area51novel Chapter 166 Play it safe, survive
Chapter 166 Play it safe, survive
No, we can't risk going underground. From the very beginning, I had a bad feeling. Although the sense of danger from underground wasn't as strong as from coming from the sky, since I could analyze the potential problems, I couldn't afford to take any chances.
Staying here is not a wise choice, so I need to break out, and I need to break out from the ground directly, which is obviously difficult to do.
I cannot blindly break out; I must choose a direction with a smaller area around the stone pillars. I do not believe that the academy's purpose in setting up this opening assessment was to test the students' survival time in dire situations. The academy's purpose must be to test the students' composure and self-rescue capabilities in dire circumstances.
This means there must be a way to survive. Even if my chances of survival are reduced, there must still be a way to survive.
But what methods should I use to detect it? Direct detection won't work, large stealth soul-guided reconnaissance drones are useless here, stealth reconnaissance vehicles are too slow, and wasp-type soul-guided reconnaissance drones have too short a range.
Thinking this, Long You began to rummage through his storage soul tool. As a soul master, the completeness of the supplies in his personal combat equipment inventory is a very important indicator of his overall skill level.
Knowing that there would be an entrance exam, Long You had filled his online equipment warehouse (which was actually a storage soul tool) to the brim early on. When existing finished soul tools could not play the expected role, soul tool masters needed to have the ability to create them on the spot based on the situation.
Now Longyou is preparing to modify its Guangming Baitie land reconnaissance vehicle.
If I can't fly high, I can at least glide close to the ground. During this time, in order to build floating fortresses, Long You created a lot of anti-gravity soul guidance array patches on the Panlong Realm line (inscribing the upgraded anti-gravity soul guidance array onto suitable rare metal plates).
Now, all Longyou needs to do is attach this anti-gravity soul-guided magic array patch to the center of the tracks of the Guangmingbai Ironland reconnaissance vehicle (the bottom armor space between the two tracks, which does not affect the operation of the tracks), and the Guangmingbai Ironland reconnaissance vehicle can hover and glide along the ground like an anti-gravity soul-guided skateboard.
(Long You also made changes to the anti-gravity soul guidance array and the propulsion soul guidance device of the flight soul guidance device. Now, as long as these two modified soul guidance arrays are engraved on rare metal plates and the two rare metal plates are pasted together, Long You can obtain the new type of engine soul guidance device he wants.)
After its journey across the far northern ice fields, Longyou upgraded and modified the Guangming Baitie land reconnaissance vehicle once again, increasing its effective communication range to fifty kilometers.
This communication range is sufficient for the current situation. If the coverage area of the Stone Pillar Forest exceeds sixty kilometers (there is also a ten-kilometer detection range of the soul guide device), then Long You will not plan to break through from that direction, as the soul power reserves are simply insufficient.
It took five minutes to modify the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle and put it into silent, stealthy operation. After that, Long You gathered a little energy and fired the energy-gathering soul cannon on his chest, blasting away all the pointed monsters in front of him and clearing a path for the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle.
The path blasted open was quickly filled with other pointed magical beasts, and Long You didn't waste any more soul power using the Focused Soul Cannon. Long You was now monitoring the situation of the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle. He needed to confirm whether the pointed magical beasts living in the giant stone pillars would reappear and launch an attack, even though they couldn't see or hear them.
The modified Guangmingbai Railway land reconnaissance vehicle, when pushed to its maximum speed, can reach 300 kilometers per hour. One minute later, the Guangmingbai Railway land reconnaissance vehicle had already traveled five kilometers, far beyond the current combat zone.
According to the detection feedback from the soul-guided probe, there has been no reaction from the stone pillars near the reconnaissance vehicle so far. In other words, as long as they don't make any noise or reveal themselves, the pointed monsters living in the stone pillars will not be alerted and thus won't gather to attack.
Two minutes later, the land reconnaissance vehicle left the detection range of the soul-guided device. Still no pointed-headed magical beast appeared. While Long You breathed a sigh of relief, a hint of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.
Something's definitely not right! Even though I wasn't invisible when I entered, there was no movement at all! I was immediately surrounded. I don't believe it's just bad luck.
However, now is not the time to dwell on these things. Hopefully, the reconnaissance vehicle can quickly find the nearest escape route. The commotion here is getting bigger and bigger, attracting more and more sharp-headed monsters. If it attracts even stronger individuals, or even double the number of ordinary individuals, I'll have a hard time dealing with them.
Five minutes later, Longyou received feedback from the Bright Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle. It had arrived at the outermost edge of the Stone Pillar Forest directly in front of Longyou, and the detection soul guide showed that there was no obvious danger outside the Stone Pillar Forest.
35 kilometers, that's a manageable distance. If the Sharp-Headed Monster doesn't leave its habitat to track me, I should be able to break through successfully.
However, there is still time. The reconnaissance vehicles should circle the outer perimeter to find the shortest possible escape route.
Three minutes later, the Guangming Railway land reconnaissance vehicle brought back a closer direction for Longyou to break through, requiring only 28 kilometers.
This time, Long You didn't hesitate and immediately packed his things to break through the encirclement. Although the soul-guided power mech was tall, it moved very quietly. As long as Long You didn't use high-burst attacks with his soul-guided devices, he believed that he wouldn't attract too many new sharp-headed monsters during his movement.
Long You's confidence stemmed partly from the cooperation of the pointed-headed magical beasts. Perhaps because their actions were guided by sound, these pointed-headed magical beasts were completely silent in both movement and combat.
If it weren't for Long You, the sound source creator, the entire stone forest would probably be a pseudo-silent zone with only the sound of wind.
The pointed-headed monsters' defenses were indeed quite weak; even with only the silent soul-guided rays, they advanced at a considerable speed. Considering the limited number of soul-guided rays, Long You also took out his level-five melee soul-guided weapon, the Blazing Blade.
Long You controlled the Soul Guiding Rays, while Byrne controlled the Blazing Blade. Whenever the Sharp-Headed Monster was hit by these two Soul Guiding Devices, the wounds were always charred black, without a trace of blood.
Equipped with anti-gravity soul-guiding patches, the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle left the Stone Pillar Forest area in just over ten minutes. However, Long You's side, while advancing and fighting, still faced numerous difficulties, even though, as he had anticipated, they hadn't attracted many new sharp-headed magical beasts.
Twenty minutes later, Long You completely left the original battlefield and arrived at a new area of stone pillar forest.
At this point, the number of pointed monsters surrounding Long You had decreased from over a thousand to just over a hundred. Still a considerable number, but Long You could advance faster. By calculating the attack angles correctly, Long You could easily find openings to quickly break through.
Long You has long since figured out the characteristics of the Sharp-Headed Monster. This thing is not suitable for prolonged combat; getting out of the battle as soon as possible is the right thing to do.
An hour later, Long You, gliding close to the ground, quietly landed beside the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle, which was parked at the edge of the Stone Pillar Forest. About thirteen minutes earlier, Long You had completely escaped the clutches of the last sharp-headed monster and entered silent racing mode.
The soul-guided power mech was significantly heavier and larger, so Long You's top speed couldn't reach 300 kilometers per hour. However, it didn't matter; after 103 minutes in this survival assessment space, Long You entered a (temporary) safe zone.
After putting away the Bright White Iron Land Reconnaissance Vehicle, Long You began to move along the original route of the vehicle, heading directly in front of where it had first appeared in this space.
However, during his movement, Long You was extremely careful to control the sound of his movements and his location. He didn't step out of the stone pillar forest and didn't make a sound at all.
Although he had escaped the attack of the sharp-headed monster, Long You had not forgotten that this place was a survival assessment space. The seemingly harmless desert and Gobi surrounding the stone pillar forest might actually be dangerous if he were to actually go there.
After spending more than ten minutes arriving at the edge of the stone pillar forest directly in front of them, Long You began to build a defensive fortress for himself.
Along the way, Long You had also carefully scanned the Gobi Desert strata outside the Stone Pillar Forest using his Earth-detecting Soul Guidance Device. There were no gaps or cavities; it was just a perfectly normal Gobi Desert landscape.
Having grasped this point, although not entirely certain, Long You still concluded that the danger in the Gobi Desert region did not originate underground. Therefore, Long You planned to build an invisible, soundproof fortress at the junction of the stone pillar forest and the Gobi Desert.
The vast, flat Gobi Desert presented a perilous challenge; if the danger didn't originate underground, it was highly likely to come from the sky. Facing a massive attack from birds of prey on the plains was a prospect too tempting for Long You to contemplate.
However, simply hiding inside the stone pillar forest won't work. When the birds approach this stone pillar forest, they certainly won't remain quiet. At that time, the entire stone pillar forest may "boil" up, and it's not impossible for those sharp-headed monsters to swarm out.
At that time, if Long You had hidden in the stone pillar forest, even if he had remained invisible and made no move, he would have inevitably been encountered and attacked.
Long You didn't want to try such a foolish way to end the assessment, so he started building a fortress for himself. He built the fortress, equipped with a regional invisibility soul tool, on the edge of the stone pillar forest, so that even if the alerted sharp-headed magical beasts bumped into it, they wouldn't care much.
(The key is the enemies in the air. As long as they aren't hit from all directions and their invisibility effect is directly negated, there shouldn't be any problems.)
Of course, Long You wouldn't neglect intelligence gathering while building the fortress. Large stealthy soul-guided reconnaissance drones had already taken to the skies, so if there were any aerial attacks, Long You could be informed in advance and also look for new safe spots in the Gobi Desert.
Things calmed down in Longyou's area; it was time to check on the other Shrek Academy students. Nearly two hours had passed since the assessment began, and many students had already been eliminated.
Although some of the eliminated students were from the Martial Soul system and others from the Soul Guidance system, the elimination rate for the Martial Soul system was far higher than that for the Soul Guidance system.
Perhaps the elimination rate was slightly higher at the very beginning of the assessment for the Soul Guidance Department, but as long as the students in the Soul Guidance Department survived the initial period and did not exhaust their stored soul power, they would not be eliminated so easily.
Conversely, most students in the Martial Soul Department do not have the habit of carrying a baby bottle soul tool with them. However, even if they did, it wouldn't be very useful, since it would be difficult for a Soul Master who hasn't awakened their Martial Soul consciousness to absorb the soul power from the baby bottle while simultaneously unleashing their soul skills.
Therefore, if students of the Martial Soul system cannot quickly find a place to rest and catch their breath after the assessment begins, it will be difficult for them to fight continuously for a long time relying solely on their own soul power reserves.
The perspective shifts to Huo Yuhao's assessment space. Compared to Long You's targeted start, Huo Yuhao's start was very stable. His luck wasn't great; he encountered a swamp world.
At first glance, the entire space looks just like a grassland, but a little exploration reveals that beneath the grass lies silt that could bury a person.
Although Huo Yuhao received normal treatment, he was placed directly on the swamp upon entering the space. Fortunately, the Ultimate Ice Martial Soul was no joke; even if Huo Yuhao didn't have time to take out the anti-gravity soul guide skateboard or equip himself with a flying soul guide device, the Ice Emperor could easily freeze a small section of the swamp, providing Huo Yuhao with a place to land.
However, Huo Yuhao then faced a real challenge: the swamp contained earth dragons that devoured people without spitting out their bones, while the surface of the swamp was teeming with tens of thousands of bloodthirsty demonic mosquitoes.
Huo Yuhao's face immediately turned bitter. As a level 20+ Great Soul Master, he had neither area-of-effect soul skills nor many usable area-of-effect soul tools. After all, area-of-effect attacks consume a lot of soul power, and low-level soul masters and soul guides couldn't afford to consume it even with healing items (low-level healing items are only soul tool equipment that you can bring into the soul guide system; Huo Yuhao simply couldn't make high-level healing items at the moment).
In the end, Huo Yuhao overcame the crisis thanks to the Ice Emperor's abilities. It's a given that magical beasts living in swamps are not resistant to cold; as long as Huo Yuhao released sufficient extreme icy energy around him, the attacks from the earth dragon and the bloodthirsty mosquitoes would be significantly slowed down.
This gave Huo Yuhao the opportunity to build a defensive fortress and construct a powerful ice-attribute soul tool best suited for his own use. It was precisely because of this that Huo Yuhao, as a second-year student, was able to persist for so long during this survival assessment.
Song and the chubby fire-type guy had already been eliminated an hour ago.