“LPB” Hunting Week

To meet the Soul-Slaying Military Academy’s need for urban combat training, the “Constructed Crust” had built this old city district, sprawling for hundreds of kilometers.

Students’ weapons, vehicles, mechs, and ammunition supplies could all be delivered to them through various academy transport systems.

But that didn’t mean there were no fixed supply points within the old city.

To prevent accidents, unmanned safe zones were scattered throughout the area.

Safe zones had plentiful food and resting areas, often equipped with medical instruments.

Some of the larger safe zones even had medical ships.

Shield generators ensured that no outside bombardment could harm them.

Ceasefire devices ensured no accidental crossfire happened inside.

Conventional weapons could barely damage safe zones, making them truly reassuring places.

“Clang! Clang!”

Two bottles of iced drinks dropped out of a vending machine.

On such a scorching hot day, chilled drinks were the best relief.

Ye Lan reached down, grabbed the two bottles, and walked to a nearby bench.

He handed one to Su Lixiao, who was sitting there.

Right now, the two of them were in a small safe zone.

Su Lixiao curiously examined the bottle in her hand.

“All free?” she asked, since she hadn’t seen Ye Lan put in any coins.

“That’s right.”

Ye Lan opened his drink, took a long gulp, and sighed with satisfaction.

“Refreshing!”

Then he explained, “This is one of the perks of military academies—food and lodging are nothing to worry about. Sure, the free stuff isn’t luxurious, but it’s far from bad.”

What he didn’t add was that medical care was also completely covered.

Injuries were common in training, even lost limbs weren’t rare.

But with modern medicine, missing arms or legs could be rebuilt.

Even if you were one breath from death, you could be saved.

And most importantly—

It was free!

Free!

Su Lixiao asked, “Is that why you picked the military academy as your second choice?”

“Yeah.”

Ye Lan smiled bitterly.

He wasn’t shy about his reason.

“Didn’t have much money.”

“No wonder…”

Su Lixiao gave a knowing look.

Her cryptic words made Ye Lan’s heart skip a beat.

Had she figured something out?

He almost asked cautiously, but then decided against it.

Instead, he asked, “No wonder what?”

Su Lixiao looked at him.

“I think you must’ve done your homework ahead of time. After all, you’ve been handling things really smoothly, even though you supposedly have no combat experience.”

Trouble…

Ye Lan gave a bitter smile inside.

In the fight with the seniors earlier, he had relied almost entirely on tricks and luck, not technical skill.

Even though he had tried to act clumsy, Su Lixiao’s sharp eyes had noticed anyway.

He feared she might press further, but instead she said:

“Lan, I think you owe me an explanation. Why are the upperclassmen attacking us like this? Even if it’s training, isn’t this going too far?”

Although Zhou Zhanying had warned them at the beginning that “it will be real combat,” Su Lixiao still couldn’t make sense of the seniors’ behavior.

This question actually eased Ye Lan’s nerves, though it wasn’t an easy one to explain.

He recalled that in the academy, the Alliance’s universal currency—credits—could only buy basic daily goods.

The real hard currency was “points.”

Points were scarce.

They could almost only be earned through interstellar commissions.

Academy-issued missions were easy but rewarded few points.

Military-issued missions gave many points, but were extremely difficult, sometimes life-threatening.

Only the strong could take them.

However, “almost” didn’t mean there were no other ways.

Each year, the academy held live-combat events.

Students could earn points through them, though the methods varied with the event.

Still, these events always had a high value-to-effort ratio.

“Simply put,” Ye Lan explained, “every time a senior knocks out a freshman, they—and their squad—get points.”

For seniors lacking points, free points were too tempting to pass up.

Points were like money—the more, the better.

Su Lixiao gasped.

“What? Then isn’t the academy full of fights every day?”

“No, no, it only counts during this event.”

Realizing he hadn’t explained the time limit, Ye Lan quickly added:

“Right now we’re in an academy event. Its abbreviation is LPB, a large-scale guerrilla activity. But most call it ‘Hunting Week.’

“In this event, knocking out the top ten earns huge bonus points.

“As for why they didn’t announce it widely… probably to ‘surprise’ the freshmen.”

“And how do you know all this? You sure know a lot. What’s going on? You weren’t planning to watch me make a fool of myself, were you?”

At some point, Su Lixiao’s fingers had reached Ye Lan’s ear.

“This… this…”

Ye Lan tried to explain, but felt his ear pinched hard like iron tongs.

“Ow! It’s on the official schedule, okay? Let go! My ear’s gonna come off!”

“What? It’s in the schedule? The academy is so sneaky.”

Finally understanding, Su Lixiao released him.

“Phew—”

Ye Lan rubbed his red, swollen ear, relieved.

He knew the academy’s purpose with “LPB” or “Hunting Week” was to let freshmen personally experience the gap with seniors.

To knock some arrogance out of them.

Though for him and Su Lixiao, it hardly mattered.

“The main participants are freshmen and second- and third-years.

“Our main opponents are the sophomores,” Ye Lan explained.

“The ones we just fought were second-years.”

“That wasn’t too hard. Besides, I didn’t even have a weapon.”

Su Lixiao thought that with her weapons, she could have taken them all down.

Ye Lan had no reason to doubt—she really did have that strength.

“What about the third-years?” Su Lixiao asked.

“Their gear is too advanced for freshmen to handle.

“So the academy won’t let them fight us, and they don’t earn points from it anyway.

“Also…”

Ye Lan opened his badge’s map.

“These red dots are third-years. Sophomores aren’t marked.

“That way, if we see a cluster of red dots fighting, we freshmen can avoid the area.”

He zoomed the map to its largest scale.

The buildings turned blurry and blocky, but red clusters appeared along the edges.

From their formations, large-scale battles were underway.

This was the third-years’ real purpose in LPB—settling old scores during the event.

“Looks like a brawl,” Su Lixiao said, peering at the map.

Then she frowned, turned to Ye Lan, and asked:

“Why can I see your map?”

“It can be shared,” Ye Lan replied.

“What?”

Su Lixiao instantly stood and swung at him.

“You kept something from me again!”

“Blame the tutorial!” Ye Lan shouted as he ran, quickly shifting the blame.

They chased each other around the safe zone, until Ye Lan was knocked down by a thrown bottle.

“But speaking of…”

Su Lixiao stared at the map on Ye Lan’s badge, her brows knitting.

She pointed at one spot.

“Looks like two big red dots just split off from a group, and they’re heading our way.”

“?”

Ye Lan’s face changed instantly.