Kun-12's Formal Debut

Chapter 43: Kun-12 Officially Debuts

The 83rd day of school.

Seven days left until the Demon Subduing Valley opens!

Xun Hu, Ning Rong, and Su Bai hurried out of school and walked more than two kilometers south, finally arriving at a training ground built by the river. There, they met Yang Ning, who was already waiting for them.

"This place is too desolate!" Ning Rong looked at the unmanaged wilderness overgrown with grass, and the gray, barren mountains in the distance. The place didn't seem special at all!

Besides its large size, the only special thing about the training ground was a metal fortress next to it.

"Are we training here?" Su Bai asked. "Did you buy a fierce beast and release it here?"

"There shouldn't be any fierce beasts!" Xun Hu said softly.

After nearly three months of elite education, Xun Hu's demeanor had changed considerably since he boarded the ship. For instance, his tone was a little less firm, and his expression was somewhat dejected.

Why did he get worse?

He sniffed the air. It was non-toxic, harmless, and lacked the peculiar smell of fierce beasts.

"We are training here, but there are no fierce beasts!" Yang Ning chuckled. "Live fierce beasts are very expensive. I've already spent a lot of money on crafting weapons, so I can't afford fierce beasts!"

"So it's just plain martial arts training?" Su Bai blinked. "If that's the case, couldn't the school's training grounds work too?"

"The school's training grounds are too small and not secret enough!" Yang Ning said. "The new weapons I've made need to be kept secret, at least until the trial!"

"Secret?" Xun Hu asked curiously. "It's just a weapon, why the secrecy? Could it be!"

Thinking of a possibility, Xun Hu's eyes lit up. "Did you forge a Low-grade Mortal Artifact?"

Su Bai and Ning Rong's eyes also lit up. After three months, Xun Hu had just reached the Body Tempering Triple Layer, while Su Bai and Ning Rong were both steadily at the Second Level of Body Tempering.

Although they couldn't utilize Blood Essence yet, that didn't stop them from wanting a Mortal Artifact!

"Not quite!" Yang Ning patted the steel fortress behind him. "What I made is this!"

"Huh?" The three were stunned and looked over.

The fortress had been there the whole time, and they had assumed it was part of the training ground. Now that they knew Yang Ning had built it, they were completely bewildered.

The fortress was green, about six to seven meters high, with a circular base that tapered towards the top. A long pipe extended from the top, though they didn't know its purpose.

Overall, it looked like three stacked pancakes.

Three large white characters were painted on the fortress: Kun-12!

"This is the weapon you forged?" Xun Hu, bewildered, circled the fortress three times and asked, "How do we use this? Do we stand on top and shoot arrows?"

This cost 400,000 taels, and you made this?

Although the fortress was indeed sturdy and smooth, the top area seemed a bit small. Only one person could stand there, right?

"I think I'm the only archer on our team?" Ning Rong asked.

Su Bai nodded. This month, the school had offered a course on defending against arrows. He had taken a martial art called the Indestructible Vajra Body and had been studying it, never even touching a bow.

"Let me introduce it to you!" Seeing their bewildered expressions, Yang Ning smiled. He first pushed aside the deep, dense grass and said, "This isn't a fortress, it's the Kun-12 Mobile Infantry Fighting Vehicle. Look underneath, it has wheels!"

"Oh?" Ning Rong crouched down and saw that it did indeed have wheels. There were two on each side, front and back, for a total of eight!

"A mobile fortress?" Ning Rong asked.

"It can move, or it can stay still!" Yang Ning pointed to two pillars next to the wheels. "These can be lowered to the ground. Then the mobile fortress becomes a fixed fortress!"

"The armor on this fortress is three fingers thick. Not to mention fierce beasts at the Fifth Level of Body Refinement, even those at the Eighth Level of Body Refinement can't break it!" Yang Ning said. "As long as we get inside, we'll be completely safe in the Demon Subduing Valley!"

"Ah?" Xun Hu's eyes widened. You can play it like this?

But it sounded logical. After all, that was a place only older students could enter. Even with teachers watching, it couldn't absolutely guarantee their safety.

But if they had a fortress, as long as the fierce beasts couldn't break it, wouldn't they be invincible from the start?

"But for the Demon Subduing Valley trial, we get points for killing fierce beasts. If we just hide in the fortress, won't we get zero points?" Ning Rong asked.

Xun Hu shook his head. "We're just going in to see what it's like. What's the point of talking about killing fierce beasts? As long as we don't die, it's already amazing!"

The only problem was that if they stayed hidden in the fortress the whole time, they might not be able to make a name for themselves.

But as long as they were alive, wouldn't they have a chance to become famous later?

"You're mistaken about that!" Yang Ning shook his head. He then stood up and pulled hard on the second level of the fortress, revealing a giant sword four meters long and forty centimeters wide. It looked terrifying!

"This sword!" Xun Hu's eyes twitched. Such a large sword was obviously heavy. One would need to be at the Fifth or Sixth Level of Body Refinement to wield it, right?

"This is the close-combat weapon mounted on the Kun-12, which I call the Tank Spiral Sword!" Yang Ning said. "It can rotate forward or backward. I'll demonstrate for you, you guys stand back!"

The three quickly retreated. Such a large sword, let alone cutting someone, could be deadly even if it just brushed past them!

Yang Ning leaped onto the top of the tank and opened a hatch, then crawled inside.

After two mechanical clicks, two more swords of the same size emerged.

Immediately, the second level where these three swords were located began to rotate. It spun faster and faster, until all that could be heard was the whistling wind of the giant swords.

Although they weren't attacking anything, no one doubted the effect of a four-meter-long, forty-centimeter-wide giant sword swinging at a fierce beast at a speed of 20 meters per second.

After a while, the Tank Spiral Sword stopped spinning. Yang Ning climbed out from the top and asked, "How does it feel? Is the power immense?"

"Amazing!" Xun Hu's eyes widened as he gave a thumbs-up. "How did you build this thing? It's incredible!"

He could already imagine himself driving the tank in Demon Subduing Valley, mowing down enemies with the spiral sword!

"It really is amazing!" Ning Rong nodded, finally beginning to understand Yang Ning's design philosophy. She reached out and pointed at the cannon barrel. "This must be a ranged weapon, right?"

Since they had a melee weapon, it was only natural they wouldn't be short on ranged options. Ning Rong was confident Yang Ning would have considered everything thoroughly!

"As expected of you, you saw right through it!" Yang Ning patted the cannon barrel in front of him. "This is an Arrow Launcher. It can fire a 1.5-meter long, 8-centimeter diameter iron arrow at a speed of 280 meters per second. If the reloading speed is fast enough, it can fire 20 arrows per second!"

After speaking, Yang Ning climbed back into the tank. The three of them watched as the cannon barrel rumbled as it rotated, then aimed towards a distant breakthrough and let out a hum!

An iron rod shot out of the cannon's muzzle at a speed too fast to follow with the naked eye. It traversed several kilometers in an instant before slamming heavily into the hillside!

"Wow!" Even cultivators couldn't help but be impressed by such an ingenious and powerful creation.

Not to mention, the three of them were quite young.

When they saw the iron rod embed itself more than a meter deep into the hard rock, their eyes shone even brighter!

"Brother Yang, Brother Yang, let me try it!" Su Bai shouted.

"I get to go first, obviously!" Xun Hu immediately forgot his princely dignity. "I'm the sponsor of this tank. You can have a turn after I'm done!"

"Hold on, hold on!" Yang Ning waved his hand. "A tank can't be operated by just one person. It requires perfect coordination among four people. So, all four of us need to come in and practice. I've rented this training ground for seven days. You can all come and try it out whenever you have time during these seven days. Since all four of us are here today, let's start by practicing movement."

"Okay!" The three of them had been eager to see what the inside was like. As soon as Yang Ning finished speaking, they were about to climb aboard.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Yang Ning called out again. "There are four positions on this tank. While operating the tank's movement, each person is also in charge of different functions. One person is responsible for observing the outside and firing arrows, one is responsible for activating the tank's spiral sword, one is responsible for releasing the toxic water from the tank's underside, and one is responsible for loading arrows into the Arrow Launcher. Additionally, the tank's spiral sword is equipped with four crossbows, one for each person. Shall we assign our positions?"

After hearing this, the three of them immediately began discussing where they would sit and quickly reached a decision.

Ning Rong would be responsible for operating the Arrow Launcher, Yang Ning would control the toxic water, Xun Hu would activate the tank's spiral sword, and as for Su Bai, he didn't have much say and could only be responsible for loading the arrows.

All four of them entered the training ground and began practicing the operation of Kun-12.

The weapons were easy enough, involving nothing more than turning them on/off and controlling their direction. The most difficult part, however, was the movement.

With four people and eight wheels, everyone could turn. Even if the direction was fixed, if each person applied a different amount of force, the tank could end up spinning in place or in circles.

Even though Yang Ning had installed angle and speed gauges at each position, actually driving it was still fraught with difficulties.

There was no shortcut; they could only rely on time to build up their synergy.