The Silly Prince Successfully Cancels the Engagement, But the Fiancée is His Childhood Sweetheart - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The Trough

Bai Qing was not in good spirits. After getting out of the suspension car, walking a straight line was difficult. He hung his head, drowsy.

Ye Sheng got out of the car and caught up to him, repeatedly wanting to speak but hesitating. Finally, as Bai Qing was about to stumble for the nth time, he finally asked, “Did you stay up all night yesterday?”

Bai Qing struggled to open his eyes and answered somewhat sluggishly, “Not exactly all night, just four hours later than usual.”

Ye Sheng: “…”

As far as he knew, Bai Qing’s routine was so regular it was inhuman. And Bai Qing didn’t usually go to bed early either; he was precisely on his bed by eleven every night.

“You only slept at dawn? Were you training that late?”

Bai Qing nodded slightly.

He couldn’t help but recall last night’s situation.

When his mental power connected with Artemis, the entire process was incredibly smooth and easy, and the various fusion values were very high. The final comprehensive score actually reached 85%.

For a first-time pilot of a completely unfamiliar mecha, this number was somewhat terrifyingly high.

Normally, a comprehensive score of 60% is considered a good fit between a mecha pilot and the mecha; reaching over 70% is already quite rare and allows the mecha’s full practical combat power to be utilized. The higher the score, the harder it is to improve, but every point gained multiplies the mecha’s combat power, enabling the development of unique combat strategies. The Empire’s Chief General, Qin Fengyi, has a comprehensive fusion score of 95% with his mecha, Ares, and the power he exerts on the battlefield is terrifying, making him the Empire’s foremost weapon.

Being able to achieve an 85% fusion score immediately upon contact with Artemis was surprising even to Bai Qing. Moreover, Artemis’s operating range was very short. The entire control panel was perfectly suspended at the closest position when his two arms were naturally folded.

This meant that even if Bai Qing needed to operate the furthest key, he would only need to slightly lift his hand.

This significantly saved Bai Qing’s physical strength.

It was as if this mecha was born for him.

As a result, Bai Qing didn’t even feel fatigued until Bai Jingfeng came to remind him to rest at dawn. Only then did Bai Qing realize how late it had gotten without him noticing.

However, in just those few hours, Bai Qing had already sparred with several famous mecha pilots of the Eternal Empire. —He gained a lot, even though he didn’t score any ‘sweet deals’ (i.e., didn’t win easily).

Bai Qing snapped back to reality, meeting Ye Sheng’s concerned gaze, and softly said, “Pretty much, it was a simulation battle.”

Ye Sheng was surprised, “Simulation battle, did your grandpa get you something good again?”

Bai Qing pressed his temples, “Not exactly. I was just a bit lucky and was selected for the test pilot/debugger position for Artemis.”

“Artemis!” Ye Sheng exclaimed.

The War God Bloodline series are the military’s top-tier mechas. The only two existing units, Ares and Apollo, have both performed outstandingly on the battlefield, and the pilots of these two mechas are all among the Empire’s top talents. However, Ares already has its exclusive pilot, General Qin Fengyi, and Apollo, due to its extremely terrifying destructive power and extremely high operational difficulty, has few people who can truly utilize its strength.

Therefore, everyone was eagerly awaiting the debut of a mecha with both extremely high destructive power and convenient operation.

This made Artemis, still in its infancy, highly anticipated.

Ye Sheng gave Bai Qing a huge thumbs up, “You’re awesome.”

As the test pilot/debugger for the highly anticipated Artemis, he would inevitably be subjected to all sorts of assessments and comparisons. The competing pilots would certainly be a crowd of strong individuals, and the fact that Bai Qing could stand out among so many experts must be due to his outstanding ability. Because of such a strict qualification review and screening, even if Bai Qing had built Artemis himself, it wouldn’t matter; there were no shortcuts or backdoors.

Bai Qing thought his body could handle it, but continuously piloting a mecha at high intensity for seven or eight hours is an incredibly taxing drain on mental power. With Ye Sheng chattering in his ear, his head felt even dizzier, and he didn’t want to engage.

Why was an Alpha so talkative?

Ye Sheng kept nagging: “How can you be so careless with your own body?” “Even though the Mecha Battle Competition is coming up soon, you’ll wear yourself out if you keep over-consuming your body like this.” “Be careful of the principle of diminishing returns.”

Bai Qing was extremely sleepy. Amidst Ye Sheng’s nagging, the two got out of the car and walked into the classroom. All he wanted was to escape from Ye Sheng, the chatterbox. He didn’t look closely, simply picked an empty seat next to someone and sat down, hoping to catch a quick nap before class started.

Therefore, he didn’t notice Ye Sheng’s ‘I’ve seen a ghost’ expression.

The bell rang, and Bai Qing immediately sat up straight. His eyes were only sore, the corners slightly red, and his lake-blue eyes looked a little unfocused, but thankfully he concentrated and was able to follow the lecture.

He held out for ten minutes, all the while feeling a very hot gaze fixed intently on him from the side. Bai Qing initially wanted to ignore the gaze, but its presence was too strong to be overlooked.

He slightly turned his head and immediately saw Xiang Zhuo turning his head away, avoiding his gaze.

Bai Qing: “…” What a bother.

Bai Qing numbly turned his attention back and continued to attend class calmly.

But Xiang Zhuo was not calm.

He hadn’t been calm since the moment Bai Qing sat down next to him.

Why are his eyes so red?

Xiang Zhuo lowered his voice and asked, “Did you cry?”

The professor at the podium was explaining key material, and Bai Qing managed to divide his attention, his attitude frigid: “What?”

Xiang Zhuo observed Bai Qing’s profile, thinking that his attitude yesterday was indeed a little nasty, and the words of rejection he used were a bit harsh. It was reasonable for this greenhouse Venus flytrap, who had never experienced setbacks, to be in a bad mood after being spoken to severely.

Xiang Zhuo’s simple brain processed the complicated information, and finally outputted a result— Xiang Zhuo silently passed a tissue to Bai Qing.

Bai Qing was baffled. He took the tissue, crumpled it up, and casually tossed it into the trash can.

Xiang Zhuo raised an eyebrow: “…” Quite a temper.

Bai Qing had no idea what Xiang Zhuo was trying to achieve and decided to stop wasting words on him, choosing to listen carefully to the lecture. He figured he could just smash Xiang Zhuo’s head in during the Mecha Battle Competition to shut him up.

…

In class today, Bai Qing had a flash of inspiration and thought of a combat strategy.

After fighting against very excellent mecha pilots yesterday, he realized just how far behind he still was.

His combat awareness was insufficient, his physical fitness was insufficient, and his practical combat experience was too little. Even with SSS+ mental power, it could only be the icing on the cake, never the saving grace in a desperate situation.

Among these three fatal flaws, the easiest to address was physical fitness.

Since his physical fitness was lacking, and a war of attrition would definitely not favor him, he could fight a short-range, fast-attack style, dealing the maximum output in the shortest time, to a degree that the opponent has no defense against.

However, while he was executing a fast attack, his own physical strength and mental power would also be greatly consumed, including his concentration and reaction speed.

A high-burst combat style could indeed help him achieve victory in a short time, but there was a fatal flaw on the battlefield: if the opponent was very difficult to handle, and he failed to resolve the opponent during his high-burst damage output phase, he would be very fatigued after exhausting his physical and mental power, falling into a passive position with no possibility of turning the tables.

What he needed to do was avoid this latter situation.

After having the inspiration, Bai Qing couldn’t wait to enter the cockpit of Artemis, filtering opponents. The advantage of a massive database was evident here; he could customize an opponent for himself based on his needs, characteristics, and the areas he wanted to strengthen.

Throughout the vast combat history of the Empire, mecha pilots were, without exception, either Alphas or physically outstanding Betas. There was no precedent for an Omega serving as a mecha pilot. Therefore, Bai Qing’s fast-attack strategy had no existing case studies to reference.

Bai Qing failed repeatedly in the simulation battles, re-entering the fight after each failure, summarizing the shortcomings of the previous battle. Without exception, if he was strong, the opponent would also be strong. When he unleashed his full firepower, the opponent would also go all out for defense and counter-attack.

His opponents had excellent physical fitness and robust physiques, and their high-burst output duration was far longer than his.

The entire night, Bai Qing did not win a single round.

He suffered thirteen consecutive devastating defeats—not only losing miserably but losing quickly.

Bai Qing’s face was icy cold.

Where exactly was the problem?

If it weren’t for Yu Xin waking up in the middle of the night and finding the underground training room lights still on, forcibly stopping Bai Qing’s training and compelling him to rest, Bai Qing would likely have stayed up all night, refusing to quit until he won a single match.