When Emery returned to the outpost together with the others, he was quite surprised by the sight that welcomed him. The dilapidated outpost that was on the verge of collapse no longer existed, replaced by a completely new reinforced structure. It was a stronghold, to put it simply.
In a mere 10 hours, Julian had succeeded in reforming the Andora native outpost into something completely different from what it was before. The thin, brittle-looking walls were replaced by thick, polished stone walls that were 8 meters high - three times its previous height.
Moreover, Julian also decided to construct bretèche along the defensive walls. Apparently, he went for this extra mile in the hopes the natives would find it easier to defend against the attacks of Abyss creatures with their weapons in the future.
All in all, thanks to the upgrades, the outpost had definitely become much easier to protect.
Emery also noticed a mob of people hundreds of meters away, making their way towards the outpost. It seemed a new batch of Andora natives from nearby settlements had arrived.
Okoye was there with her Akanda warriors, leading the thousands of people into the newly-upgraded outpost. On the other hand, Aiko had also returned to the outpost. It turned out she had finished her task of bringing in the natives an hour ago.
The girl bearing the Jade Flash moniker approached Emery. Before he could ask if there was anything he could help with, she seized the initiative and said, "It was you, isn't it? Thanks for the points." Again, before Emery could muster any response, the girl had walked away. She came quickly and left just as fast.
Seeing this bizarre sight, Annara stepped closer to Klea and nudged her before saying, "Your boyfriend really knows how to impress a girl, doesn't he? Aren't you worried?"
It seemed the provocation was ineffective, as Klea was seen smiling nonchalantly.
"My man is indeed popular… but I know that he's loyal. So I'm not worried at all."
Hearing her tone and the conviction on her face, Annara chuckled and turned to look at Emery, "Hmm… You're really confident, aren't you?"
Klea turned to her and beamed the brightest smile she could make. "Yeah!"
…
The group gathered in a simple, three-story building - the largest building in the outpost. Julian was the one who had instructed for it to be built, as he thought they would need a base of their own during the test.
The place where they gathered was on the roof with an open area that allowed them to clearly see all the areas around the outpost.
Roran, Lydell, Sigurd, Orion and the two kin, Wage and Ryan Gasa, were already present; so was Julian along with Anas and Orycon.
"Alright, Emery's here. Now, we are only missing Rayne and Trish."
About a minute after Emery arrived, Trish the water element specialist came.
"I've contacted Rayne, she told me she's in a bit of a problem and therefore will be late. We don't have much time to spare, so we'll have to start without her," Julian said, to which the others answered with agreement.
Immediately after, Julian showed the map of the continent that had been marked all over, about more than a hundred, which was the number of Abyss nests that had been discovered. Everyone present in the meeting without exception had pensive expressions as they looked at the map.
Emery then stepped in, sharing about his experience delving into and clearing an Abyss nest. He also didn't forget to tell the others about his calculations and opinions on what they should do to get ahead from this point.
No one voiced disagreement after Emery finished his words. It seemed everyone unanimously agreed that clearing the Abyss nests was more productive and should be made a priority, as it would earn them more points than roaming around killing stray Abyss creatures.
However, Julian, who has had a contemplative expression since Emery spoke, expressed his concern. "We found a total of 152 nests during our exploration. Plus the areas that Trish hasn't given yet and maybe a few that we've missed, leading me to believe that there are no more than 200 Abyss nests on this continent."
Hearing this, the two Gasa who were looking forward to getting into action and earn points said, "So? Just divide by 10. Everyone will get 14 to 15 each, that will do it."
However, contrary to their expectations, the entire place was silent. Then, Julian expressed his concern which also occurred to several people when they heard his words.
"The problem is that one Abyss nest will only give at most 250,000 points including the bonus. That's about 7,500 per person, and 15 Abyss nests will only give each person an average of 110,000 points."
It finally struck the Gasas.
This was a problem, because the minimum points a regular acolyte needed to pass the test was 200,000. The requirement became even more outrageous for elite and privileged acolytes, respectively.
"This means the test wants us to do more than just clear the Abyss nests."
Again, everyone quickly agreed with the conclusion Julian drew. In fact, if they didn't plan this right, they might have ended up fighting against each other over the Abyss nests in order to get more points.
"This is also why I rebuilt this outpost into a base we can use. I strongly believe the way for all of us as a Platoon to pass the test is to help as many Andora natives as possible."
When the others heard this, most of them showed anxious expressions. After all, for most of them, killing Abyss creatures was far easier than protecting lives.
Emery opened the data from the device and looked intently at the notification that appeared.
[Platoon Objectives: Save survivors]
[Survivors: 14,402,540]
[Time left: 9 days, 11 hours and 49 minutes]
It had been 12 hours since the mid-test started, and the initial number had decreased by 200,000. This meant that more than 16,000 people died every hour. A staggering rate of death, to say the least.
This objective was not popular, because not only was it more difficult to do, it also only gave one point for every 10 lives saved. To put it simply, in the eyes of most people, the reward was not worth the efforts expended.
Julian, however, tried to argue against this stereotype. He quickly explained that, considering the three continents, there were about 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 survivors still hiding in each continent.
If they manage to save a portion of them, saving one million people would give 100,000 points to everyone in the platoon. That's a total of 30 million points.
"If we work earnestly together, I'm sure we can do it," added Julian.
Unfortunately, it seemed his optimistic view was not shared by Roran. The latter was concerned about the technical definition of saving the survivors. There were no details, thus 'saving the survivors' could literally mean anything.
Comparing their current situation to the other similar events, Roran believed that on the tenth day the gathered people would be allowed to enter the transport and leave this planet. That meant they needed to gather all the survivors from a 3,000-mile radius to this outpost, which was close to the transport.
If that was really the case, then Roran believed this objective was impossible. Many of those survivors were old and weak. They wouldn't even survive 100-mile trip, much less thousands of miles.
However, Julian answered his doubt with a glance towards Emery.
"Other platoons might find it hard, but not ours. You do realize what kind of acolyte our commander is, right?"
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