But honestly.
Yun Ruoxi couldn’t be bothered with that kind of micromanagement.
As a leader, all she needed to do was grasp the bigger picture. In fact, if any student showed outstanding command ability, handing over command to them wouldn’t be out of the question.
After all, this team battle in the second year was really just a big role-play session specially designed by the Training Camp to further distinguish the students’ true natures, to see what talents they had aside from their combat aptitude.
The Training Camp’s AI would record each student’s performance and assign them different tags.
Therefore, sticking to one’s duties and not overstepping was actually the best strategy to get a high score in the assessment.
Yun Ruoxi lounged comfortably, crossing her legs, her gaze quietly shifting to the anime playing at the top right of her vision.
As the “originator” of the tactics.
Lin Zhen had also sent all his students out and was now alone in the central hub room, exploring the operation of the combat system.
This team battle was destined to last a long time, perhaps even two or three months, so he wasn’t in any rush to find the ancient battlefield. Instead, he faithfully performed the duties of a leader.
If the previous strategies were all the same, it would have been hard to tell the difference.
But here—
Their different command styles became obvious.
Lin Zhen divided his hundred ships into five groups scattered around, using a flat command structure where each captain reported directly to him.
***
Meanwhile, Yun Ruoxi was more inclined to delegate power, mainly trusting in everyone’s abilities.
The “battlefield” that the Training Camp gave them for this game was unexpectedly vast.
In the first few days of the team battle, even with the Curvature Engine activated, hurtling through space at ultra-high speeds, not a single ship had reached the theoretical “Battlefield Boundary.”
Yun Ruoxi’s Class 9 had barely even encountered other teams.
And, unusually for the typically controlling Training Camp, this time they gave them complete freedom.
They had no intention of interfering in their battle at all.
Under these circumstances, Lin Zhen even had a fleeting thought—“Why not just hijack a ship and escape?”
But in the end, he decided the Training Camp couldn’t possibly have no precautions in place, so he forcibly suppressed the idea.
After all, if the Training Camp truly had no defense, they wouldn’t have withheld every ship with a jump drive from them.
But just because Lin Zhen managed to restrain himself didn’t mean everyone else could stay calm.
On the third day.
Yun Ruoxi noticed on the Starmap that a ship was recklessly speeding into deep space, ignoring all attempts at contact.
She immediately understood—someone couldn’t hold back and was trying to seize the chance to escape.
As for people with such ideas and the courage to act on them, Yun Ruoxi could only hope they’d be lucky enough to run into a wormhole.
Otherwise, their only fate would be to get dragged back by the Training Camp, subjected to all sorts of countermeasures, and have their minds wiped clean, leaving nothing but blind loyalty to the Training Camp.
Lin Zhen might not have known, but Yun Ruoxi was well aware—the Training Camp was indeed prepared for students attempting to escape.
To be precise—
The reason the Training Camp set this team battle so far away, and gave them total autonomy, was to run a loyalty test, to flush out the “heretics” hiding among the students.
After all, for the Training Camp—
If two years of every method imaginable couldn’t Mind Control a student, then another year wouldn’t make a difference.
Might as well go straight to the hard stuff, use high-tech Mind Control.
They didn’t use it before because rough, technological Mind Control was like forcibly overwriting a computer’s hard drive.
It had a huge impact on a student’s brain and talents.
On the fourth day, the escaping ship’s signal vanished—completely lost on the Starmap.
Yun Ruoxi silently watched the last reported position—about three light-days from the space station.
There was no way a wormhole existed in that region.
The only possibility was that the Training Camp had caught them and was hauling them back for Mind Control.
“Sigh.”
Yun Ruoxi let out a sigh.
Honestly, if the person had kept in contact, she would have been willing to cover for them.
Like giving them a task to keep exploring ahead.
But they were just too decisive.
“The team battle hasn’t even started and we’ve already lost five people. Isn’t this a bit too much for me?” Yun Ruoxi muttered, then selected a few nearby ships on the Starmap.
She instructed them to check out the situation.
Then she turned her attention back to Lin Zhen’s side.
Lin Zhen’s situation was a bit worse than hers—over the past four days, he’d encountered more than one ship from other teams.
That suggested the base for Class 3 was likely located in the Central Region of the battlefield.
In contrast, Class 9 had been operating solo for four days, which meant their base was probably at the Periphery.
If the other teams really stuck to the conservative strategy, there was a real chance to swoop in and reap the benefits at the end.
But with a total of nine teams, only those with absolute strength, with both masterful command and powerful combat abilities, could make it to the end.
Yun Ruoxi knew she lacked the former but had enough of the latter.
So from the beginning, victory in the assessment wasn’t her top priority.
Just as she was thinking, the central hub suddenly received an urgent communication.
“Central, Central, this is No. 37 Fleet. We’ve found something strange.”
“What’s strange?” Yun Ruoxi asked.
“There are… massive amounts of ship wreckage… it’s incredible, I even saw a mothership the size of a planet… only it’s been smoothly cut in half… and there’s something weird about the space here! The Curvature Engine just shut down on its own!”
Listening to the report coming from tens of thousands of light-seconds away, Yun Ruoxi’s eyes flashed with a sharp glint… Lin Zhen had been searching painstakingly for the ancient battlefield, but her team had found it first.
“What you’ve discovered is the ancient battlefield left behind by the war between the Empire and the Sky-Eye Clan!” she replied in a low voice.
“The use of spatial weapons damaged the structure of that region, which is why the Curvature Engine shuts down automatically. Switch to standard engines and pull out for now.”
“Be careful—there might be Stellar Beasts and untriggered traps left over from the war…”
“Understood—beep!”
No. 37 Fleet cut the connection.
Afterward, Yun Ruoxi stood up and opened the Starmap.
She zoomed in on the No. 37 Fleet’s location to the maximum, committing the ancient battlefield’s position to memory.
In the original plot, Lin Zhen discovered the ancient battlefield during the later stages of the battle, while leading his team in a sneak attack on Class 1’s base.
Using stealth as an excuse, he chose to pass through the ancient battlefield and took the opportunity to snatch a barely damaged positive-negative jump engine.
“So Class 1’s base and my Class 9’s base… are both right next to the ancient battlefield, while Class 3 and the other teams are much farther away.”
Now Yun Ruoxi knew the approximate position of Class 9.
This was absolutely intentional on the Training Camp’s part.
To prevent the overall strongest Class 1 and the individually strongest Class 9 from joining forces and steamrolling the other teams, they simply placed them together from the start.
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