343: Chapter 335 Widespread Global Attention

The burly man in giant form announced the new selection criteria. After gazing at five directions in turn, he disappeared again.

People didn't understand the meaning of the burly man's actions, nor were they in the mood to discuss them, because their hope of being selected seemed impossible to realize.

Hundreds of millions of people fighting for five wolf bones was already difficult enough. Then you tell me I have to defeat the calamity guarding the wolf bone.

Most importantly, one cannot look for helpers.

This meant that once someone obtained a wolf bone, they had to face it alone; the authorities could not intervene.

What nonsense is this?

That monster's scale armor and fur can even defend against heavy weaponry. You want me, an ordinary person, to defeat it? Am I just going there to die?

Does Seventeen simply not intend to recruit students at all?

They were all in despair.

Fortunately, a video uploaded later allowed them to see a glimmer of hope.

It was a drone's-eye view shot from above.

It wasn't long, only about 30 seconds, and the content was simple—a heavily injured monster lying on the ground, gasping for breath.

The monster's appearance was very different from creatures on Blue Star, but those who saw the video found it familiar.

A calamity.

At first, everyone was confused: what happened to the monster?

Bullets and rockets couldn't do anything to it, so how did it suddenly suffer such heavy injuries and look half-dead?

Someone quickly remembered the burly man's gaze before he left.

The answer was obvious: the burly man had injured the monster.

People speculated that this was to lower the difficulty; or rather, if the difficulty wasn't lowered, no one would be able to pass the test.

After the initial joy, they became troubled again.

They only knew it was heavily injured, but no one knew exactly how heavy it was.

Was its defensive and mobile capability compromised? Could firearms pierce its scales now? Could the heavy weapons it always dodged finally hit it?

Clearly, the risk still existed, and in some ways, it wasn't much lower than before.

Because the burly man stipulated that one must defeat the monster alone to be considered qualified.

In other words, gang-beating was prohibited!

And setting that aside for a moment, there were also ambiguities in the selection rules.

The monsters were all guarding the wolf bones, indiscriminately hunting any creature that approached. Logically, to take a wolf bone, one must first kill the monster.

However, the selection process was: the first stage determines the ownership of the wolf bone, and after that ends, the second stage of defeating the monster begins.

The two were in conflict.

No one knew what complications would occur if the process was violated.

The public was confused, and so was the President.

He convened his think tank to discuss why Seventeen would set such a rule that contradicted the actual situation.

Lacking information, the discussion inevitably reached a dead end.

Unable to figure out the reason, they had to change direction: how to conduct the selection according to the rules—get the five wolf bones first, and then the holders go find the monsters.

This undoubtedly increased the difficulty.

The President and the think tank members scratched their heads one after another.

Getting the five wolf bones first meant they couldn't kill the monster on the way; they could only flee passively.

Setting up a fire net to block the pursuit was fine, but the monster was now heavily injured. What if they were too heavy-handed and the monster died directly?

Seventeen never said they absolutely had to recruit someone. Would violating the rules lead to the immediate failure of the selection, with not a single person admitted?

The group pondered for a long while and finally thought of a seemingly perfect solution.

Five people take the wolf bones simultaneously, triggering the second stage on the spot.

This way, they wouldn't have to consider how to escape the monster's pursuit without killing it.

It sounded easy, but in practice... uh, there was no possibility of success.

The President had already received a report from the team that the wolf bone in the mountains had already been snatched away.

The holder's identity was unknown, and they hadn't contacted the authorities to seek help in dealing with the monster.

The President was very puzzled: that guy actually didn't need heavy weapons?

Although Russia doesn't ban guns, civilians need permits to own them, and they are only allowed to buy small-caliber, semi-automatic firearms. Fully automatic ones are strictly prohibited, let alone heavy weapons.

If he asked the authorities for help, while he couldn't get direct help from the army, he could be equipped with some heavy weapons.

If he knew how to drive a tank, the President wouldn't refuse to give him one.

The President raised this point, and after some whispering among the think tank members, they all believed this person might wait until the ownership of the wolf bones was determined before showing up.

Once the wolf bone holders were determined, fighting for wolf bones was strictly prohibited.

He was probably worried that if he came out now, someone would snatch his wolf bone.

Very cautious, but it had to be said it was a good decision.

The President asked himself: if that person appeared before him right now, it would be hard for him not to feel greed.

One must know that once the second stage began, even he, the President of a country, wouldn't dare to snatch someone else's wolf bone.

However, the problem wasn't hard to solve.

They quickly finalized a plan.

Convey a message to that person through the TV station—for the remaining four wolf bones, the authorities would send the army, striving to get them all at the same time.

As for you, don't stay too far from the monster you need to deal with. Once we get the wolf bones on our side, you can move to kill the calamity.

Just as everyone stood up to go execute the plan, the secretary rushed into the temporary meeting room and reported:

"Two monsters are suddenly moving rapidly toward the city!"

"What?!"

...

Everything happening in Russia was quickly learned by the high-level officials and citizens of various countries through the internet.

Everyone was very curious.

Although the Mountain Gate and Hogwarts had similar "exams" before, they were in relatively mild ways; they weren't as exciting as directly facing a calamity.

Huaxia had released videos of suppressing calamities, but out of various considerations, the content released was selected and not the whole thing.

People's hearts were itching to know what the parts Huaxia concealed were. Now that calamities had appeared in Russia, how could it not attract attention?

The leadership of various countries, like the public, was also very concerned about this matter, though for different purposes.

Every country had seen the terror of the calamities.

Countries without transcendent powers asked themselves: if a calamity descended within their borders, they would basically have no power to resist.

Logically, those with transcendents shouldn't worry, but they were also very nervous.

What if the transcendents arrived too late? If a calamity rushed into a city, how many people would die?

Therefore, finding the weaknesses of the calamities—not seeking to eliminate them, but just to establish a system to limit their mobility—became the common demand of some countries.

Huaxia was the one with the least pressure.

The Director had fought a calamity once and accumulated experience, knowing how to effectively pin a calamity in place.

The strength of Luo Xiling and the other four was steadily improving. In the near future, perhaps they could kill a calamity alone.

Most importantly, during the first suppression of a calamity, Senior Brother Zhou personally came to oversee. Later, when Luo Xiling and the others fell into a life-and-death crisis, he simply acted and killed two calamities with one sword strike.

What did that mean? It meant the Mountain Gate would back them up!

The Director was happy; without any worries, they could take all actions slowly.

Compared to the Director, the Queen had to worry a bit more.

The Headmaster had emphasized to her that humanity must ultimately rely on itself; the final outcome of relying on external forces would inevitably be vanishing into the long river of history.

Therefore, although no calamity had appeared in Ying Country yet and she had five Magic Apprentices, she still mobilized manpower and resources to monitor the Russian calamities throughout, trying to discover weaknesses.

On America's side, Neo was a bit anxious.

It wasn't that he was worried Mr. Gao wouldn't care about them.

Relatively speaking, among the four countries with transcendents, America was the one with the closest contact and the most help from transcendents.

But the trouble was that he still didn't have a stable way to contact Mr. Gao.

The Queen had an Owl, and the Director had even built a base at the Mountain Gate's entrance; if something happened, he just had to shout.

What about him? He could only wait for Mr. Gao to take the initiative to visit.

If a calamity appeared and Mr. Gao happened to be tied up with other matters, then it would be over.

So he was more concerned about the Russian calamities than those countries without transcendents. Without affecting the spaceship and school projects, he mobilized almost all available forces to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the five monsters' information.

In this international situation, news came from the intelligence networks of various countries that among the five calamities in Russia, two had suddenly left their original positions and were rushing toward densely populated human areas.

There's such a good thing?!

The surprise came suddenly, but it didn't affect the keenness of Neo's and the Queen's reactions.

They immediately contacted Russia through diplomatic channels, stating that the calamities were very powerful and they could help, the kind that didn't cost money.

The Queen was very generous, stating she could send three of her country's Magic Apprentices to help eliminate the calamities in their noble country.

Neo didn't have subordinates who had stepped into the transcendent realm, but as one of the Big Five, his foundation was still very solid.

The most advanced fighter jets, main battle tanks, and so on—all would be sent to you.

Of course, while generously providing help, the two countries also made a small request: after the calamities died, give us one corpse.

There are five in total. One for each of us is only two. That's not too much, right?

After receiving the messages from the two countries, the Russian side hesitated whether to agree.

Before they could figure out a result, a call from Huaxia came again.

He thought it would be the same as the other two countries, intending to exchange aid for a corpse.

However, the person on the other end of the phone simply asked, "Do you need help?"

He did need it, but as a leader, he certainly couldn't show weakness. He replied, "When needed, I will find you."

"Good."

The phone hung up.

The leader and the think tank looked at each other. This person didn't seem to care about the monster's corpse?

Their bewilderment was long anticipated by the Director far away in the cave base.

calamity corpse?

If you really had one, then I certainly wouldn't mind sending Xiao Luo and the others to help in exchange for one to study.

The problem is, do you have one?

Recalling how the corpse dissipated like mist after Senior Brother Zhou killed the calamity, the Director couldn't help but chuckle.

He had already learned that the Queen sent Magic Apprentices and Neo was willing to give away cutting-edge weapons in exchange for corpses.

Neo was destined to lose big.

When they discovered that the calamities wouldn't leave corpses after death, would Russia return those weapons?

One could only say: stop dreaming.

As for whether the Queen would suffer losses, it depended on the subsequent situation.

Sending Magic Apprentices seemed very low-cost on the surface; the Queen didn't care about a few plane tickets.

But if a Magic Apprentice unfortunately died in the process of dealing with a calamity...

The Director clicked his tongue. Then the Queen would probably feel like jumping into a river to commit suicide.

"Those five Magic Apprentices..." The Director recalled the impression from several contacts and felt they wouldn't be stronger than Luo Xiling.

Then it would be dangerous.

Last time, during the encirclement and suppression of the calamity, if Senior Brother Zhou hadn't been present, Xiao Luo would have been bitten in two.

And there weren't five of them; only three were going.

The Director rubbed his temples with some conflict: "Why did Immortal Xu forbid me from informing the Queen?"

Out of the fact that the relationship between the two countries was quite good, when he first knew the Queen was going to send Magic Apprentices to Russia, the Director was prepared to reveal the intelligence that the calamity corpses wouldn't remain.

However, Immortal Xu's voice suddenly entered his ears—do not speak.

"Hogwarts and the Mountain Gate don't have a grudge, right?"

The Director couldn't let it go. Thinking that Immortal Xu was at home, he decided to go ask. He got up, left the base, and rushed toward the seaside.

Arriving at the seaside, the Director shouted twice. Zhang Mu activated the Transformation Technique and soon flew out from the light gate.

He asked about the confusion in his heart.

The reason actually wasn't complicated. All five magic beasts had been inscribed with formations by Zhang Mu, allowing him to monitor their movements and life or death at any time.

If the three Magic Apprentices going to Russia were about to be torn apart by the magic beasts, he could just detonate the formations.

Safety was guaranteed. If the Queen wanted to send people, let her.

It just happened to give her something to do, so she wouldn't "chat on the phone" with him every day using the Owl.

But these obviously couldn't be told to the Director, so Zhang Mu didn't explain, only saying, "You will know when the time comes."

The Director had already gotten used to "Immortal Xu's" riddler style. He didn't press further, patted his butt, and returned to the base.

Zhang Mu returned to The World and pondered the next step of the plan.

The construction of Seventeen would take a year at the fastest. Adding construction time... well, let Russia eliminate those five magic beasts two years later.

Neo's side was moving quite fast. After Huaxia's and Ying Country's spaceships were launched, the next one would be his.

Speaking of which, the spaceship in the cave base should be almost finished, right?

Can it be launched before Lake goes to war?

Zhang Mu had been inspecting the spaceship under the base every day recently.

Considering he couldn't show too much concern about this, most of the time he went quietly using the Shadow Technique. The number of times he appeared in the image of "Immortal Xu" wasn't many.

During one of the latter visits, he had pretended to casually ask the Director how much longer until the spaceship was completed.

The Director ran to ask the construction manager and reported back—about five months.

The timing was very precise, happening to be near the date Lake would go to war.

If this "about" was shorter, then Zhang Mu would have time to accompany the spaceship before returning to Lake.

If it was longer, he probably wouldn't make it.

The situation Lake faced was very severe. Even against the neighboring countries and Kingdom alone, he wouldn't dare be confident of victory, even with his First Army which he had trained and equipped with thermal and magic-conducting weapons.

Not to mention there was an Elf Army rushing toward Lake.

If his side made even a small mistake, they would collapse on all fronts, and Lake would vanish in an instant.

Therefore, after the war started, Zhang Mu had to constantly monitor the situation and reduce his side's weaknesses as much as possible. Naturally, he wouldn't have time to care about the spaceship.

"Hiss—" Zhang Mu had a bit of a headache.

When the Director asked if he could accompany the flight, he thought he could go to outer space, so he agreed.

Who knew the spaceship would be built so fast, yet not fast enough.

If it took three to five years, Lake's war would have already ended. If it took half a year, Lake's side wouldn't have started yet.

As a result, it was stuck at this awkward point where the war was about to start but hadn't yet.

"I'll go urge them." Zhang Mu thought to himself. He would go to the cave base tomorrow at dawn and find some reason to give them a sense of urgency.