Battle Frenzy

Being one of the 2 super heavy soldiers that have managed to destroy the strength evaluation machines during the heavy soldier arena yesterday, Tariq Dolen was catapulted to the 3rd spot on the TOP5 highlights. Being a younger generation hailing from commoners, therefore he was only able to enter a squadron whose strength was evaluated to be of B rank. Due to him, Vallance Academy was basically catapulted to fame over a single night.

However, the most powerful highlights still belonged to the experts on the Mo’s List. Be it the assassins or heavy soldiers, their absolute strength had indeed suppressed everything. Regardless of Noriba’s heaven shaking chop, or the ghostly face that Napier Mo had shown in the assassin arena, both were truly astonishing in their own rights. There was no need to for the CHF committee to publicise, as they had naturally held the place of Number 1 in the hearts of the audience.

The range soldier arena held on the 3rd day went on as planned, with the competition growing even more intense. For the sake of appearances, the weaker squadrons were giving their all in their struggles, while the strong squadrons paid attention to the standard as a whole for the 5 great competition zones. One could definitely be up for a show today.

However, for Tianjing Academy which had gained massive amounts of attention due to their endlessly spectacular performances, they could still feel quite a bit of pressure on their shoulders.

Although Barran’s performance yesterday was extremely eye-grabbing, his final combined score was definitely not high. As for today’s range soldier arena, it was the true “short end of the stick” for Tianjing.

Scarlet was very clear about the disparity she had when compared to those truly top-class experts. Without even mentioning about those figures on the Mo’s List, any random mainstay range soldier from a first-class strong squadron like Copperfield’s Arnold Teuton would far, far exceed the level she was able to contend against.

However, what made everyone feel relieved was that Scarlet had kept her cool for the entire time, entirely unlike the nervousness and unease present in Barran yesterday.

Some people said that those who have awakened their special abilities would have their attributes being related to a certain degree to their characters. Take for example a person with a fire attribute special ability, who would generally have more of a urgent character, while a person with an ice attribute special ability would tend to be cold and quiet. Although this wasn’t definite or absolute, this seemed to be able to be applied to Scarlet.

In the morning, after sharing laughs and smiles while having breakfast with everyone, not a single bit of nervousness or worry was present on Scarlet’s face. She was extremely clear of her position within this CHF. She did not expect to get too high of an evaluation in today’s arena, with her only hope being to secure a point score within the middle of the pack. As for other matter, she could hand them all to Wang Zhong and Grai. Naturally, it would be for the best if she could get the opportunity to obtain a higher point score. What’s more, Scarlet also wanted to see and observe exactly what level those outstanding range soldiers from various places of the federation were at.

The venue of today’s arena wasn’t the Number 3 training grounds like the last two arenas. The Grozny Academy had its own specialized range training grounds. Although the northern regions specializes in heavy soldiers, they too excelled in their ranged soldiers. Guns were relatively widespread in the northern regions. Without mentioning about new humans, while he has traveling through here, Grai had seen one or 2 guns owned by seemingly every nomad or shepherds present here. Even ordinary 3-year-old kids already knew how to play with guns. What’s more, there were a considerable amount of gun ranges in Grozny City.

Grozny Academy’s range training grounds gave off luxurious and extravagant feel, with various specialized equipment and training facilities present within. There were also quite a few types that Scarlet have never seen before. Of the participants standing in the surroundings, there were a considerable number of females present. Indeed, range soldier was an occupation that was most suitable for females to excel in, as they generally were more particular and paid more attention to the nuances and basics of skills and techniques. This was a universally known truth. Naturally, those on the Mo’s List were exceptions and could not be used as comparisons.

“The tests for today’s range soldier arena will be slightly more complicated, with even more topics covered.” Cole Joseph was still the chief invigilator, his gentle and friendly appearance making him rather suitable for such a role. “Therefore, everyone will be split into 3 man groups that will undergo each of the 3 tests as a whole. The contents of the test include shooting accuracy, evasion skills as well as evaluation of firepower. Next up will be the details of the groups…”

The more points of assessments there were, the longer the entire competition would last. Being allocated to the first group, Scarlet proceeded along with the arrangement of the competition and started on the first topic of shooting accuracy.

The weapons allowed to be used for the range soldier test were designated by the committee, with no possibility for the participant to use their own personal ones. Naturally, they had provided a wide variety of weapons to choose from, ranging from heavy hot weapons like cannons to cold weapons like a various assortment of bows.

Naturally, the accuracy grading for the test would change in accordance with the weapon one chose. Take for example the first test on accuracy. The goal was to strike 10 targets that were placed 1000 metres away. If a person chose to use an ordinary runic pistol or a normal runic bow, he or she would only need to hit the targets to obtain an A or even S rank evaluation result. After all, they had to hit a bowl sized target situated at a 1000 metres away from them.

However, if one chose to use a high powered sniper rifle with magnifying optics, one would need to land their shots at the centre of 9 or more targets. The size of those “9 targets” was the size of a green bean…

Scarlet had chosen to use a high powered sniper rifle. This was her go-to weapon of choice before switching to her dual pistols, with her still possessing the same standard of proficiency as before. Although the scoring requirements for sniper rifles were much higher than other weapons, it was still considered to be relatively convenient. After all, the long barreled high power sniper rifle was famous for its stability.

The sounds of gunfire started to ring out like an unorganised orchestra. Unlike the other 2 previous arenas, there wasn’t anyone making a racket, nor was there people talking and discussing the results and performance of others. The entire range appeared to be incomparably disciplined and focused, with seemingly all of the range soldier participants hiding their feelings under a cold and emotionless expression.

Scarlet’s final result wasn’t considered outstanding. Although her true strength was restricted, it was fortunate that she was still relatively stable. Coupled with the choice to use more conservative combat skills and techniques, she was barely able to scrape by in the middle pack of the participants.

Other than absolute strength, one would have to be willing to gamble to be able to obtain high scores in this test. Although a high power sniper rifle that Scarlet had chosen for her accuracy shooting test was able to lower the difficulty required to hit the targets and increased stability of her points gained, it had also equated to her giving up the possibility of gaining high scores. No one could be 100% certaint of themselves to be able to successfully strike 9 out of 10 bean sized targets at a distance of 1000 metres. What’s more, one couldn’t use one’s own guns. Despite being provided with the best hot weapons produced by the federation military’s heavy industries, there would always be a slight deviation to the bullet’s flight path in every shot taken. Managing to hit 9 out of 10 targets was already at the realm that was out of bounds of pure strength. The only way possible would be that one was able to use one’s personally specialized weapons.

However, there were always exceptions to everything, as such explanations could only used on most participants. The one that had broken such thinking today was the captain of the Torres Academy, Alasi Torres.

Being one of the 5 great ranged soldiers on Mo’s List as well as being the captain of the Torres squadron, there was absolutely no doubt in the strength he possessed. Being in the league of his own amongst the ranged soldiers present in the Grozny City Competition Zone, he was clearly the target to beat. The super difficult range soldier tests held today were basically a stage set up specifically for him to make his performance. When he had taken action and attempted the test, even Scarlet could not help but take a temporary stop just to observe him. Indeed, his performance had shocked and astonished everyone, while watching him in person had benefited the other range soldiers greatly.

For the first test on accuracy shooting, he had immediately chosen to use the most ordinary runic pistol there was in the given selection, and not any of the similar replicas of the Mogg’s Gun. As everyone knows, with such a range, there was absolutely no guarantee to the bullet flight path when shot out of a runic pistol. With its lack of power, the bullet shot out from it would be affected by the wind pressure, direction and temperature as well as changes to the environment. This was sufficient to cause the bullet to stray quite a few metres from its intended target by the time it had flown to the 1000 metre mark. What’s more, when aiming at a target 1000 metres away, the most pivotal factor was one’s sight. What the hell could anyone see at such a distance?

However, the key point was that Alasi possessed the special ability of hawk eyes, causing such a distance to be of no issue to him.