Meng Chao was one of the few freshmen who did not fit strengthened exoskeletons on his suit and only wore a biochemical fighting suit.
But his heart was also surging in excitement. His fighting spirit burned like hot magma, and it was even stronger than any other student’s.
He had already found two paths that could change the future and increase the speed at which the Ultimate Style would be promoted.
The first was through his senior, Weeping Reaper Lin Chuan, who was a very popular internet celebrity on the livestreaming channels.
He could appeal to the masses with his fame.
If Senior Lin Chuan was as effective as Yan Feirou when she promoted the Ripple Force, it would basically be set in stone that the Ultimate Style would spread to the public three or more years ahead of the original time. It would save many warriors and powerful fighters, which would help to change Dragon City’s future.
The second option was to go through his best friend’s female squad leader and approach Thunder God Shao Zhengyang.
Right now, the main martial art in the military was the Gun Fighting Style.
If the Ultimate Style suddenly rose to power in the army and came to stand on equal grounds with the Gun Fighting Style, it would be a direct help to the Red Dragon Army.
But if Meng Chao wanted to take either of the two paths, he first had to provide real results. He had to slay monsters at an unbelievable speed and efficiency!
‘There are a total of four students specially recruited into the fighting courses of the alliance of the five universities. Wu Wu is the only one who doesn’t have any kills under her belt yet because she just arrived. The other three specially recruited students have shown beautiful results. They’re ranked among the top three in the ranking boards like the kill count, the difficulty of the monsters killed, and influence. In truth, they can even compete with the specially recruited students from Dragon City University’s martial arts course.’
Meng Chao’s mind raced. ‘As long as I kill even more monsters that are stronger than theirs with the Ultimate Style and push them down from the top of the ranking boards, I will definitely be valued highly by Senior Lin Chuan and Shao Jianqing. I might even get the chance to meet Thunder God Shao Zhengyang!”
Meng Chao’s eyes burned as intensely as those of the other students.
This sight made the two leaders from their universities smile in understanding in spite of themselves while standing behind them.
“How naive these children are. Look at them, they’re just like us when we first entered the fog to fight. But at that time, we were just in charge of harassing the monsters in small squads and performing reconnaissance in the wild. We weren’t as lucky as they are today. We couldn’t join such a mighty and grand battle that may decide the future of Dragon City!” the lecturer from the monster controller course said with a smile.
The martial arts course and monster controller course were competitors in the university. They were like oil and water.
But once they arrived on the battlefield, they represented the glory of Monster University, and they had to produce beautiful results so that they could gain more benefits for their university, so they became like birds of a feather and helped each other.
Hence, the freshmen from the two courses were assigned to the same battlefield, and they were not worried of getting into any conflicts. After all, even if they found each other an eyesore, they were still more pleasant to the eye compared to monsters. They could even use the desire for victory to stir up even greater fighting spirits.
Li Yingzi smiled and was just about to remind the freshmen about the dangers of fighting in the wild when the monster controller course lecturer said, “You don’t have to do that. If you remind them now, they’ll definitely refuse to accept your advice and listen. Let them suffer a bit before you say anything. There are no superbeasts here, and both of us are acting as the garrison. At worst, they will get severely injured. They won’t lose their lives.”
Li Yingzi was quiet for a while before she nodded. “The task to clear out Unnamed Lake No. 421 has officially begun. Our target is to kill more than 90% of the monsters here before night sets and turn this place from a Deep Yellow Region to a Light Yellow Region so that the regular squad from the Red Dragon Army can enter and carry out an extensive purge in order to provide a solid barrier for the construction and agricultural workers to carry out their work safely.
“Remember this. Even though they are just normal monsters, when there are a lot of them, it will still be dangerous. Everyone, make sure that your locators and physiological parameter monitors are constantly in good condition. And make sure that there are at least two comrades within your field of vision at all times. If you suddenly notice that one of your comrades has gone missing, immediately make a report in the communications channel.
“Also, search through every inch of the bushes. If you miss a monster because of your negligence, the normal soldiers from the Red Dragon Army might lose their lives when they station themselves here, do you understand?”
“Understood!”
The new superhumans shouted.
“Move out!”
Li Yingzi raised her arm and brought it down like a saber.
The new students immediately charged into the bushes like hungry wolves.
Spirit flames danced madly around them to activate the strengthened exoskeletons, which let out mechanical rumbles. Sabers and swords tore through the air. Bullets seemed to have grown eyes. They pierced monsters’ heads, and a beautiful but bloody battle started.
In the beginning, the students progressed very smoothly.
One-star superhumans were about the same in terms of strength with Grade One Nightmarish Beasts. With their intellect, equipment, and teamwork, even if they faced a Grade Two Nightmarish Beasts, they would not suffer any losses, so they had absolutely no problems when dealing with normal panicked monsters.
Small squads formed of three-four students shot into the bushes like bloody arrows that tore through everything effortlessly. The monsters they targeted usually didn’t even get to launch an effective attack before they were killed by sabers, swords, or whistling bullets.
Since the students had complete knowledge of the battlefield because of the Long-legged Spiders and the reconnaissance drones, they could see most of the monsters hiding sneakily in the bushes, kill them, and upload their “beautiful” fighting data.
In just a short ten minutes, many of the freshmen obtained their first kill. Outstanding people like Sun Ya, Xie Feng, and Duan Lian killed three-five monsters and were swiftly moving to the two digits with their kill count.
For a period of time, the freshmen became relaxed, and laughter could be heard in the communication channel.
“The real battlefield isn’t that much different from a virtual battlefield. It’s not that hard!”
“There are just normal monsters here. When I was in high school and had yet to awaken to my superpowers, I had already killed Wolf Crocodiles, Ghost-arrow Pigs, and Hundred-eyed Toads. Now, they’re still asking us to deal with these good-for-nothing small fry? They’re basically using butcher knives to chop vegetables here! Our talents are being wasted!”
“That’s right, while it’s still early, let’s kill all the monsters in one go. We might even make it back to the base for lunch.”
“We’ll win a few major fights beautifully so that the higher-ups will learn of the strength of the Agricultural University’s freshmen. Then, they’ll stop giving us areas with such a low difficulty. They should at least let us fight in Light Red Regions. Then, the fights would be stimulating and we’d get to fight to our hearts’ content!”
“If we can kill hundreds of monsters in one go and rush up the ranking board, we might be chosen by the powerful fighters to join them in dangerous regions that are classified above Deep Red Regions. Then, we can hunt down Grade Three Nightmarish Beasts or even Hell Beasts. Those would be real battles!”
The students laughed and chatted with each other. They treated the massacre they were unleashing as an excursion.
But as time passed and they drew closer to the lake, the situation started changing without their knowledge.
The first change came from the large number of harmless-looking weeds that grew by the lake.
The weeds were the height of a person. They appeared weak and harmless, but they were incredibly tenacious and could grow very quickly. They could easily entangle or slip into the joints of the strengthened exoskeletons, which would then fail the machines.
A lot of the freshmen were immersed in fighting to their hearts’ content when a bright red warning popped up in the monitors, and immediately after, their strengthened exoskeletons let out creaking sounds. Their movements became stiff or out of form.
If the situation was not bad for them, their prey would just escape from their grasp, but if the situation was bad, the monsters counterattacked, and their strengthened exoskeletons received heavy blows, which even created sparks. Not only would they then not increase the students’ fighting power, they would become a burden that tied down their bodies.
The freshmen whose strengthened exoskeletons remained unharmed discovered to their frustration that the ground under their feet had become loose and wet. Gradually, instead of stepping on solid ground they landed in a bog. Quagmires were also hidden in the bogs. They were usually covered by plants that hid them, so they looked like solid ground, but when anyone stepped on them, they sank into mud that would either reach their waists or even their chests.
And there were usually a lot of poisonous insects, snakes, and Water Monkeys lurking in the quagmires. When the freshmen sank up to their chest in the mud, countless pests would crawl out and fight over themselves as they climbed over the students’ bodies.
Even if the freshmen had awakened to supernatural powers and had the airtight biochemical fighting suits, when they saw the colorful caterpillars crawling all over their bodies, they were unable to resist the ancient fear embedded in their genes that stemmed from the poisonous creatures.
Most of the quagmires were unable to swallow an entire person.
But even if they were only some thirty centimeters deep, if someone stepped into them because they were careless, it was easy for them to reveal openings while engaged in a fierce battle.
And the closer they got to the lake, the more monsters there were. They were also fiercer. They used the environment to launch attacks that were complicated and constantly changed. They were completely different compared to the monsters the freshmen ran into before.
Even the Four Great Kings of the martial arts course suffered.
Sun Ya had cleared more than eighty main meridians and was known as the leader of the Four Great Kings, but right then, weeds had blocked around eight of the joints of her strengthened exoskeleton, and she felt like she was being forced to dance while in shackles. She could no longer bring out her characteristic agility and ever-changing attacks. She could only face the monsters’ fierce counterattacks while taking off the strengthened exoskeleton. She looked incredibly pathetic.
Jiang Rui had cleared all his main meridians in his legs, and he was insanely fast. In fact, he was known to have the best kicking technique among the martial arts course’s freshmen. But now, his legs, which were like battleaxes, were bound by the Water Monkeys. After he tore off the carnivorous etherealized plants’ leaves, he found that the legs of his strengthened exoskeleton were badly damaged, and there were more than ten bleeding ligature marks on his legs. He was even poisoned at some point.
Duan Lian’s fists had great force and deadly power. He had killed a few Ghost-arrow Pigs in a row, but just when he became excited from all the kills, he did not pay attention to his feet and stepped into a quagmire. His leg sank into it. He was then bound by the plants growing in the depths of the swamp, and he could not extract himself even after a long time had passed. A few Ghost-arrow Pigs charged at him and bruised him so badly that his head was almost entirely swollen.
As for Xie Feng, he managed to arrive at the lake safely. When he heard the screams from Sun Ya and the other two in the communicator, he marveled at his own luck, but then, he noticed that he had stepped into the nest of several Hundred-eyed Toads, and in the span of a breath, dozens of them jumped up around him. They stimulated their poison sacs at the same time and gathered a large volume of incredibly corrosive acid to rain it on him!