Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 412 - 245: Training Troops and Prisoners at the Foot of the Steps

Chapter 412: Chapter 245: Training Troops and Prisoners at the Foot of the Steps

After entering the second stage of the trial, Zhao Haiping first noticed a brand new UI that appeared in his field of vision.

In the upper right corner of his view, there was an icon resembling a character card, surrounded by light effects, suggesting it could achieve some sort of charging effect.

After briefly studying this feature, Zhao Haiping quickly understood how to use this new function.

This was the ability to summon heroic spirits mentioned in previous version announcements.

But obviously, summoning heroic spirits was not without restrictions.

When this function occurred to him, the card would materialize. At the same time, Zhao Haiping could select in his mind the heroic spirit character he wished to summon.

These characters had to be ones he had previously encountered in the Trial Illusion, and different characters required different amounts of energy to summon.

Some of the more powerful characters would consume a higher amount of base energy when summoned.

As for more peripheral characters, naturally, they were much more energy-efficient to summon.

Moreover, Zhao Haiping’s earlier idea of completely automating the process wasn’t entirely impossible but would consume a lot of energy.

However, merely consulting a character for advice would use a lot less energy.

As for energy acquisition, it depended on the player’s progress in the current instance.

Since Zhao Haiping had already cleared the first stage, he had enough energy to directly summon a heroic spirit and still had some leftover energy for consultation or automation.

However, Zhao Haiping’s primary concern at the moment was, since the acquisition of energy was based on the player’s progress in the Trial Illusion, if a player relied on the function of summoning heroic spirits to make the best decisions at critical junctures, significantly advancing progress and gaining more energy...

Would it be possible to create a perpetual motion effect?

Well, it was still possible.

Of course, the game’s developers would certainly put restrictions on these values to prevent players from completing the cycle too easily.

In any case, how to use the function of summoning heroic spirits would still have to be explored by players themselves in the instance.

Zhao Haiping did not immediately choose which heroic spirit to summon but decided to first look at the challenge objectives of the current instance.

If the summoning energy for these heroic spirits was the same, then summoning Emperor Taizu of Sheng should do the trick, since he was one of the top emperors in Huaxia history, with a comprehensive set of strategies in domestic affairs, diplomacy, military, etc., making him an all-purpose choice.

But summoning Emperor Taizu was too expensive, and Zhao Haiping’s current energy was somewhat insufficient to sustain it.

So, it was still necessary to see what the target of the current instance was and then prescribe the right solution.

The fog before him gradually dissipated, and Zhao Haiping found himself in a huge military camp.

The overall environment was somewhat similar to the Peace Army camp he had been in, but conditions were slightly better.

In large swathes of military tents, soldiers of the Qi Dynasty were busy with their affairs.

Besides participating in training every day, they had to work in the dark at night when they returned to their tents, either mending their armor or repairing their weapons, often busy late into the night before they could sleep.

Beyond the camp lay many spacious training grounds, divided into areas for different types of training, some for infantry and some for cavalry.

The infantry, equipped with uniform standard weapons like long spears and great axes, practiced fixed maneuvers on the open ground of the training fields.

There were also instructors who continuously expounded on the technical essentials of these movements and corrected the soldiers who made mistakes.

At this point, the maneuvers being practiced by the infantry were relatively simple, such as the daily handling of spears, thrusting in the upper, middle, lower directions, and parrying opponents’ weapons, among other fixed movements.

Although these actions seemed uncomplicated, the soldiers still practiced them in a disordered and disjointed fashion.

From this, it could perhaps be inferred that the quality of the soldiers here was rather average.

Zhao Haiping looked down at his own attire and realized he was clad in armor, with a large cloak on his back, clearly a very high-ranking general.

"So, is my goal now... training troops?"

Zhao Haiping estimated that the military camp was not small in scale, with probably forty to fifty thousand soldiers.

If these soldiers were well-trained, they could certainly play a significant role in certain key battles in the future.

Especially since General Han Fuyue’s military training ability was historically renowned, "to freeze rather than strip roofs, to starve rather than loot," achieving such a military discipline in the age of cold weapons was considered top-tier.

In line with the usual nature of "Dark Sand," the developmental content of the early part of the instance was often closely linked to the practical combat in the latter part, and if one was lazy in the beginning, there would surely be suffering later on.

Therefore, Zhao Haiping did not dare to neglect his duties and immediately immersed himself in the role of a general, trying to train these soldiers meticulously.

However, troop training was indeed an area where players’ knowledge was lacking.

They had never encountered such game content in previous instances.

Of course, Zhao Haiping had seen a lot of army camp activities, but observing the camp from the perspective of an ordinary soldier was like the blind men touching the elephant, which was unlikely to reveal the essentials.