428: Chapter 428 A Small Test

The clearing outside the tent was less than twenty square meters, surrounded by an irregular circle of charred armored wreckage and abandoned ammunition crates. The soil on the ground had been trodden into a hard, compacted crust by countless pairs of military boots, and several craters had been hastily leveled, leaving the surface uneven.

Wind Chime was already standing at the far end of the clearing.

Her posture was a world away from how she had been inside the tent—legs slightly apart, center of gravity lowered, her left hand holding three fist-sized metal spheres, while her right index and middle fingers gripped one of them, her fingertips pressing precisely into the grooves on the sphere's surface.

Lu Chuan emerged from the tent, his rifle replaced by a half-man-high alloy shield strapped to his left arm. His right hand was empty, fingers splayed as he flexed his wrist joints.

Ling Xiao unsheathed his sword with a crisp motion, the narrow-bladed longsword sliding from the scabbard on his back with a short, sharp hiss of metal against leather.

Su Yue was the last to come out, now holding a half-meter-long black staff with a dark red energy crystal embedded in its head.

Four people, within three seconds, were all in position.

Without commands or gestures, everyone's positioning formed naturally as they moved—Lu Chuan was at the very front, his shield facing the center of the clearing; Ling Xiao was on the left flank, his sword held at a diagonal; Su Yue was on the right flank, the tip of her staff touching the ground; Wind Chime was at the very rear, having already tossed the three target spheres into the air.

Lin Yu stood in the center-rear of the formation, precisely where the previous Card Maker had stood.

"Begin."

Lu Chuan spoke only two words.

Wind Chime flicked her wrist, and the first metal sphere was launched, tracing a low, flat arc before hovering about three meters above the ground. The grooves on the sphere's surface instantly lit up with blue-white light patterns, expanding into a floating disc half a meter in diameter—a target.

The second and third spheres followed, less than half a second apart, hovering on the left and directly in front of the clearing, respectively.

Su Yue moved first.

The crystal at the tip of her staff glowed briefly, far less flashy than those of the high-level mages Lin Yu had seen. A fist-sized fireball shot from the head of the staff; it wasn't fast, but its accuracy was excellent, striking the first target on the right directly.

"Bang."

The metal shattered, and the target exploded.

Ling Xiao started moving almost simultaneously. Three steps to accelerate, a jump on the fourth, and his narrow-bladed longsword slashed horizontally from left to right, his sword qi cutting into the floating disc of the second target. He flipped over the target mid-air, and the moment he landed, the crisp sound of shattering metal came from behind him.

The second target was sliced in half.

Lu Chuan didn't run. He crouched in place, thrusting the alloy shield on his left arm forward, his weight pressed onto the balls of his feet. The moment the shield face struck the third target, a shockwave rippled out from the point of contact, kicking up a fine circle of dust on the ground.

The third target was sent flying seven or eight meters, smashing into the wreckage of an armored vehicle and leaving a dent.

Three targets, all destroyed.

Then came the countermeasure.

As the targets shattered, every fragment began to glow. It was the built-in counter-attack test program—the fragments spun rapidly in the air, releasing a dense barrage of energy projectiles toward the area where the five people were.

They weren't live rounds, but the sensation of being hit was no different from a real attack.

Lin Yu took a hit to his right shoulder, a sharp sting radiating across his body. The feedback on his data vitals was even more direct—his health dropped by three percent.

The damage was calculated as a percentage, likely to prevent accidents.

The reactions of the others confirmed this.

Su Yue let out a muffled groan, holding her staff horizontally to block two projectiles, but a third grazed her ribs, causing her to stagger half a step.

Ling Xiao's sword danced into a curtain of light, blocking most of the projectiles from the front, but two still pierced through from the side—one hitting his left shoulder and another grazing his thigh.

Lu Chuan's shield blocked the most, but the barrage covered all directions, and he took three or four hits to his back and side.

Wind Chime curled into a ball at the rear, head in her hands, using a piece of armored wreckage as cover, but a few stray projectiles still found their way in.

Lin Yu's basic constitution stats were very low; if it had been fixed damage, it would have been a mere tickle to the other team members.

The barrage stopped after five seconds.

Silence fell over the clearing.

Everyone's breathing had become heavy. Su Yue leaned on her staff for support, while Ling Xiao used the tip of his sword to steady himself. Wind Chime peeked out from behind her cover, a red mark now visible on her cheek.

Lu Chuan looked down at the vital signs monitor on his left wrist.

Five lifelines were displayed simultaneously on a small light screen projected above his wrist. Each one had dropped significantly.

Average team health: down ten percent.

The counter-attack intensity of these training targets was far lower than in actual combat, but the simulation of attrition was accurate.

In actual combat within the D3 Area, this number would only be higher after each round of engagement, and the window for recovery would only be shorter.

Lu Chuan looked up, his gaze falling on Lin Yu.

"Support, heal."

Two words, without any unnecessary embellishment. It was an order, and simultaneously, an exam.

The standard performance for the previous Card Maker in this phase was to manifest two or three healing cards and restore six to eight percent of the team's health within three seconds. If the recovery speed was fast enough and the coverage wide enough, it was considered a pass.

Lin Yu raised his right hand.

The air between his fingers distorted slightly. A card manifested from the void, its face showing green patterns—[Vitality Nourishment].

Almost in the same motion, his left hand moved as well.

A second card appeared. Unlike the first, this one had a pure white face with a numerical symbol that was constantly doubling.

[Multiplication Card].

Lin Yu flipped the [Vitality Nourishment] in his right hand, and the [Multiplication Card] in his left hand pressed against it.

Stacking!

The moment the edges of the two cards touched, the text on the surface of the Multiplication Card began to flicker rapidly—

×2, ×4, ×8, ×16—

The numbers surged within tenths of a second, the doubling speed so fast that the digits on the light screen became a blurred vertical line.

×16384.

That should be enough.

Lin Yu didn't want to be too shocking.

Lin Yu threw the two stacked cards toward the ground.

The moment the cards touched the scorched earth, green light exploded from the point of contact. It wasn't the soft diffusion typical of healing spells, but a physical ring of light centered on Lin Yu that expanded rapidly outward, hugging the ground and crushing over rubble and craters, covering a fifty-meter radius within half a second.

The entire clearing was swallowed by green light.

The monitor on Lu Chuan's wrist was the first to blow.

It wasn't a malfunction; it was data overflow.

"Beep, beep, beep, beep—"

A piercing full-value alarm sounded from his wrist. Almost simultaneously, the monitors on Su Yue, Ling Xiao, and Wind Chime emitted the same sound. The alarms from four directions overlapped, sounding exceptionally sharp in the smoke-filled clearing.

Lu Chuan looked down at the light screen.

Team health—rebounded from ninety percent to one hundred percent within 0.1 seconds.

But the data didn't stop at the maximum value.

It overflowed!

The value on the monitor continued to climb after a brief moment at one hundred percent. The light screen's display interface switched directly to an anomaly mode, and a line of yellow text that had never appeared before popped up:

[Detection: Overflow-type healing energy detected—Life Shield generated. Thickness: 2.0cm.]