TI Vol 18 Chapter 14-1

Zheng was not a really reliable leader. More precisely, he was not the type of person to lead a group, the type who couldn’t put down the weight on their hands, who couldn’t forgo mercy. Too many desires restrained his arms and legs so he often dwelled on minor details over the macro level. These people couldn’t become reliable leaders.

Xuan on the other hand was the perfect leader, intelligent and logical to an extreme. He always acted with interest as the core, never wavered his mind for anything, not even when it came to sacrifices. This kind of leader would guarantee the team obtained the best interest possible.

Yet, was actuality the same as expected?

“It’s unfortunate but this is how team China becomes without Zheng.” ChengXiao said to LiuYu and pointed over the remaining people in the team.

Since the main mission was to live in this world for thirty days, the team decided to head to a city. They might as well chose somewhere with better living conditions.

Everyone was a little neurotic for the first few days in fear of falling into a dream world again. The experience left them with hate and fear of that world despite those awake had already overcome their weaknesses. Thinking over such possibility made them shiver.

The good news was the dream world never appeared again. Dreams were blurred as they had in the past and mostly forgotten as soon as they opened their eyes.

No one went wild on having fun after the anxiety wore off. There were a lot of things to deal with such as figuring out the use of the 5000 points and rank B reward, how to revive Zheng as soon as possible, and how to to wake up the sleeping members. These members were core combat strengths of the team. Losing them would kick team China out of the top teams. So they couldn’t let these members die nor remain asleep indefinitely.

“The best method is to raise another psyche force user and then use Soul Link to bring our minds into their dreams. It will not help them overcome themselves, but will help them wake up. However, this has problems of its own.” Xuan muttered as he looked at the papers on hand.

“Is it dangerous?” WangXia asked.

“No.” Xuan shook his head. “Dangers definitely exist but there’s only a 20% chance. We don’t have to worry too much about dangers. The first problem is obtaining a psyche force user and then spending points to enhance them. It will take at least four movies to complete this step. Before that happens, we will probably enter another team battle.”

“Team battle?” Heng took over. “Does that mean the team battle will be difficult with all the people asleep?”

Xuan glanced over him. “No. What I mean is it’s waste.”

“Waste?” Everyone said simultaneously.

Xuan continued, “Because our team doesn’t need two psyche force users. Enhancements would repeat. Although it will put us on equal grounds when battling team Devil but the case would be both teams are blinded from the masks. In the end, it will become a face to face fight which is disadvantageous to us. What we need isn’t to split the strength of the psyche force user but to focus enhancement on one person. Give her the power for overwhelming advantage for a short period of time. My clone is on team Devil after all.”

(Humans are not food or things. How could he describe it as a waste.)

Despite knowing the correctness behind what Xuan had said, his emotionless tone blew a chilling wind into their hearts. It felt uncomfortable and rather terrible imagining a teammate being considered a waste.

“So…” Xuan continued without regard for the others. “I won’t raise another psyche force user. If Lan doesn’t wake up by the next team battle, we will capture the other team and force their psyche force user to serve us, until Soul Link wakes our team up. Our strategy will revolve around this in the next team battle.”

Heng interrupted, “Can we really take on another team with so many people asleep? With God’s rating of us…”

Xuan shook his head and said, “It isn’t an issue anymore. When Zheng died, our rating fell by a lot. He’s the one with the most potential who survived so far since entering this realm. God will definitely drop our rating. My question is how much have you grown after overcoming your weakness?”

Heng halted and couldn’t find any word. He didn’t know how to describe his strength at this stage. He became more experienced in using the four arrow Explosive Shot and the elven bloodline energy but he didn’t gain another enhancement nor made a breakthrough.

“We can basically assume people with the biggest gaps in their hearts exert the smallest fraction of their actual strength. This becomes more apparent during critical moments. Like people with anxiety tend to fail exams that they are good at. However, when these people overcome their weaknesses, they can often exert two hundred percent of their strength or even more. I name these people as emotional miracles. Rare but not non-existent.”

Xuan’s tone remained indifferent. “You, Zheng, and Gando are such people. ChengXiao counts as half. Due to the gaps in your heart, you and Zheng could only use a fraction of your strength. I think the you right now is three to four times stronger than before. Similarly for Zheng, he will be the only force we have to rival team Devil. If we can not easily win the next team battle, we will never be able to win against team Devil.”

(Don’t know why you are saying this, but your strength is also insane.)

The rest of the team laughed bitterly. No one could think of Xuan as a strategist type support member after the dream. In fact, they almost believed that Xuan’s strength had grown past Zheng to take the first place in the team.

Zero asked, “How do you know that Zheng has overcome himself? Did he have to kill himself to get through this movie? What if Freddy chose someone who has died once already? Wouldn’t this movie have no solution then?”

Xuan said, “The answer is simple. Do you have the strength to live on? This strength isn’t only pure physical force but also your will, intelligence, knowledge and items. To make an analogy, if Freddy pulls me into the dream, I can easily gain control over the dream and kill him even if I were to have the same desire of living on. I can wake up without dying by having control over Freddy. This is the same as how a psyche force user from the outside can wake up those asleep.

“If Freddy attacked Luo YingLong from team Celestial, a Xiuzhen item that counters the heart’s devil will straight up kill him. Get it? This is the strength to live on. If your strength isn’t strong enough for this movie, you will die like Zheng. Any movie will become unbeatable without sufficient strength. And with enough strength, even the most difficult movies are free points. The only fault with Zheng is he was too weak.”

Everyone left Xuan’s room feeling uneasy even though Xuan was still talking the same way he used to be and thinking with the team’s interest in mind.

WangXia said, “A lead who puts too much into feelings and a strategist with no feelings… Perhaps only when they complement each other will team China become a whole.”