Lin Su nodded.
“Two guardian beasts, is your Beast Taming Space at the third tier?”
Lin Su nodded again.
The other students had been stunned into silence the moment Lin Su opened his mouth.
What did they hear?
Lin Su has a second guardian beast?!
While these people were still at the second tier of Beast Taming Space, Lin Su was already at the third tier?
So he hadn’t been going all out during the practical assessment?!
“Fine,” Li Hong, who had not noticed the emotional changes in the other freshmen, took a deep breath and his expression became severe again, “Then from now on, in each battle you enter, Beast Tamers with ice-type and dark-type guardian beasts will take the lead as the vanguard! And you!”
Li Hong pointed to Lin Su, “You’re the strongest, you go to the front.”
The entire carriage fell into a dead silence after Li Hong’s words, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
What did Instructor Li just say?
The people who were just shocked by Lin Su’s true strength now seemed to have their brains freeze, taking a long while to come to grips with the situation.
Lin Su looked at Li Hong in astonishment.
Did he hear wrong?
Because he was the strongest, he had to be in the front?
All Beast Tamers with ice-type and dark-type guardian beasts had to be the vanguard?
Having the home-field advantage not only failed to be a benefit for them but felt more like a death sentence?
And then there was the most crucial piece of information Li Hong had just revealed.
“We’re going to a battlefield?!” Lin Su couldn’t help but exclaim in a low voice.
He had thought that they, as Beast Tamers who did not even know Guardian Beast Co-operation, were perhaps just going to clear weaker exotic beasts nearby as a test of courage.
Now it seemed that was not the case at all.
Were they actually going to face the beast tide head-on, confronting the army of exotic beasts?!
“How novel!” Li Hong spoke without a trace of emotion, “Otherwise, did you think you came here just to twiddle your thumbs?”
Li Hong’s gaze swept across the people whose expressions were dramatically changing, a hint of coldness flashing in his eyes, “I know that many refer to the Co-operation Training Camp as ‘military training’, but here in the camp, you won’t be dealing with child’s play but real warfare!”
“You will witness firsthand how brutal the frontline of Immortal Country and the Alliance is, and even…” Li Hong’s eyes swept over the crowd, “you may even participate in it. If luck is not on your side, you might just stay there forever!”
“Then why…” Lin Su opened his mouth to say something else, but was stopped by Li Hong raising his hand.
“You forgot to say ‘report’,” Li Hong said calmly.
“…Report to Instructor Li!” Lin Su gritted his teeth, “Why do all the freshmen with ice-type and dark-type guardian beasts have to be the vanguard? Why do I have to be at the very front if I’m the strongest? That’s not fair!”
“Fair?” Li Hong’s expression was icy, his voice stern, “I only know that the strong should bear greater pressure to minimize the loss of the group, just like a knife, the tip is always the sharpest!”
“The moment you joined the Co-operation Training Camp, you were no longer students, you became soldiers! The duty of a soldier is to obey, here, there is no fairness!” Li Hong’s neck bulged with veins visible to the naked eye, his hoarse voice tinged with the sternness and iron discipline of the military, “Only commands that must be obeyed!”
Lin Su fell silent.
Li Hong was making sense.
If he stood at the front, it could indeed reduce the casualties of the other students.
But why should he do this?
Why should he…
Put himself in danger to ensure the safety of these classmates whose names he didn’t even know?
He slowly clenched his fists, his gaze flickering uncertainly.
Suddenly, a sobbing sound came through, from a girl who had previously been thrilled about her guardian beast being of the ice type. She covered her face and wept, “I thought… I thought the death rate was just there to scare us, I don’t want to be a vanguard! I want to go back! I want to quit!”
“You are sending us to our deaths!” On the other side, a burly young man abruptly stood up, “With our strength, going into battle means certain death! Let me off now, I want to quit!”
The expression of the other freshmen at this moment was varied, but many were filled with fear and concern.
“Heh…” Li Hong let out a cold laugh, “Scared already? Thinking of quitting now?”
“Unfortunately, the moment you boarded the airship, the moment the airship took off, you lost the qualification to quit,” Li Hong said with a cold light in his eyes, “You only have two choices, survive the thirty days in the Co-operation Training Camp or stay forever on the border front.”
“You say this is sending you to death?” His eyes grew colder, “Every year, a large number of elite Beast Tamers come to the border front, fighting for the Alliance to the bitter end and even sacrificing their lives. They are not as outstanding as you; many only have contracts with elite-race exotic beasts, yet they still fight on the battlefield with all their might until death.”
“Are you more precious than them?”
“We are the most talented young generation of Beast Tamers!” A girl stood up with reddened eyes, looking at Li Hong defiantly, “If we can grow, we will be stronger! We can kill more exotic beasts! Not just throw our lives away here and now!”
“I’ve heard too many such excuses,” Li Hong’s forehead was bulging with veins, but his tone was eerily calm, “If you’re already so afraid of death now, how can the Alliance trust that the future you will make a difference? Putting the future of the Alliance in your hands—that would be the true folly!”
“But you are deceiving us!” A young man with glasses stood up indignantly, “The invitation to the Co-operation Training Camp said nothing clear; if we had known it was like this, we wouldn’t have come!”
“Indeed, many things were not stated,” Li Hong nodded, then his tone shifted, “But whether it’s the 5% death rate or the prerequisite of Guardian Beast Co-operation in battle, hadn’t you all been informed in advance?”
“We have never joked about the death rate,” His icy gaze swept across each of the freshmen, every person his eyes fell upon instinctively lowered their head, not daring to meet his gaze, “Is it okay when it’s any other kind of risk, but not when it comes to going into battle?”
“Look at yourselves, what a disgrace! Just the mention of going into battle, and you’re crying and screaming to go home!”
“No one forced you to join the Co-operation Training Camp,” Li Hong’s voice gradually rose, “Ask yourselves! Why are you here? Isn’t it to earn the qualification for Guardian Beast Co-operation in battle?”
“Every Beast Tamer that has mastered Guardian Beast Co-operation went through this.”
“If you want to gain great power, you must pay the corresponding price. You haven’t even seen what the battlefield is like, and you’ve already turned into this sorry state,” Li Hong scoffed.
“Guardian Beast Co-operation, do you even deserve it?”
