Chapter 82 — A New Goal!

Last updated: 2013-05-07

When Soldier found Tang Tang again and saw how crisp and clean his movements were, he was rather surprised—there was no telling this kid was a first-timer.

He gave no sign of it, only cleared his throat lightly. "All right, kid. Stop."

Tang Tang stopped dead.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Uncle Soldier, you had something this good and you kept it hidden? That's just mean! This is amazing! I'm telling you, I could take down a fifth-rank expert right now!" Tang Tang's excited voice came ringing out from inside the saber-toothed tiger.

"Fifth-rank? You call that an expert?" Soldier snorted.

Reluctantly, Tang Tang opened the saber-toothed tiger and climbed out. He gazed at Soldier with naked longing. "Uncle Soldier, could you give me this saber-toothed tiger?"

"No problem." Soldier waved a hand generously. "Everything in here is yours."

"All mine..." Tang Tang stood as though struck by lightning, staring blankly around him—like a little white rabbit suddenly discovering that carrots were raining from the sky.

"Come now, don't be so hopeless. A few outdated old relics, and you lose all your composure." Soldier's brows—thick as though painted on—twitched and jumped, comical beyond words.

"Outdated? Nonsense! The saber-toothed tiger is fiercer than any of those bronze secret treasures!" Tang Tang clearly disagreed, and retorted at the top of his voice.

"Then how did we lose back in the day?" Soldier spread both hands. "I lived through that defeat. I know better than you."

Tang Tang choked on his words, but he still refused to believe it. "A mechanism this powerful could absolutely beat plenty of bronze-rank secret treasures!"

Soldier sighed. "It really is outdated. Believe me. You only think it's amazing now because you've seen too little. Take the saber-toothed tiger—you think it's strong, but let me tell you: once real combat begins, a single fifth-rank star stone can sustain it for only half an hour."

"Half an hour?" Tang Tang was dumbstruck.

"Do you know what half an hour buys you in a war? One charge!" Soldier held up a finger. "And then you have to crawl out of that bronze can. You can't even swap out the star stone, because it needs twelve hours to cool down before it can go into battle again. It's no match for the peacock blue you carry—and you haven't even begun to tap that secret-treasure armor's potential. But the most terrifying part isn't any of that."

"Then what is it?" Tang Tang asked instinctively.

"Dependence. Too many people lean on it far too much, and have no wish to improve themselves." Soldier's face turned grave, a rare sight. "Tang Tang, you must remember this: no matter how powerful a secret treasure or martial armor may be, it is never as useful as your own strength. Your fists, your true force, your martial skill, your body—those are what you can trust most. Even with no secret treasure and no weapon, you can still fight on stubbornly! Do not lose yourself in outside power, no matter how strong it is! At any time, the most fundamental path is to raise your own strength."

Tang Tang looked at Soldier strangely. "Isn't that obvious?"

Soldier's expression froze. He pretended he had not heard, and went on of his own accord. "Of course, drawing out a weapon's full might is a quality every qualified warrior must possess. When I said the saber-toothed tiger is inferior to the peacock blue, I was not talking nonsense. It is because the peacock blue has a martial soul, and the saber-toothed tiger does not. A clever weapon is far finer than a merely powerful one. Still, I know very little about secret treasures; it takes time for an old relic like me to understand these things. But what I can tell you is this: do not walk our old road—the road already proven wrong, no matter how powerful it looks today."

"Hey, Uncle." Tang Tang cut off Soldier's torrent of words.

"Hm?"

"You said all of this is mine?" Tang Tang gestured with his fingers.

"That's right. Why?" Soldier was a little puzzled.

In an instant Tang Tang's brows and eyes were wreathed in smiles, and he rushed into the mechanisms, touching this one and that, while Yaya did not quite understand but hopped and bounced along after him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, all mine! Haha! This is the best!"

"Bronze army! Charge, charge, charge!"

"A godlike youth, with godlike mechanisms!"

Tang Tang's ecstatic cheers kept bursting out from amid the pile of mechanisms.

"All right, let's go take over this base," Soldier said, somewhat helplessly.

"Yes, yes!" Tang Tang immediately ran over, eyes shining. Taking over a Southern Cross Legion base—wow, he would be grinning in his sleep!

With a helpless look, Soldier led Tang Tang to the emblem. "Here. Press your palm on it."

Tang Tang said oh, and pressed his palm down.

The cross mark on his palm suddenly blazed, and a thread of light sank from his palm into the emblem.

Boom, boom, boom!

The ground shuddered, and a ring of light rose around Tang Tang, wrapping him within it.

Just as expected...

Soldier showed nothing on his face, but curiosity had stirred in him. Just who were Tang Tang's parents? What connection did they have to the Southern Cross Legion?

When the light faded, Tang Tang asked uncertainly, "That's it?"

"What did you expect?" Soldier rolled his eyes. "All right, let's go. We're heading back. I found the soul core and the jade soul steel—lucky the warehouse still had some stock."

"We're going back already?" Tang Tang's eyes went wide, and he was unwilling to accept it. "Then let me take one saber-toothed tiger out with me."

"Can your Aquarius martial cabinet hold it?" Soldier glanced at him.

"No..." Tang Tang grew even more unwilling. "I could wear it and walk out!"

"And then get chopped down and robbed?" Soldier sneered. "This is no bronze mechanical ostrich. If you dare wear that out, someone will absolutely dare kill you and take the mechanism. Don't count on me—I'm only an instructor, and my fighting is very ordinary."

Tang Tang's face was full of displeasure, but he knew Soldier was right. Even the bronze mechanical ostrich had drawn a pack of rich idlers. With a saber-toothed tiger, he probably could not even get off that street.

Tang Tang felt terribly aggrieved, as though: wow, a huge pie has fallen from the sky; wow, it smells so good; wow, how satisfying; wow... I can't eat it.

Like a magician, Soldier produced a box from somewhere and pushed it toward Tang Tang.

"What's this?" Tang Tang asked, still sulking.

"Oh, cleared out the traps all over, collected from the corpses. Plenty of people have broken in over the years." Soldier spoke lightly. "A few of the kids who followed us also passed on—pity they had nothing good on them. There's too much to go through; you'll have to sort it yourself. Put it in your Aquarius martial cabinet."

Call it an unexpected delight, Tang Tang consoled himself—but he did not open it.

His mind was still on the saber-toothed tiger. He had fallen hard for those mechanisms.

"Let's go." Soldier drifted ahead first.

Tang Tang followed behind.

"Hey, Uncle, did you finally give in and draw yourself a face..."

"..."

***

By the time the two of them made it back to Sailei's shop, the card shop that had been a wreck was neat and orderly once more.

The three pandas—black, white, and piebald—worked away diligently like three good children. Dressed in work clothes and dust caps, they clattered and banged without pause, not even bothering to look up at Tang Tang.

The scene struck Tang Tang as indescribably strange. He could not help asking, "Sailei, what did you do to them?"

At those words, the three pandas, working for all they were worth, all shuddered at once.

Sailei likewise did not look up. "Did you bring the soul core and the jade soul steel?"

"Brought them." Soldier handed the soul core and jade soul steel to Sailei.