My health recovery is incredibly fast.

This is a mutually beneficial deal.

Xia Zuo thus saved a large sum of money, which he used to advance funds for registering the patent for underwater bullets.

"Shazo." Mars patted his companion on the shoulder, waking him from his daze. "Your diving suit is disinfected. Take it off quickly. The live-fire training is about to begin."

"Oh, okay." Xia Zuo came to his senses, took off his diving suit with the help of the robotic arm, stretched his sore arms a little, and sat down by the control panel.

Two days ago at noon, Hillenburg brought back good news: the Crystal Remnants accepted Hillenburg's group's invitation to a friendly match.

Both sides agreed to hold a friendly match today, with the location to be determined by Hillenburg's team.

The Crystal Remnants will send a team to keep the appointment; they are currently on the cliff opposite the trench.

The two teams were not far apart, but bound by the temple's laws, they could not sit down face to face and communicate as intimately as if they were having a chat.

They could only look at each other across the trench, and then spar with combat puppets on the actual battlefield.

This match features 16 vs 16 players.

Both sides deployed four standard combat units to their respective designated areas on the battlefield.

The battle mode is the flag protection mode.

Each side has a flag that needs to be protected.

The way to defeat your opponent is to enter their territory, find their flag, and bring it back to your own flag.

This classic combat mode is prevalent in the Silvermoon Federation and has been adopted by many elemental weapon competitions.

The research and development competitions organized by the alchemy school also adopt this combat mode in the actual combat phase.

In Hillenburg's group, all members except Shazo can control their own combat puppets in actual combat.

Considering that the battle might be quite intense, and that close-range use of the Rock-type surveillance golem could lead to friendly fire, Xia Zuo no longer needs to synchronize with Rock-type 2.

He had to use auxiliary tools such as the Observation Orb and the Image Orb to record real-time changes on the battlefield and collect materials for post-battle summaries.

Xia Zuo glanced at the 20 observation beads on the control panel. Sixteen of them tracked one of the team members, while the remaining four were fixed at specific locations. The images inside each bead were very clear, without any breaks or stagnation.

"Team leader, everything's ready," Xia Zuo said, turning his head.

"Alright everyone, let's begin synchronizing with the combat puppets." With that command, Hillenburg and his team members lay down on their respective soft sofas, closed their eyes, and entered a state of light meditation.

Xia Zuo pressed a few buttons on the control panel, activating the image orb linked to the observation orb.

In a 16v16 real-world match, strategy comes before actual combat.

For example, the most experienced fighter, Huberon, would lead two combat units as the vanguard to penetrate deep into the enemy's territory. How to get closer to the enemy's flag as quickly as possible would require Huberon to make on-the-spot decisions after entering the enemy's territory.

It is worth mentioning that the actual combat competition conducted in the dark zone is not limited to a flat surface; the two sides can move freely throughout the entire trench.

This means that the defending team needs to be wary of attacks coming from above.

To cope with such a complex situation, each team would place many surveillance puppets that served both concealment and observation purposes when setting up the site.

These surveillance golems are autonomous combat golems that do not require human control and operate according to predetermined logic.

They will sound the alarm the moment they spot an opponent and do everything they can to hold them back until their own teammates arrive.

Both sides controlled their combat golems, gave the alchemical tools set up on the field one last check, and then turned off their own alchemical lamps.

The competition officially began when the lights on both sides went out.

"Guys, let's proceed according to plan." Huberon's calm voice came from the coral speaker on the control panel, reaching the ears of every combat puppet. "According to the intelligence provided by Allen, the Crystal Remnants' array technology is extremely advanced, giving them a significant advantage in defense. The Arcane Alchemists' Association must have used this alchemical technology on their combat puppets. So let's use their long endurance to force them to take the initiative to attack."

"Now, everyone, go silent, keep the Water Prison spell and sound wave detection active, and be alert for any enemy infiltration attacks," Huberon ordered.

The trench was completely silent.

Both sides unanimously chose the same combat strategy—defense and counterattack, waiting for the other to reveal a weakness.

This was expected by several alchemists with extensive combat experience, including Huberon.

Before the war, based on limited intelligence about the crystal array control technology, they conducted numerous simulations of actual combat training.

Array control technology is a type of command technology.

The command structure of Hillenburg's team is as follows:

The control panel provides an overall overview, while the secure voice communication device enables communication among team members. The team leader combines the overall situation with feedback from team members to give on-the-spot commands.

The Crystal Remnants, who employ crystal array control technology, will equip each member's combat puppet with a crystal array.

The crystal array will continuously use sonic spells to detect the surrounding environment and present it as a two-dimensional map on the visual system of the battle golem.

Also marked by the crystal array are the locations of each friendly combat golem, objects marked as suspicious by teammates, and hostile targets identified by teammates.

With such advanced command technology, it wouldn't be unreasonable to want a function that can mark the advance or guide long-range strikes on the spot, right?

Huberon speculated that this was very likely.

Xia Zuo felt that... there was no need to speculate about whether it had any functions... this crystal array control technology was just the modern military command system from the previous life... only the computer was replaced with a crystal array.

Thinking about it this way, the Crystal Remnants' level of automation is likely to be very high.

They not only laid the theoretical foundation for the alchemy of artifacts, but also possessed alchemical tools like crystal arrays, which could perform high-speed calculations, real-time imaging, and process environmental feedback.

This made Xia Zuo extremely curious about the past history of the Crystal People and the destruction of the Kingdom of Truth.

Could it be that... the Kingdom of Truth discovered some cosmic secret, attracted extraterrestrial visitors, and thus fell into the brink of destruction?

It's a pity that the Temple keeps its history of the earlier eras a closely guarded secret.

Xia Zuo rarely had the opportunity to uncover the secrets within.

Ten minutes passed as his thoughts raced through his mind.

After thinking for a moment, Huberon said through the group's internal communication channel:

"Field, launch a medium-range mine toward the b2:c4:b1 position. Let's see how the other side reacts. After launching, take cover."

Field calmly replied, "Received... Ready to launch, 3, 2, 1, launch."

With a faint blue glow, the mine pierced the dark seawater and flew more than twenty meters away, landing right in the mouth of a giant tubular coral.

A muffled explosion rang out, followed by a cloud of dust.

“I saw something,” Xia Zuo said, fiddling with the image gem. “Just before the mine hit the coral, I spotted an underwater lake behind it. I checked the image on the gem… and it’s confirmed, it’s an underwater pool at least 5 square meters in size.”

The underwater pool may be composed of seawater or some other liquid.

They come together to form underwater pools because of their higher density or the presence of certain substances.

A common type of underwater pool is made up of the corpses of marine monsters.

Their remains sank into the sand bed and slowly decomposed. Due to the limited flow of seawater, the decomposition products accumulated in place and eventually mixed with the water, forming a small pool on the seabed.

Underwater pools are usually highly corrosive or toxic, and combat golems must never fall into them, otherwise they will be severely injured or even destroyed on the spot.

The underwater pool behind the tubular coral was likely formed from the remains of the tubular coral and has extremely high acidity.

“Roger that, Shazo. Your reminder was timely.” Huberon thought for a moment and said, “Field, you guys go to A3:B1:A4 and stand by. Laurie, you launch medium-range mines at B8:C9:C2. Team leader, you launch…”

Huberon commanded four combat units, each launching four mines, and finally located the enemy's trail.

“I see it,” Shazo said. “It’s about 20 meters to your left and slightly ahead, in Huberon. There are two combat units assembled there. That mine alerted them just now…”

Xia Zuo paused, glancing at the screen monitoring the puppets. "Huberon, be careful, their mines are coming."

"Prepare to deflect the projectile!" Huberon growled, his eyes sweeping across the open space ahead, where a faint blue light was hurtling towards them.

He took the lead, raising his right arm to conjure an umbrella-shaped water shield, and said:

"Field, fire two groups of mines simultaneously toward area a4:g6:b2."

"receive."

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh~" 4*2, a total of 8 mines flew out in unison, heading in the direction Xia Zuo had mentioned earlier.

As soon as the mine that Huberon had deflected exploded, Xia Zuo's voice rang in everyone's ears.

"Large number of mines detected!"

All four combat units were hit by medium-range mines at the same time!

There was always some delay between Xia Zuo discovering the mine and him notifying the various combat units.

After the mines flew past the midfield line, Huberon and his team received the warning and could only hastily condense water shields to try their best to deflect the attacks.

After a series of exchanges of mines, Field's team suffered the most damage. They were attacked just after launching two rounds of mines, which made quite a commotion and allowed the enemy to pinpoint their location very easily.

Both sides returned to silence.

“The command speed and combat unit response speed of the Crystal Array control technology are at least 30% faster than ours. Their counterattack is even faster than I expected.” Huberon’s tone was somewhat low. “If we launch an offensive, our chances of winning are less than 40%.”

Xia Zuo felt that this was not the full strength of the Crystal Remnants.

In his previous life, he had played many military simulation games and knew very well how powerful information-based and modern combat command systems were.

The Crystal Remnants must have been concealing some means to defeat their enemies during that brief exchange of probing, and intentionally suppressing their counterattack capabilities.

However, these were just guesses, and saying them out loud would hurt the team members, so Xia Zuo chose to keep them to himself.

Hillenburg picked up the conversation and said:

"Don't be discouraged, everyone. The purpose of this friendly match is to identify our weaknesses and find things we can learn from our opponents. Although our chances of winning are slim, we've already gained some insights, haven't we?"

"I suggest we request a 10-minute pause. Let's summarize the lessons learned from the previous battle before continuing the match."

"I second that."

"I support."

“I think so too,” the group members said.

“Perfect. I was just thinking about a strategy,” Huberon declared decisively.

“Then… Shazo, send a signal to the alchemy lab across the way. We’ll use our only rest opportunity,” Hillenburg said.

"Okay, team leader." Xia Zuo pressed a button on the control panel, and a beam of light with alternating colors shot out from the outer wall of the alchemy room.

The alchemy room of the Crystal Remnants across the way received the light signal and took the lead in turning on the alchemical lamps on the base to illuminate the area, as a response to accepting the proposal.

Both sides temporarily lost synchronization with the combat puppets.

Huberon woke up from the soft sofa, immediately got up and went to the control panel to watch the footage recorded in the image sphere.

“I think we’ve discovered a weakness in underwater bullets,” Danielle said thoughtfully.