The Legend Of Dragon Land

– A true leader would not use the same single strategy for all battles.

***

On the first day of week five, the entire curriculum of the Compulsory Military Training course was officially revealed.

According to that, the first four weeks in which all freshmen had experience were a period of high-intensity physical training, aiming to enhance the fitness of all freshmen. The categories such as long-distance race, mountain climbing, or swimming, could be kept the same or changed over the years, depending on the decision of the teacher group in charge of each year.

The next four weeks would still include the same physical training categories, but another category which was team competition would be added on Wednesdays and Sundays.

After these four weeks, the two freshmen with the highest grades of the two classes would be nominated to be the Class Leader, responsible for leading and guiding the whole class.

Within the next ten weeks, the power control class would be included. During this time, all the teachers were only responsible for imparting knowledge, while the Class Leader would be the one deciding the training content and training time for the whole class. In addition, the daily time for physical training was reduced from one day down to half day in the morning, and the afternoon was the time to learn controlling power.

After these ten weeks of training and competition, all new students would get assembled at the capital Aurora. The ten Class Leaders of five bases would join a competition to find out who would be the Grade Leader for leading the entire freshmen nationwide. And shortly thereafter, all freshmen would continue their first year program in the capital for another half year before applying to one of the five major academies.

This year, the total number of freshmen nationwide was two hundred and two, divided equally among the five bases, each receiving forty freshmen, while Base One received forty-two freshmen.

Each base was divided into two classes, each with twenty freshmen (again, the two classes of Base One have twenty-one freshmen each). According to the ordinal number of the base and the alphabet, Base Five was split into Class I and Class K.

When it came to the team competition, each class held as a team. The scope of competition was the area of ​​artificial primary forest.

At seven in the morning, the two classes would receive information about the location of their "base" and the enemy's base. Each team's flag was plugged at those two positions.

People were allowed to move, but the team flag was not.

Each team had two hours to freely survey the terrain, or discuss strategies and assign tasks. At nine o'clock in the morning, the competition would start.

After the starting signal, the two teams would start moving to enemy's "base" and try to capture the enemy's flag. The team that successfully took the enemy's flag while still keeping their team flag safe would be the winner.

For the first round, all freshmen would draw lots for a random position: Team Leader, Vice Team Leader and team member. There would be one Team Leader, three Vice Team Leaders, and sixteen team members in a team.

For the next rounds, the position would be changed, based on the performance and points acc.u.mulated from the first round.

Therefore, if it was said the position of the first round based on luck, then from the second round, it was completely based on individual strength. Ones with good performance would be promoted, ones with poor performance would be demoted.

***

The first round started.

Angus got the team member position.

The Team Leader of team K (class K) was Fulton.

Fulton.

Style: Fire.

Race: Lantern.

Rank: The twentieth of Base Five.

Personality: Like to be in safe.

Motto: Defense first, attack later.

Currently, the highest-ranked ones in class K included Angus, Hudson, Edelina, Iris, and Neil.

High rank represented for good strength.

Therefore, Fulton decided to choose some of them to stay with him protecting the flag, allocate Angus and the others into two small group responsible for capturing enemy's flag.

Because Angus was the one with the best training results in the small group, the Vice Team Leader of his group did not hesitate to hand over the group command to him.

The result was, Angus' group successfully captured the flag of class I. Class K won the first match.

***

In the second match, Fulton was still the Team Leader, and Angus was promoted to the Vice Team Leader position.

Fulton used the same strategy as the previous round, assigned Angus' group and another group to be attackers.

Again, Angus successfully capture the flag of class I. Class K won the match again.

However, after this match, Fulton no longer held his position as Team Leader.

The reason was just simple: his tactics helped class K win, but also showed his weaknesses of lacking of creativity and proactiveness.

Unlike the first round, class I entered the second round with some experience and somehow guessed his tactics, so their attacks came on the base of class K with a dizzying speed.

At that time, Fulton could only stand still in a spot, holding the flag and screaming in panic that Iris, Hudson and Neil had to protect him and the flag from the attacks of Hawley's group.

If it wasn't for the speed of Angus capturing the flag so fast, surely class K would have lost this second round.

A true leader would not use the same single strategy for all battles.

***

The Team Leader of the third round was Dustan.

Dustan

Style: Fire

Race: Torch

Rank: The twelfth of Base Five.

Brief discription: Quite smart, good sense of observation.

Dustan professed himself not as stupid as Fulton.

Defense, defense all day! Defense for what? The Team Leader must join the attacking group so that he could get a good score!

So Dustan let Hudson, Neil and Gilmar stay in the "base" protecting the flag, he himself joined the group of Angus and Iris, making a "vanguard" group for capturing the class I's flag. Since Angus had succeeded in the previous two times, this time, all the young dragons in the attacking team probably listened to his plan.

But Dustan joining the group for the first time was so worried...

The current score of Angus was so good, now he also was the Vice Team Leader! If this team he successfully took the flag again, he would be surely promoted to the Team Leader position which was - now held by Dustan himself!

Therefore, when Angus was about to touch the flag, Dustan suddenly jump into the flag, wanting to take the flag himself.

Angus quickly dodged Dustan's unexpected move, but before he could do something else, the signal announcing Class I's victory had sounded.

Being the winning team, all everyone's grades got better.

Being the losing team, all received poor points, or even, no points.

Facing the wrathful eyes of K class, Dustan dully fell to the ground.

***

In the fourth match, Angus stately took his seat as the Team Leader.

After taking the Team Leader armband and rolled it around his arm, Angus cashed his eyes around all members of Class K, slowly talking.

"Starting from now, I'll be the Team Leader."

"While I'm giving out the plan, hope everyone will listen. If anyone has a question, or a better idea, please wait until I finish. Do not interrupt."

Previous team leaders usually had only one or two simple directions: one group attacked from the East, the other attacked from the West, and that's all. Unlike them, Angus' plan included several detailed directions and possible ways to handle the situation when encountering the enemy.

"This time Class I is stationed in the Northwest, we are in the Southeast. There are two ways to reach their base, the first one is to cross the rainforest, the second is to cross the Northwest Falls. Certainly they will place some ambush at those two places."

"We are divided into three groups. The first group stays here protecting the flag, including me, Hudson, Neil, Gilmar, Cody."

"The second group followed the rainforest path, including Jarron, Maddox, Fulton, Jaclyn, Genista, Derwin, and Iris. If you encounter the enemy, Derwin, Maddox, Fulton, Jaclyn, four of you are physically strong, try to hold the enemy back at the forest. Iris, Genista, Jarron, Edelina, four of you are faster than the others, so prioritize to run first to their base."

"The third group following the Northwest Falls path, including Tina, Dallton, Dustan, Parker, Dustan, Rinne, and Trixi. Similar to the second group, Nissyen and Trixi take the vanguard task, the others support and hold the enemy back at the falls when needed."

"Okay, now, any question?"

Facing with Angus' question, K class needed more than a minute to return their normal state.

The reason was... This was the first time that they heard the "First-ranked" saying that much!

And another reason was... The "First-ranked" looked so quiet every day but unexpectedly that he knew the name of the whole class!

What a surprise!!

Dustan hesitated for a moment and then asked: "Leader, you have successfully captured the flag a few times before, why don't you join the attacking team this time? Obviously you are the fastest at our base..."

It was not because Dustan wanted to opposed Angus that he asked this question. Being in the same team with Angus once, he knew how fast Angus could run and react in difficult situations. If it was not because of his stupid the last time, class K should have won the match.

After that, Dustan did apologize to the whole class. And he himself became more honest.

Angus smiled: "Because the enemy will think the same as you. They will assume that I keep the majority of the class at base as defenders, and me myself will lead a small group who are all fast runners to take their flag. Therefore, it is more likely that they will arrange the majority of people to stay at the base to stop me, while also letting a small group who are fast runners to take our flag."

"But it does not exclude the possibility that they put a lot of people to rob the flag, so to ensure the flag is safe, and to leave the attackers with absolute peace of mind, I will stay at the base."

"In order to deal with their defenses, I put a lot of manpower into the two attacking groups, however... this time, the task of capturing the flag, I only gave it to a single person."

Angus temporarily paused for some seconds.

Class K was confused.

Did he just say that there would be two attacking groups?

And now saying that he gave the task of capturing the flag to a single person?

What did he mean?

Some of them wanted to raise their hands to ask, but looking at Angus' calm face, somehow they could not open their mouth, just stayed silently waiting for Angus to continue.

"After crossing the rainforest and waterfalls, all remaining members of the two attacking groups will meet before the Class I base. Then, in every situation, I want all the remaining members to best support that person."

"Remember, except for that person, the task of all members is not to capture the flag. Being a decoy, distract, holding the enemy's leg, you guys can do all of those things, or use any other tricks, all for only one goal: to prepare the way for that person to get to the enemy's flag."

"That person is..."

Angus looked around, then stopped in front of a pair of pale purple eyes. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, saying a name.

"Iris."

The siren signaling the start of the match rang.

Everyone was well aware of their mission.

Combat plans, contingency plans were all discussed.

All just needed to follow the mission that Leader assigned.

Having the first two "sacrificing" groups to keep the enemy, Derwin, Nissyen and Trixi easily crossed the waterfall, while Genista, Jarron and Edelina also smoothly supported Iris through the artificial rainforest.

They all met before the class I's base.

From far away, they could see that there were about seven, eight freshmen of class I protecting the flag.

Iris narrowed his eyes.

Hawley! It was Hawley standing next to the flag!

Could a sixth-rate person like him... win against the runner-up of the entire base? Iris was confused.

At this moment, Angus' words suddenly echoed in his ears.

"Iris, I only give you one single mission."

"You don't need to duel with the enemy, the others will do it for you. You just need to run. Run as fast as you can."

"Once the enemy flag appears in your sight, I want you to use all the speed you have, capture it."

Right! His mission was not to fight Hawley! There would be some others doing that! He just needed to run quickly and take the flag!

Yes! Run fast! And take the flag!

With the fleeting thought, Iris immediately shouted: "Edelina! Dustan!"

"Got it!"

Edelina and Dustan replied in unison, heading towards Hawley.

Hawley stood by the flag, watching Iris rushing into him with eyes that looked like he was going to devour everything.

Hah? Wanting to keep his foot in order for the other two to take the flag?

Obviously Hawley knew that – One of the other two, Edelina – was one of fastest runners in this base Five. She usually ranked second only after Angus in the long distance running category. Certainly Angus had given the task of taking the flag to that girl!

He smirked, waving his hand to order Colley and the others stepped down into a defensive line, protecting the flag.

When Iris rushed in, Hawley quickly dodged and headed toward Edelina.

But contrary to what he expected, Edelina did not head up to capture the flag. She... she only wanted to fight with him, make him busy, and then Dustan rushed in, hugging him tightly.

At the same time, Iris passed Colley and the defensive line with a lightning speed, successfully taking the flag.

When siren signalling the match ended, the Colley group was still bewildered...

The fourth match, K Class successfully regained the first rank.

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