Chapter 460 - 301: The Story of the Cloud-Scaling Vine and the Magic Beans; One Month of Training, Vying for Overall Captain
Chapter 460: Chapter 301: The Story of the Cloud-Scaling Vine and the Magic Beans; One Month of Training, Vying for Overall Captain
Even Yuris, the Chief Elder of the Dark Elves, praised the idea.
As he listened to his Clan members solve the problem among themselves, Zhang Yi felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
This was the benefit of having numerous Heroic Clans within the Divine Realm.
They could discuss and resolve many issues on their own, offering complete solutions.
However, this was also thanks to the academies that had been established within the Divine Realm.
Besides the Magic Academy that Zhang Yi had founded in the early days, other academies had now appeared in the Zhang Yi Divine Realm,
such as the Warrior Academy and the Magical Technology Academy...
"My God!"
Elf Queen An Nobel once again petitioned her god for instructions.
"What are your thoughts?"
"Do you find our proposal acceptable?"
Zhang Yi’s Divine Illusion nodded slightly.
Then, the voice of the Oracle resounded in the minds of all the Clan members.
"Granted!"
"Elf Queen An Nobel will have full authority over this matter."
"The other Heroic Clans will assist her."
"I require a safe and effective passage to the Sky Garden for the ordinary Clan members. It must be completed in the shortest time possible!"
"As you command, My God!"
All the Clan members present answered in unison, brimming with motivation.
...
As the first rays of dawn touched the Harvest Plain on the third day.
On the eastern side of the Harvest Plain, near the fourteen Elf Cities,
a magnificent "Heaven-Reaching Vine Ladder" had already been completed!
Four thick vines, like a giant jade dragon, spiraled upward, connecting the ground to the sky.
Dozens of mobile platforms of various sizes were embedded in the vines, moving up and down along the tracks they formed.
The members of the Elf Clan who were the first to try it had expressions of wonder and pride on their faces.
When the initial trial run was a success,
all the Clan members cheered!
Needless to say, Zhang Yi was deeply satisfied.
However, once the aftermath of the two Divine Domain Cards he had loaded in June was fully dealt with,
it was time for Zhang Yi to return to the Starfire Training Ground at the University Alliance Training Camp.
After all, Zhang Yi had to participate in Chief Instructor Yang’s training tomorrow!
...
The entire month of June flew by amidst the high-intensity training at the Starfire Training Ground!
This entire month of June,
for the fifty students who had passed the Yanhuang Federal Region’s University Alliance Training Camp assessment, was a period of complete transformation!
Initially, Chief Instructor Yang did not break up the existing student squads.
Instead, he kept the ten squads as they were and had them participate in virtual battles as groups.
During this process,
thanks to the extremely high-quality and feature-rich Divine Domain Connection Pods at the Starfire Training Ground, all the students got a taste of a fate worse than death!
The environment on the virtual battlefields was ever-changing.
In the morning, all the students used the Divine Domain Connection Pods to simulate an attack on a native Divine Being;
in the afternoon, they had to rely on their Clans to defend their positions against a world’s beast tide;
and at night, there was no rest; they had to complete decapitation missions as a squad!
Throughout the entirety of June’s training,
Chief Instructor Yang constantly tried to instill one particular idea in them!
Individual strength was important, yes, but tactical insight, strategic awareness of the overall situation, and the ability to communicate with teammates were even more critical!
As a result, of the fifty students who had made it this far,
many who preferred to fight alone suffered immensely.
Meanwhile, Zhang Yi—who had received personal guidance from his grandfather over the winter break,
and had been trained in tactical analysis and battlefield deduction from a young age—
unsurprisingly stood out
during the team training exercises!
During this process, the talent Zhang Yi displayed convinced not only his own squad mates but also members of other squads that he was a natural-born commander!
Except for the first few days,
when Zhang Yi quietly observed and absorbed experience, he laid low.
After that, however, in every team-based virtual divine war,
whether his teammates’ Divine Positions were offense-oriented, like "War" and "Battle,"
support-oriented, like "Healing" and "Prophecy,"
or any other Divine Position,
Zhang Yi could integrate them into the Divine Squad with incredible speed!
During this process, Zhang Yi also got to experience the Effect of other Divine Positions.
Experiencing them firsthand
revealed that there were significant differences from what Zhang Yi had previously understood about these other Divine Positions.
But Zhang Yi guessed,
’Chief Instructor Yang must have had a greater purpose in mind for going to such lengths
to let us experience the use of different Divine Positions.
It can’t be as simple as just gaining experience.’
Soon, Zhang Yi’s suspicions were confirmed.
After the members of each squad had begun to adapt to Chief Instructor Yang’s training intensity,
he abruptly ramped it up.
"The second phase of training begins!"
"Next, you will conduct an Abyss defense mission!"
"As a squad, with randomized Divine Positions, you will defend five Abyssal rifts from which Demons continuously emerge."
"During this process, you will experience different Divine Positions and different Clans, and you will gradually discover the command style that best suits you!"
And so, the captain of each university squad led their teams into the second phase of Chief Instructor Yang’s training.
Tuoba Yu’s style was aggressive.
He always tried to group together the members of his squad who had War-related Divine Positions,
and assemble all the primary combat Clans from their respective Divine Realms.
He attempted to defeat the creatures endlessly pouring from the Abyss with overwhelming, lightning-fast force.
However, under the relentless assault of the Abyssal Creatures, Tuoba Yu’s squad was put under immense defensive pressure.
They often killed the most Abyssal Creatures in the early stages,
but they were also among the first to be eliminated.
Gu Yun, on the other hand, was a master of calculation.
He would attempt to precisely allocate his forces, deploying just the right number of troops at each Abyssal rift.
He also kept a rapid-response unit in reserve.
In theory, his plan was optimal.
But in actual combat,
the strength and number of Abyssal Creatures emerging from each rift fluctuated.
A single, unexpected surge of abyssal monsters,
whose strength overwhelmed his reinforcements,
could shatter the fragile balance he had established, triggering a chain reaction
that likewise led to mission failure.
However,
compared to Tuoba Yu,
Gu Yun’s squad always managed to be among the last ones standing.
As for Zhang Yi,
his approach was different from both of them.
Zhang Yi didn’t try to stubbornly defend the mouths of the five Abyssal rifts.
Instead, each time before Abyssal Creatures began to pour out of the rifts,
Zhang Yi would direct the weaker Clans in the squad to build fortifications.
The strength of these fortifications was not evenly distributed, however.
Instead, they grew progressively stronger from the outside in.
This method allowed Zhang Yi to use his limited number of Clans to delay the seemingly infinite Abyssal Creatures, also making his squad one of the last to be eliminated.
When the second phase of training concluded after a fortnight,
Gu Yun, with his precise calculations and consistently stable performance, held a firm second place in all assessments.
Tuoba Yu, however, saw his weaknesses exposed.
His command style and the Clans within his Divine Realm were all overly focused on War!
In non-War-oriented team missions, his efficiency was often lower than Zhang Yi’s and Gu Yun’s,
and even lower than that of Hong Tianyi and others.
This left Tuoba Yu, who knew his training scores were lower than Zhang Yi’s and Gu Yun’s,
feeling incredibly frustrated.
It also made him even more eager for a direct confrontation with both Zhang Yi and Gu Yun!
After a full month of training,
Zhang Yi had firmly secured the top spot on the vast majority of the training leaderboards!
Gu Yun followed closely behind him.
But the gap between him and Zhang Yi seemed to be widening.
And Tuoba Yu was even further behind.
Aside from War-focused missions where he could keep pace with Zhang Yi and Gu Yun,
the gap between them in other missions
was plain to see.
Over this month of training together, Zhang Yi’s command talent and personal strength had earned him the recognition of many of his fellow students.
Some students were already saying in private that there was no longer any suspense: the position of overall team captain belonged to Zhang Yi!
But Gu Yun and Tuoba Yu clearly thought otherwise!
「On the last day of June, the thirtieth, the fifty students once again stood in neat formation in the center of the Starfire Training Ground.」
A month of training had passed, leaving their gazes sharper and their auras more refined.