What Was He Planning?

At this moment, on the floating platform, the proctors' eyes were all focused on the light screen.

Their first focus was on Su Mu.

It wasn't just because of his outstanding performance in the first two rounds, but also because Elder Zhao had mentioned that this student had once won first place in a provincial-level dungeon design competition.

Everyone wanted to see what kind of work this design genius would produce in the third round.

Then they saw it.

Su Mu spent nearly 800,000 Soul Power points to buy 80,000 sections of F-grade rammed earth city walls and 10,000 F-grade simple high platforms, enclosing a huge circle along the border of the entire territory.

There was a moment of silence on the platform.

"That's utterly outrageous."

One teacher spoke first, his brows furrowed, "The Great Wall, it encircles the entire territory."

"And he only bought the cheapest F-grade cards."

Another teacher flipped through the data panel, his tone clearly puzzled, "Eighty thousand sections of rammed earth city walls, the individual defensive capabilities are pitifully low. Ten thousand simple high platforms, not even a basic defensive structure. All these cards combined, even if integrated, barely reach C-grade. Eight hundred thousand Soul Power points were poured in, and it's not even as good as a single B-grade combat card."

"Wasn't he designing his own instance like that? That 80-kilometer- Lion Camel Ridge, we also felt it was a waste of Soul Power at the time. But in the first level, that 80-kilometer depth really came in handy."

That's different.

The teacher shook his head earlier, "The monsters in the first level have no intelligence; they only walk in straight lines. If you put Flower-Fruit Mountain behind Lion Camel Ridge, the monsters will stupidly run eighty kilometers. But the enemies in this third level are nomadic cavalry. They are intelligent; they know how to find weak points and fight guerrilla warfare. No matter how long the Great Wall is, it's useless if no one guards it. You can surround it for eight hundred miles, but they can just go around it, right?"

"And look at the class cards he bought. Heavy infantry and crossbowmen, one moves slowly, the other reloads slowly. Steppe cavalry ride wildebeest, coming and going like the wind, can your heavy infantry catch up? Can your crossbowmen hit them?"

"Look at how others chose."

Someone pointed to another light screen, "Zhao Wuji spent 600,000 Soul Power points to buy an SSS-level Nine Nether Sword Formation card, which he embedded in the center of his territory. That thing has an extremely large area of effect; nomadic cavalry charging in will die in droves. Lin Qingyin bought an S-level Zither Sound Bewildering Formation Card, which covers a large area; enemies entering its range will be disrupted. That's what you call treating the symptoms."

"I really don't understand Su Mu. What exactly is he trying to do?"

The crowd was abuzz with discussion, with almost everyone feeling that Su Mu's expenditure of 800,000 Soul Power was inexplicable.

If it weren't for his outstanding performance in the first two rounds, and if Elder Zhao hadn't personally mentioned that this student had won first place in a provincial design competition, they might have simply regarded him as a student who had given up on himself.

But just then, an older teacher suddenly pointed at the light screen, his voice carrying a strange undertone.

"Wait, look at the name of his building."

Everyone looked at the light screen.

On the light screen, Su Mu had just finished naming two buildings.

The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li, S-level. Beacon towers, A-level.

The platform fell silent again.

"An F-grade rammed earth wall, combined, barely reaches C grade. They're named the Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li, and that jumps straight to S grade?"

"A simple platform, named the Beacon Tower, directly upgraded to Grade A?"

"The anchoring effect of this naming is just too strong."

The crowd exchanged bewildered glances, their shock tinged with confusion.

A teacher paused for a moment before slowly speaking, "The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li and beacon towers—these two concepts must have triggered a certain anchor point in this assessment, and perhaps even more so than we imagined."

"But that's not enough," someone countered. "He bought only building cards, not a single protective monster card. The functions of buildings designed by the dungeon master can only be understood and communicated to the monsters or other creatures within the dungeon by the dungeon master. But he hasn't even deployed any monsters; who's going to guard these buildings?"

"He has an army. His territory itself has a standing army of one million."

"With a million standing troops spread across the 80,000- Great Wall, that's an average of over a thousand men per li. If nomadic cavalry concentrated their forces to attack a single point, that force simply couldn't hold them off."

"Besides, no matter how many buildings there are, they're just scrap metal if no one guards them. The enemy can easily sweep past on horseback with guerrilla tactics. I think this Great Wall is just a vanity project."

The crowd was abuzz with discussion, still skeptical of Su Mu's actions.

At this moment, the only one who didn't have much doubt about Su Mu, but instead showed a hint of curiosity and surprise, was Elder Xiu.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the Great Wall stretching for 80,000 miles on the screen, his brows slightly furrowed.

Others may not know, but he does.

This test scenario is very similar to the recently discovered super-large nest; it could even be described as a scaled-down version of the test questions.

The central territory was like the legion of dungeon raiders they sent in to explore, while the surrounding nomadic tribes were like the monster forces within the lair.

That nest has been explored for two years.

For the past two years, they have been repeatedly attacked by the monsters in the lair and have been unable to establish a firm foothold.

If you can fight, the other side will run away. If you want to recuperate, the other side will come to plunder.

If you establish a stronghold, the enemy will bypass it and attack your supply lines. If you organize a large army to encircle and annihilate them, they will break up into smaller units and disappear without a trace.

This is why dungeon designers are receiving increasing attention. That's why this year's question is related to that.

The methods those teachers suggested, such as using a large number of SSS-level cards or high-level monster cards, have already been tried. They simply don't work.

If you can fight, the opponent will run away.

If you want to recuperate, the enemy will plunder the buildings, people, and monsters in a smaller area of your territory, and then concentrate their forces to break through at a single point.

While he didn't see the trick to Su Mu's approach of using a large number of buildings instead of a large number of monster cards, he at least said that the path of using a large number of monster cards had been tried.

Such bold ideas, which seemed to revolve around each other, piqued his curiosity.

However, he couldn't figure out what his intentions were.

But the next moment, he understood.

In the light screen, the following year, three thousand horned horse cavalrymen of the Azure Wolf Tribe breached the eastern end of the Great Wall and infiltrated from the direction of the dense forest. They encountered no resistance and advanced unimpeded, heading straight for the nearest village.

In the village, wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys as villagers worked in the fields, completely unaware of the danger that was approaching.

The cavalry stormed into the village, burning, killing, looting, and taking away people and food.

They rode triumphantly through the village, whistling as they carried the looted supplies onto their horses.

On the platform, the teachers watched this scene, and discussions arose again.