Under one person: I, Zhang Zhiwei, the arrogant Zhang.

"You can arrange this," Zhang Jingqing said.

Over the years, his focus has been on Nanjing, and he has paid less attention to the situation in other places. In some matters, he does not see things as clearly as Zhang Zhiwei.

He was well aware of this and didn't mind. For a teacher, the greatest fortune is when the student surpasses the teacher. Therefore, he wouldn't interfere too much with Zhang Zhiwei's decision.

He hadn't even personally guided Zhang Zhiwei on what to do and what not to do for a long time. He was increasingly at ease with this apprentice.

After chatting for a few more minutes, Zhang Zhiwei took his leave and returned to the training ground in front of the Celestial Master's Mansion.

Since the illusionary trial of the Returning Origin Array was activated, there have been far fewer people here, making it sparse and somewhat deserted.

Although the Celestial Master's Mansion is known as a major sect in the world of supernatural beings, it actually has very few disciples. Some of them are still stationed in Taoist temples outside. Now that they have all rushed into the Guiyuan Formation, the outside is naturally deserted.

This made Zhang Dazui, who always enjoys lively gatherings, feel rather uncomfortable.

He greeted the elders and fellow disciples who were still on the training ground, then stepped into the Celestial Master's Mansion and arrived at the side hall where the "Returning Origin Formation" was set up.

Two young disciples stood guard at the entrance of the hall. Upon seeing Zhang Zhiwei arrive, they quickly stepped forward to bow, their eyes filled with reverence.

Zhang Zhiwei nodded and casually asked, "How's it going inside?"

The two younger disciples immediately exclaimed excitedly, "Reporting to our senior master, the battle inside is incredibly fierce! Each battlefield is more brutal than the last, including swamps, mountains, plains, and even naval battles..."

Another disciple chimed in, "Among them, Uncle Huaiyi is the most powerful! Uncle Huaiyi was so low-key before, we never saw him make a move, and we thought he wasn't that strong. We never expected him to be so fierce!"

"Yes, yes! Those red-haired devils are all tall and strong, but in front of Uncle Huaiyi, they're like paper! Uncle Huaiyi can take down dozens of them all by himself with his bare hands!"

"I've even seen him hold the line single-handedly after all his teammates were killed, repelling multiple enemy attacks and killing a hundred or two!"

"The most important thing is that he didn't use any supernatural abilities at all, which is really incredible! I never thought that an ordinary person could be this powerful just by using tactics and skills!"

The two young Taoist priests spoke in a startled and exaggerated manner, as if they were telling some legendary story.

Zhang Zhiwei smiled. Human potential is limitless; it's not unheard of for a single person to annihilate one or two hundred enemies. In his memories of his previous life, during the battle against the US-led coalition, there was a warrior who single-handedly held his ground, annihilating more than two hundred US soldiers, and was even horrified by US newspapers, who called him a "murderous demon."

Zhang Zhiwei chatted briefly with the two younger men at the door before entering the main hall.

Above each Guiyuan Array, he placed a projection screen similar to a monitoring screen, which would monitor the situation inside the scene in real time.

If someone is watching continuously, the image on the screen will be continuous. If no one is watching, the screen will disappear, and the current scene will only start projecting again when someone comes back in.

When he came in just now, two young Taoist priests came out to pay their respects, so the light screen inside temporarily disappeared. Now that he has entered, the light screen has lit up again, revealing the scene inside.

After so many days, the progress of the different groups has long since diverged significantly.

Some of the less capable ones were still being ground up and wrecked in the "Verdun meat grinder," dying time and time again.

Zhang Zhiwei shook his head. This team was doomed. They were 100% unable to clear this dungeon, let alone the more brutal battles like the Somme and Ypres.

It's not suitable for them to go down the mountain. They should stay on the mountain and pray, do some logistics, and receive the pilgrims. They shouldn't go down the mountain to fight the Japanese pirates; that would be suicide.

Some are still struggling in the "Battle of the Somme," facing a long front and endless attacks, with no end in sight.

However, there are also those who are far ahead.

Uncle Yi Qian's team has already fought up to the "Gallipoli Campaign".

This was an extremely fierce amphibious landing operation. Both sides fought a tough battle on a narrow beach, where it was not a contest of clever tricks, but of real hard skills and willpower.

Most importantly, this battle lasted for nearly a year. The requirement to clear the level was that all fifteen players survived and fought the entire game; they couldn't just find a place to hide for half a year while fighting.

The conditions were extremely demanding, so even though Yi Qian's team consisted of experienced veterans, they were still stuck here, unable to clear the level for a long time. Every time they were about to reach the end, a member would be eliminated due to various unforeseen circumstances, forcing them to start all over again.

Zhang Huaiyi's group, on the other hand, somehow managed to get through this hurdle and is now fighting the "Battle of Jutland," also known as the "Battle of the North Sea Beasts."

Although fighting the Japanese pirates in the mountains generally doesn't involve naval battles, since there aren't many decent ships on the Chinese mainland, it's still a valuable experience. Zhang Zhiwei then had the "Imperial Advisor" include this scenario in the game.

This was the largest naval battle of World War I and the last large-scale battleship duel in history.

Both sides deployed hundreds of warships, including dozens of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers.

On the turbulent sea, the two fleets engaged in a fierce artillery battle at close range. Huge cannonballs created towering waves on the sea surface, and warships that were hit burst into flames and slowly sank to the cold seabed.

This was a standard modern industrialized war. In this war, the human factor was minimized, and the soldiers' battlefield was no longer the open field, but the sweltering gun turrets, the roaring engine room, and the sulfur-smelling command tower.

The practice of "boarding up" in ancient naval battles, where sailors would board enemy ships for hand-to-hand combat, is no longer possible.

In other words, without the aid of superpowers, personal bravery is almost meaningless here.

What determines victory or defeat is steel, gunpowder, calculation, and luck.

These fifteen soldiers could only perform auxiliary tasks on the warship; their life or death depended entirely on the skill of the person operating the warship and the accuracy of the enemy's gunfire.

But the key point is that the warship the "national advisor" arranged for them was a warship that was destined to be sunk by enemy fire in history.

Even though they managed to evade several rounds of artillery fire for various reasons, they could not change their ultimate fate of sinking.

This kind of battle beyond visual range left Zhang Huaiyi's squad, which had accumulated a wealth of combat experience in previous battles, somewhat helpless.

After experiencing various shipwrecks, they came to the conclusion that they could not entrust their lives to those doomed foreign commanders; they could no longer sit idly by and wait to die!
So the group of Taoist priests began to study all sorts of knowledge about the warships like crazy.

They went to observe how the helmsman, signalman, lookout, and surveyor operated, and how the captain, first mate, and other officers commanded, and began to cram for naval warfare knowledge.

Having endured so many battles, they had even learned the Westerners' language within the game world and could roughly understand some of their writing and nautical charts. To quickly complete the game, they began to teach themselves. After a long period of failures and trial and error, they finally grasped the basics of how the warships operated.

So they launched a "subordinate overthrow" operation! They decisively took the captain and the first officer hostage and seized command of the warship.

The others, according to their respective strengths, were assigned to command soldiers in various units and began operating warships in combat.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang Huaiyi did not serve as the captain; Tian Jinzhong was the captain.

Zhang Huaiyi served as an officer in the fire control tower, also acting as a rangefinder and calculator, meaning he was responsible for aiming and firing the cannon.

This is also the most complex and core work on the entire warship, equivalent to the warship's "brain" and "eyes".

Zhang Huaiyi's forte has always been his meticulous attention to detail. Under his control, the warship's cannons displayed astonishing accuracy.

Often, while the enemy's warships are still undergoing tedious surveying and aiming, he has already completed the aiming with his amazing intuition and calculations, and given the order to fire in advance. Then, he hits the enemy ship's ammunition depot with a single shot, instantly detonating the enemy ship and turning it into a huge fireball burning on the sea!

The other soldiers were initially quite dissatisfied because a group of them had seized command of the warship.

But seeing enemy warships being sunk one after another by their own ships, the other foreign soldiers were greatly encouraged and began to actively cooperate with them in battle.

They were all novices, and even though they were accurate shooters, they lacked skills in navigation, damage control, and other areas. In the ensuing large-scale melee, they were sunk several times.

However, as they gained experience, they grew rapidly, and the warship became increasingly formidable.

The more powerful the warships, the more the soldiers on board respected them.

They darted back and forth in the incredibly dangerous naval battles, using precise artillery fire to destroy one enemy ship after another, until the horns of victory sounded.

Zhang Zhiwei watched their actions and was quite satisfied with their behavior.

In fact, this naval battle did not have many strict requirements. They did not need to destroy a lot of warships; they only needed to survive until the end of the war.

And this warship was destined to sink, so they had to save themselves.

It was to tell them that if their superiors weren't doing a good job, then they should help their superiors do a better job.

In short, you must take control of your own destiny.

This is the reason for the existence of this naval battle: to tell them that although they are going down to fight, they are not soldiers. Obeying orders is not their duty. They must also have their own judgment, dare to break with convention, and take the initiative.

After Zhang Huaiyi and his group finally cleared the Battle of Jutland, the light screen above their heads slowly disappeared, and the Guiyuan Formation was also deactivated.

Fifteen people were pulled out of the inner world. Their bodies jolted violently, and then they slowly opened their eyes.

Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar main hall of the Celestial Master's Mansion, their faces were blank and their eyes were somewhat dazed, still unable to recover from the cruel and long battlefield.

After all, they had been on several battlefields for far too long. The long baptism of war had made some of them almost forget their peaceful days of cultivating Taoism in Longhu Mountain, and they were only thinking about how to kill the enemy and how to survive.

Of course, Zhang Huaiyi and Tian Jinzhong never forgot.

Tian Jinzhong has adapted to various high-pressure environments. At Zhang Zhiwei's suggestion, Tian Jinzhong has hardly slept in recent years, using cultivation as a substitute for sleep.

This is somewhat similar to how the left gate has maintained a reverse growth state over the years.

For an ordinary practitioner, it would take at most ten days to half a month before they give up due to the unbearable mental strain.

If we force ourselves to continue, every day will be torture.

But Tian Jinzhong persisted for several years, which honed his extraordinary willpower.

Of course, mental training isn't always the best approach.

If the exploitation is too severe, it can seriously damage one's mental and physical health, and even affect one's life.

Therefore, every now and then, Zhang Zhiwei would give him a few days off so that he could have a good rest.

That time, because he hadn't slept for too long, he saw many spiders while cultivating. He was exhausted and his mind was severely damaged, so the Three Corpses took the opportunity to cause trouble.

Zhang Zhiwei immediately allowed him to cultivate for a period of time to recover, and after his mind and body had been fully rested, he became even stronger.

This is somewhat similar to how ordinary people exercise.

Therefore, although this inner realm trial was extremely intense, it was still within an acceptable range for Tian Jinzhong.

Zhang Huaiyi was the same. Although he valued skill more than life, he did not abandon his cultivation of life. Therefore, on such a cruel battlefield, he was still able to maintain his original intention to a large extent.

Moreover, he had never forgotten his senior brother, who was like a mountain in his heart. His senior brother was like a landmark, an anchor point, planted in his heart, and he had never forgotten him for a moment.

As for the others... the situations are all different.

Some were laughing, some were crying, and some were staring blankly, their eyes empty, as if their souls were still on that smoke-filled battlefield.

They had fought for so long in the inner world, experiencing countless life-and-death battles. It's understandable that they would act involuntarily after waking up due to intense emotional fluctuations.

Seeing this, Zhang Zhiwei did not speak, but sat down cross-legged and began to chant the "Purifying Heart Mantra".

"The Supreme Star, ever-responsive. Expelling evil and binding demons, protecting life and body. Wisdom clear and bright, mind at peace. The three souls eternal, the spirit without loss or decline..."

As the incantation was chanted, a gentle, serene, and peaceful wave spread outwards from Zhang Zhiwei.

Soothingly, their crying gradually subsided, their laughter ceased, and the dazedness and madness in their eyes faded, replaced by a calm and clarity born of survival. (End of Chapter)