Pretending to be a genius starts with the civilization advancement assessment.

Chapter 170 Growth and Selection

Unlike Chen Yu's straightforward and hard-hitting defense, Zhou Yuxuan's defense zone relied on a partially collapsed factory and a maze of ruins, making the terrain much more complex.

His battle was almost entirely silent.

A pair of specially made short knives in his hands resembled the forked tongues of a venomous snake.

He didn't stand in the most conspicuous spot, but instead wandered between the shadows and the broken walls.

The azure energy condensed at his fingertips into needles as fine as cow's hair, or blades as thin as cicada wings.

A burrowing worm suddenly emerged from the ground, opened its massive jaws filled with sharp teeth, and lunged at a soldier who was focused on firing.

The soldier didn't even have time to react.

"Whoosh!"

A nearly invisible pale blue line flashed past and precisely pierced deep into the gaping mouthparts of the "burrowing worm".

The giant mouth froze less than ten centimeters from the soldier's calf, then drooped limply.

The soldier, still shaken, turned around and saw Zhou Yuxuan's figure flash by behind the broken wall in the distance, as if he had never been there.

Zhou Yuxuan's eyes remained calm. While directing his teammates through the battlefield communicator, he was also like a highly efficient hunter, calculating the consumption and return of every bit of source energy.

He rarely clashed head-on with the abyssal beasts, instead relying on the terrain and precise attacks to delay, weaken, or even silently eliminate those individuals that posed the greatest threat to the defensive line.

Sometimes, he would even deliberately let one or two low-level abyssal beasts escape, allowing them to rush into the rear's fire net, in order to test and adjust his teammates' reactions, as if constantly fine-tuning his tactical strategies in virtual space.

When a "Mantis" with an energy level of about 3000 points broke through the fire net at high speed and rushed towards a weak point in the defense, Zhou Yuxuan did not attempt to intercept it head-on.

He raised his hand and fired three flying shuttles, not to attack the mantis's hard shell, but to different positions on the ground in front of it.

"Puff puff!"

The shuttle exploded, creating three craters.

Caught off guard, the high-speed charging "mantis" stumbled and lost its balance, tumbling awkwardly to the ground.

Other source warriors and heavy weapons that were already prepared immediately concentrated their fire, instantly overwhelming it.

On the flank of the frontal battlefield, where the defensive pressure was greatest, Zhao Gang stood firm like a rock.

He wielded a heavy tower shield, each strike accompanied by a dull thud, shattering the charging abyss beasts along with their momentum.

Zhao Gang's fighting style remained fierce; his warhammer swung with surging energy, exuding power.

But upon closer inspection, differences can be found.

Nowadays, although Zhao Gang's every heavy blow is still powerful, the tower shield will stand firmly in front of him between attacks, protecting himself and a small area behind him.

His breathing was heavy yet carried a unique rhythm, as if he were deliberately adjusting the flow of source energy.

When an elite "One-Horned Abyss Rhinoceros" lowered its head and rammed its horn into his tower shield, Zhao Gang did not choose to withstand it head-on. Instead, he tilted the shield slightly, guiding the huge impact to slide off to the side, while simultaneously smashing his warhammer into the exposed side of the "One-Horned Abyss Rhinoceros" as it charged.

"Boom!"

With a muffled thud, the "One-Horned Abyss Rhinoceros" screamed as it was sent flying, while Zhao Gang only swayed slightly; the energy consumption was far less than in a head-on collision.

"Hey, I've been killed by this move twice in the virtual space, how could I not be on guard against it?" He grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth, but his eyes were more focused than ever before.

The lessons he learned from countless times collapsing from exhaustion in endless mode made him acutely aware of the importance of "endurance".

On the other side, Adams, one of the best foreign trainees, moved like a whirlwind on the battlefield.

His rapier transformed into streaks of silver light, weaving through the horde of abyssal beasts.

Adams' style today has become more pragmatic while retaining its elegance.

He used his high mobility to continuously support various locations in crisis. He would proactively attract the attention of powerful elite Abyss Beasts, leading them into the firing range of his teammates, or launch surprise attacks from unexpected angles when his teammates were surrounded, disrupting the Abyss Beasts' formation.

When a trainee in a special training class faced a "Blade Giant Ant" with a source energy level of 4800 points, he made a careless move and the "Blade Giant Ant" easily tore through his defenses with its sharp forelimbs, and he was about to be disemboweled.

"call out!"

A thin, black ray of light traversed space, flashing by.

The ferocious giant ant with blades suddenly froze, and then, starting from the part hit by the black light, its entire body was silently decomposed and vaporized as if erased by an eraser, leaving only a wisp of rapidly dissipating black smoke and a white crystal that fell to the ground.

Lin Yi hovered high in the air, overlooking the entire battlefield.

His soul was like an invisible net, enveloping the entire battlefield, and the performance of each trainee was clearly reflected in his mind.

Chen Yu went from being reckless to learning to command and control the rhythm; Zhou Yuxuan made the most of precision and terrain; Zhao Gang understood that strength requires perseverance. Every detail and every step forward was clearly reflected in his mind.

He selected members of the training brigade based on who was making great strides, who was giving decisive command, who remained calm in a crisis, and who revealed their shortcomings.

While observing, whenever a student encounters an insurmountable Stardust-level Abyss Beast, or when the defense line is about to be torn apart by a powerful Abyss Beast, the black lightning bolt representing absolute destruction will arrive as scheduled, accurately erasing the threat without ever missing.

"Medium-sized nest reinforcements have entered the battlefield. All units, take note!"

Not long after, Nie Chang's solemn voice rang out on the channel.

A group of elite abyssal beasts with an aura far exceeding that of ordinary stardust-level beasts, accompanied by a massive number of low-level abyssal beasts, swarmed in from the direction of the medium-sized nest.

Among them are powerful beings with source energy exceeding 30000 points, or even approaching 50000 points, with the leader-level beings possessing as much as 54900 points.

The Stardust-level students all sensed the immense threat from afar. They also knew that once these high-level Abyss Beasts got close, their defenses would be instantly destroyed.

However, no one seemed worried about it.

At the same time, Lin Yi also set his sights on the abyssal beasts with a source energy level exceeding 10000 points.

Immediately, with a slight thought, the Myriad Manifestations Sphere, which was originally missing only three or four rhombus-shaped pieces, instantly disintegrated. As the black threads flashed, the abyssal beasts with high source energy levels were simultaneously and silently annihilated.

However, he deliberately left behind some Stardust-level Abyss Beasts with a Source Energy level below 10000.

Because those abyssal beasts with source energy exceeding ten thousand are beings that the students cannot currently contend with.

He left those Abyss Beasts with scores below 10,000, which posed a deadly threat yet still offered a sliver of hope of victory, to the rising stars on the battlefield.

After all, whether through teamwork or an individual's desperate outburst, it is possible to kill a beast of this level.

These are the real tests prepared for the trainees, especially for outstanding individuals like Liu Yuan.

(End of this chapter)