Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Just as the first word sounded in Qin Fen’s ear, the Dragon Elephant Prajna Art, without supercharging rapidly circulated in Qin Fen’s body as Qin Fen started moving!
Naturally, mobilizing the strength of Dragon Elephant allowed him to burst forth with great momentum. Just one step of his sent a tremor through the ground, shaking the grass around with it. Even the leaves of those huge trees slightly rustled.
Obviously, the audience who had all of their attention on Qin Fen noticed the changes in the surroundings.
At the same time, Qin Fen had already turned into a green silhouette charging into the forest. The soil underneath his foot rolled up with his every step. The weeds were crushed by this rotational force, mashed with the mud instantly.
Hues and cries immediately broke out in the auditorium. Although they had already seen the floor slabs smashed by Qin Fen’s steps, they still had not expected Qin Fen’s assault to be so fierce.
Military fans, upon seeing this scene, didn’t burst into clamor like the majority of the audience, but rather smiles of contempt appeared on each and everyone’s faces.
This assault may seem as fierce as a leopard’s, but the forest was laden with crisis everywhere. Such an assault that paid no heed to the surrounding environment, would only make him fall into the traps laid out by the staff very quickly, which would eventually lead to failure.
Sighs of military fans could be heard one after another. They were secretly sighing over the fact that this pistol shooting champion wasn’t a true versatile king for sure.
At this instant, various recruits participating in the competition sat up straight one after another. Their eyes opened wide, staring at Qin Fen, who was moving at a high speed.
“Ah? Little Dragon King, it seems that this man is indeed quite strong.” Zeus held to his mouth an opened carton of milk. “That Cannon Step is not bad. It’s antecedents…”
The Little Dragon King, Yang Lie nodded silently. If this step was placed in the recruit fighting competition, it definitely wouldn’t have the strength to win the championship.
But obviously, that step wasn’t the contestant’s true strength for sure.
In many people’s opinion, that step might just be a step to move forward, but in the eyes of participating recruit, it had another meaning.
That was a signal, a signal that the contestant was issuing a challenge to all the competing martial artists.
“Caesar, what do you think?”
“Oh? Solomon, you are out from your retreat!? It’s a little early to make any comment before knowing all about him and seeing his full strength.”
“Oh…”
The audience raised hues and cries once more. On the screen, Qin Fen continued to move through the woods without slowing down at all. His way forward wasn’t completely straight as well. He was as dextrous as a monkey yet contained the strength of an elephant.
While other recruits were running cautiously, Qin Fen’s run was completely like a gamble. He was much faster than the other recruits. It seemed that he simply didn’t care what traps laid in the forest.
However, no matter how fast he ran, he never tripped any trap at all. It was as if there weren’t any traps in this forest. It was like all that was said before the start of the match was to give a psychological pressure to the recruits participating.
As many spectators started to suspect if the staff had only said so to increase psychological pressure to the participating recruits, an explosion suddenly rang in another projection screen.
From the billowing smoke, a West Asian soldier rushed out, coughing again and again. At this point, he was completely covered in black soot from the explosion from head to toe. His skin looked darker than the African Military Region recruits who came to participate in the tournament.
Had the explosives in the trap not been significantly reduced and replaced with black soot, the West Asian recruit would not just have had his face and body covered in dirt and shoot, but rather had his body torn to pieces.
In the next moment, the European recruit also stepped on the trap. However, his reaction was faster than the West Asian recruit. Just as he triggered the trap, he jumped out of the range of the trap, having escaped from this threatening but non-dangerous trap.
Before this recruit have even had the time to congratulate himself on escaping from the trap, he felt that he had stepped on another new trap. Nonetheless, this recruit was good. With a shake of his hand, he immediately fired three burst rounds, smashing the trap flying towards him into pieces in the air.
Having broken this trap, he triggered, once again, another trap. For a moment, this European recruit was incomparably busy.
Having seen the traps, the audience turned their attention on Qin Fen, once more. Seeing that even when the other contestants were stepping on the trap even after being so vigilant, they could not help but wonder, Is his luck really so heaven-defying?
On the screen, Qin Fen was getting faster and faster. Nevertheless, he never triggered any traps at all. It was enough for the people to suspect whether the assembly had done some shady deal or not. Are there even any traps laid in this East Asian recruit’s road? Are such conditions created to let him be the final victor?
Compared to the audience’s surprise, the special soldiers from all around the globe who were experts in forest warfare and the trap designers were completely petrified watching Qin Fen on the screen.
Even as trap designers, they themselves couldn’t count as to how many traps had been placed in this forest. Countless hidden traps had been placed on Qin Fen’s road. Even if the trap designers personally entered it, even they might no move so quickly as this East Asian recruit.
For a moment, the trap designers also began to wonder as to which military aristocratic family had trained this genius.
Faster, faster, faster!
Qin Fen’s speed was only getting faster and faster. Everyone was even having an illusion that this run wasn’t done by a human but rather the mobile armor from the Federation military, the Jungle Ranger.
Apart from Qin Fen, the second fastest speed was similarly beyond everyone’s expectations.
It was the female East Asian soldier who had placed second in the pistol competition and had once created a time record. Although her speed wasn’t as explosive as Qin Fen, her run was also like she was paying attention but not paying attention.
Stackhouse couldn’t believe that Andy, who was known as the most promising champion before the match, was only in the third place. Furthermore, his movement speed was far less explosive than Qin Fen’s and far less fluent than Lin Ling’s. From time to time, he would also stop to check around the distribution of traps around him and would then choose the safest way.
While most of the contestants had just moved one-tenth of the way cautiously, Qin Fen had already appeared before the temporary tall building.
The military fans were dumbfounded. Qin Fen had not only cruelly broken their previous judgments but had also arrived first before the building with such an exaggerated speed.
“Fast isn’t even enough to describe his speed.” Stackhouse powerlessly shook his head. “It’s like he had pre-rehearsed and knew all the location of the traps, knew which was the safest route. If his semi-automatic rifle proficiency is also the same as his earlier performance, Andy truly doesn’t have any hope.”
Having arrived before the building, Qin Fen did not quickly rush into the building to search the red flags in order to take the most red flags in the shortest time as the others had expected.
He quickly scanned around and made his way fifty meters or so towards his right-hand side and squatted down, before pulling out a landmine from the ground.
At the sight of this scene, the trap designers shouted out, surprised, “Impossible!”
The closer it was to the building, the more well-hidden the traps were installed by the designers. At the innermost location, they had used almost their best means to make the recruits suddenly trigger the trap when they saw the hope of the building.
This tournament had an interesting name: Despair in front of Hope.
When the recruit saw hope, they were given unforgettable despair, so that they would always remember while performing missions in the future to never forget that there may lie some hidden danger in front of hope.
These designers were the former champions of similar events of previous recruit tournaments. Also, they had gone through many real combats and had finally become excellent special soldiers.
In order to teach the younger generation, they had used pretty much their highest skills. Around a real trap, they had laid a lot of fake traps so that the contestants could not detect the existence of the real traps.
Even if someone noticed them, all they could do was avoid them.
Because some daring recruits in the past had tried to take out these traps after discovering that they harmed the other contestants.
The fact that the trap was dug out by the recruit was a shame for the designer. Therefore, every designer had done a lot of modifications to the trap so that it would explode immediately when coming in contact. If someone wanted to disassemble the traps, he or she needed to be professional-level special forces soldiers like them.
Nonetheless, Qin Fen not only successfully dismantled the trap but also did it so quickly, which made the special forces soldier who had personally installed the trap feel ashamed of his inferiority.
Having removed the trap, Qin Fen quickly switched to another location and directly installed the trap in front of the window of the building.
After a quick camouflage, the special forces soldier whose trap was dismantled by Qin Fen had his face flushed red as if he was about to spew blood.
Other designers also had similar ugly looks on their faces. As professionals, they could see that the way Qin Fen just laid the trap was also first class.
Only a few among the entire designer team could hide the trap in such a way and in such a short period of time while using a little material at hand.
After having finished with one trap, Qin Fen didn’t stop at all. He, under the designers’ watch, began disassembling a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth…
One after another, Qin Fen removed the traps and moved to another location.
The protruding edges and corners of the building were very suitable for the special forces soldier to climb up with their bare hands without having to take the passage through the main entrance.
Every window on the first floor of the building could also be used to climb through into the building. There was no need to take the main entrance.
It must be brought to notice that there were many cardboard models of terrorists in the building. If all the bullets were used to shoot at them, then, what would be used to shoot at the opposing recruits?
Naturally, Qin Fen also installed two traps near the main entrance of the building, Afterward, he quickly and carefully came to the front door.
The hall of the building was very quiet. And there weren’t any cardboard models here, all there was a messy environment.
Collapsed pillars, wooden boxes of the size of a human, as well as dilapidated sofas with springs and sponges coming out of it…
Looking at the dust on the ground, Qin Fen slightly furrowed his brow. So long as he took a step, no matter how good his movement technique was, it would be difficult to avoid revealing his tracks.
Having quickly walked into the room, Qin Fen stepped on the stairs and came to the corner of the first and second floor before quietly squatting down.
At this moment, the commentator finally woke up from Qin Fen’s previous performance and started doing his job. “What does he want to do?”
All the spectators watching the projection were dumbfounded by Qin Fen’s actions, once more.
Spectators with a relatively quick response promptly understood Qin Fen’s intentions.
“He is planning on stopping other recruits!” The commentator’s excited voice sounded throughout the auditorium. “Yesterday, this recruit did not follow common sense in the pistol shooting competition, and once again, he making a new play today as well. However, the recruits from all other continents are also elite recruits. They might not be able to avoid the traps in the forest as well when compared to this East Asian recruit, but it is difficult to say that they aren’t on par with him in other regards. It’s too risky to go like this. It’s better to find the red flags as quickly as possible…”
Risky? The trap designers all sneered. How is this only “risky”? This is plain suicide! Arrogant, extremely arrogant.
It wasn’t that contestants in the previous recruit tournament hadn’t done similar things, but rather, how could the strength of one man compete with all the contestants?
On the projection floating in the air, Lin Ling had rushed out of the forest. Her toes gently crossed the trap set by Qin Fen.
The trap designers were amazed. This woman escaped Qin Fen’s traps so easily, is she lucky or is it her strength?
Lin Ling’s footsteps didn’t stop at all. The traps set by Qin Fen at the front gate were once again mystically evaded by her. Her performance gave the impression that she was looking yet wasn’t looking at the same time.
Under everyone’s intensive gaze, Lin Ling, after having entered the hall, she took one glance at the footsteps on the ground and darted backward with the slight bend of her knees, exiting through the entrance before turning around and hiding in the woods.
“What’s going on? Why did East Asian recruit suddenly retreat? What does she want to do?” In a confused voice, the commentator asked all the audience to voice out their opinion. What is the East Asian Recruit thinking this time?
Time went by minute by minute. Finally, Andy rushed out of the forest.
Compared to Lin Ling and Qin Fen, he was more prudent and cautious.
Standing at the edge of the forest, he did not charge into the building immediately. Rather he carefully observed the surroundings and at last, carefully avoided the real and false traps.
“He is about to step in!” The commentator’s excited voice brought about everyone’s nervousness. At the last moment, Andy’s foot stopped and hovered above the location where Qin Fen’s trap was buried.
“So dangerous…” Andy heaved a long, deep sigh before gently moving his foot away. Lowering his head, he looked down at the landmine that was almost completely hidden.
Having carefully probed for other traps, Andy walked into the hall step by step.
“Someone came first?” Andy’s eyes flickered with surprise as he stared at the footprints on the ground. “These footprints seem to be made by East Asian boots.”
Andy, changing his magazine, carefully walked up to the steps, his gunner’s intuition carefully exploring the surroundings.
There is no aura, it’s safe here.
Andy heaved a long, deep breath. Secretly, he blamed himself for being too vigilant. ‘It would be strange for someone to not go for the flags after having arrived first. How is it possible…’
Before his thoughts could even finish flashing, a jet-black gun barrel was resting right in between his eyebrows. Immediately, a chill spread through his entire body.
Before his eyes was yesterday’s pistol shooting champion, who was calmly smiling at him.
How is this possible? Andy blankly stared at Qin Fen. Even when the barrel is pointing at my forehead, why can’t I sense any battle intent?
“You…” Andy’s throat moved up and down as he gulped nervously. “The masking ability of your aura has actually reached this level. Are you a professional sniper?”
Qin Fen, on the other hand, calmly asked, “Do you need me to shoot?”
Andy lightly heaved a sigh. Before coming here, he would have never even imagined that he would have to withdraw from the match like this. Hopelessly, he closed his eyes and said, “No need, I lost.”
“Thank you.” Qin Fen took back his gun and quietly sat down where he was sitting before.
A despondent Andy walked down the stairs. Even the drill instructors can’t make sure that the enemy would notice only after the gun was placed on his forehead. Where did East Asia find such a super recruit?
BOOM…
Looking at the screen, the audience saw a recruit, who had just rushed out of the forest turn into a black man from the explosion as he stepped on Qin Fen’s traps just after having avoided the trap laid by the officials.
Eliminated!
The East Asia recruit had already eliminated two contestants by relying on his own methods.
BOOM…
Not long after, another thunderous explosion resounded.
After having rushed out of the forest, another recruit wanted to use the edges of the building to climb. Unfortunately for him, he had stepped on the trap Qin Fen had prepared just for people like him.
At this moment, the military fans were completely dumbfounded. They discovered that their previous judgment was completely wrong. This East Asian recruit wasn’t at the same level as the majority of the participating recruits were.
It was quite easy to make traps, but what was hard was to place the trap in a location where the enemy could trigger it easily.
On the projection, a trap was triggered with the sound made by another trap. Looking at the tall building before their eyes, the participating recruits looked at the sky and sighed deeply.
When all was said and done, the traps were limited. A recruit came to the window that had the trapped destroyed by someone else. Carrying a semi-automatic on his back, he used the corner of the stairs to start climbing with his bare hands.
Very soon, the recruit climbed his way to the second floor.
But in the next second, the recruit saw a jet-black tube resting on his chest.
As he looked up and saw Qin Fen, he squeezed out an ugly little smile. Right then, he was hit by Qin Fen’s rubber bullet in his chest, sending him backward from the second floor to the ground floor.
Eliminated…
Using the projection, the audience watched Qin Fen, who remained on the second floor, usually standing at a fixed position. But when someone began to approach the floor, he would always rush to the best position and eliminate the contestant at first notice.
A military fan inputted the three-dimensional blueprint of Qin Fen’s floor on his laptop. And through calculations, he very soon figured out the reason why Qin Fen occupied that position.
That was the only point on the entire floor that could monitor all the entrances. What’s more, it was also the best hiding place.
Very soon, only two people remain standing on the battlefield, Qin Fen, and Lin Ling!
At this time, Lin Ling, who had not moved from the beginning to the end, finally moved. She jumped off from the branch and prowled from the main entrance to the lobby on the first floor.
Lin Ling quickly glanced about the lobby before standing behind a wooden box with her gun. It appeared that she had no intention of going upstairs whatsoever.
Once again, the military fans had to use their laptops to calculate.
“That’s the best defensive position on the first-floor lobby. All the offensive positions can be seen from there, and also, it’s the best hiding place.”
Two East Asian recruits, one on the first floor, and another on the second floor.
The game entered the most boring stage. Neither of the sides actively made a move.
The airwoman next to Lin Jiaxuan looking at the projection was very puzzled. “Why are they not moving?”
“Darling, let me explain this to you.” Xue Tian quickly turned around and cleared his throat. “You can’t just treat Lin Ling as a woman, you should not underestimate her strength. When she first entered the building, she immediately understood Old Qin’s plan, that the only reason why she chose to retreat. A series of things let her know that as long as someone entered the second floor, he or she would be eliminated. Therefore, she chose to defend, waiting for Old Qin to attack. By my estimate, Old Qin should also know that Lin Ling is below. Only, if Old Qin dared to go down, I can almost guarantee that Lin Ling can shoot Old Qin dead with one shot. So, none of them will move.”
Only when the prescribed time came to an end did the two slowly retract their attacking stance and leave the temporary built building.
The trap designers stared at projection silly.
In the past, the contest of the red flags had always been extremely fierce. Recruits of various continents would display their marksmanship and attack each other for the red flags.
But in this semi-automatic rifle competition, the red flags count remained zero.
As designers who had once participated in the semi-automatic rifle competition, they only regained their wits after a long time. On each and every one of their faces was a wry smile.
In order to make the competition for the red flags intense and to test the observation ability of the recruits, the designers racked their brains for how to hide these red flags.
But unexpectedly, cudgeling their brains for hiding the red flags turned out to be completely useless in the end.
With time up, the game came to an end.
Due to the fact that Qin Fen had entered first in the building and the fact that he had eliminated a bunch of contestants, Qin Fen occupied the top spot on the scoreboard.
Lin Ling was second to enter the building. Although she only had two points, it was enough for her to occupy second place.
Although Andy was eliminated by Qin Fen, he was lucky enough to win third place due to the fact that he was third to enter the building, which awarded him one point.
Looking at the projection, the commentator applauded, again and again. “The Eastern recruits showed us yet another unprecedented game style.”
At this time, everyone returned to their senses and also started applauding with the commentator. Everyone was staring at Qin Fen on the screen. In yesterday’s competition, this recruit from East Asia Military Region was like a lion on the battlefield, invincible. And in today’s competition, he was like the god of the battlefield! From the beginning, he was in control of the entire match. No one could escape from his control.
Compared to yesterday’s fluid and lucid style, today’s performance was actually stronger.
“The East Asian recruits this time are really strong!” A spectator was filled with admiration.
“Yeah, they are indeed strong. I wonder if East Asia will remain strong like this all the way?”
“Strong like this all the way? Are you dreaming?” Zeus looked back, staring with his two large eyes. “We…”
“Zeus…” Yang Lie, with his hands in his pockets, stood up and said, walking towards the exit, “Isn’t it better if they keep on going like this? Don’t you want to fight a group of powerful opponents?”
The spectating recruits from various continents looked up to the huge scoreboard. After two days of competition, East Asia was occupying the leading position with ten points.
Although it was just the beginning of the tournament, momentum like this…
The recruits of various continents could already guess that the generals leading their respective team were in a very bad mood.
Zhao Huzi, on the other hand, was sitting happily in the grandstands. He kept on looking at the huge electronic scoreboard. It appeared that he didn’t have any intention of getting up and leaving.
Today, the happiest person wasn’t the winner, Qin Fen, but rather the leader of East Asia team, Zhao Huzi.