Shooting Training 1
In daily physical training, Xu Lingqu had already found the position and method that suited her best. She could now hold a stable spot in the upper-middle ranks, keeping pace with Wang Qihu and a few others, still a bit behind Xu Xiqin, Jin, and Shen Shouli, but the gap was closing.
Wang Qihu, watching Xu Lingqu beside him, felt the frustration from the past few days inexplicably dissipate. Seeing her rapid improvement now, being defeated by her didn't seem so shameful or unbelievable after all.
He silently consoled himself as he witnessed Xu Lingqu's monstrous growth. He thought about how on the battlefield, with a commander as strong as her, he could charge ahead as the vanguard, and even if he fell, his commander could take on seven enemies by herself—there was an indescribable sense of relief in that.
Just as he was chuckling to himself, his foot was suddenly tripped. Wang Qihu's eyes widened as he saw the leg that had hooked his—Xu Lingqu's leg. He had just been thinking about relying on his commander, and in the next moment, she had tripped him up.
At the same time he fell, a bullet whizzed past him, and throughout the training group, over a dozen cries and the sound of bodies hitting the ground rang out.
Someone is attacking us with guns?! Wang Qihu's heart lurched. He braced his hands on the ground to avoid landing flat on his face, rolled, and dodged to the side.
As for Xu Lingqu, she had already slipped away behind a barrel obstacle in the training field after tripping Wang Qihu.
Xu Xiqin and the others quickly reacted and scattered. After this round of shooting ended, a figure familiar to everyone appeared, swaggering into view.
Kai Ang carried his gun, a smile on his face, and looked at everyone: "How's it going? I'm back. Miss me?"
The bullets were made of a new material recently developed by the Royal Materials Research Institute. They only caused pain when they hit, without any real harm.
Having gone back and been lectured by the old-timers, he had to take some "compensation" in return.
Among the two hundred-plus students, at least half were hit. The bullets were recorded in the smart brain system, and a window popped up on the smart brains of those hit, showing that one point had been deducted from their total.
Wang Qihu looked around at those who had been hit and suddenly felt a pang of guilt. If not for being tripped by Xu Lingqu, he would have lost a point too. A surge of inexplicable gratitude and appreciation welled up inside him. He stood up, dusted himself off, scratched his head, and walked over to Xu Lingqu: "Thanks."
Xu Lingqu glanced at the tall guy, momentarily puzzled, then realized after a couple of seconds that this was the one she had just tripped. She gave a slight nod, indicating there was no need for thanks, and stood up herself. She had sensed something stirring and instinctively tripped the nearest convenient person—Wang Qihu—without thinking too much about it.
The students had gone from initial shock to standing up. With the previous warnings, they had been trained to handle this. This surprise didn't elicit much reaction; they adapted quickly, stood up, and gathered in front of Instructor Kai Ang.
"These past few days, Instructor Chen has been leading you. Looks like you've improved quite a bit."
The students quickly formed ranks. Compared to the first day when they were lazy and even dared to be late, they had improved immensely.
He raised his gun toward them: "So, want to give it a try?"
At the sight of the gun, the students stirred with excitement. These days at Moye Military Academy, it had been nothing but physical training, like ordinary university military drills, lacking the feel of being in one of the empire's top six military academies.
Looking at the Silver Feather, the latest weapon developed by the Military Department in Kai Ang's hand, its silver body was sleek and elegant, made of some unknown silver material, with smooth lines. They wondered about its range and rate of fire.
A few of the combat-track cadets who had trained at the academy before recognized it immediately, especially those from Star System No. 2. They grew excited; they had fired real weapons before, but never the Military Department's latest development.
Even the command-track and analysis-track students were pumped. After days of just running, finally touching a gun—maybe they could stop suffering through basic training.
They weren't like Xu Lingqu, who could only get stronger with more training. They had some foundation, but these past few days had been grueling.
Too bad that hope was short-lived.
Kai Ang gave them a mysterious smile: "Shooting at targets is honestly boring. On the battlefield, no one stands still for you to shoot. So today, let's make it exciting."
Ten instructors carried up one hundred and forty guns and set them down in front of the students.
"Today, we'll start your first shooting training—shooting pursuit battle. To avoid accusations of bullying, you'll fight among yourselves. Half of you will do obstacle course evasion, half will shoot with guns. Each person gets three bullets. Hit someone for one point, successfully evade once for one point. At the end, we'll tally scores and rank you. The top half gets one extra point added to their total trial score, the top ten get extra points, and the bottom half gets deducted." Kai Ang clicked his tongue. "I'm clear enough, right? This was originally Instructor Chen's job, but he insisted I give him half a day off, saying he's tired after dealing with you lot these past few days."
He grinned: "You little rascals, I've come to deal with you myself."
The grouping for the two main teams came quickly. Each student received a red or blue block on their smart brain. Xu Lingqu's smart brain showed blue. Jin saw it and immediately squeezed over with a grin: "What a coincidence. I was just thinking blue wasn't pretty, but being on a team with Commander Xu totally makes up for it."
"This isn't a team battle," Xu Xiqin said, annoyed by his smug look. She was assigned to red, as were Shen Shouli and Tang Muwen.
But her main concern was for Xu Lingqu. In this kind of competition, how many gun barrels would be aimed at her? Whoever got the chance would be itching to take that one point from Xu Lingqu, right? Even Xu Xiqin herself was tempted to try.
After all, in the sneak attack just now, she had seen that the quickest to react, dodge, and find cover was Xu Lingqu, who even had time to trip Wang Qihu to save him. Snipping Xu Lingqu in this training would definitely bring a huge sense of accomplishment.