Late at night, Elai called Aaron from the dormitory.

"You want to sign up for the mech competition?" Although it was a question, there was no surprise on Aaron's face projected on the screen. Instead, he looked at the delicate omega on the other end with tenderness.

Elai blushed under his gaze and bit his lower lip. "Your Highness, I want to try. My spiritual power is S-grade..."

Aaron smiled. "Of course, you can do it."

He had dazzling golden hair like sunshine, and a gentle, lingering smile appeared on his handsome face. Although he was wearing the most ordinary white military uniform, it gave people a sense of sanctity and nobility.

Elai nodded with a flushed face.

Aaron still looked at him with a smile, his eyes full of tenderness. He comforted in a low voice, "I already know what happened today. The He family can't make a move for now, so you'll have to endure it for a while."

When Elai left He Yan's dormitory, it was the end of the last class of the day. The last batch of omegas who had classes had all finished school and were heading back to the dormitories one after another.

At the Imperial Military Academy, to prevent accidents, the omega campus and dormitories were completely independent, surrounded by high-voltage power grids to keep out alphas and betas from neighboring campuses with ulterior motives. The dormitories were divided into four buildings according to their conditions, namely four-person rooms, two-person rooms, and single rooms, with accommodation fees ranging from low to high.

Since Elai's current identity was a commoner, he naturally lived in the most common and cheapest four-person dormitory, while He Yan naturally lived in the most expensive single room. The two people's residences were not even in the same building.

Because of the previous entanglements between He Yan, Aaron, and Elai, Elai had a high recognition in the school. He ran out of He Yan's dormitory building with a face full of grievances, naturally attracting everyone's attention and discussion.

These discussions naturally reached Aaron's ears as well.

"It's okay," Elai glanced at him timidly, his face full of shyness. "For you, I will endure it."

After hanging up the call, Elai registered for the mech competition under his real name and then logged into the Light Web to enter the simulated mech training ground, preparing to continue his daily training.

He had a great talent for piloting mechs. After only a month of practice here, he had gone from knowing nothing at the beginning to now showing his edge among countless people, attracting a lot of attention. There were even posts discussing him on the Empire's largest mech forum!

As soon as he entered the training ground, a friend sent him a message.

White Colt: "Come quickly!"

White Colt: "Someone even more awesome than you has appeared. From a novice to a master in eight hours! Reversing the entire field! I'm already kneeling!!!"

White Colt: "Now he's up against Crimson Bone! Holy crap, it's so exciting! Must spectate!"

Elai's heart skipped a beat.

*

In the mech simulation training ground, virtual IDs were used by default. He Yan looked at the dialog box that popped up in front of him, pondered for a moment, and inexplicably typed the character "Yi".

The simulation training ground was open to the public on the light web. Although it was called a "training ground", it was not only novices who practiced there, but also many professional mech pilots mixed in. It could be said to be a place where crouching tigers and hidden dragons gathered!

It used a holographic setup to simulate the real mech environment to the greatest extent possible. There were three modes: single practice, one-on-one battle, and team battle.

He Yan put on the holographic helmet and first selected the single practice mode.

He had already read the information about piloting mechs. He made a few clumsy movements to control the mech.

Mechs had many similarities with the starships in his original world. For example, both were controlled by spiritual power, supplemented by manual control. But at the same time, the differences were also obvious. Starships required the cooperation of multiple people to give full play to their greatest advantages, while mechs were completely the stage of the pilot alone.

But the operation method of mechs was fundamentally similar to that of starships. He Yan had piloted starships for thirteen years and was already very familiar with the operation methods. After a period of exploration, the movements of the mech became much smoother.

After practicing in single mode for half an hour, He Yan exited and re-selected the one-on-one battle mode. After confirming that the system would randomly match opponents, with a flash of white light, two identical mechs were randomly teleported to different locations in a desert.

All the mechs in the simulated mech training ground were of a unified model, the E-11 multi-function machine that was launched three years ago and widely used on the front lines. The advantage of this type of mech was that it could adapt to various terrains and was suitable for various combat methods, with very high flexibility; the disadvantage was that its functions were too balanced, resulting in it not having any outstanding strengths.

It was He Yan's first time piloting a mech to battle against someone, and he was very unlucky to encounter a master. Within just five minutes of the start, the opponent's blade had pierced through his main control room.

He didn't mind at all and quickly started the next round. This time, the opponent's piloting skills were quite ordinary. He Yan's movements were much more skilled than in the previous round. The two tangled for about twenty minutes before he took advantage of a smooth spin to sever the head of the enemy mech, winning this round.

In the next few hours of battles, He Yan lost less and won more. His mech control skills kept improving, his movements becoming smoother and smoother, and his attacks gradually revealing a swift and tricky edge. He quickly won the last few rounds within ten minutes!

The virtual character of He Yan in the mech reached out to loosen his collar, the corners of his mouth slightly curled up, and an excited and bloodthirsty light flashed across his narrowed eyes.

Like a lone wolf that had been disguised among a flock of sheep, finally revealing its true face!

Feeling that he had practiced enough, He Yan stopped the system's random matchmaking and opened the mech simulation training room's points leaderboard, starting from the bottom and challenging upwards one by one!

The simulation training ground ranked each person's points from high to low, and the leaderboard only displayed the top fifty. Each ID entering the simulation training ground had a default score of zero. Points could be obtained through one-on-one battles and team battles. The winning side would receive half of the losing side's total points. If the winning side's points were not higher than the losing side's, they would receive an additional ten points as a bonus.

In the previous six hours or so, He Yan had accumulated 1,080 points, while the last place on the leaderboard, ranked fiftieth, had 34,556 points, and the highest ranked first had 685,664 points.

It's worth noting that there was a huge gap between the first and second place. Compared to the 680,000 points of the first place, the score of the second place was a bit lackluster, only 180,000, not even one-third of the first place!

He Yan's attention lingered there for a few seconds. The ID of the first place was "Crimson Bone".

He firmly remembered this name.

In the mecha simulation practice arena, there was a small light after each person's ID. The light showed green when the ID was online and gray when offline. Because it was late at night, not many IDs on the leaderboard had green lights lit up.

But the light of "Crimson Bone" was on.

Moving his attention away from that green light, He Yan started his challenge from the last place on the leaderboard.

Number 50 was good at defense. Probably seeing He Yan as a novice, he was a bit overconfident and soon had a defense gap opened up by He Yan, losing control of the situation. He Yan eventually paid the price of an arm to win, taking 17 minutes!

"Yi" scores 183578, currently unranked!

Number 46 was an all-around player, good at overall planning. He Yan tussled with him for a full 30 minutes before attracting the other party's attention with a deliberately revealed weakness, while using a quick and precise move to behead the enemy mecha.

"Yi" scores 356683, ranked 49th!

Number 42 moved swiftly with an unpredictable style, somewhat similar to He Yan himself. Both attacked quickly and fiercely, exchanging over a dozen moves within just a minute of starting.

After 3 minutes, He Yan ended the match with an unexpected backhand pierce.

Number 42, White Colt, couldn't help showing a shocked expression on his virtual character's face after repeatedly watching the recording of his defeat. Although theoretically possible, the backhand pierce required extremely high precision and prediction ability from the pilot to control the mecha.

The slightest deviation would turn this killing move into a fatal opening! So without absolute confidence, using this move was simply courting death!

The number of people he knew capable of this move was no more than three digits in the entire empire!

But now, a dark horse suddenly appeared out of nowhere and used the backhand pierce!

Could it be one of those top experts?

However, after opening "Yi"'s detailed information, White Colt's doubts about "Yi" being able to use the backhand pierce were all thrown far behind, replaced by a mind full of "WTF"! He stared blankly at the "8 hours" shown in the total online duration column and gasped. WTF, who is this guy, actually able to enter the points leaderboard after only playing for 8 hours?

No, impossible. Last time a newbie took 2 months to climb onto the points leaderboard which was already stunning. 3 hours, is this still human? Maybe...it's a real-life expert in a bad mood coming to crush people?

But after examining "Yi"'s battle records in detail, this guess was completely shattered. Because "Yi" lost his very first match, and he had fought the person who defeated "Yi" before. That person's skill was quite good among ordinary people but still got crushed by him. The "Yi" who easily gave him a backhand pierce just now actually lost to such a guy!

He unwillingly studied "Yi"'s battle records over and over. Seeing the rookie-like operation in the 8 hours of recordings, he had to admit with a shattered worldview that "Yi" really was a newbie 8 hours ago!

Of course, far more than just White Colt noticed this.

Almost everyone - still online at this time - focused their attention on this new player with sharp techniques and unstoppable momentum!

And at this point, after two more challenges, "Yi"'s points had reached 82644, ranking 29th!

Late at night, not many were online. Only a dozen or so of the 50 people on the leaderboard had green lights lit after their IDs. And these online people were basically all attracted by the commotion caused by He Yan, joining the huge spectator team.

The original 27th place obviously also noticed "Yi" challenging the high rankers on the leaderboard. He was very vigilant from the start and tried his best, even performing better than usual with high concentration! But even so, he still lost the match after 20 minutes.

On the Imperial Mecha Forum, a post titled "818 Tonight's Leaderboard Purgatory, Come Place Your Bets, How High Can the Mysterious Newbie Climb?" quickly gained over a dozen pages.

While netizens were eagerly gossiping and sighing, the name "Yi" was still slowly climbing up the leaderboard.

The higher up the leaderboard, the greater the gap between each rank. From 20th up, they were almost all monsters. He Yan also felt a bit strained after fighting this far. His understanding and mastery of mechas was not very thorough. Perhaps he could still crush those of ordinary level, but in a short time, there was still a certain gap with the top mecha piloting level in this world.

After another two hours, narrowly defeating the 15th place, the name "Yi" had appeared at the 13th position on the leaderboard. He Yan checked the time, it was already 2 AM. Continuing to fight was meaningless at this point. He still had classes tomorrow, so it was about time to log off.

Just as he was about to "Confirm Exit" under the system prompt, a dialog box abruptly popped up:

[Crimson Bone invites you to enter room [1V1 Single Battle], accept invitation?]

The number one on the leaderboard?

He Yan only hesitated for two seconds before clicking accept.

Although he would likely lose 80% against this person with his current skill, he was unwilling to give up the chance to face off against the number one expert on the leaderboard.

It turned out He Yan's premonition was accurate. He not only lost, but lost very quickly. In just three minutes, his energy cabin was cleanly pierced by "Crimson Bone".

Even though they were using the same mecha model, under the control of "Crimson Bone", that mecha performed as if its performance had been forcibly upgraded, simply not on the same level as his.

What a terrifying person.

Looking at the dark red words "Failure" in front of him, He Yan sighed silently, ended the battle, and seeing that "Crimson Bone" had not left the room yet, he thought for a moment and typed a line in the room chat box: "You are very good."

It took a full two minutes for a response.

"Crimson Bone": Mm.

He Yan: ".................." The masters really all have personality!

["Crimson Bone" requests to add you as a friend, do you agree?]

He Yan clicked "Agree", and took the opportunity to type in the private chat box that popped up: "Good night master, I'm going to sleep."

Then, after receiving another aloof "Mm" from the other party, he directly exited the room and went offline to sleep.

On the other end, not long after he went offline, "Crimson Bone" also followed and went offline.

The man took off the holographic helmet and casually threw it on the ground. The floor was covered with a soft white fur carpet, and the small helmet rolled around on it a couple times before finally lying alone by the corner of the table.

"Yi"?

The man had exquisite and handsome features, originally very charming looks, but the gloomy and impatient expression between his brows ruined this perfect appearance, and his complexion was also a bit sickly pale. Lying on the incomparably soft big bed, he inexplicably thought of that newbie he had just impulsively abused.

Who knows how long passed, after experiencing countless sleepless late nights, the man finally peacefully entered dreamland on this night.

Author's Note: Your Majesty: After beating up the wife, had a good sleep, feels great.

In order to release the gong lord, I gritted my teeth and wrote over 4000 words, my liver hurts... Ying ying ying

My body has been hollowed out! Can't act cute today!

Kicks legs and collapses _(:з」∠)_