Chapter 899: The Throne of Hui Three Base's Top Sniper

In the afternoon, Xia Qing shouldered her sniper rifle and entered the shooting range of Training Base No. 49 to practice long-range moving-target sniping.

In Luo Pei's words: "You must push your effective range up to 2,100 meters before the end of September this year, to intimidate the scumbags who want to sneak into our base's Evolution Forest to poach. Otherwise, our base will be plagued by trouble nonstop."

Luo Pei had been exposed to synthetic poison for too long, suffering irreversible damage to his body. His top-tier visual evolution ability is now only Level 9, and his effective range has dropped from 2,200 meters to 2,000 meters.

2,100 meters is the effective range publicly announced by Hui Three's top sniper, Luo Pei.

The reason for setting the end of September is that this is when migratory birds pass through the Hui Three human living area. If Xia Qing cannot raise her effective range to 2,100 meters before then, Hui Three will have to spend a fortune again hiring a top sniper from another base. This would let people know Luo Pei is no longer what he was, and that Hui Three no longer has a top sniper holding the line.

Therefore, Luo Pei hopes Xia Qing can take the seat of top sniper.

Long-range sniper accuracy is affected by complex factors such as Blue Star's rotation, wind speed, visibility, air humidity, and terrain. Raising the effective range from 2,000 meters to 2,100 meters within two months is no easy task.

But Luo Pei firmly believes that the goal and deadline he set for Xia Qing are achievable through her own effort. Because just now, Luo Pei took Xia Qing to have her evolution ability tested and found her visual evolution level had already reached Level 9.5. When Luo Pei was at this level, his effective range was exactly 2,100 meters.

Discovering that Xia Qing's visual evolution level had risen, Luo Pei was so happy it was as if his own damaged visual evolution ability had returned to its peak. He patted Xia Qing's shoulder hard three times in a row; the weight of his expectations for her was self-evident.

Xia Qing felt a lot of pressure from the instructor's pats. No matter how talented she was, she still needed to feed大量 bullets to her sniper rifle and carve out大量 time to practice, in order to improve her shooting precision and efficiency.

Besides Xia Qing, there were 15 other Azure Dragon snipers training under Luo Pei's guidance in this shooting range.

A sniper's mission is to destroy important targets or equipment in the opposing force; their presence can turn the tide of battle. The number and quality of snipers a base or squad possesses is an important metric for measuring its overall combat strength.

Among these snipers, 10 are Evolvers and 5 are ordinary people with sniper talent. Ordinary people undergoing high-intensity effective training may reach the level of mid-tier snipers in the post-Great Evolution Blue Star, and can also go out on missions provided they receive effective protection.

Among post-evolution Blue Star humans, ordinary people whose various physical abilities have generally doubled make up the vast majority. Of Hui Three's 1.9 million population, 1.896 million are ordinary people, with only a little over 3,000 Evolvers. A base's security cannot be entrusted to just this handful of Evolvers.

As Hui Three's number-one-ranked squad, the Azure Dragon Squad has over 600 members, two-thirds of whom are Evolvers — this ratio is already the highest in the entire base.

Xia Qing lay prone on the cover. To her right were Level 5 visual Evolver Hu Zifeng and Level 6 visual Evolver Peng Jian; to her left was Level 7 visual Evolver Zhang Ling, and further left was Tang Huai, squirming and muttering.

Zhang Ling is one of only two snipers in the range who use the same model rifle as Xia Qing. Her current effective range is 1,700 meters, and the goal Luo Pei set for her is 1,820 meters — the passing line for a senior sniper.

"Bang!"

Under Luo Pei's guidance, Zhang Ling spent nearly three minutes aiming at the target, then pulled the trigger and fired at a fixed target 1,700 meters away. Nine rings!

"Ding."

The sound of the shell casing landing on the rock was surely crisp and pleasant to Zhang Ling's ears, but to Xia Qing it sounded like nothing but pain in the flesh.

Because ordinary bullets cost 4 to 20 points each, but the sniper rifle bullets used by Xia Qing and Zhang Ling have risen in price to 320 points per round.

In other words, every time Xia Qing pulls the trigger, she fires off more than a jin of Green Lantern meat, a jin of premium Green Lantern rice, or a jin of Green Lantern pine nuts…

So, to the Azure Dragon snipers whose ammunition is reimbursed by the squad, the sound is very pleasant to the ear, but in Xia Qing's ears it is:

"Your points -320!"

"Your points -320!"

And what's more, it's in the gloating-announcer voice of a miser. The throne of top sniper at Hui Three Base is built from stacks of points cards!

To put it bluntly, the reason Xia Qing's effective sniper range hasn't improved in over a month is that she genuinely feels 2,000 meters is perfectly adequate, and she can't bear to practice.

She really wanted to ask whether the Azure Dragon Squad could reimburse part of the cost of the bullets she habitually uses for practice. But the instructor was too stern, and she didn't dare ask. She could only lie on the mountaintop, baking in the harsh sun and letting the wind blow, sniping round after round at bamboo rats in a big cage 2,030 meters away.

After six hours of practice, Xia Qing, her points drained, walked down the mountain in the afterglow of the setting sun, ignoring Tang Huai, who carried the same model sniper rifle and was likewise self-funding his training — this guy was actually using a CM-82 sniper rifle too!

Being rich really does let you be willful.

After Tang Huai was chased off by Ram Boss, who was in the middle of a fight, Xia Qing, in a slightly better mood, scanned her face to return to her territory. Passing through the wild-grass wall and walking down the slope, she saw the red squirrel family foraging everywhere for free meals, and the red fox family playing and laughing by the reservoir. She was so annoyed she wished she could grab every single one of them and give them a beating.

You ungrateful bunch — do you think it's easy for me, all on my own, earning points to support this family? And you bastards still treat me like a sucker to fleece!

Seeing Xia Qing return, the red squirrel family immediately stuffed the food they'd found into their mouths. Two red squirrels, one big and one small, scurried back to their tree hole, while one little squirrel ran over and burrowed into the pocket of Xia Qing's protective suit.

Three red foxes — two big and one small — stood up and shook the dirt and grass clippings from their fur, then ran over to Xia Qing in coats more beautiful than the evening glow, gazing at her with eager, pitiful eyes.

Xia Qing took out the insect-repellent and disinfectant powder from her backpack and petted every fox in turn, and her mood lifted.

The three foxes, satisfied after getting their medicine rubbed in, scanned their faces to leave Territory No. 3 and head to Area 3 of Mountain No. 49 to grab a meal.

Why can this family scan their faces too? Because they come every day. If their faces weren't registered, every camera in the territory that caught them would keep sending intrusion alerts to Xia Qing's phone!

Why don't they look for food inside Territory No. 3? Of course it's because the snakes, bugs, rats, and ants inside Territory No. 3 — apart from the red squirrel family Xia Qing keeps — have all been caught clean by them. This is also the main reason Xia Qing tolerates the three foxes coming every day to mooch medicine.

So strictly speaking, the only ones freeloading food inside Xia Qing's territory are the red squirrel mother and her speed-evolution baby.

The official employee little Feimao in Xia Qing's pocket is, of course, not freeloading. The other red squirrel baby has already left its mother, chosen its own territory in Area 3 of Mountain No. 49, and doesn't come to Territory No. 3 to freeload often anymore — Xia Qing hasn't seen it for several days.

"Baa!" Ram Boss, having finished his fight, was hungry and urged Xia Qing to go home and cook.

Xia Qing patted the fox fur off her gloves and asked softly, "Okay, let's pick some vegetables and go home to cook. What does Boss want for dinner? Cucumber, lettuce, and ice plant mixed with Ration No. 4 — would that be alright?"

"Baaa~~~"

"I'm tired. Can Boss carry the backpack and hold the vegetable basket in your mouth?"

"Baa."

After picking vegetables and returning home, Xia Qing happened to see Wolf Lao Er walking out of the chicken coop carrying a basket of eggs in his mouth, with Does Daigua the monkey, wearing green shorts, riding on his back. Seeing Xia Qing return, Daigua's face slowly broke into a happy expression.

When this human comes back, there's good food to eat, and you can enjoy the cool breeze and take a bath inside the house.

Xia Qing rubbed Daigua the monkey's little head — which looked less handsome smiling than it did keeping a straight face — took the basket from Wolf Lao Er's mouth, and said, "Daigua is learning to work alongside Wolf Lao Er? That's great. Wolf Lao Er finished collecting all the eggs — amazing! Tonight I'll boil some eggs for Wolf Lao Er."

Wolf Lao Er wagged his tail and grinned.

After dinner, Xia Qing was sitting in the first-floor living room, listening to a farming-knowledge broadcast and enjoying the air conditioning while hulling sunflower seeds with Does Daigua the monkey, when she heard the pink new phone beside her go "beep."

The stubborn-tempered handsome giant wolf arrived right on schedule to soak in a medicinal bath at her territory.