In a remotely located villa, a young man in white sat at a desk, flipping through information on a Light Brain screen.
His shoulder-length blond hair was tucked behind his ears, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses rested on his bridge. His posture was elegant and poised, and to his right sat a glossy white porcelain cup filled with steaming coffee.
On the far left of the room, two Nutritional Pods lay horizontally, their solid silver-gray bodies gleaming with a high-end texture. The indicator light on one of them glowed green, clearly indicating it was in use.
Not long after, the light on the Nutritional Pod suddenly flashed yellow, and the hatch immediately opened. A blond-haired, blue-eyed boy climbed out from inside.
The boy had a head of curly blond hair, and his fair, delicate face still retained a hint of baby fat. He looked to be only twelve or thirteen years old. At this moment, his small face was taut, as if he were deep in thought.
Hearing the commotion, the young man at the desk turned his head casually for a glance before retracting his gaze.
"Finished so early today?" he asked offhandedly.
Hearing this, the blond boy looked up and said in a deep voice, "I played five matches, won four, and the last one..."
He paused, then slowly spat out two words: "Lost."
The young man's hands paused in their movement. He turned his head to look at him, a flash of surprise crossing his icy blue eyes as he asked, "You lost?"
The blond boy's face darkened, but he still nodded.
Seeing this expression on him, the young man was slightly surprised: "Could the one who defeated you be the person ranked first on the combat power leaderboard?"
You must know that although the blond boy was not a professional Mecha Vanguard, he had inherited his father's aptitude and possessed extremely strong mecha talent. Aside from those freakish monsters in the Federation's seven major military academies, almost rarely could anyone defeat him. Now, to actually lose to someone from such a remote planet, it couldn't help but arouse a hint of interest in the person who had defeated the boy.
"No," the blond boy shook his head, biting his lip as he said, "It was a Star Soul Master."
The young man raised an eyebrow: "A Star Soul Master? Could it be Rank 3 or above?"
With that, he took a closer look at the boy and dismissed the thought himself: "No, Star Soul Masters of Rank 3 or above from lower planets should all have gone to medium and higher planets. Besides, if someone of Rank 3 or above really had defeated you, you wouldn't have that expression right now."
The corners of his thin lips curved into a faint arc as he said, "The opponent was a Rank 1 Star Soul Master?"
The blond boy nodded, then let out a cold snort.
A hint of a smile appeared on the young man's handsome face: "Was the opponent's skill very powerful, or did you slip up for a moment?"
"I didn't slip up," the blond boy said with an annoyed expression. "His skill is very unique."
With that, he furrowed his brows and began recalling the scene from back then.
"I'm sure I hit him, but he wasn't eliminated. The powered armor provided by the Arena couldn't possibly block the power of so many special bullets of mine, and I saw him release a skill toward that Mecha Vanguard. It didn't look like an increase in strength or speed."
Hearing this, a bit more seriousness entered the young man's eyes. He said, "According to what you've described, this is a support Star Soul Master, but the skill shouldn't be of the buffing type; otherwise, he would have used the skill right at the start."
He asked, "What did the opponent's Star Soul look like?"
The blond boy: "He didn't release his Star Soul."
The young man was somewhat surprised, though not too astonished. He asked again, "How did you lose?"
Mentioning this, the blond boy's expression instantly turned gloomy: "At the time, my body along with the mecha I was controlling suddenly couldn't move, and then I was hit by several shells from the opponent and my engine was destroyed, and so I lost."
The boy's voice carried a sense of stifled frustration. Back then, watching the shells fly toward him while being unable to control the mecha to dodge, that feeling was truly too agonizing!
"Couldn't move?" The young man frowned. "Did you record the battle process?"
"...No." He had assumed that match wouldn't be any different from the previous ones—he'd win anyway, so how could he possibly have gone out of his way to record it?
The boy's answer was within the young man's expectations. The latter pondered for a moment and asked, "Was there any special feeling or difference at the time?"
The blond boy carefully described the scene back then: "...It seemed like I suddenly heard some music, very soft and vanishing in a flash. At first I thought I was hearing things, but right after that, I couldn't move."
After listening carefully to the boy's narration and falling silent for a few seconds, the young man spoke: "It's a control skill."
The blond boy instinctively retorted, "Impossible. Skills like that are completely useless, with an extremely low success rate. Skills that actually achieve a control effect don't even exist in reality."
"Other than that, there is no other explanation," the young man said calmly. "And just because it didn't exist before doesn't mean it doesn't exist now. Have you forgotten the Hua Family's Entanglement skill?"
The blond boy was taken aback, opening his mouth to say, "...But this is different, too. Entanglement binds people's actions through plants to achieve a control effect, but can't you avoid it as long as you cut those plants down in time?"
The young man raised his eyes to look at him: "Therefore, that still cannot be considered a true control skill. A true control skill is one where once it hits, it cannot be removed during the skill's duration."
"The situation you described fits this point precisely."
The blond boy was stunned, unable to speak for a long time.
The young man's pair of icy blue eyes became incomparably deep: "A'yao, I suspect that the Star Soul Master you encountered very likely possesses a true control skill. Even if not, its skill effect is already infinitely close to it."
The blond boy snapped back to his senses abruptly: "You're right! Even if it's not a true control skill, this skill has immense utility. We must hurry and find him to bring him back to the Capital Planet!"
Having said that, he immediately tapped open a page on his Light Brain, his fingers hovering over the virtual keyboard, ready to operate.
Seeing this, the young man said helplessly, "The opponent hid his Star Soul; you probably won't be able to find anything out."
With that, he watched as the blond boy regretfully closed all the messy pop-up pages, the contents of which were all over the place and entirely about control skills: "So annoying, it's all just junk information."
The young man smiled: "No need to rush. Let's solve the mission we came here for first."
He picked up the coffee, which had grown lukewarm, took a slow and deliberate sip, and then set the cup down. The eyes hidden behind his lenses narrowed slightly.
"Since the person appeared in the Arena, it won't be hard to find him. After all, given how unique his skill is, anyone who battles him will notice..."
...
Around eleven in the morning, Gu Qian finished his final matching match and was teleported out of the arena amidst his teammate's suddenly enlightened gaze.
Standing alone in the preparation area, watching the score column on the Light Brain screen turn into the number 6, he couldn't help letting out a deep breath.
After calming his emotions, he quickly checked the interface in his mind.
After a hasty glance at his character attributes, his focus locked onto the skill attributes section.
Skill Attributes —
Long Song Xing: Passive skill. After taking damage, the enemy's attack speed is halved for five seconds, and self-recovers half of the remaining health. Refreshes every 6 hours.
Si Wuxie: Healing skill. Each release can restore the health of a designated target (including the character) within 10 meters of the character, healing any non-fatal damage.
Hujia Music: Attack skill. Each time, sound waves are emitted toward a designated location. Hit targets take a certain amount of magic damage and suffer a 2-second stun effect. The sound waves bounce off each other around the hit targets up to six times, with a maximum of twice on the same target (the second time has only 50% skill effectiveness).
Not seeing any new skills appear, Gu Qian wasn't discouraged, because during the battle process he had vaguely sensed that his skills had changed.
He carefully examined the descriptive information following the skills. The control skill Hujia Music remained the same as before, but the first two skills had changed.
To his pleasant surprise, the cooldown refresh time for the passive skill Long Song Xing had been halved, while the casting range of the healing skill Si Wuxie had expanded by a full fold!
It seemed that using skills in battle to a certain extent could allow the skills to level up!
This is simply fantastic!
Gu Qian rejoiced inwardly.