Lin Zhen lifted his head and looked at the sky.
Just now, during the forced landing, he had been observing and found that not only were there far more landing pods than he had imagined, but their drop points also seemed to cover almost the entire planet.
This meant that unless the War Camp deliberately released extra landing pods to throw off the cadets’ judgment, the number of participants in this assessment was likely far greater than the four thousand from their War Camp.
Moreover, from this point, it seemed the War Camp hadn’t dropped all the cadets in the area of the planetary core or even nearby.
If that was the case, didn’t it mean whether or not they could find the planetary core was up to their individual luck?
After all, this planet was so large—it was absolutely impossible to search the entire place within just two months.
Just traveling around wouldn’t be enough.
The War Camp wasn’t the kind of slapdash outfit that made hasty decisions; there’s no way they hadn’t considered this.
So either they thought the cadets had a way to obtain information about the planetary core and reach that region in time, or they were intentionally testing the cadets in this way.
Lin Zhen thought it was probably the former.
After all…
Wait a minute.
He was planning to find a chance to escape with his companions this time.
The assessment task only required him to go through the motions, as long as he didn’t let the supervisors notice anything unusual.
Gathering his companions and looking for an opportunity to escape was what really mattered—so why was he seriously analyzing all this?
Lin Zhen shook his head, a genuine laugh escaping him.
It seemed he really had been pickled by the War Camp; even his way of thinking was starting to resemble a cadet’s.
“What’s this, Lao Lin is starting to look like an instructor.”
“So sullen.”
“You can even get sultry about this?”
“But in the early stage of the assessment, I still need to act the part. Later on, once a cadet discovers the planetary core, the instructors’ attention should be drawn over there… That seems like a good time to escape.”
As these thoughts flashed through Lin Zhen’s mind, he began to carry out his tasks obediently.
He picked up the planetary core detector, turned it on for a scan, and, after confirming there was no signal of the core nearby, packed it away along with the mimicry device.
Next, he took a signal transmitter from his chest, pressed it firmly to activate, and attached it to his wristwatch.
This seemingly simple signal transmitter was anything but. He had made it based on technology Chicha had transmitted to him, as well as some knowledge from the War Camp.
Its frequency was different from those known by the War Camp, so it couldn’t be detected, yet it could upload its signal to the War Camp’s terminal devices.
Lin Zhen hadn’t known the War Camp would issue wristwatch terminals.
He’d originally thought everyone would carry a tablet terminal to connect to the transmitter.
But now that tablets were unnecessary, they already had more portable terminals.
As the transmitter was attached, the screen of his wristwatch flashed, and a blank white map popped up.
On the map, a green dot was at the very center, surrounded by six flashing red dots.
The green dot was Lin Zhen’s current location.
The red dots represented the others—clearly, they had all landed safely and activated their transmitters.
On the map, they all seemed close together, but that was only because the map lacked Taixing’s geographic information and couldn’t calculate their real-time distance.
So even if they looked less than a finger-width apart on the map, the actual distance might be hundreds of kilometers.
Lin Zhen didn’t expect to find his companions in the first few days. He picked the nearest red dot and strode in that direction.
But he hadn’t gone far when, from deep in the woods ahead and to his right, a piercing, miserable screech suddenly rang out.
Lin Zhen’s eyes flashed, and he quietly crept closer.
He climbed over several toppled, withered trunks and pushed aside the thick grass in front of him. Suddenly, he saw a green-skinned humanoid slashing at a yellow-skinned humanoid with a blade.
Lin Zhen thought for a moment, then took out his mimicry device and placed it above his head.
The orb immediately emitted a faint white light that enveloped him.
After a moment—
The white light faded, and Lin Zhen and the orb vanished from sight.
In their place was a yellow-skinned humanoid, bearing a slight resemblance to him.
The yellow-skinned humanoid touched his own face—the sensation was real.
He pinched the pointed elf ear that grew from the side of his head, and couldn’t help but feel quietly amazed.
This mimicry device, with its built-in language translation system, could temporarily transform a human body into that of another race.
But it wasn’t just a simple illusion.
Like now, his ears had been forcibly lengthened, and the size and position of his head after the mimicry no longer matched his own, so the ears could be moved to where they belonged on this species.
This way, even if someone reached out and touched his face, they couldn’t immediately break his disguise.
“Damn, I want one too.”
“With this, you wouldn’t even need a cosplay outfit.”
“Wait, can you use this to turn into a woman temporarily?”
“I bet you could—just tuck it in, right?”
“Ah Zhen’s already making contact with the locals? That’s main character treatment for you.”
Yun Ruoxi drew her gaze back from the barrage.
Looking at the rotten swamp before her, reeking of stench, she silently shook her head.
As the second female lead, her situation was the complete opposite of Lin Zhen’s—she seemed to have landed in a truly terrible area.
Fortunately, she could fly.
Otherwise, the moment she landed, she would have ended up in a pitiful state.
Yun Ruoxi slowly rose into the air, glanced at the map on her wristwatch, and quickly flew toward the nearest red dot.
According to the rough plot outline—
This Taixing named Samira-21 had two kinds of intelligent beings, called Green Sprites and Yellow Sprites.
The former ruled the surface.
The latter ruled the entire underground world.
The two had been at odds for generations, and war had never ceased.
So, although neither side’s technological level was especially high, both had managed to develop some formidable weapons.
Therefore, she didn’t fly too high—just above the treetops, and not too fast, making almost no noise, so she wouldn’t be shot down by some inexplicable attack while flying.
But even so, flying was still more noble than walking.
In less than an Imperial hour, she had left behind the rotten marsh where she landed.
She saw a forest of dense, towering trees, and a city built between the trunks and on the ground.
This city was quite three-dimensional, with roughly upper, middle, and lower levels.
The upper level was in the treetops, hundreds of meters high, apparently where nobles or high officials and wealthy merchants lived.
Though the houses were hidden among the leaves, you could still see a hint of luxury.
The middle level occupied the entire trunk area and was the largest level.
It was mostly the homes of ordinary people.
Some kind of long-stemmed plant had been woven into roads that connected neighboring trunks, while the trunks themselves had been hollowed out to serve as dwellings.
Of course, some houses were built directly on the sides of trunks—these were generally larger and more luxurious.