Chapter 139: True Colors of a Money Lover

The volunteers standing by at the academy received their deployment orders from the military the very next day. When they departed, the academy organized all the students to see them off. That hero-like treatment made the volunteers puff out their chests, feeling that even if this trip carried some danger, it was entirely worth it.

The first-year volunteers from Blue Emperor Academy were assigned to a small town called Bright Moon Town.

Beneath every city, there were more or less a dozen satellite towns. Cities were too crowded and naturally unsuited for farming and grazing. These towns bore the responsibility of supplying all kinds of agricultural and sideline products, and Bright Moon Town was one such place.

A town could not simply be built right next to Miracle City; the primary condition for site selection was that it had to be in an area with sparse ferocious beast activity—especially devoid of high-level beasts—and where beast tides erupted with low frequency. The secondary condition was to be as close to Miracle City as possible, so that even if a beast tide broke out, the city could swiftly dispatch personnel to garrison and defend it.

When the group arrived at the western outskirts of Miracle City, ten crystal-core-powered armored vehicles were already waiting. Greeting them was someone Luo Chen had never expected.

A single eye, a face covered in rugged flesh, with a fierce and menacing appearance resembling a bandit, yet wearing a military uniform.

Luo Chen was overjoyed, because this person was none other than the fierce and unyielding military man known as Butcher, who had taught him spiritual combat techniques and had been both a mentor and a friend to him.

"I am Lieutenant Butcher. On behalf of the military department of Miracle City, I thank you all, brave volunteers from Blue Emperor Academy!" Butcher was a completely different person from the demon instructor at the academy; he was warm and hearty. Naturally, his attitude toward volunteers contributing to Miracle City and toward training raw rookies had to be different.

Had they not witnessed his terror back at Blue Emperor Academy, none of them would have ever imagined that he could be such a horrifying sadist.

Having undergone military punishment, Luo Chen had already cultivated his sense of discipline. Even though he was extremely happy to see Butcher, he managed to suppress it. It wasn't until just before they were about to board the armored vehicles in batches that Luo Chen stepped out from the crowd: "Instructor Butcher!"

"Ah, kid, it's you!" Butcher was clearly somewhat surprised. The volunteers dispatched from the first-year class were all elites of Blue Emperor Academy. Although Butcher thought highly of Luo Chen, his strength still had quite a gap compared to the elites. "How did the academy end up picking you as well?"

"Haha, yeah, didn't expect that, did you?" Luo Chen lowered his voice. "Also, Instructor Butcher, I've already mastered my very own spiritual combat technique!"

This time, Butcher was even more astonished: "No way, you mastered it that fast?"

Luo Chen smiled and said, "It's true. It's a large-area offensive combat technique. Whenever you have time, I'll demonstrate it for you!"

"I believe you, kid; you're strong!" Butcher gave a thumbs-up, but then stopped Luo Chen. "Now is not the time. If it's a large-area striking combat technique, I'm afraid you still can't control its full power yet. Right now, a beast tide could strike at any moment; don't waste your energy needlessly. Wait until the tide subsides before you show it to me!"

Luo Chen nodded and said, "Understood, Instructor!"

Butcher sighed with emotion and said, "I really didn't expect you kid to master a spiritual combat technique so quickly. Your future is limitless. I underestimated you; your future achievements will be even higher than I imagined. Hahaha!"

Luo Chen humbly replied, "That's all thanks to the guidance of Instructor Butcher."

"Cut it out, don't stand on ceremony with me; it sounds uncomfortable! Alright, get in the vehicles first, we'll talk more when we have the chance!" Bright Moon Town was about twenty kilometers away from Miracle City—not too far. A road had been cleared between the town and Miracle City to facilitate transportation and mutual visits, but this road required a significant amount of manpower and financial resources to maintain regularly; otherwise, it would soon be destroyed by wildly growing vegetation. One had to know that plant vitality nowadays was extremely formidable, capable of easily piercing even solid rock.

During the beast tide period, the activities of ferocious beasts had indeed become much more frequent. Even on this road where beasts rarely appeared on ordinary days, they encountered more than ten beasts, but before the trainees even had to make a move, those beasts were wiped out by the magic cannons equipped on the armored vehicles.

Luo Chen also witnessed the power of the magic cannons.

Powered by crystal core energy, the beam of Qi fired out could instantly blast an armored dragon into smithereens without leaving a single scale behind, with a might roughly equivalent to a tier five or six combat technique. It was said that this type of magic cannon was actually a relatively low-powered model.

Protected by the soldiers and the magic cannons, the trainees had plenty of leisure time. With a long journey ahead of them, the trainees inside the armored vehicles began to chat.

There were a hundred first-year volunteers from Blue Emperor Academy in total. Among the ten armored vehicles, each held ten trainees.

According to the organizational structure of one hundred trainees per company and ten per squad, the number of first-year volunteers from Blue Emperor Academy formed precisely one company of ten squads. The second and third-year students had been assigned to other towns.

As for the division of squad members, the academy had already finalized it before departure. Taking the beast tide into consideration, each squad was responsible for a specific region. The primary criterion for division was balanced strength. Secondly, the teams were preferably composed of classmates and roommates who understood each other well and had good relationships, so that they could coordinate better during cooperative combat.

Since the key class students occupied the vast majority of this special internship mission, and other ordinary classes basically had only one or two people per class, the members from ordinary classes were split up and inserted into various squads.

The squad Luo Chen was in was the First Squad. Most of the members in this squad were familiar faces: Zhuo Yuqing, Ellie, Joanna, Shi Feng, the infatuated girl Lulu, Sarah, Luo Chen, and three other students from Class One named Yeyan, Kayla, and Calories.

Zhuo Yuqing was currently recognized as the absolute number one among the first-year students. Paired with Luo Chen—who had broken through to level five not long ago using the company's only psionic network—and Ellie and Joanna, who were also top-ten figures in their class, they formed a formidable core. However, Yeyan, Kayla, and Calories were only at the middle tier of their class and near the bottom of the company, while the infatuated girl Lulu and another female student, Sarah, ranked around the twentieth spot in their class, representing roughly the average strength of the entire company.

Eight members of this squad were from Class One, plus Luo Chen from an ordinary class. Shi Feng, however, was an anomaly; he was a student from the Class Two key class, yet he had been assigned to this squad, which clearly wasn't very logical.

That's right, because Dean Ulysses had personally intervened, specifically ordering that Zhuo Yuqing, Shi Feng, Joanna, Ellie, and Luo Chen be placed in the same squad. The instructors understood that the dean's mischievous itch was acting up again, so they simply had to comply.

Come to think of it, the only ones who seemed to have a good relationship with the notorious Luo Chen and Shi Feng were the three girls Zhuo Yuqing, Joanna, and Ellie. According to the principle of grouping people who knew each other into the same squad, aside from Joanna and Ellie's squad, neither of the two boys was truly suited for any other group.

The first to speak was Calories, a skinny, petite boy. This boy was somewhat afraid of death by nature. Ever since he volunteered, he had been feeling a bit apprehensive along the way! "Hey everyone, I heard that the beast tide this time is level five, which means it's very likely to spawn phantom beasts! Have any of you ever seen a phantom beast with your own eyes? The instructors of the Beast Compendium said they are extremely dangerous monsters possessing special abilities and innate skills. Some use poison attacks, and anyone poisoned will quickly have their flesh corroded until only a puddle of bloody water is left!"

Kayla, a petite and exquisite girl in the squad who was considered quite pretty, stuck out her tongue upon hearing this and said, "Calories, stop trying to scare me, I'm so scared!"

Yeyan, the boy right next to Kayla, immediately patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, baby, no matter where we are, I will protect you! If a ferocious beast wants your life, it will have to step over my corpse first!"

Kayla touched her heart and said, "Yanyan, you're so good. With you here, suddenly I'm not afraid of anything anymore."

Yeyan smiled and said, "Of course, baby, come here. My sturdy chest will be your eternal reliance! Meeting each other at Blue Emperor Academy, getting to know one another, and being assigned to the same group for our internship mission—these must all be arrangements of heaven!"

"Yeah, Yanyan, fate has destined us to be each other's other half!"

Yeyan and Kayla were a couple who had gotten together not long after entering Blue Emperor Academy. They were currently in the fervent stage of passionate love, and ever since joining the squad, they had been clinging to each other like Siamese twins, inseparable. The topic they were originally discussing—phantom beasts—quickly turned into their honeyed sweet-talk.

Hearing the two of them exchange pet names and sickeningly sweet romantic fluff, goosebumps broke out all over the other trainees. While internally screaming that they couldn't take it anymore, they cursed silently in their hearts: Truly a match made in heaven—an adulterer and an adulteress!

Especially Lulu—the infatuated girl who was currently in the bloom of youth, with overflowing sex hormones, yet had excessively high standards and hadn't managed to find a boyfriend yet—found the sight particularly grating. She gave a heavy, dry cough and said with profound dissatisfaction, "Pleease, can the two of you tone it down a bit? We are currently going out to execute an internship mission, not here to flirt! Let's get back to the main topic. As for these phantom beasts, I've actually seen one. That was during an internship mission back in the primary martial arts academy..."

Her roommate Sarah said, "Lulu, you actually ran into a phantom beast during your internship mission? Talk about bad luck!"

"Actually, it's nothing much. It was just an earth dog, one of the lowest-level phantom beasts. It literally crawls out from the ground, shaped like a dog, with a body made entirely of soil. Yet it can run and hunt just like a ferocious beast, and their numbers aren't small—there were twelve of them in total! I was terrified at the time, but fortunately, their abilities weren't strong, and my partner was a boy with decent strength. Together, we united our efforts and wiped them all out!"

The earth dog Lulu mentioned was precisely the one Luo Chen had encountered in the Forest of Fear that day. Talking about past events, the infatuated girl started acting flirtatious again: "That boy was really nice, I liked him quite a lot. It's a pity that after graduation, their entire family migrated to another continent. What a waste, sigh!"

Ellie chimed in, "Although earth dogs are tier-one phantom beasts, their offensive capability and agility are quite a bit stronger than tier-two ferocious beasts, almost approaching tier-three!"

Calories hurriedly asked, "Classmate Ellie, do you know a lot about phantom beasts? Tell us about them."

"I only have a superficial understanding," Ellie smiled. "Even low-level phantom beasts cannot be underestimated, because they might possess some special abilities. For instance, a tier-one phantom beast called a Bubble Sprite has no offensive ability itself, but it possesses extremely strong adhesiveness. If you get your hands and feet stuck by them, and then encounter other aggressive ferocious beasts or phantom beasts, you'll be in big trouble."

"Stud, there is one thing you must pay special attention to," Joanna said to Shi Feng. "Some phantom beasts look almost identical to beautiful women. If you let lust cloud your brain, you might just get sucked dry until you're nothing more than a dried-up husk. I'm warning you out of the kindness of my heart: these female phantoms go completely naked, so don't lose your mind just because you see a naked beauty!"

Shi Feng clicked his tongue: "Naked beauties draining male essence... Holy crap, monsters like that actually exist?"

At this moment, the others felt that the most formidable person present wasn't the essence-draining phantom beast, but rather their classmate Joanna, who could casually utter phrases like "lust cloud your brain." That was certainly not something an ordinary girl would say often. It seemed the rumors originating from the Weston martial arts school were completely true.

Luo Chen laughed and said, "Haha, Birdman, did you hear that? Pay attention. I don't have to worry, though—surely no phantom beast is going to tempt me with money, right?"

"You're no different!" Joanna snorted and said, "Some metal-attribute phantom beasts have bodies that look very much like gold. Don't go losing your life just for gold when you see it!"

Luo Chen saluted greedily and asked, "What? There really are such magical phantom beasts made entirely of gold?" Seeing Luo Chen's expression, Ellie thought to herself that Joanna shouldn't have brought it up; instead, this made Luo Chen even more excited. It seemed he couldn't wait to go hunt down a few.

"Idiot, I knew it would turn out like this," Joanna scolded. "Let me tell you, it's only similar to gold because it's composed of the metal element race. Once killed, it will disintegrate and evaporate. Forget about gold; not even a single hair will be left behind!"

"Oh, so that's how it is!" Luo Chen couldn't hide his disappointment. If it were truly gold and wouldn't disintegrate, how wonderful that would be! An entire phantom beast made of gold—converted into gold coins, how much money would that be!

Calories asked, "Disintegrate? How does it disintegrate?"

"It evaporates out of thin air just like water vapor," Joanna explained. "It's just that the body of a phantom beast is solid, so that whole process is a bit more special."

Ellie's explanation went a bit deeper: "In fact, it transforms back into pure energy and returns to space, which is why you can no longer see it! Have you ever heard about what happens when monsters in online games from the ancient civilization era are killed by players? It's basically like that. However, some phantom beasts don't completely disintegrate into elements; for instance, the earth dog leaves behind a large pile of dirt after being killed. Furthermore, they might even drop a crystal core!"

Luo Chen piped up at this point: "Classmate Joanna, what did you just say? Phantom beasts can also drop crystal cores?"

Everyone thought to themselves: Here he goes again, this money-grubber. As soon as he hears keywords, he immediately perks up!