Chapter 871: Cooperation (I)

The Black Armor looked at Li Hao after a while. “Do you truly wish to take some of them with you?”

The young man swallowed hard.

Can I say not anymore? I was just throwing an idea out there, but I feel like those puppets will smack me to death if I say no now. And didn’t you already turn me down? Why are you asking me again? Just keep putting your foot down and forbid them from heading outside!

“You just had to rile them up,” the Black Armor said faintly upon seeing Li Hao remain quiet. “Here, take two of them with you and come back after taking a turn outside. Don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t.” He looked at the assembled puppets. “Two, and no more. It will be zero if you guys keep complaining!”

Li Hao was considering the dean’s words when large collisions and explosions rang out!

More than one hundred puppets were abruptly locked in a pitched melee. Many of them were thrown out of the crowd. One of them smashed into the ground at Li Hao’s feet and wailed with despair, “I can’t go out anymore!”

Li Hao gaped at the puppet. And what the heck was this?

“They’re selecting their candidates,” the Black Armor said calmly.

Damn, is this how they choose their people? They fight at the drop of a hat and there’s no room for ambiguity in their actions!

Rumble!

Crashes continued to sound as nearly one hundred puppets flew out of the fray. They crashed heavily to the ground, splitting the earth apart. Li Hao stared with a dropped jaw!

There were only a dozen puppets left in the field after a short interval. To the young man’s immense surprise, four of them were robot cats. Were they stronger than the rest?

“These cat puppets are fashioned out of better materials. The other puppets were created at random back in the day, but the principal himself crafted the cat puppets,” the Black Armor said faintly.

I see!

BAM!

The four cat puppets joined forces amid Li Hao’s astonished eyes. They threw out the other eight, leaving only the cat puppets in the center. Just as Li Hao thought that a massive battle was about to erupt, the four cat puppets raised their paws for... rock paper scissors!

Li Hao blinked. Four cat puppets cycled through a flurry of rocks, scissors, and papers before two of them dejectedly walked off ten seconds later. The remaining two popped up in front of the young man, highly excited.

Li Hao looked at the pile of fallen puppets around them, then at the two victors. Was one of them... the one who’d hit him? He couldn’t make a clear identification because they all looked the same. The brawl earlier had been a confusing mess, so he wasn’t sure who was who.

“Are the two of you sure that you want to head out?”

“Yes!” The two cat puppets were resolute. Of course! They were almost out of their minds with boredom here!

The Black Armor sighed and glanced at Li Hao. “Do as you see fit. You’ll be in a lot of trouble if anything happens! You just had to create trouble for yourself!”

Li Hao was equally resigned

. I want to turn them down, but if I do so now, will I be able to walk out of Evenround Martial?

“Stay with him after you guys leave and don’t run off!” The Black Armor turned back to his students. “Although the void may not cut into you since you are puppets, it is hard to say for certain. I will be unable to help you if someone captures and dismantles you!

“Also, mind your tongues when you leave and don’t spout nonsense. Exercise caution, the human heart is hard to measure!

“Finally, do not brashly take action. Don’t fight just because this guy wants you to. Gain a complete understanding of the situation first. He is of the new era and you two are of New Martial, do you understand?”

“We do!”

Li Hao wanted to roll his eyes, but could accept the words of admonishment since the Black Armor delivered them openly. The young man was still adjusting to his change in circumstances when the two robot cats grabbed his arms and marched off with him.

“C’mon, let’s go, you should be more efficient in your affairs,” one of them said urgently.

“......” Li Hao didn’t know what to say.

I should be more efficient? Who are you kidding? And why do you sound like the one who hit me earlier?

The young man quickly vanished from the ruins, ‘escorted’ by his seniors from school.

“Don’t create any trouble for me...” sighed the Black Armor after they left. “They really... don’t know the meaning of danger. Does Li Hao know that Evenround Martial University is filled with troublemakers? They won’t be easy to keep in line.”

I didn’t want you to take anyone with you out of consideration for your own good. These guys are here because they wouldn’t be accepted anywhere else. Do you think there’s a lack of premier martial universities on the main world, that Demonic Martial and Capital Martial are just for show? Why are they here? Because they’re out of sight, out of mind for their families!

But here you come, wanting to take them out. You’re in for it if they die, even if all that’s left of them now is a puppet.

“It’s good to suffer some,” the Black Armor suddenly laughed. “It’s best if he doesn’t dare come again!”

It was enormously irritating that the kid came here whenever he had nothing better to do. Hopefully, he wouldn’t come anymore after getting off worse for the wear in this exchange. That would be for the best.

......

Outside the ruins.

The two robot cats propped up Li Hao and peered around curiously, soon finding the surroundings uncomfortable.

“Energy is very sparse in the environment, alright,” one of them said uneasily.

“That’s right, it’s agonizing.”

“You’re dead, what are you agonizing over?”

“You’re dead too!”

“......” The two cats bickered back and forth to the point in which Li Hao could barely tell them apart. Truth be told, he couldn’t do that to begin with.

“Ahem... ladies!”

“We are your seniors at school!”

Smack smack!

Each of them swung a paw at Li Hao. He hastily dodged out of the way, but was still struck on the head. That was surprising.

“Ah... how should I call the two seniors?” They had to have a name...

“I’m Jiang Yingli!”

“I’m Li Shengzhang!”

“......” Li Hao stopped in his tracks. What were these weird names? They were just a combination of surnames! “Seniors, um...”

“Um what?”

He couldn’t tell which was which.

“My family surname is Jiang,” one of them said scornfully. “My name is Jiang Yingli, my father is called Jiang Yueli. My family is from Tranquil Star and my ancestors were one of the many kings of the town. The Li in our names has nothing to do with your family. It refers to another.”

Li Hao’s jaw dropped. These names... were certainly casual. ‘Ying’ was the same pronunciation for the character of ‘victory’, and ‘yue’ the same pronunciation as ‘surpass’. This Jiang family wanted to triumph over this other Li family so badly that they named their family members for that act!

“My surname of Li is also a different Li from your family,” said Li Shengzhang. “I am one of the Lis that her family wishes to defeat, but my family can’t be bothered fighting them. My ancestor is also from Tranquil Star and one of my family elders was an exalted emperor!”

“......” Li Hao was speechless.

Your family couldn’t be bothered with the Jiangs, but they sure as hell didn’t like the Zhang family. Your character of ‘sheng’ is the same pronunciation as ‘victor’, so you guys wanted to be the winner over this Zhang family!

“My ancestors were focused on taking down another exalted emperor, the one from the Zhangs...”

Li Hao wanted to hold his face. Did these ancient parents all choose names in such a haphazard manner, and both of these cats had exalted emperors in their families? Having once witnessed the might of that kind of personage, the young man’s heart still pounded when he thought of it. These two would be typical young masters in their times, ones that no one would dare say no to.

As for which one he’d touched before, he couldn’t determine that anymore. They were pretty much the same! They came with incredible backgrounds, just that it was no longer the New Martial era, so any sort of status was useless now.

“Of the Lis... wasn’t it my family’s ancestor who was the strongest?” Li Hao suddenly asked. How come the first one’s name didn’t reference surpassing his ancestor?

One of the robot cats looked at him and answered after a beat, “What are you talking about? Of course it’s my Tranquil Star Lis who was the strongest among our surname. Your family can count as number two, and that’s only because the second exalted emperor in my family couldn’t be bothered with rankings...”

Damn, two exalted emperors in one family? What about the Jiangs?

“Is that true?” Li Hao looked at the other robot cat. “The Tranquil Star Lis were number one?”

“...pretty much!” Jiang Yingli didn’t want to admit to it.

“What do you mean, pretty much?” Li Shengzhang retorted. “Besides, your ancestor was my ancestor’s foster son!”

“That was so many years ago!”

“And still true!” The two started bickering again, giving Li Hao a headache. What happened to them being very quiet before? They started arguing when he simply asked their names.

“Oh, right, I almost forgot,” Jiang Yingli said before Li Hao had a chance to interrupt. “Who says your family is the number one Lis? What about the exalted emperor from Capital Martial?”

“He’s not stronger than my family’s ancestor!” Li Shengzhang huffed.

“That was before, who knew later on?” With that, battle was rejoined.

Li Hao sighed to himself as he listened to them argue.

My ancestor seems to have done very poorly for himself. He wasn’t number one of the Lis and might not have been number two either. He was possibly number three at most.

How tragic! No wonder General Pagoda and the others had looked wordlessly up at the sky when I asked them if my ancestor could rank in the top ten of the ancient civilization.

“We should get back to my people first,” he quickly halted the argument. “Ah, was Tranquil Star a sacred land in the ancient civilization?”

“Of course!”

“The thirteen families of Tranquil Star... later twelve families, were all very strong! They each had more than one exalted emperor in their ranks. It was the Chen and Shen families that started New Martial. The Li family always held down the fort in the center, whereas the Jiang family was just there for show.”

“Pfft, your family was there for show! The Jiangs were crucial!”

“Wasn’t it the Human King who established New Martial?” Li Hao was completely confused by what he heard.

“No, it was the Shen and Chen families who started it, then Supreme Zhang outside Tranquil Star who held up New Martial for many years, and finally the Human King.”

Li Hao understood now. So that was the case! As it turned out, the Human King wasn’t the first batch of powerhouses to establish New Martial. He’d read about some of the others in books before, but they were described so clearly. Everything was clear now.