Chapter 42

Chapter 42

After the three matches ended, it was lunch break.

During lunch break, everyone was afraid of losing these perfect seats, so they simply stayed glued to their chairs and refused to leave.

Even opportunistic upperclassmen came over to sell various food cards.

A normally ten-yuan 【Potato and Pork Rib Rice Bowl Card】 was being sold for fifteen.

And even then, demand exceeded supply. Someone even shouted at the top of their lungs: “Senior, do you have a 【Minced Meat Eggplant Rice Bowl Card】?”

The senior didn’t have that much stock and said: “If you have anything else you want to eat, I’ll note it down and send it over right away!”

Ning Zhu and the others also bought their favorite 【Food Cards】, and together it felt like a picnic.

Wang Huan, although eliminated, wasn’t too upset.

However, after seeing Chen Mo barely scrape into the finals, he got so angry his teeth itched and stole several pieces of his pork ribs.

Chen Mo said cheerfully: “Eat, eat, eat—big bro’s treating!”

The first match in the afternoon was Lu Sunyi. The people in this round seemed to have learned from previous experience; they were extremely steady, calm, and good at surviving. Before the first circle shrink, there wasn’t a single conflict, and the audience started getting drowsy watching it.

Even after the second circle shrink, there still wasn’t any conflict.

For a full half hour, everyone just watched them busily picking up cards, exchanging cards, and trying to combine cards.

Gao Luyue and Bi Keman were almost falling asleep at the commentary desk.

Only at the final circle shrink did a large group of people get forced into a fight.

However…

There were too many people, and the battlefield was too chaotic…

The truly capable ones ended up being eliminated, while those who slipped through the chaos somehow advanced.

After the match ended, the audience in the stadium practically wanted to throw banana peels at them.

What was that?!

Boring to death!

The refereeing teachers urgently held another meeting and added a new rule.

At each circle shrink, at least the bottom five players would be eliminated.

Even if there was no conflict, five students would be randomly eliminated.

With this rule, no one would dare just hide and survive anymore.

Not only would you have to fight when encountering others, you’d also have to actively seek fights.

With five people eliminated from the bottom each round, only those who secured kills would be safe!

Lu Sunyi actually had decent strength, but unfortunately in the final chaotic fight, she was hit by several 【Fire Cards】 and was eliminated before she could even play a card.

Wang Huan and she cried their eyes out together.

Chen Mo cleared his throat and said: “Dinner’s on me too.”

The two of them couldn’t stand it anymore and went to beat him up together.

After the first day of competition ended, the most lively place was the school forum.

All kinds of analysis posts, strategy posts, and roast threads popped up endlessly.

Eighty percent of the roast threads were about Li Le Yang. In a rage, Li Le Yang… uninstalled the school forum!

“They’ve lost me! Lost my ultimate strategy guide!” Li Le Yang roared in the dorm.

After roaring, the “fun-loving sheep” sent Ning Zhu a message: “Exclusive intel—worth having.”

Ning Zhu was very supportive: “Big bro Yang’s content is guaranteed quality.”

Li Le Yang became happy again.

Second afternoon, Ning Zhu’s dorm room started getting tense.

Lin Ting was in the tenth match. She was about to go on stage and was still flipping through the strategy guide organized by Li Le Yang.

Lu Xuanle was also looking at it, but it was obvious her eyes were on the page while her mind had already flown away. The only thing coming out of her mouth was a constant mutter: “【Fire Crossbow Card】, come on, 【Fire Crossbow Card】, hurry up and come!”

After a day and a half of matches, the backstage card-making teachers had already repaired and patched the 【Island Card】 into a more complete version.

Any discovered bugs were either fixed or turned into part of the challenge.

The students had also gradually figured out patterns and developed many different styles of play.

For example, the brute-force head-on type—basically landing with strong cards and solid personal strength, then simply going all-out without nonsense.

There was also the jungle-style strategy: landing without good resources, avoiding direct confrontation as much as possible, first farming resources, then fighting after obtaining key cards.

There were even completely unscrupulous tactics—for example using the 【Speed Card】 and 【Stealth Card】 to strike from behind unexpectedly; or using the 【Hearing Card】 to locate areas of conflict, sneak in carefully, and finish off both sides after they were weakened.

All kinds of tactics kept emerging endlessly.

As the later rounds went on, the “gold content” of qualification became higher and higher.

Those who made it into the top eight not only had to use cards well, they also needed brains.

This made the students of the Libra system increasingly nervous—

The Aries system was actually growing a brain.

Was the academy’s number one spot going to be taken this year?!

Lin Ting and Lu Xuanle had completely opposite personalities.

Lin Ting looked gentle and weak on the outside, but was fierce inside. Don’t be fooled by her short and slender build—once you put a blade in her hand, she would immediately go into a life-or-death fight with bandits.

Lu Xuanle, on the other hand, looked lively and energetic, but inside she was timid and fearful. She would never dare to fight head-on, but as long as the distance was far enough, her arrow shots were extremely accurate.

In such a chaotic battle, Lin Ting clearly had a higher chance of winning.

Her performance was indeed excellent. Every time she clashed with someone, the opponent would underestimate her—and then get completely overwhelmed by her combo.

【Charge Card】 combined with 【Dagger Card】.

Who would have thought that such a seemingly delicate girl would go straight for a killing blow?

In the end, Lin Ting advanced with a seventh-place ranking.

She didn’t actually survive until the final circle, but her early performance was too fierce. Taking advantage of the period when others had few cards, she secured too many kills. Even though she was eliminated early, she still advanced through ranking.

Of course, this was actually very risky.

If the final number of survivors was equal to or greater than eight, Lin Ting would have been out.

But in the end, only six people made it to the final circle, so Lin Ting filled in through kill count and became seventh place.

Lin Ting returned to the audience seats, and Ning Zhu sincerely said for her: “That was so cool!”

Lin Ting’s face turned slightly warm as she muttered: “I-it was just luck…”

Ning Zhu shook her head: “The 【Charge Card】 and 【Dagger Card】 aren’t exactly top-tier cards. Getting them wasn’t luck—but you used them extremely well!”

Lin Ting’s ears turned red. She was too embarrassed to say anything more, but her eyes were bright and sparkling—there was no trace of the weak girl she had been during the first day of enrollment.

It was Lu Xuanle’s turn to go on stage. She was already so nervous she was walking awkwardly, still muttering under her breath: “【Fire Crossbow Card】… 【Fire Crossbow Card】…”

Ning Zhu comforted her: “There are quite a lot of 【Fire Crossbow Cards】, it should be fine!”

Lu Xuanle nodded hard and went on stage with sweaty palms.

Bai Ze scoffed: “If you keep comforting her like that, and she doesn’t get a 【Fire Crossbow Card】 later, she’ll just completely crash mentally.”

Ning Zhu replied silently: “At least having hope gives her a chance. She’s already going on stage—pouring cold water on her would only make her break down early.”

Bai Ze was displeased and snorted, saying with disdain: “Being trash is the original sin!”

Ning Zhu rubbed its forehead and said: “Growth takes time!”

Lu Xuanle pinned all her hopes on the 【Fire Crossbow Card】, and this kind of “judging by appearance” behavior was usually destined to get slapped in the face, so she still couldn’t find a 【Fire Crossbow Card】 no matter how hard she searched.

After entering the game, she carefully searched around and found one 【Fire Flame Card】, one 【Armor Card】, and one 【Healing Card】.

Logically speaking, this setup was pretty good, but Lu Xuanle was extremely uneven in her abilities. Her success rate in releasing the 【Fire Flame Card】 was about fifty percent, while the 【Armor Card】 could be released steadily, but with a very high delay—meaning she might only be able to activate it after she had already taken a full round of damage.

She couldn’t keep relying on the 【Armor Card】 either; it consumed too much spiritual energy.

As for the 【Healing Card】…

Without any offensive method, healing was useless!

Lu Xuanle’s luck was actually quite good in theory, but she looked miserable and didn’t dare to fight anyone head-on at all.

Fifteen minutes later, the bottom elimination phase began.

Lu Xuanle was undoubtedly a member of the “zero-kill association.”

However, her luck was genuinely quite good—she actually wasn’t eliminated.

She somehow muddled through into the second circle, but still didn’t dare fight anyone and continued searching for cards everywhere.

As the circle shrank, there were more people inside it.

Although the number of high-quality cards also increased, it was still a situation of too many wolves and too little meat. Finding a 【Fire Crossbow Card】 was not easy at all.

But Lu Xuanle was extremely stubborn.

From the very beginning, she only wanted a 【Fire Crossbow Card】. Even after entering the match, she completely forgot about the rules and just kept thinking… give me a 【Fire Crossbow Card】!

She avoided combat carefully and didn’t dare take advantage of anyone, which also meant no one could take advantage of her either.

If she survived until the end, it would all come down to luck.

But there wasn’t that much luck in the world!

Strangely enough, after the second circle shrink, Lu Xuanle still wasn’t eliminated.

Lin Ting watched nervously and said: “The third time won’t be able to rely on luck anymore!”

If in the first two rounds there were always more than five players with zero kills, then by the third round, if Lu Xuanle still had zero kills, she wouldn’t even be randomly selected anymore—she would be directly eliminated.

Lu Xuanle herself was very clear about this. After entering the circle, she continued frantically searching for the 【Fire Crossbow Card】.

Nothing…

Still nothing…

The more she wanted it, the less she could get it…

Lu Xuanle was about to cry from anxiety.

Just then, she collided head-on with someone.

The opponent froze for a moment, then quickly threw out a 【Fire Flame Card】.

Fortunately, Lu Xuanle was in “character card” form; if it had been her real self, she would already be pale-faced and trembling.

The opponent’s 【Fire Flame Card】 missed and brushed past Lu Xuanle’s left side.

She only felt a chill run down her spine and instinctively turned and ran.

Seeing how cowardly she was, the opponent assumed it was an easy kill and immediately chased after her.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh—several more fire blasts shot toward her.

Lu Xuanle dodged two, got hit by one, and her health dropped by 30 points.

The opponent had clearly used up all his 【Fire Flame Cards】 and pulled out a large blade, rushing in to finish her off.

They had collided inside an abandoned factory. At this moment, Lu Xuanle had already been forced against a wall—no way forward, no way back, nowhere to dodge.

Lin Ting clenched her fists: “Use the cards!”

Ning Zhu was also watching without blinking.

Lu Xianle had cards in her hand—especially the 【Flame Card】. At this distance, as long as she could activate it, it would definitely hit the opponent.

The opponent was completely unprepared. He never expected Lu Xianle to still have a 【Flame Card】.

—If she had one, she would’ve already blown him up. Why would she have been forced to keep dodging until now?

Lu Xianle: “Aaaaaah, let’s go all in!”

She activated the 【Flame Card】 and threw it out right as the opponent’s greatsword was about to land on her head.

If a Flame Card hit different body parts, the damage would vary.

This 【Flame Card】 struck the opponent’s heart directly, and his HP bar instantly dropped by 50 points.

The opponent froze—clearly he hadn’t expected Lu Xianle to endure this long, and even more unexpectedly, she actually had a 【Flame Card】!

Lu Xianle was overjoyed and quickly used another 【Flame Card】.

A puff of smoke came out—the activation failed.

Lin Ting wished she could be on the field herself: “Again! Again!”

Lu Xianle’s spiritual energy was still abundant. Even though she failed once, she immediately tried again.

This time the opponent realized he needed to dodge—but the distance was too close, and Lu Xianle’s aim was very good. With a bang, she hit his chest again.

Finally, Lu Xianle secured her first kill!

Even though she was still at the bottom of the rankings, at least she had “opened her account”!

Ning Zhu had also been tense the whole time, and now finally relaxed a little: “With this experience, Lele should…”

Before she could finish, Lu Xianle suddenly jumped three feet into the air, shouting excitedly, “Holy crap, holy crap, my treasure!”

The eliminated classmate turned into ashes, and his cards dropped to the ground.

Only one card.

The 【Fire Crossbow Card】.

The 【Fire Crossbow Card】 was not hard to activate, but extremely hard to use.

It had a usage threshold—not everyone could handle it.

So until his death, that guy never even considered using the 【Fire Crossbow Card】.

Lu Xianle excitedly picked it up and immediately activated it.

At that moment, she straightened her back. Her already tall and powerful 【Warrior Card】 form now looked even more cold and imposing.

Ning Zhu: “Our Lele is set.”

Lin Ting: “Great, she actually got the 【Fire Crossbow Card】.”

Lu Xianle had practiced archery since childhood, and over the past two months, due to her hobby, she had become extremely familiar with various bow-and-arrow-type cards.

Right now she was already in the third circle, where the battlefield was small and densely packed with people.

She used a 【Climbing Card】 and an 【Speed Card】, plus a fully-charged 【Healing Card】 to offset her HP consumption, and in just a few moves she climbed onto the rooftop.

Swish swish swish!

Fire crossbow bolts fired with precise headshots.

Before the final shrink, Lu Xianle’s kill count reached seven.

This time, she no longer had to worry about being eliminated from the bottom rankings!

In the final shrink, Lu Xianle was eventually located and eliminated by someone—but just like Lin Ting, she advanced to the next round in 8th place thanks to her kill score advantage.

After coming off the field, Lu Xianle’s face was flushed red with excitement. She rushed over and hugged Ning Zhu and Lin Ting tightly: “Aaaaah I actually advanced aaaaah!”

Lin Ting: “The three of us…”

Wait—only then did they realize belatedly that Ning Zhu hadn’t competed yet.

It was just that Ning Zhu was too calm. She showed no nervousness at all, so they had unconsciously assumed she had already advanced.

Li LeYang hurried in from outside and said to Ning Zhu: “Bad news! Luo Yu that crazy woman is going to mess with you!”