221: Teamwork

The final results of this round of ranking matches saw Chen Ling (who lost to Xu Yan due to Xiong Nian's lightning resistance bonus) and Cheng Ye (who lost to Chen Ling) tied for first place with a record of 8 wins and 1 loss.

Xu Yan tied for third place with Qian Ming with a record of 7 wins and 2 losses.

After the second round of ranking matches ended, everyone entered the next round of intensive training.

The content of this training was to improve the coordination and chemistry between the members.

A series of trial secret realms, some pre-existing and others temporarily constructed, were presented before them. The School Team was divided into groups of 2, 3, 4, and 5 (across multiple sessions) to enter these realms and complete various tasks assigned by the Coaching Team.

Given the strength of the School Team members, the secret realms chosen for their training were naturally not simple.

Not only did they have to adapt to the various bizarre rules within the realms, the original inhabitants, and the returning sparring partners, but they also had to be wary of the Coaching Team 'directors' suddenly stirring up trouble.

For example, while Xu Yan and the others were performing a task, a sky screen visible to all creatures in the realm might suddenly appear, live-streaming their every move. Beside the stream, a caption like 'He who obtains XXX rules the world' would be added, followed by real-time tracking of their locations, causing them to be hunted by every creature in the secret realm.

Or, just as Xu Yan and the others were about to complete a task, natural disasters like meteor strikes, an ice age, lightning storms, or cataclysmic landslides would suddenly occur, requiring them to survive until the disaster ended.

Alternatively, when they were about to defeat a target and complete a task, the opponent might suddenly power up or encounter a fortuitous opportunity, undergoing a temporary breakthrough or merging multiple units to create an Overlord Rank opponent on the spot.

In short, the 'director team' did whatever they could to make things uncomfortable, putting everyone through a lot of suffering with all sorts of unscrupulous, unexpected maneuvers.

Under the constant pressure of being hunted across entire realms, facing apocalyptic disasters, and fighting Overlord enemies, the trump cards that some had been hiding were gradually revealed, and the main spirit beasts of the team members became known to their teammates.

Excluding the spirit beasts that had not yet mastered Domain Stage 2, the group was roughly divided into four tiers.

The fourth tier consisted of the two nameless extras who had no Domain Stage 2 spirit beasts and were essentially there to make up the numbers; the third tier consisted solely of Lin Jin, who had one spirit beast that had recently entered Domain Stage 2.

The second tier included: Chen Ling's Golden Thunder Tribulation Spirit and Heavenly Punishment Huodou; Zhao Zhen's Fu Yue Kui Niu and Prison Bian; Qian Ming's Scarlet Fire Qilin and Thick Earth Qilin; Cheng Ye's Profound Nether Ice Phoenix and Sin-Washing Snake; and Zhang Che's White Bone True Dragon and Azure Dragon.

As for the first tier, it consisted of Xu Yan and Lin Heng. The former possessed four Domain Stage 2 spirit beasts—Zhu Yan, Wuxiang, Xiong Nian, and Xuan You—while the latter had only three, but all three were Monarch Limit entities.

As their spirit beast configurations and trump cards were exposed, either voluntarily or by force, the coordination between members became increasingly seamless, and several highly compatible combinations naturally emerged.

For instance, Xu Yan's Wuxiang and Zhang Che's White Bone True Dragon. Combining two summoning-type spirit beasts, they paired the White Bone True Dragon's bone creations with Wuxiang's mechanical creations and modifications. The quantity and infectiousness of the undead, combined with multi-threaded precision mechanical control and powerful firepower, created a veritable Mechanical Undead Legion.

Under the coordination of these two spirit beasts, they turned the Coaching Team's 'realm-wide hunt' mode into a Calamity Mode. Starting from being hunted, they began to counter-kill and assimilate their pursuers; as their numbers grew, they actively occupied secret realm cities and assimilated the inhabitants, eventually creating an entire Mechanical Undead Legion within the realm.

Then, after the task ended, the Mechanical Undead Legion in the realm was split between the two and stored in their respective spirit beasts' summoning spaces, which was a massive harvest.

Besides that, there was the Ice Mirror Prison of the Profound Nether Ice Phoenix and Empty Mirror Fox; the 'True Underworld Combo' of the Xu Yan, Cheng Ye, and Zhang Che trio using Zhu Yan and Xuan You with the Profound Nether Ice Phoenix, Sin-Washing Snake, and White Bone True Dragon; and the space combo of Xu Yan and Lin Heng. All sorts of conventional, ridiculous, and rule-breaking combinations appeared in the various secret realms.

Relying on the 1+1≥2 results of these combinations (where their lower limits did not negatively impact each other), the group became much more composed when facing the Coaching Team's shenanigans. While gaining rewards for completing tasks in the secret realms, they occasionally obtained special harvests like the Mechanical Undead Legion.

After clearing all the secret realms and tasks prepared by the Coaching Team, the members who finished this stage of training welcomed the third round of ranking matches.

This time, the ranking match was no longer a series of 1v1 battles but was instead held in a Battle Royale format.

The ten School Team members, along with a group of sparring partners and the powerful surviving creatures from the previously cleared realms, were all placed into a secret realm that was in the process of collapsing.

The rules in the realm were chaotic, and the space was extremely fragile; any slightly powerful attack could shatter the space or even trigger a void storm. There was no so-called 'poison circle'; instead, all areas of the realm were randomly deconstructed in random sizes, and various natural disasters erupted sporadically.

Personnel were spawned randomly with no limit on the number of usable spirit beasts. They could choose to act alone or cooperate with School Team members, sparring partners, or even surviving creatures, provided they could reach an agreement.

Furthermore, backstabbing was permitted; the Coaching Team would not lower an individual's evaluation or harbor negative feelings due to backstabbing.

Ultimately, the one who survived until the end would be the first place in this round of ranking matches, with subsequent rankings determined by the order of elimination.

After the rules were explained, everyone and the 'NPCs' were deployed into the ranking secret realm by the Coaching Team.

Then, every School Team member who entered the realm discovered that their 'spawn point' was exactly in the center of an area about to collapse. The moment they landed, the destructive force of the realm's deconstruction surged toward them.

Having developed a bit of PTSD from the Coaching Team's various antics, everyone was on high alert the moment they entered the realm. They reacted swiftly to this 'spawn kill' attempt, using their respective means to flee their areas rapidly.

Less than half an hour after escaping the deconstruction zones, two consecutive realm-wide announcements rang in everyone's ears.

"Nameless Extra One, eliminated," "Nameless Extra Two, eliminated."

As these voices rang out, the remaining eight also encountered their own troubles.