Chapter 126: Chapter 4: Opening i
Translator: 549690339
Outside the college gates.
Dozens of large hover cars neatly parked.
Under the maintenance of Intelligent Law Enforcement Puppets, 120 students from the four grades of Southern District’s Storm Sea New Bloods were the first to leave the college.
They got onto four separate hover cars according to their grades.
Following that, the local apprentices from Northern District orderly exited the college and boarded the hover cars, each taking their own seat.
There was not a single official wizard present.
The order on the scene was wholly monitored by the Intelligent Management Center’s Main Tower Spirit, through the Intelligent Law Enforcement Puppets. After a short while, all the competitors had boarded the cars.
The hover cars then began to move, one after the other.
Dozens of driver-less hover cars followed the predetermined route, heading towards the only inter-dimensional teleportation portal publicly known in the Ravensmouth Special District.
Why it is said to be the only one known is because Ravensmouth College has more than one inter-dimensional teleportation portal!
Approximately half an hour’s drive later.
They reach the destination, with the dozens of hover cars properly parked.
With fewer people from the Southern District, they planned for the Storm Sea New Bloods to act first.
The senior batch got off the cars first, entering an inter-dimensional teleportation portal standing bare atop a wide square, seemingly without any defenses.
There were no special light effects.
The Storm Sea New Bloods walked into the teleportation portal one by one, without causing any ripples.
Soon, the third grade, second grade, and everyone else entered the portal, and it was the turn of the first grade.
Under the prompt of the Intelligent Puppets, the new bloods entered in order of their comprehensive rank from the three exams.
Lanny Taylor was the first to walk into the teleportation portal, her figure disappearing instantaneously.
Link followed closely behind, carrying a large, heavy bag and stepped inside.
After entering, the intense feeling of time and space being torn was overwhelming, causing his eyes to instinctively shut tight.
Link felt as if he was wrapped in a stream of water, protecting his entire body.
Thus, the ripping sensation of time and space didn’t have much of an impact on his body or senses.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, it could’ve been a second, or it could’ve been a lot longer.
Link felt that what he was stepping on was no longer the hard flat ground.
Instead, it was uneven mud covered in layers of dead leaves.
He opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of a forest.
The forest was very desolate. At first glance, Link felt it was like an oil-burned lamp, an old man on his last legs.
Putting aside the somewhat strange feeling, Link prepared his defenses and surveyed his surroundings.
The forest was not big, with an area of about 6.07 acres.
Dry branches and leaves were scattered all over the ground, and many broken dry tree trunks had fallen.
A few steps away from Link, there was a small package, the size of a palm, with the Ravensmouth College’s emblem embroidered on the surface.
Link took off his heavy big bag, and took out four reconnaissance puppets which resembled Intelligent Law Enforcement Puppets from it, and placed them on the ground.
He placed two standard first-level magic stones in each puppet and activated them.
After a faint humming noise, the reconnaissance puppets took off from the ground, flying in different directions to guard.
Thanks to the wealth given by Witch Serene as a consolation, Link upgraded his equipment right before the mid-term exams.
These four reconnaissance puppets were all first ring magic tools. He spent nearly three-quarters of his wealth to obtain them.
Aside from these, his big bag also contained many rune objects with various functions, and three major weapons.
The more good items, the better, right?
Considering his own safety, Link had additionally bought a major weapon that supposedly had a chance to kill a first-level wizard.
Soon, the feedback from the reconnaissance puppets was passed to Link through his bone conduction earpiece.
Only when he confirmed there were no hidden dangers around him did Link walk forward to pick up the small bag.
Upon opening it, there were only two items inside — a wristwatch and a folded note.
Link unfolded the note. Written on it were:
Main Quest 1: Choose Your Faction (Your actions will determine your faction. Think and act wisely.)
Main Quest 2: Faction Confrontation (Whatever the enemy plans to do, you have to destroy it.)
Main Quest 3: Save the world or destroy it (Depending on your faction.)
Side Quest 1: Investigate the truth behind this world’s decline (You may choose to do it or not. Decide according to the situation.)
Side Quest 2: Draw a map of this world.
Side Quest 3: Collect and analyze the composition of water samples.
Side Quest 4: Collect and analyze soil samples.
Side Quest 5: Make specimens of various plants.
Side Quest 6: Make specimens of various animals.
Side Quest 7: Find sustainable development strategies for this world.
All together there are three main quests and seven side quests.
After reading the note, Link fell into deep thought.
From the few clues provided so far, it seems this inter-district competition holds a deeper meaning!
After folding the note and putting it back into his bag, he took out the wristwatch to look at its functionalities.
After thoroughly experimenting, Link didn’t know whether to complain or not.
The wristwatch’s functionalities were simple, just three:
First, communication. It had three modes: public, faction, and private channels.
In public channel mode, one could send one message limited to ten characters a day for everyone to see.
In faction channel mode, one could send two messages limited to ten characters a day for all faction members to see.
In private channel mode, one could send three personal messages limited to ten characters a day for the intended recipient to see.
Secondly, positioning. After agreeing to bind by searching names, you can locate each other’s position once a day.
Thirdly, personal journey data. The meaning of which is self-explanatory.
The functionalities of the wristwatch were useful, but the college was indeed stingy!
Sending one, two, three messages a day was understandable.
But each message is limited to only ten characters, what’s the deal with that?
Are they testing sentence composition skills, or trying to test the mutual understanding between the two parties?
Regardless of whether he chose to complain or not, Link put the small bag into the big one and hoisted the bigger bag onto his back.
Setting the scouting puppet to companion alert mode, Link did not intend to stay in this place for long and was preparing to leave.
But before leaving, there was one task to be completed.
The resonating words of Witch Ayla were still echoing in his ears:
The danger of acting alone is far greater than acting in a team;
The first thing to do after confirming your safety is to find your teammates!
Link input Jasmine Kidman’s name into the positioning function of his wristwatch.
Each day, one could only locate one person, and naturally, Jasmine, who was the most trusted, was his first choice.
He just hoped Jasmine would be safe, find her own packet as quickly as possible.
Soon, his wristwatch responded, Jasmine agreed to link each other.
Carefully choosing his words, Link typed concise information—Location mutual lookout danger alert—without any punctuation marks.
After waiting for a little while, his wristwatch received a response: Okay, no worry, temporarily safe, next to river, blocked by dangerous beast, thinking. Link glanced at it and immediately translated to the specific meaning: Okay, don’t worry, temporarily safe, I’m by the river, being blocked by dangerous wild beast, figuring a way to get through.
Damn college handling affairs mercilessly!
Link complained in a low voice and sent a mutual location request.
Jasmine agreed just as soon.
Two arrow-shaped light spots immediately appeared on his wristwatch. However, they only flickered for less than 5 seconds and disappeared at once. Fortunately, Link remembered the positions of the two light spots and the direction of the arrows.
The unfortunate part was that without a reference and a scale, he could not make out the distance between them.
Without dwelling on it for too long, Link, under the protection of the four scouting puppets, began to move towards Jasmine’s estimated location.
While moving in the wilds, especially in an unknown wild area like this, it was impossible to go fast, nor should he.
Link decided to carefully observe his surroundings while walking.
Now and then, he gathered some water and soil samples and harvested various plants – roots, stems, leaves, fruits – that were entirely different from those found in the Wizard’s World, and with the aid of witchcraft, he quickly made them into specimens.
In the big bag he was carrying, there was a simple set of potion study equipment.
To gather samples and make them into specimens was absolutely no problem. What bothered Link was the limited capacity of the big bag. He had to consider the future, so he could not keep all the samples and specimens that he was interested in and thought necessary.
“I must find Jasmine and Buck as soon as possible.”
With this thought, Link did not become anxious but continued his even-paced journey without any rush.
After about two hours, he had traveled about 10 miles.
Link discovered that the “sun” overhead showed no signs of movement, causing doubt to arise in his mind.
Could it be that there was no variation of day and night in this world?
Carrying this doubt, Link walked for another hour, always observing the “sun” and his own position.
From various signs, Link could initially judge that the “sun” of this world was suspended in the “sky”, where it would remain stationary.
“That’s interesting.”
Link made a point of remembering this discovery, thoughtfully considering and obtaining some insights.
As for what insights he got, Link claimed that this was just a guess, and it was not confirmed yet.
“Is anyone there? Help me!”
Suddenly, Link heard a cry for help coming from ahead.
Question: How should one respond to a cry for help in the wild?
Link’s choice was to instantly activate the active defense mode of the “Defender 3202” suit, ordered two scouting puppets to patrol within a radius of one hundred meters around him, and ordered the other two to detour from the left and right and explore towards the source of the cry for help.
His left hand reached for his waist, plucking off a self-detonating flash-type fire thunder, ready to deploy at any moment.
Right hand reached into his front pocket, pulling out black lenses, and put them on his gold wire glasses that were exchanged with 2 “academic points”. These lenses are linked to the scouting puppets and can display the real-time pictures of the four scouting puppets.
He can control with his spiritual power to switch between different scouting puppets and can amplify or reduce the image.
After a moment, Link saw a well-equipped but naive-looking girl surrounded by a group of wild beasts that looked like gray wolves but were much larger, stranded on a small dirt mound.
This girl was not among the 30 first-year Storm Sea New Bloods.
So, this was a local apprentice from the North District.
Whether out of caution or prejudice, Link decided not to interfere in this matter.
Even though he guessed loosely that the key to distinguishing factions was based on these choices, whether kind or evil or indifferent.
Link was neither a great villain fond of destruction, nor an unprincipled do- gooder.
He had no sense of responsibility for this world, save or destroy, he didn’t need to hesitate, and it didn’t matter.
After figuring out the direction, he decided to take a detour.
Avoid the girl ahead, avoid the hungry “wild wolves”.
However, before Link could move, the North District girl stranded on the mound saw him.
It was evident that Link was not the only one who had detection-type magic tools.
Like a drowning person grasping at straws, she shouted towards Link’s direction from afar, “Friend of Witches, help! Help me! I’ll be forever grateful!” The footsteps of Link, who wanted to retreat, stopped instantly.
He was recognized!
And…
Friend of Witches?
She knew this nickname that only appeared a few times on the “Ravensmouth Forum.”
Obviously, it was impossible for her to know nothing about Link.
In this case, a detour was no longer the best choice.
He had to come up with another plan.