Chapter 299: Qualification to be a Lone Wolf

"As expected of the champion of the Void Cup—with such strength, you're more than qualified to be our deputy leader. Even with such a numerical advantage, we were still overwhelmed by your attack. I apologize for doubting your abilities."

In the end, it was Ye Tianlang who stepped up as the team leaders' representative. Gone was the pride from his voice; it had been replaced by awe and admiration. If nothing else, the fact that he had spared them a loss of life and dignity was worthy of respect. If they had been victorious, they certainly wouldn't have treated him in like manner.

The troops, who weren't privy to the details of Zhang Lie's strength but had gleaned a little understanding of it during the battle, were all staring gobsmacked at him. After all, they hadn't expected their team leaders to lose, especially not five against one. Few of them were at the level where they could appreciate the strength of Zhang Lie's last technique.

Ye Tianlang strode forward. "Listen up, Team Five! From now on, Zhang Lie's our deputy leader. His commands are my commands! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Team Leader Ye, Deputy Leader Zhang!" his troops chorused.

"Ah, there's no need for such formalities. Let's just treat each other as friends, shall we?" Zhang Lie's face revealed none of the domineering aura that had pervaded his techniques, but the more polite he was, the more worried the other team leaders seemed to become. Following Ye Tianlang's lead, they immediately had their subordinates greet Zhang Lie as Deputy Leader Zhang.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

From that day onwards, the troops would have a new, legendary deputy leader: Zhang Lie!

After resolving this internal conflict, Zhou Liao led Zhang Lie into the barracks.

"Troop Leader Zhou, if you're busy, please feel free to tend to your affairs. I've more or less familiarized myself with the barracks by now, and I'll be fine alone."

"It's no problem at all. After all, you're our new deputy leader, and you're more important than anything else on my agenda."

The two of them chatted as they walked to Zhang Lie's new residential unit, which Zhang Lie had picked out for himself. He was very pleased with it. The furnishing was understated but functional and well-made. More importantly, there were a rare few rays of sunlight, a luxury in the largely underground barracks.

The moment the two of them sat down, Zhou Liao jumped back up, suddenly seeming to recall something. "Ah, that's right!"

He turned to Zhang Lie. "You need your own team members! As a deputy troop leader, you should have a team in your own right. Just you wait. They're in the middle of selecting new recruits for the special forces now, so I'll have them add nine new slots to the roster. The governor's intention is to double the size of the special forces this year."

Zhang Lie seemed shocked. "Team members?"

"Of course! As the deputy troop leader, surely you need some troops of your own," Zhou Liao responded.

"No, no, I'm quite alright! Just my Team Zenith and the Zenith Dojo are troublesome enough to manage, let alone new recruits!" From Zhang Lie's perspective, fostering new recruits would be a demanding and unrewarding task.

"What? Surely not, Deputy Leader Zhang—even you shouldn't be trying to hunt alone! Don't look down on these recruits. They're some of the strongest hunters in Qi, in the second realm!"

Zhou Liao was really quite surprised by Zhang Lie's refusal. After all, in ordinary circumstances, the other team leaders would badger him asking for more people; on the other hand, Zhang Lie was refusing the recruits that Zhou Liao was promising him.

"Troop Leader Zhou, I really am grateful for your consideration, but I won't have a need for them. I expect the other members of Team Zenith to make their way over to the second realm within the next three months. At that point, I'll have them all come over to Qi, and that'll be my team."

Zhou Liao's eyes widened.

"Team Zenith, the one whose hunters all made it to the top twenty? Who took second and third place in the Void Cup? No, wait—how will they be able to ensure that they come to Qi? The will of the world chooses the starting location in the second realm randomly!"

Zhou Liao was certainly well aware of Team Zenith, the members of which had made a name for themselves during the Void Cup. He had even considered leaving them a few spots in the special forces troops once they advanced to the second realm, but as he had mentioned, the starting location in the second realm was chosen randomly, and there was no guarantee they would start in Qi.

Furthermore, if they were sent to some other city, it would be difficult to make their way over. The route from city to city wasn't all that easy to traverse, and the city to which they were sent would hardly let them go so easily. After all, considering Zhang Lie's strength, the hunters of Team Zenith would likely be eagerly sought after by the governors of the various cities.

"Don't worry. I'll be able to gather them here without fail!"

Zhang Lie's response shocked Zhou Liao. Just how on Earth did Zhang Lie plan on achieving such a feat? To be quite honest, Zhou Liao simply couldn't understand Zhang Lie at all. Whenever he felt that he had gained some measure of understanding, Zhang Lie would reveal one bombshell after another.

Zhou Liao suddenly frowned. If Zhang Lie really could control where hunters from the first realm ended up...

Before he could speak, however, Zhang Lie interrupted his train of thought. "Troop Leader Zhou, I'm able to direct the members of Team Zenith to where I want them to go, but this method likely won't work for anyone else."

Zhou Liao sighed, then raised another objection. "Deputy Leader Zhang, there are only seven of you in Team Zenith, aren't there? Our policy is to have at least nine members in a team, so won't you consider adding two more recruits?"

Zhang Lie wasn't very willing to do so, but from the look in Zhou Liao's eyes, he would badger Zhang Lie to no end if Zhang Lie refused.

"Very well, but I want final say over these two new members."

Zhou Liao beamed. "Of course! If they want to join your team, they'll surely need your approval first."

He left the room whistling, and Zhang Lie finally had the time to draft out a development plan for the second realm. He had already begun planning for it the moment he regressed, but his unexpected advancement meant that some changes would be necessary.

He had three main objectives in the second realm.

The first objective was to acquire an asura thorn in preparation for the research and development of a peak-grade limit-breaking potion. This was something he had begun doing the moment he managed to kill the disaster-grade lifeform in the first realm, and the asura thorn was one of the most likely ingredients he would need for the potion. This thorn was something that all members of the sura race had on their right elbow, and it served as the mechanism by which the sura were able to consume the lifeforce of other lifeforms.

An asura was an ascended form of the sura, one so rare that perhaps only one out of tens of millions of sura would ever succeed at the ascension. The asura prized their thorns as much as their very lives, and for Zhang Lie to acquire such an ingredient for his research would be a challenging endeavor indeed.

The second objective was to weaken the sura race as much as he could, to prevent the occurrence of the disgusting human-furnace experiments that the sura race would conduct in the future.

The second objective wasn't as shocking as the first, but it would require far more of his energy and time. After all, strengthening the entirety of the human race wasn't something that could be done in a flash, and it would require careful planning and groundwork on his part.

Finally, his last objective was to cap his peak gene fragments in the second realm and to develop the corresponding peak limit fragments. No ordinary hunter would be able to conceive of such a feat. Indeed, most hunters in the second realm wouldn't even have heard of peak-grade lifeforms, and even fewer would be able to obtain peak gene fragments.

Of course, these weren't objectives he would have to worry about just yet. What was most pressing for him was to go out hunting and acquiring enough basic, mutated, and superior gene fragments from the second realm to give him the ability to venture out hunting on his own.

It was common wisdom for human hunters not to strike out on their own in the second realm, but Zhang Lie recalled a member of the sura race who had been famous for being a lone wolf, which suggested that Zhang Lie would be able to do the same once he reached a certain level of strength.