novelraw Chapter 14 : Academy Seven
Chapter 14 : Academy Seven
The Song of the Sand energy field was a high-level energy field classified as 3S-class when it first descended.
It was a special mission that suddenly descended during Song Baining's early years in military academy.
At that time, Song Baining was still an analyst. In her second year, she transferred to the summoning system and became an assault handler.
After the Star League competition, the top three could obtain high-level energy field experience cards from the Border Army.
By then, Song of the Sand had become one of the top ten premium energy fields.
Chen Sui had just intended to find the StarNet footage for this part when she logged onto the StarNet and received 99+ messages. Opening the academy section, she discovered that Yang Qinhe had shared an anonymous file.
He had uploaded two video materials.
This was the first time Chen Sui had seen the actual Song Baining after hearing her name countless times, albeit only in footage.
Song Baining piloted a pure white mecha. When energy body blood splashed on the mecha, it would flow down the smooth surface without leaving any trace.
Her weapons were a gun cannon and a heavy blade.
When Song Baining was an analyst, Chen Sui noticed that several times she moved as if to charge forward.
But each time she was held back by the Border Army members beside her.
"Analyst, mark the point, we'll go."
The three Border Army members around Song Baining rushed forward, leaving her and one soldier to remain in place. The two looked at each other, and the soldier coughed once, reminding her: "Don't look at me, look at the crystal's position."
Song Baining turned the mecha's head and silently marked the location on the channel.
"I feel something's not right."
While the three outputs were engaged in fierce battle ahead, Song Baining sat down, mounting the gun cannon on her shoulder. The soldier glanced at her posture, leisurely yet with a hint of vigilance, "What's not right?"
"What's beneath my feet isn't right."
Song Baining answered with nonchalance.
As she spoke, she redirected the gun cannon, aiming at the ground beneath the mecha.
The soldier was startled by her action, "What are you doing?"
"This."
Chen Sui heard a female voice say carelessly.
"I'll count one, two, three, then we take off."
Before the soldier could respond, she began counting:
"One"
"Two"
"Three!"
A cannon blast, a huge fireball crashed into the sand. Song Baining rose into the air, with the soldier following in confusion.
The sand at the spot suddenly got sucked toward the center, revealing a large hole in the ground. On the other side, the energy body that had been fiercely battling with the three outputs suddenly dove into the sand.
Song Baining mounted the cannon again, aiming at the hole, firing precisely.
The sand serpent had just emerged halfway from the hole and hadn't opened its mouth when it was directly hammered back into the sand by the oncoming shell, half its head immediately blasted apart.
"Let's fly!"
Song Baining exclaimed excitedly.
The soldier was stunned, and before he could react, he saw the analyst quickly move forward.
With a twist of the heavy blade, she descended rapidly, forcefully slapping the blade on the sand serpent's shattered head.
The other half of the head was almost smashed to pieces. Then she cut horizontally, digging out a yellow energy crystal from the serpent's abdomen.
Chen Sui nodded in agreement. Song Baining had a strong combat awareness and perfect timing. A step later, the sand serpent could have dodged in time; a step earlier, it would have concealed itself in the sand.
Listening to the worried admonitions of others in the footage, Chen Sui thought distractedly, who says analysts have poor combat abilities, need to be protected by outputs, and should focus on defense points?
This seemed quite easy to handle.
Don't blame the road for being uneven if you can't walk it.
Chen Sui thought arrogantly, but quickly waved her hand, realizing she was a soldier and shouldn't dwell on whether analysts should take output positions.
After watching the two videos, Chen Sui found detailed analyses about the Song of the Sand energy field in the assignment collection at the academic affairs office. After reading these, she also looked at answer templates for other assignments.
Once she had a general understanding, she also supplemented her knowledge with analyst basics coursework before starting to complete the assignment.
By nightfall, her light brain bracelet reminded her to participate in the military training project.
Only then did Chen Sui stretch her stiff spine, sore wrists, and shoulder blades at her seat.
She returned all the books she had read—Star Chronicles, Mecha Origins, Analyst Basics, and other related books—to their original places, preparing to complete her military training task.
After physical training, Chen Sui also had virtual battlefield special training in the holographic training room.
Academy Seven's holographic training room had its own separate building, but it couldn't accommodate the large number of people. Each time required advance reservation; otherwise, it would easily be fully booked.
Because of this, many people would choose to go to the back mountain's virtual energy field training when the holographic training room was full.
Explosive sounds from the mountains could often be heard in Academy Seven, mostly the work of these people.
Chen Sui found the military training project in the holographic training pod. The completion process was the same as the enrollment assessment, focusing on training target-locking and killing abilities.
For Chen Sui, this was as natural as drinking water and eating food, just replacing alien species with energy bodies.
Energy bodies looked much more delicate than alien species.
And at night, when Chen Sui came out of the virtual training room, she suddenly realized that the positions of energy crystals in energy bodies were quite obvious.
She thought to herself.
But she instinctively attributed this to being in the early stages of military training, given a newcomer protection period, and didn't pay much attention to it.
In the evening, after completing the last bit of her assignment, Chen Sui went to sleep.
Chen Sui's first class in the soldier system was in the afternoon.
But at Academy Seven, there was early training content on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays mornings. Chen Sui got up early, and after completing the physical training, she took advantage of having no classes or substitute teaching in the morning.
First, she took the fertilizer beside the carrot seedlings that Gu Qinxue had placed on the living room windowsill and carefully applied some nutritional fertilizer.
Then she began preparing for the repair technician certification exam subjects.
The repair technician certification exam was still more than a month away, giving Chen Sui enough time to study the theoretical knowledge. As for the practical operation items, she was very confident.
Soldier System, Mingli Building.
Chen Sui sat by the window, able to see the landscape trees planted on campus when she looked up. Each tree had its own tag hanging on it, printed with the planter's name.
This was a tradition of the biology department. Every new student joining Zhu Jing Fu's biology department could plant a tree bearing their name within Zhu Jing Fu.
The first-year soldier system courses had just started not long ago, having just passed the opening transition period, and now was the perfect time to learn new knowledge.
One class in the soldier system was as long as two analyst classes. The first half covered theory, and the second half was practical combat.
Chen Sui's combat ability came from the wasteland, emphasizing speed, precision, and ruthlessness—one strike, one kill, sometimes even sacrificing eight hundred to injure the enemy a thousand, particularly targeted at alien species.
The soldier system's combat theory came from the Border Army Zone, targeted at energy bodies, emphasizing assistance and cover, defensive coursework.
This was an area Chen Sui was unfamiliar with.
From the beginning of the teacher's lecture, Chen Sui watched his demonstrations with the teaching robot, focusing intently on their movements.
Di Qian had been teaching the soldier combat basics course for five years.
Because the early content partially overlapped with basic military academy content, few students could initially perceive the difference between basic combat and soldier combat.
Usually at this point, Di Qian would sinisterly smirk to himself.
Because the mid-term combat exam would later let these proud, self-satisfied youngsters know that there was a reason soldier combat deserved its own separate course.
But today, in the laid-back classroom, he discovered an outlier.
She sat in an inconspicuous corner, with surrounding gazes occasionally examining her. The discussions about her could not affect her focus on the class.
In fact, each time Di Qian executed a move, he could feel her scrutiny.
Let me see if this so-called combat is really that impressive.
In his mind, Di Qian paired this feeling of being watched with a hoarse female voice.
The young soldier, retired for five years, straightened his back even more, his muscles more tense.
Each punch carried a strong wind, muscles and bones crashing against the robot's metal body, producing a series of dull sounds.
A podium almost hindered his performance.
Only when Chen Sui discerned the key points in this combat technique and found the vital points to attack him did she slightly relax her thinking.
Di Qian felt the intense gaze on his back seem to shift. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief and released some tension from his clenched fist, he turned around, raised his leg for a horizontal kick, and as his gaze swept over the students below, he met the slightly frowning short-haired girl by the window.
It felt like seeing a stern commanding officer.
He instantly tensed up, clenched his fist to block the robot's sweeping attack, kicked the robot's chest with his long leg, then used the momentum to raise his other leg and forcefully kick toward the robot's head.
"Bang!"
The teaching robot's head, kicked flying, was intercepted by the blue light screen swept by the ruler.
"Please pay attention to teaching safety."
A steady mechanical voice came from the ruler.
Chen Sui raised her eyebrows slightly, quite impressive.
The students below looked around. A student in the front row, who had nearly been hit by the flying disaster, still maintaining a reclining posture, jokingly said:
"Instructor, I've been quite well-behaved lately, attending combat class properly, haven't done anything wrong, have I?"
Di Qian's neck reddened, "Accident, accident, how is this robot so fragile."
Di Qian repositioned the powered-off robot, glancing at the window from the corner of his eye, now clearly seeing the short-haired girl's appearance.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Scared me to death, almost thought I saw Commander Song.
Di Qian was sweating profusely under that scrutinizing gaze.
"Ahem, let's get another robot and continue."
The desk below the podium connected to the teaching office, and a fully functional robot was quickly transmitted through the internal channel. Di Qian continued teaching.
Just as he set up the teaching aids, a series of ceremonial cannon sounds suddenly came from downstairs. Five-colored fireworks spurted at the school gate, and human voices exploded like boiling water in an instant—cheers and choked sobs could be heard from far away.
"Ah, the senior students are back."
"Let me see, let me see."
The window where Chen Sui was sitting happened to overlook a section of the road to the school gate. A group of people passed by, surrounded by Academy Seven students. Among the crowd in the center, there were several figures in medical protective suits being pushed out in electric wheelchairs.
She noticed the striking white long hair in the crowd.
Gu Qinxue walked to the side, not mixing with the circle of returning seniors.
Standing out from the jubilant crowd around her, she looked somewhat isolated.
Chen Sui couldn't clearly see her expression, but remembering the task she had entrusted before leaving, she found Gu Qinxue's communication and sent a message.
Chen Sui: Yesterday fertilized 30g
Gu Qinxue, in the crowd, felt the vibration on her wrist, looked at it, and her calm eyes relaxed a bit. Seeing the message above, she opened a reply:
Gu Qinxue: 1
The tall pink-haired young man behind her saw this, quickly walked to her side, coldly swept a glance, and said in a cold tone: "Who is it, what are you chatting about?"
Gu Qinxue's smile disappeared, "None of your business."
Zhou Chen choked with anger, gritting his back teeth: "I send you messages, urging over and over, even using Reincarnation, who is this person that you reply to instantly?"
Gu Qinxue tossed her hair, quickly distancing herself from him: "None of your damn business."