Across the web, immortals and true beings, their thoughts and energy creating the heavens.

Chapter 137 Walking in the Void, Celestial Distance and Primordial Qi

"This Iron Origin Star orbital parachute assessment will involve forming teams immediately upon landing for a seven-day wilderness survival and combat capability assessment. Your requirement is to reach the rendezvous point from the landing point within seven days. During this time, you will be subject to capture. Your requirements are: do not cause casualties, do not be captured, and otherwise enjoy complete freedom of movement. Comrades, prepare for hardship. This time, you have no weapons, vehicles, food, drinking water, or maps. If you truly cannot endure it, send a signal. However, you should understand the consequences of withdrawing from the assessment. Any further questions?"

Instructor Jiang has a loud voice, because every instructor here has a loud voice.

"No!" Sixty-three dragon rider reserves responded loudly in formation, all wearing armor and with their helmets tucked under their arms.

"Alright! Now, those whose names are called, step forward and line up in groups of three to reach the drop pod!"

Lin Zhuo stood quietly in the middle of the line, listening to each soldier call out their orders before stepping forward. People around him cast curious glances at him.

The rumors these days have been brewing quite loudly. The confidentiality level of the prospective dragon cavalry warriors is not high enough to know about Lin Zhuo's special status. Everyone just thinks he is a special person with connections.

However, the dragon cavalry were never short of generals' sons, and they were all treated the same as ordinary soldiers, so much so that their comrades rarely noticed anything amiss. As a result, Lin Zhuo's background became increasingly mysterious, as if his family truly had some powerful and influential benefactor.

Some say he's the son or nephew of the rotating chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's Community Commune. However, if one truly wants to enhance their resume, the high-risk profession of a dragon rider isn't suitable for building a resume; they might be forced to become truly valuable, at the cost of being buried alive on the battlefield.

There are also outrageous claims that he might be the heir who defected from some giant corporation, what people usually call a "crown prince," who, tired of the endless infighting and power struggles within the family, voluntarily gave up all his status and came to the human community. This is not without precedent, and he does indeed bear a special political position, serving as a symbolic case for ideological propaganda.

The latter version is more widely circulated and accepted, so when people discuss him, they can't call him by his name directly. Instead, they call him by terms like "Crown Prince" or "Young Master," which is not a compliment in the context of a shared human culture.

"Lin Zhuo!"

"arrive."

The instructor paused, a slight smile appearing on his usually brooding face. He gazed intently at Lin Zhuo, gave him a slight nod, and then called out his two temporary partners: "Jiao Yun, Meng Zhi!"

Those whose names were called out were a veteran in his early thirties with a rugged face, thick eyebrows and lips—this was Jiao Yun; and another was only twenty-five or twenty-six years old with protruding ears, a baby face, and always cheerful—this was Meng Zhi.

"You're in trouble, you'll have to study with the young master now." Meng Zhi's young comrade muttered to himself. The young soldier was a little embarrassed and stepped forward without looking to the side.

"Old Jiao, bad luck." The same voice reached Jiao Yun's ears, but the veteran's eyes remained bright and resolute, unmoved, and he reported loudly.

Lin Zhuo and his two teammates followed the crowd, traveling from the outer ring to Tianyuan Star Port, and then taking a ship to the orbit of Tieyuan Star. During this time, only his teammates chatted with other soldiers, and they didn't exchange a single word with each other.

The spaceship traveled at an altitude of several thousand kilometers above the surface of Iron Origin Star, and when it reached the airspace above the designated location, the soldiers entered the orbital drop pods in batches and were launched like torpedoes. Through the porthole, Lin Zhuo saw the fiery red trails created by the friction of the drop pods against the atmosphere, like meteors falling to the earth.

"It's our turn," Jiao Yun's voice came through the radio.

"Phew! Don't be nervous, don't be nervous—" Young Meng Zhi whispered to herself, and began to review the emergency airdrop plan. The mature orbital airdrop design has multiple layers of protection. If all of them fail, the last resort can be activated to directly open the shield and enter the void dimension.

The so-called shield, namely the Void Dimension Jump Field Shield, is also a technology from another planet, which humanity has initially deciphered and applied. Objects with mass enveloped by the shield field will begin to jump after gaining a certain speed, until they break through the critical value and completely enter the Void Dimension.

The greater the mass of an object, the greater the critical velocity required for jump. For individual soldiers like armored warriors, once the shield is activated, as long as they can move at a speed close to 100 kilometers per hour, they can meet the jump conditions. This is something that many armored warriors can achieve by running on their own two legs after donning their armor.

Lin Zhuo crawled into the vertical drop pod, stood up, fastened the safety lock, and grabbed the bottom fixing ring with the dragon tail. Then, the indicator light turned from red to green, and the huge acceleration made his blood rush to his head.

With a whoosh, as it approached the ground, the retro-rockets activated, the drop pod decelerated sharply and adjusted its landing attitude. Inside, Lin Zhuo had to watch the computer screen to select a target location. He found a relatively flat spot and landed.

The drop pods of their two teammates appeared nearby. The atmosphere of Iron Origin Star is not suitable for breathing, so they brought their own oxygen backpacks. These backpacks can absorb various oxygen-containing compounds in the air to generate oxygen, which is theoretically enough to last for six months. However, if the backpacks are damaged, it means they will be eliminated soon.

Lin Zhuo watched Jiao Yun and Meng Zhi walk towards him. Their helmets obscured their faces, making it impossible to see their expressions.

"Old Jiao, Comrade Lin Zhuo, what's the next step?"

"I suggest we confirm the direction of the rendezvous point first, and then proceed step by step." Jiao Yun was mature and prudent. After saying this, he looked at the only heir of the Ninth Base.

Lin Zhuo said softly, "Comrades Jiao Yun and Meng Zhi, you've been assigned to the same team as me, and you're probably feeling resentful, aren't you?"

Jiao Yun shook his head and remained silent.

Meng Zhi shrugged. "It's not as serious as you make it out to be. Actually, I'm quite curious about you. You're always alone, and you rarely visit other people's rooms in the dorm. You're such a busy person. So now that I've seen you in person, I feel like you're actually—not bad?"

"When you call me 'Crown Prince' or 'Young Master,' I actually get a little angry. I feel that you shouldn't speculate about a future comrade-in-arms, someone who has never violated discipline. Such words shouldn't be used by you, the elite members of the community, who are knowledgeable, cultured, and of high quality, to slander me."

Jiao Yun explained, "The comrades don't have any particular feelings towards you. It's just that everyone is under too much control by the instructors, and sometimes they feel wronged and frustrated. You're being treated differently, like a precious treasure. They're just using you as an excuse to express their dissatisfaction with the discipline."

"Old Jiao is right. To be honest, we were being too harsh with our words, but we couldn't name you directly, so we had to beat around the bush and use a nickname or something. If we hurt you, then Old Jiao and I are willing to apologize to you on behalf of all the students. We're sorry, Comrade Lin Zhuo!"

Meng Zhi spoke from the bottom of her heart, stood at attention and saluted, and Jiao Yun followed suit without saying a word.

Lin Zhuo raised his hand in return, his tone still calm, "I accept your apology. I also hope that my future words and actions will be acceptable to you."

"Haha, you're actually quite easy to talk to. Seriously, if I had met you sooner, I would have stood up for you a long time ago. Now that we're officially acquainted, if all goes well, we might even continue to work together until we retire."

"Old Jiao, give me a high five! Lin Zhuo, is it okay for me to call you that?"

Jiao Yun reluctantly raised his hand to give this lively guy a high five, because Jiao Yun was a short person from a high-gravity planet, while Meng Zhi was a tall person from a low-gravity planet, and the height difference between them was obvious.

Lin Zhuo naturally reached out and clapped his hands, saying at the same time, "Since we will be together on the battlefield, risking our lives, there are some things I don't want to hide."

"Are you finally going to reveal your hidden identity?" Both comrades pricked up their ears and wagged their tails anxiously.

Lin Zhuo didn't retract his clapping hands, but simply stretched them out and offered them to me. "Come to my side, each of you grab one of my arms. This survival training is meaningless to me, and it's not fair to you either, so let's end it as soon as possible. I'll have the base reassign you to different partners."

"What does that mean?" Meng and Jiao were both confused.

A moment later, a cloud of dust rose from the desolate and vast stone plains of Tieyuan Star. Lin Zhuo dragged two comrades along, running wildly like pulling two kites. His divine veins extended from his hands to their armor, forming a protective barrier, making them fearless of the gale and the immense pulling force.

On the radio, Jiao Yun and Meng Zhi were both shouting in terror.

The journey that originally took seven days was completed by Lin Zhuo in just half an hour. He was like a high-speed train crossing mountains and wilderness, bringing his two terrified and numb comrades to their destination. The railroad army marines stationed there were all stunned as they watched the three armored soldiers step into the finish line.

Lin Zhuo put down his comrade and said to the officers there, "Prepare the spacecraft; we are about to return to the space station."

On that day, everyone on the entire space station, including a portion of the ground forces on Iron Origin Star, signed a confidentiality agreement.

Jiao Yun and Meng Zhi remained tight-lipped about their experiences that day, refusing to utter a word no matter how their comrades inquired. From that day on, no more rumors about Lin Zhuo's background or origins were heard at the Ninth Training Base of the Dragon Cavalry. In all subsequent practical assessments, every soldier who partnered with Lin Zhuo seemed to have undergone a complete reshuffling of their worldview.

When asked what happened, neither of them would say.

But when asked about their opinion of Lin Zhuo, they would always remain silent for a long time before saying, "Fortunately, he is a comrade of the human community."

Lin Zhuo completed most of the assessment process in just seven days, with only the last and most dangerous step remaining, scheduled for the ninth day.

The subject is called: Tai Xu Walking.

It is common knowledge that armored warriors can single-handedly enter the void dimension and travel freely throughout the entire universe.

However, in reality, this kind of individual jump has significant limitations. Regardless of where the jump begins, the destination is usually in outer space near the planet's orbit, and it cannot directly reach the planet's surface.

Therefore, if the armored warriors do not have a flight vehicle to jump directly, they will drift in space and need other spaceships to pick them up, otherwise they will likely become fresh space debris.

Lin Zhuo had never entered the Taixu Dimension before, so he needed to undergo a day of acclimatization training before participating in the assessment.

"Should I fasten my seatbelt?" Lin Zhu asked, sitting in the cockpit of the warp drive.

The driver laughed heartily, "Whatever you say."

The spaceship activated its shields, then accelerated, reaching a critical speed where it began to flash before disappearing completely.

In an instant, Lin Zhuo entered the Great Void and directly came into contact with a top-tier immortal primordial energy in the universe.

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