It is said that when Tianluo novices first enter the Luo Hall and see the Tianluo Ranking, eight or nine out of ten will ask:
Aren't we assassins? Shouldn't assassins be hiding in cellars below dry wells or in remote mountain caves? How can we have a Luo Hall in the bustling downtown area and even publicly display a ranking list?
This reflects the common misconception about Tianluo and Ground Network from outsiders: they think Tianluo are all assassins and killers, and Ground Network are all intelligence peddlers, doing shady business.
In reality, just as Ground Network's overt business is 'logistics and transportation,' Tianluo's overt business is also 'military contracting,' which naturally involves legitimate security work, such as cargo escort, quelling riots, or criminal eradication, and so on. They never take on shady jobs like assassinating targets or destroying evidence.
Of course, during the eradication of criminals, if they happen to encounter and kill an attacking bystander, that's unavoidable.
Nevertheless, the Tianluo Department still submits records to the Six Doors and the Three Judicial Offices after the fact.
Therefore, external rumors that 'Tianluo assassins killed so-and-so again' are completely unfounded—there may have been such incidents, but they are entirely unrelated to their actual business and are purely accidental occurrences during operations.
All military contracting tasks undertaken by Tianluo are legal and approved. The official title for this profession is 'military security personnel,' not the popularly rumored 'assassin,' and this distinction must be made clear.
Currently, the top-ranked security personnel on the Tianluo list is codenamed 'Xiao Nan.'
In fact, most of the Tianluo members have never seen 'Xiao Nan.' As the saying goes, 'though she is not present in the martial world, her legend pervades it.'
The only widely circulated information is that 'Xiao Nan' can only be seen at the annual Tianluo meeting. Allegedly, she is a mature and alluring lady.
Of course, to attend the Tianluo annual meeting, one must be ranked at least in the top fifty, so the veracity of this information is questionable.
However, Su Zizhong, ranked seventh on the Tianluo list and known as the 'Viper Hand,' knows that the top-ranked individual is indeed a young woman in her twenties.
To be precise, she is the current emperor's legitimate daughter, Princess Sima Xingnan of Nankang.
"Your Highness, the brain domain development machine you requested has been adjusted." Su Zizhong respectfully ushered everyone into the hall.
His nephew, the bald tattooed man who had previously made an inappropriate remark, quickly turned on the machine's screen and eagerly displayed the configured parameters to everyone.
"Good." Princess Nankang inspected the parameters and nodded in satisfaction. "Well done. Does your neck still hurt?"
"No, it doesn't hurt." The man kept nodding and bowing, his head almost falling off from the damaged connection as he fawned, "Thank you, Your Highness, for sparing my life. I'm just a fool and am extremely grateful for Your Highness's kindness."
"Good." Princess Nankang pondered for a moment, then turned to Su Zizhong and said, "I brought my younger siblings this time, intending to train them in the brain domain development environment. But since we happened to meet you... how about letting you, the seventh on the Tianluo Ranking, teach them a few tricks?"
If someone else made this request, they would certainly be severely reprimanded by Su Zizhong.
After all, everyone has their own tactical style and habits. Asking him to participate in brain domain development is essentially exposing his own information for no good reason, isn't it?
However, when it comes to this princess, it's a different matter.
Su Zizhong was well aware that his limited skills were hardly worth the princess's attention. So, he promptly and sensibly said:
"That's true. If it's a rookie with no practical experience, given your high level, Your Highness, it might indeed be beyond their grasp to learn directly from you. Since you don't mind, Your Highness, I'll serve as a sparring partner for everyone."
Su Zizhong's nephew, a tattooed bald man, was also laughing foolishly behind him. He vaguely guessed that this princess was not assured about his parameter settings, which was why he changed his mind and did not enter the brain domain development environment, instead watching from outside.
However, he hadn't dared to do anything underhanded anyway, so he just continued to smile obsequiously, praying silently in his heart that after this matter, the princess would soon forget about him as an insignificant nobody.
Thus, Su Zizhong, Cheng Jinyang, and others took the medicine, then sat in the brain domain development machines to begin linking their consciousness.
Princess Nankang walked to the control panel, pulled out an external data cable from her wrist, and uploaded the databases corresponding to abilities such as gravity manipulation, mass effect, and metal manipulation to the server.
Then, she opened the command window and started inputting code skillfully.
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The so-called brain domain development refers to the use of methods such as drugs, electric currents, and imaging to read a person's brainwaves and establish mappings in a server, creating a so-called 'virtual environment.'
Through this virtual environment, one can engage in practical training or adjust their own thinking and consciousness, continuously optimizing their combat effectiveness through rotation.
This time, Princess Nankang set up the environment in an abandoned unfinished building.
The training objective for Cheng Jinyang and others is to kill Su Zizhong here—or be killed by him, that's all.
After the battle, Her Highness the Princess will come to review and debrief.
The four cautiously entered the lobby through the lower entrance, only to see cracked concrete pillars everywhere, with exposed steel bars in many places.
"Since we're refreshing at the bottom, the opponent might be refreshing at the top," Xing Yuanzhi analyzed. "To reach the top, we must pass through the only two stairwells in the building."
"So, you mean the opponent is likely ambushing at the staircases?" Cheng Jinyang asked.
"Exactly," Xing Yuanzhi said. "So, regarding the staircases..."
"Be careful!" Before she could finish her sentence, Chu Qingqing exclaimed, her hands moving downward.
From the exposed concrete layers around them, steel bars rapidly melted and flowed out, swiftly forming walls to block the incoming gunfire.
However, before the walls could fully erect, a large number of bullets had already shot in from outside the windows, directly killing Miss Wang who was caught off guard at the edge.
"Wanrou!" Seeing Miss Wang dissipate by his side, Cheng Jinyang was shocked and furious again.
Okay, he admits that he was more angry about being ambushed than surprised and shocked.
After all, with Miss Wang's physical abilities, even if she hadn't been killed by the ambush, it would have been easy for her to be ambushed, sniped, or even shot in the hand by the enemy during their retreat.
Wang Wanrou was the first to be eliminated, then she respawned in a control room outside the arena.
On the front wall hangs a holographic screen, displaying the routes and real-time positions of both sides inside the building, as well as the tactics they are taking.
From the route trajectory, she saw that Su Zizhong did indeed respawn on the rooftop, but as soon as he entered, he immediately used some climbing equipment, swiftly sliding down along the exterior pipeline and landing by the ground floor window. Thus, with lightning speed, he launched a surprise assault on the unsuspecting crowd.
"This is the first lesson in practical training," Princess Nankang's voice rang in her ears, "The essence of military strategy lies in four simple words, 'attack when unprepared'."