for quite some time. “GPP1796 Space Station, and it’s derelict to boot?”