Wilderness Survival (I)

[The results of the ladder preliminary round are out, this is a sharp review]

(This article was passionately written by Mai Sui Ma Che, a special commentator for Fantasy Beast Weekly)

Advance statement:

1. The author's views do not necessarily reflect the views of this journal.

2. The author is not drunk or taking drugs

Dear viewers, the results of this year's ladder tournament preliminary round were even more dramatic than our TV station's 8 o'clock drama. Let me review them in detail for you.

Let’s take a look at the detailed rankings first: (I know you’ve seen this trending search a thousand times, but for the sake of this article’s completeness, please bear with me)

State College Preliminary Round Grouping First Half Second Half Preliminary Round Total Points

Leiden State Thorn Flower College A 340 350 690

Babel College, Mesoamerica C 330 200 530

Malta Embroidery Dream Academy D 330 200 530

Mithril Academy of Germany and Italy B 330 200 530

Asian Iberian College C 320 200 520

Avalon College, England D 300 200 500

Mesoamerican Pivot College D 300 200 500

Kirigakure Kuronuma Academy A 300 180 480

Neon State Izumo College B 270 200 470

Slavic State Frost Language Academy C 200 210 410

Cappadocia College, Yellowstone A 230 180 410

Lighthouse College, Las Vegas B 200 180 380

Yuyuzhou Kunlun College A 250 120 370

Malta State Yangyan College B 190 180 370

Deyizhou Fangbei College A 220 120 340

Garuda College, Honolulu D 200 120 320

Luck is very important in the preliminary rounds of every ladder tournament, and it is mainly reflected in the grouping.

Whether you admit it or not, the four major colleges are the colleges that are far behind in terms of the standards of previous years.

Therefore, the best grouping for the weaker colleges would probably be to put the eight strongest colleges, including the four strongest, into one group, and let the weaker colleges in the other three groups fight each other. This way, the less weaker colleges could enjoy a good share of the points.

Unfortunately, the Fantasy Beast Hall isn't a Fool's Hall, so such a scene wouldn't occur! However, there are still plenty of loopholes to exploit in competitions. For example, this time, Golden Leaf Academy was reported for "trading points" with Wind Breath Academy. This means that one school, seeing no hope of qualifying, rigged a match to give the opposing team points—and of course, both were eliminated in the end.

Speaking of luck, the eight schools in Group A this year were truly blessed. First, among the eight schools in the group, not a single one from the Big Four was included. Second, the varying strengths of the schools favored the middling teams, which resulted in more balanced scores. The results were indeed quite encouraging, with five of the eight schools selected.

But to be honest, academies like Thorn Flower and Black Swamp are fine, but Fangbei and Kunlun, the configurations of these two academies are so shabby that it makes me cry. This time, they actually made it into the top 16. It would be unreasonable not to kowtow to the draw official, right?

In comparison, Group C became the death group.

With two of the Big Four crammed in, only Frostwhisper made it into the small eight. The other academies were equally weak—a grouping that was least favorable for scoring. As expected, our beloved Frostwhisper was the only one besides the two Big Four to make it.

Just looking at the rankings and scores, one might think Frostwhisper, despite its perennially poor ranking, has finally made a comeback! They narrowly beat the Big Four in points in the Phantom Beasts Tacit Understanding Tournament! Wrong! It's because their matches were perfectly scheduled, missing the three days of the Cat Meow Incident, that they were able to surpass the Big Four with an average of 30 points per game! It's because the Big Four competed on all three days, not missing a single day, and took the brunt of the damage.

All the students from the academies that competed during those three days, except for Thorn Flower, scored zero points in the second half!

The biggest dark horse of this ladder tournament has to be Thornflower Academy. This tiny academy maxed out everything from player configuration to metaphysical resistance, meticulously avoiding every debuff along the way, ultimately defeating every other academy. (Of course, the possibility that the debuff originated from their academy is undeniable; it's truly terrifying to contemplate.)

Among the contestants of Thorn Flower Academy, Song Baiyue, the only contestant who possessed a heavenly-level mythical beast (yes, you read that right, the heavenly-level beast that only exists in legends), arbitrarily withdrew from the competition halfway through.

Their captain has been controversial since the start of the game, but he performed well and won the game with an unregistered (suspected to be yellow-level, who knows, or maybe it's the cat in the "Cat's Meow Incident", which is terrifying to think about) smart pet cat.

In addition to Thorn Flower, some colleges also performed well.

Black Swamp Academy, you've been burning so many fires. You might win if you keep burning, but it'll be hard to sell tickets for your matches. (And maybe the Hall of Fantasy Beasts will do something, but it's just a possibility, just saying it, hehe)

Embroidered Dream Academy, the psychic beasts are really crazy. I've never seen this kind of strategy before, but just like Black Marsh, their strategy is too narrow and they'll definitely be targeted one day. But for now, their total points surpass the three big four, and they also beat Avalon Academy in their group match. (Though it's hard to say whether Avalon needs to be grouped with Mithril to fully demonstrate its strength? Hmm? Just a quick guess.)

I almost forgot about some colleges that were arrogant at the beginning.

Garuda Academy, with their high-caste ace Surya, secured 16th place overall, barely making it into the competition. Excellent!

The Lighthouse Academy players' uniforms are pretty shiny, but their performance isn't impressive. How about spending a tenth of your clothing budget on a combat coach next time?

The three brothers from Jinsha Prefecture? Oh wow! This year, they continue their glorious tradition of being the "runner-up state"! Participation is key, and their spirit is commendable! Applause to the background board!

Currently, the familiar faces of the "Big Four and Eight Small" teams have managed to barely make it to the top 16. But! With Thorn Flower, a pure black wild horse that could go crazy at any moment, what will the final ranking be? Hehe, that's really hard to say...

…

The largest projection room in the martial arts arena still has that familiar scene.

The fantasy beasts lined up and stayed obediently in the fantasy beast storage area.

The team members lined up to enter the venue from another channel.

Trancy was standing in line, reading the sharp reviews of "Fantasy Beast Weekly". His expression did not change, but he was secretly gritting his teeth.

"Why don't so many people in Thorn Flower deposit their phantom beasts?" His teammates, still upset about being beaten and silenced, immediately raised their hands, "I'm reporting them for not handing over their phantom beasts!"

"It's a pet." Linyin held the kitten with an innocent look on her face. "If you don't believe me, you can check the records. It has never been registered as a mythical beast."

"Oh, we are exempt." Crystal tossed the pebble in her hand. "My mythical beast is here."

Yuzhu followed and pointed at the purple snake-shaped earrings. The strange purple snake matched with her short hair, giving her a cool villain vibe. "Here are mine."

Belle spread her hands and said, "I don't want to show the Night Orchid again."

The entrance, which was bustling with noise just now, suddenly became quiet.

Holy shit… a mythical beast turned into an accessory… a heavenly-level mythical beast… no way…

Holy shit… How did they do that… They must be cheating…

How come Song Baiyue is gone, and there are still two heavenly-level mythical beasts...

Destroy it... I want to quit the competition...

…

The teams from the sixteen colleges finally sat down, and the air was filled with tense hostility.

"First of all, congratulations to everyone for making it to the next round."

Maotan was dressed in a beautifully tailored white tuxedo, his hair meticulously combed back as usual. The only difference from the last time I saw him was the color of his clothes. He looked like a random NPC in a game, their outfits perfunctorily changed with a single click.

"There are some new rules for this round, and I'll be the one to announce them."

Compared to the last time the rules were released, there was much less murmuring from the audience.

After all, sixteen teams meant half the number of people compared to thirty-two. The most talkative academies had just been chastised by their preliminary round scores and were then stunned by Thorn Flower's two Heavenly-class mythical beasts. They simply didn't have the energy to chat any more.

On the stage, Mao Tan seemed unaware of the changes in the audience.

"This round of competition is a wilderness survival points competition and will still be held in a virtual arena."

He signaled the staff to start the projection, and a virtual map immediately appeared in the air.

The map alternates between ochre-colored wilderness, red volcanoes, blue-white glaciers, and black-green poisonous swamps.

"You will be randomly dropped into this map. The map has a radius of 20 kilometers and is rich in terrain. Each team will have a set of initial supplies, but what is in the supply pack depends entirely on your luck."

"If you want other supplies, you can ask other teams for them." When he said this, Mao Tan's eyes revealed the excitement of watching the fun.

"Or, there are some supply points scattered across the map, which may randomly refresh some supplies. In addition, there will be a batch of airdrops every 6 hours. All the supply packs will randomly contain food, water, weapons, various equipment, and a small number of medical kits..." He paused, his lips curled up slightly, "The airdrops are different. There will also be - Fantasy Beast Blind Boxes."

The crowd finally started to commotion.

"Yes, a Fantasy Beast Blind Box." Mao Tan smiled. "There's a chance that the airdrop will reveal the latest unregistered Fantasy Beasts developed by the Fantasy Beast Hall. They will randomly choose a team they encounter to join."

"Attention," Mao Tan said emphatically, "Once a phantom beast joins, you must ensure its survival. If it dies, the entire team will be declared the loser."

"What?!" someone wailed in the audience.

"Forced to adopt a mythical beast whose identity you don't know if it's friend or foe? And we have to keep it alive?" someone shouted. "This rule is outrageous."

Mao Tan ignored the protests and added:

"There's another very important item in the supply pack: a stored-value movement."

Maotan took out a gadget that looked very familiar to Rinyin from his breast pocket and motioned the staff in charge of the projection to show it.

"Why did that weird old man take this thing out? Is he trying to provoke us?" The kitten looked at the stored-value movement that was said to have 50,000 gold pre-deposited to buy it, and spoke angrily in Linyin's mind.

"Maybe he has some special hobby." Linyin didn't understand and was too lazy to understand.

Mao Tan glanced in the direction of Rin Yin and saw that Rin Yin was yawning loudly while holding the cat. Her expression was slightly stiff, but he quickly concealed it and continued to introduce the purpose of the stored value movement.

"Each movement records a different score, ranging from [1, 300]. When the final score is calculated, the team's score will be added to the final total."

"All resources, including resource nodes and airdrop resources, are initially invisible on the map. Until... a team arrives within a 100-meter radius of it. At that time, everyone will see its existence on the map."

“The competition is divided into three stages.”

"Phase 1: Volcanic lava terrain, temperature 50°C. Lasts 3 days."

"Phase 2: Extreme cold blizzard, visibility 5 meters, temperature minus 70 degrees Celsius. Lasts for 3 days."

"Stage 3: Toxic gas leak + poisonous plants, all personnel continuously poisoned. Lasts for 3 days."

"During each phase, a random area will be transformed into a normal wilderness. When a team enters the area, all members will report their coordinates. The duration will decrease as the number of people entering increases."

"The final ranking is still based on the points system. If at least one person survives:

Each time a team eliminates another team member, it will receive 10 points.

Each team member who survives will be awarded 50 points.

There is no upper limit on the points of the stored value movement.

The bottom four players will be eliminated. If all players are eliminated, the longer they survive and the more players survive, the higher their ranking will be.

The top four schools will advance to the next round. The middle eight will miss out on the subsequent rounds but will become the new eight small schools."

The whole place was dead silent.

Fantasy Beast Hall, do you still remember that this is the "Fantasy Beast Ladder Tournament"?

Oh, they remember—that fantasy beast blind box.

…Aside from this inhumane rule, how else does it resemble the “Phantom Beast Ladder Tournament”?

This was a competition to determine the final roster of the four big and eight small players—were they planning to let their group of students from the Fantasy Beast Academy go out into the wilderness to survive?

Mao Tan was still smiling, as if he was enjoying everyone's anxiety.

"The rules have been announced." He bowed slightly. "Good luck to everyone."