NOVEL WEB Chapter 155 - Training Exercise 3
As their starship gradually approached Liva Star, Mai Dongzi first observed that this planet not only had white clouds but also black clouds, with flashes of lightning visible within the black clouds.
This clearly indicated that rain was coming, which put Mai Dongzi’s mind at ease; the presence of clouds and rain suggested that this planet was still considered a life-supporting planet.
As the starship got even closer, Mai Dongzi noticed that the planet wasn’t devoid of vegetation; rather, it had relatively few plants, with small green patches scattered across the orange surface.
“There are quite a few plant zones on the planet’s surface,” Zhuang Huaiya said, looking at Mai Dongzi.
The other first-year students from the Phantom Team looked at Mai Dongzi with eager eyes, and at this moment, everyone finally “remembered” that their captain was a mid-level level three wood-type ability user.
“You don’t need to be so worried and anxious. The school must have assessed our abilities to send us here for training, ensuring we can survive for a month on our own,” Mai Dongzi said.
Everyone understood this reasoning. The Moonlight Team member and Durant, who had gone through this once before, remained calm. The other members of the Phantom Team were just inexperienced and felt somewhat uneasy.
Hearing their captain say this eased some of their anxiety; after all, their captain had experienced a live-stream game during her generation.
Mai Dongzi turned to look at the planet outside the window again. What she didn’t say was that, theoretically, they could survive a month with their abilities, but it would certainly be very difficult, and it also depended on the luck of the team.
The Moonlight Team member had only briefly looked over the information about this planet and didn’t know the details.
Generally, life-supporting planets would have space stations built in their outer orbit, and anyone landing on the life-supporting planet would have to take landing ships from the space station to enter the planet.
This could prevent microorganisms like bacteria and viruses from spreading between planets during the transit from one life-supporting planet to another, thus avoiding potentially deadly consequences.
When their starship approached the outer orbit of Liva Star, they saw a dilapidated space station clearly abandoned, with no staff or landing ships inside.
Under such circumstances, they could not land on Liva Star via the space station.
It was evident that the Imperial Capital University was well-prepared; the starship they were on was equipped with more than a dozen landing ships, sufficient to transport all of them to Liva Star.
The twenty or so student teams randomly entered the landing ships and were dropped onto the surface, with no supplies whatsoever.
Not that it was entirely true that they had no supplies; the students who had the opportunity to bring supplies had brought their own. The school had even provided each person with a compact gun to keep at their waist, allowing them to defend themselves in case of a life-threatening situation.
However, once they used any supplies they had brought, it would mean they had been eliminated from the game.
Before they were about to set off, the vice principal, who was the overall supervisor of the group training competition, came out to speak. He briefly introduced the current situation of the planet and then said:
“The greatest crisis this planet currently faces is the excessive number of exotic beasts. In your scoring criteria, the points for killing exotic beasts will account for half of your total score. As for the rest, you will receive detailed information.”
“The indigenous people of this planet, those with proper identification, have already been relocated by the Blue-Black Empire. What remains on the planet are either unidentified or unwilling to leave indigenous people, and they are not friendly toward outsiders. You should also be cautious and try to avoid contact,” the vice principal continued.
Mai Dongzi glanced at the more than forty instructors standing behind the vice principal. It seemed that each team had two instructors for protection.
Most of the instructors were seventh-level practitioners, with only four at the eighth level. Mai Dongzi spotted Instructor Shan from the Command Department among them.
Most of the more than forty instructors were unfamiliar faces, and Mai Dongzi estimated that many of them had been transferred from other places.
After all, not only did they need instructors to supervise here, but students from other parts of the Imperial Capital University also required more instructors for supervision during their training.
Mai Dongzi guessed that the instructors on this starship were likely among the higher-ranked practitioners at the university. After all, this group of students was an elite team from Imperial Capital University and should not be taken lightly.
Before they were thrown out of the landing ship, Mai Dongzi had already observed that the wind on the planet’s surface was very strong.
However, the other members of the Phantom Team had not noticed this or considered the issue. When the instructors instructed them to prepare to jump, they could only rely on her, so Mai Dongzi didn’t say anything.
Some lessons need to be learned through experience.
As soon as they jumped out of the landing ship, they felt the strong wind—not the air friction generated by their descent, but the wind from the planet’s surface.
The force of the wind not only slowed their descent but also blew them off their original trajectory.
Originally, they had jumped one after the other, so they wouldn’t land too far apart, but the wind caused their distances to increase.
In mid-air, before they had even opened their air parachutes, they felt the power of the wind and could hardly imagine in which direction they would be blown once they did deploy their parachutes.
Mai Dongzi felt that all the team members were desperately looking at her, and it seemed they had already realized how dangerous their unprepared actions were before jumping.
Scattered personnel on an unfamiliar planet can be very dangerous, especially with no communication signals, making it difficult to regroup.
Once it was clear that everyone understood the mistake they had made, Mai Dongzi took action and used her mental power to “pull” everyone back to her side.
Although they were only first and second-year students, they still had a basic awareness of safety. Just as they were worrying about what to do if they got separated, they suddenly found themselves “flying” back together against their will.
Everyone understood that their captain had used her powers to bring them together, and they quickly reached out to tightly grasp the hands of their teammates beside them.
Under Mai Dongzi’s direction, they only opened four air parachutes. As expected, once the parachutes opened, they swayed in the wind like floating duckweed, bouncing up and down. If it weren’t for their strong physical fitness, they might have gotten dizzy from the movement.
Fortunately, they were holding onto their teammates tightly and formed a circle.
Although the wind was strong, it came in bursts; while the strong gusts would blow them around, during the calmer moments, they would descend. Thus, overall, they were slowly coming down.
However, as the wind continued to blow, the terrain beneath them changed from hilly areas to a water surface.
In mid-air, they could see that the water area was likely a narrow, elongated lake, so nobody was worried; after all, who among them wasn’t a strong swimmer? A lake of this size was no big deal.
Only Mai Dongzi, who had used her mental power to probe the water’s bottom, knew that beneath the seemingly calm surface was a swarm of palm-sized mutated fish.