Tempest of the Battlefield

A group of special students was seen gathering in Bernabeu’s training field early in the morning. Everyone was carrying heavy backpacks and began to jog lap after lap on their own, this had never happened before in Bernabeu.

The students might have finished the first phase of their physical training; however, that didn’t mean that the whole training program had ended. They needed to keep on training on their own in order to stay focus, as there was no more time for them to slack off.

So far the students had learned one thing: they were not challenging Capth for the sake of their academies, but for their own glory.

Nevertheless, everyone had set their very own goals about what were they trying to achieve, and how much effort they were planning to put in.

Obviously, everyone had watched the epic match between Einherjar Wannabe and Jiang Long, including Wang Ben, the young man with a raging heart; however, he seemed to have calmed down a lot after watching that fight. He had noticed similarities between his ex-teammates and Einherjar Wannabe, and between Capth and Jiang Long. Jiang Long had all of the advantages while Einherjar Wannabe was a nobody commoner, yet he was able to defeat the colossal existence and created another "peasant’s miracle". It made Wang Ben believe that his ex-teammates might also be able to overcome the enormous challenge ahead of them.

Without a doubt, their opponents were mightier, but not invincible. Nevertheless, the team shouldn’t be afraid as all of them were only humans; they had two legs, two arms, and one brain, so they had weaknesses as well.

The whole team was actually very depressed since Wang Ben had left, and without him, everyone felt that their chances of winning had gotten narrower. However, all of them knew that instead of worrying too much, they should summon up their courage, confidence, and faith and show their best effort. The right thing to do was to keep challenging themselves and giving their best performances!

Amongst the group, Carl was the one with the best performance; in fact, he had been improving day after day even though his effort was still far away from increasing their chance of victory, but he did manage to inspire most of his teammates to be optimistic and confident. Carl also had a funny motto, which was "to create your own path by walking on the shoes of the others".

After a brief "counseling session" from the psychology maestro, Principal Samantha, everyone’s fighting spirit was burning up again, and the whole team had bounced back, eagerly preparing themselves for the upcoming challenges.

Nevertheless, confidence originated from tough training, and everyone in the team enjoyed the satisfaction they got from their daily training. Although they had no idea how strong they had become, they believed that they had improved a lot, which also gradually increased their confidence.

They had to stay strong and give their best performances no matter who their opponent was and hopefully breaking their own limits to create miracles. But most importantly, they had to stay strong and not be overwhelmed by their opponents’ aura; otherwise, their performances would be affected, and they would lose their chances to win.

In fact, Capth’s dominating strength could also be its weakness. They would be underestimating Bernabeu and Ayrlarng since both academies were basically lower ranks academies filled with average students, which would also cause them to reveal their vulnerabilities, and that would be Ayrlarng’s cue to seize their victory. If Bernabeu and Ayrlarng’s alliance was able to bring them one or two victories, the pressure would be on Capth’s side instead of theirs.

Wang Tong was the busiest trainee as he was competing in both METAL Combat and Battlecraft Combat, while the rest would only have to focus on one category. Ma Xiaoru was assigned for METAL Combat of course, and since Wang Ben had left, Hu Yangxuan had taken his place as one of the main fighters by default. Soon, he came to realize his immense responsibility and the seriousness of this issue: the idea of vanquishing Capth had never crossed his mind, and restoring Ayrlarng’s former glory was not as easy as he thought it would be. Nevertheless, Hu Yangxuan was training very hard and even managed to restore his Soul Energy to the condition that he had when he was at the Court of the Templar. On the other hand, Zhou Sisi was focusing on Battlecraft Combat.

Everyone was told not to count on receiving blessings from the goddess of fortune in the upcoming competition against Capth; instead, they should be focusing on their own training to maximize their chances of winning.

Wang Tong might be their hidden weapon in METAL Combat; however, his basics in Battlecraft Combat were quite bad. Both of his operating maneuver and overall perspective were bad and wouldn’t be able to support his ultimate knockout technique. In short, he was lucky that day to win against Bernabeu’s Best.

This was why Wang Tong needed to train for Battlecraft Combat.

Double the work, double the excitement.

In order to enhance their performances in METAL Combat, Wang Tong, Apache, Hu Yangxuan, and Cao Yi were often given the toughest mission by their coach, almost turning them into a bunch of robots. Yet, Wang Tong was not afraid of tough, physical training as he enjoyed the amount of exercise. However, he was completely stressed out when it came to Battlecraft Combat training.

Somehow, he and Carl had become the examples not to follow for the other trainees, often getting scolded in the midst of every lesson.

"Are you an idiot, Carl? How many times do I have to tell you to pay attention to your operating maneuvers!? Do you hear me? Use your brain and figure out the best timing to attack!" the coach slammed on Carl’s table and scolded him. Poor Carl had no choice but to bear with the embarrassment. He tried to figure out the right timing to strike, but he failed in the end as he was entrapped by the enemy’s legion of fleets.

FlyWing was a living legend of Battlecraft Combat, and a four times champion in the Confederation League. Unfortunately, he made a terrible mistake once while serving in the military that caused him to resign out of guilt. However, Principal Martyrus had managed to find him a few years before and recruited him as Bernabeu’s coach. He was a bad tempered person, and Best was his greatest disciple. Thanks to him, Bernabeu was able to excel rapidly in this subject.

Nevertheless, having good students was as crucial as having a good teacher.

"Wang Tong! If Carl is an idiot, what do you think you are?" FlyWing stood in front of Wang Tong.

Wang Tong was frustrated, he was having a hard time learning operating maneuver. Somehow, it required the right touch, kind of like learning martial arts. He might be talented in METAL Combat, yet he definitely sucked when it came to Battlecraft Combat.

"Another idiot… Sir?" Wang Tong replied cautiously.

The whole class went silent for a moment and burst into laughter immediately. All of the trainees seemed to be amused by his sense of humor!

Somehow, FlyWing also found him entertaining, yet he tried his best to hold back his laughter.

"Ahem, stop laughing, you sure are an idiot with a quick response. Come to think of it, it’s time for me to force you to reduce your APM by half, it’ll cause you to think with your brain instead of using your *ss!" FlyWing said.

FlyWing then mentioned to the class that Wang Tong was insanely strong in controlling maneuver, but being too strong in that would cause him to overlook his real problems during real fights. He might be able to defeat average opponents with his controlling maneuver, but that would be useless when he was facing off against an elite opponent, causing him to turn into a fighter with muscles but no brain.

Wang Tong was enlightened by FlyWing’s lecture, he finally understood why he wasn’t able to thoroughly execute what he had learned even though he was able to understand the teacher’s lecture in class. Indeed, if the speed of his controlling maneuver was the same as his opponent’s, without a doubt, there would be huge gaps of difference in terms of overall skills.

All of the students in Bernabeu were professionally trained, the first thing they focused on was the training of awareness, which was the basics of everything. However, no one had ever taught Wang Tong about that as he learned everything from scratch by himself, which was why it would take some time and special effort for him to correct his mistakes.

Nevertheless, Wang Tong was able to realize his problems in a jiffy, he was born to be smart after all.

Somehow, he even managed to find similarities between METAL Combat and Battlecraft Combat. "Operating maneuver" actually meant that one’s had to have the control of the overall situation during battles. Wang Tong was able to improve rapidly in METAL Combat because he had been practicing Old Fart’s Tactics of the Blade since he was young, which later strengthen his basics as well; however, he had never received any sort of training for Battlecraft Combat before and focused only on the speed of his hands, which explained his poor performance in operating maneuver.

Everything had its own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, having strong controlling maneuver was great, but at some point, it would affect Wang Tong’s mastery of operating maneuver. This was exactly why he needed a good teacher, he needed the guidance from someone else for this challenge.

Wang Tong was grateful, even if the guidance was only a little.

Fortunately, FlyWing was fair to both Ayrlarng and Bernabeu’s students, and apparently, he was quite confident about Zhou Sisi because of her splendid performances and also because of her cautiousness and steadiness. Moreover, she had a good potential in operating maneuver, and most importantly, she was different from most of the boys who would give up whenever troubles occurred.

A good commander would never give up, even when he was about to be defeated, he would stay and fight to the very end! It was important not to give up because countless of lives were at stake in real battles!

That was the reason why FlyWing wanted his students to treat every training as a real battle, and no one was allowed to rely on luck or make any mistake. Sorries and other excuses would not be accepted!

Everyone started to become dauntless ever since Wang Ben had left, which was common since they were all youngsters, yet somehow it wasn’t a bad attitude judging from this critical times.

"WANG TONG!"

Someone roared all of a sudden.

The loud roar even managed to startle the students outside the building. Wang Tong expected he might have done something wrong that upset FlyWing.

Wang Tong’s innocent expression caused everyone else to giggle. Obviously, Wang Tong and Carl were not only FlyWing’s favorite sandbag, they were also everyone else’s favorite amusement.

"How many times do I need to repeat myself? Don’t use your speed, use your operating maneuver! Don’t use your hands, use your brain!" FlyWing was furious.

Wang Tong might have won in the simulation against Stia; however, winning was not the point. FlyWing wanted him to think of a way to overcome the disadvantages and not forcefully winning against her by relying on controlling maneuver. Apparently, only Best was able to win against Wang Tong by using his overall perspective and obtaining as many advantages as he could, while, at the same time, he prevented Wang Tong from using his controlling maneuver. Best was able to do so as he was known to be the one with the best operating maneuver throughout the Earth Confederation, the other trainees had no chance to win against Wang Tong’s insane controlling maneuver.

"Sir… calm down. You see, I’m not able to control myself during critical moments." Wang Tong scratched his head. Men were more impulsive compared to women, and Wang Tong was a man exceptionally impulsive, which was why he would forget whenever his adrenaline rose. Actually, his operating maneuver had improved a lot, but it was still far from FlyWing’s expectation; his movements were still a bit stiff!

"Oh, really? In that case, I’m restricting you to use only one hand in our upcoming training. You can choose your left or right hand between matches. With that, I’m sure you’ll be able to control yourself in no time!" FlyWing came up with that idea suddenly, and it was a good method to restrict Wang Tong from over-relying on controlling maneuver indeed!

When he found it difficult to use his controlling maneuver, he would have no choice but to switch to operating maneuver.