Chapter 73: Chapter 72: He Might Be Cannon Fodder l
Translator: 549690339
Time flew, and a week passed in the blink of an eye.
Harrison Clark successfully pushed the simulator to its limits, as per Daniel Thompson’s comment “not too shabby,” and could now run continuously for over half an hour at 5G acceleration.
During that time, aside from sleeping and spending two hours a day browsing through historical data in the novels he was granted access to, he had been focused on training.
He was truly hardworking.
Daniel Thompson was both relieved and puzzled by this.
Harrison Clark didn’t seem like the type of person who could easily immerse himself in training.
Nor did he appear to proactively give himself a strong sense of mission like Daniel Thompson.
It wasn’t that Daniel Thompson looked down on Harrison Clark but rather, as a veteran instructor, it was his objective judgment of a new recruit.
In order to be an excellent instructor, besides his military accomplishments, Daniel Thompson had deep knowledge in psychology, which allowed him to see through a person’s nature from their words and actions.
The stark contrast between Harrison Clark’s character and behavior left him baffled.
But he didn’t ask Harrison for an explanation.
At this rate, Harrison would pass the individual combat examination in the simulator within a few days, and then naturally learn about the crisis faced by humanity. By then, he’d understand his mentor’s intentions.
On this point, Daniel Thompson was right.
The reason Harrison pushed himself so hard was that he knew exactly how much time the universe had left for humanity.
The sooner he could master the Azure Dragon Armor, the sooner he could access higher levels of information and gain more personal freedom away from the new recruits. Then he could deepen his understanding of this era and prepare to plagiarize songs.
According to the information Harrison gathered from Daniel Thompson, the Azure Dragon Armor operators, as a special forces unit, held a high status in the world’s military, with battleship-mounted armored soldiers enjoying astonishing privileges.
Aboard the battleships, armored soldiers didn’t have to perform the many miscellaneous duties assigned to other soldiers, and even had dedicated logistics personnel to handle their personal affairs.
All they needed to do was complete a small amount of daily maintenance training to maintain their operational skills.
“Huh? Are you already taking the individual combat exam? Don’t you want to consolidate your abilities for a few more days?”
In the Training Building, Professor Owen, who had become Harrison’s designated assistant, looked at him in surprise. “There’s no need to rush, right? Although the maximum acceleration during the test is still 5G, the machine will gradually increase the load in the end to simulate a feeling close to 10G. If you’re not careful, you could easily get injured.”
Harrison nodded firmly, “No need.”
“All right, then go ahead.”
As Harrison put on the equipment and prepared to start the combat assessment program, he heard an electronic prompt in his helmet.
“Black Bear Training Base Corporal Harrison Clark, serial number 89757, you have confirmed your participation in the 3019 nth National Comprehensive Azure Dragon Armor Tournament. You have been assigned to the T800 Group. Please be prepared.”
Outside, Professor Owen hammered his fist, “Ah, dang it, I forgot about the competition today! Crap!”
It wasn’t really his fault.
He wasn’t a professional instructor, mainly focusing on vertical research, and he wasn’t that familiar with some military systems.
The National Tournament had been held monthly since its inception three years ago.
Since training bases were located around the world and each had only ten to twenty simulators, the competition had to be conducted online to accommodate all participants.
During the three-day event, all armored soldiers could freely choose their time to log in to the simulator. When more than twenty participants logged in during the same time slot, a group contest would begin.
The competition comprised five events: long-distance running, shuttle running, obstacle short sprint, real-space battles, and ground battles.
Today was the first day of the competition and it was in the morning. Usually, only top-tier, powerful contestants could handle 15G or more acceleration with the Azure Dragon Armor and were the veterans who appeared early.
There were quite a few operators at the Black Bear Training Base with above-average skills, but none who could be considered top-tier.
As a result, besides the No. 8 simulator, the other machines were vacant and no one had come to remind Professor Owen and Harrison about the event..
Professor Owen hurriedly opened the communicator and called out, “Harrison, drop out of the competition quickly!”
Puzzled, Harrison asked, “What’s the matter?”
“It’s not the right time. Plus, the competition starts with a 10G dynamic limit, which you’ve never trained for. It’s not feasible.”
Harrison stuck out his tongue, prepared to withdraw, and casually asked, “If I withdraw now, can I still participate later?”
“Not for this competition. You’ll have to wait for the next one.””Um, what’s the benefit if I win?”
“Win? Don’t joke around. The data of all participants will be combined in the end, and only those who make it into the top 100 in the final comprehensive assessment across the entire military are considered winners.”
“And then?”
“After that, you can directly obtain the rank of Second Lieutenant and have a wide range of choices for the battleship you want to serve on.”
Harrison Clark’s eyes lit up, “How wide of a range?”
“Basically, you can choose freely among escort ships and battlecruisers, except for the main ship.”
“Interesting. I’ll give it a try.”
How could he miss such a good opportunity?
What he cared about was not winning or losing, but the right to choose!
This meant that as long as he won, he could use the pretext of choosing a battleship to serve on to thoroughly browse and investigate the current state of the human space fleet!
At the same time, he would certainly choose a battleship with the strongest survival capability.
Even if the apocalypse came and all fleets would be utterly destroyed, perhaps he could survive one second longer on the front line and see more things he had never encountered before.
Ignoring his current lack of psychological preparation for taking on such responsibilities, even just out of curiosity, he really wanted to know what kind of alien race would ultimately destroy human civilization, and how the brilliant explosions in space first began!
“Don’t joke around; it’s easy to get injured.”
Professor Owen urged anxiously.
Harrison Clark counter-questioned, “Would it kill me?”
“No, there’s a life protection system in the machines.”
“Well then, let’s get it done! Help me set it up; I’m ready to join the competition!”
Harrison Clark stopped talking to Professor Owen and began to focus on reading the detailed instructions for the army-wide competition.
With no other choice, Professor Owen followed his request.
Soon, as Harrison Clark was about to enter the first event, the cross-country long run, Daniel Thompson and other armored veterans and training instructors from the base hurried over after hearing the news.
In recent weeks, Harrison Clark’s fame within the base had grown even larger. Even though his 100% adaptability needed to be kept secret, his rapid progress was hard to hide.
The base leadership also seemed to have deliberately promoted Harrison Clark as a model to stimulate other recruits.
For example, in Daniel Thompson’s team, apart from Harrison Clark, Marthus’ performance was also excellent. The others were also inspired, showing extraordinary diligence, making the average level of the entire squad much higher than that of other teams.
Daniel Thompson approached Professor Owen, worriedly asking, “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Professor Owen shrugged, “It would be nice if he would listen to me, but I’m not his instructor, and we don’t have a superior-subordinate relationship. If it were you, could you stop him?”
Daniel Thompson shook his head honestly, “I couldn’t.”
“Old Daniel, isn’t your Harrison Clark becoming too arrogant? He’s only been training for a week and is already joining the high-level opening competition? Tch, the competition code, T800, is already quite scary.”
An instructor next to him chimed in jokingly.
Daniel Thompson nodded solemnly, “Indeed.”
In human history, the first blockbuster movie with robots as the main characters was The Terminator series.
The character of T800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, left a deep impression on people.
A thousand years later, not many people knew about the movie, but the T800 code was mysteriously given a special meaning and became popular in the military.
Just like whenever people from China visited Mount Lu during the 21st century, they’d inevitably think of the thousand-year-old poem by Li Bai, “Watching the Waterfall at Mount Lu.”
Literary works are more likely to form a special group memory mark preserved in history.
Nowadays, many elite fighters like to sign up and queue up around 10 a.m. to catch the competition code T800.
On average, every year, there would be at least two or three top-ranked contestants from this group alone.
Harrison Clark jumping into this competition was bound to turn him into cannon fodder..