Chapter 299 - 175: The Harvest of the Hunting Groups! Resources Favor the Capable! The Incompetent are Disbanded and Reorganized

Chapter 299: Chapter 175: The Harvest of the Hunting Groups! Resources Favor the Capable! The Incompetent are Disbanded and Reorganized

Chen Chong couldn’t clearly hear what came next.

It wasn’t that his hearing as a Transcendent was failing. It was that Wang Biao was diligently carrying out his orders, hoisting Zhong Fang onto his shoulder and sprinting toward the Fishing Club room at top speed.

They vanished before he could even finish his sentence. If all went as planned, they were already out of the gymnasium.

Within three minutes, Zhong Fang would be out cold, fast asleep in his bed...

"President Zhong... he’s really giving it his all."

A look of deep admiration remained on Jia Wen’s face long after Zhong Fang was gone.

There weren’t many people he admired.

Only two, in total.

Chen Chong and Xu Jun.

The former was a natural-born leader—intelligent, capable, confident yet not arrogant. He was the perfect lord in the eyes of any advisor.

As for the latter, though he sometimes appeared a bit foolish, he was Jia Wen’s true master. Jia Wen saw him through rose-colored glasses, giving him the appraisal of ’great wisdom disguised as foolishness.’

Now, there was one more person: Zhong Fang.

’He’s really putting his life on the line...’

Chen Chong shook his head with a wry smile and looked at the table. Sure enough, a few sheets of paper were lying there.

Since this was the first time the team members had gone out to hunt for resources, Chen Chong was also very curious about what kind of harvest his thirty-two hunting squads would bring back.

Xu Jun, Wang Biao, and Zhang Meng felt the same; they all gathered around to look.

On the sheets, the previous day’s harvest for all the hunting teams was recorded in detail, already ranked by the value of their haul...

North Region - Squad 3 - Resources Acquired: 3 pounds of various wild fruits, 6 pounds of assorted edible mushrooms, one live squirrel, two live lizards, two dead mountain rats, two dead wild rabbits.

East Region - Squad 6 - Resources Acquired: 13 pounds of fish (one 4-pound carp, one 2-pound grass carp, the rest being miscellaneous fish under one pound each), 7 pounds of crabs, 2 pounds of loaches.

South Region - Squad 1 - Resources Acquired: 16 pounds of wild kiwis, 5 live snakes, 2.5 pounds of wild wood ear mushrooms...

These were the top three squads with the largest harvests among the thirty-two squads across the four regions.

To be honest, the hauls from these three teams weren’t much to Chen Chong, Xu Jun, and the others. They wouldn’t even have to hunt deliberately; a single trip to the Desolate Grass River Stream to check their traps would yield far more than the total haul of all three squads combined.

But for the other ordinary students, this harvest was definitely bountiful!

The resources they found could not only feed all ten members of a squad but also leave a considerable amount leftover as reserves.

Among all the student teams at the school right now, they were definitely among the strongest in terms of survival skills and the ability to hunt and find resources.

More importantly, these were not hunting grounds that the three squads were familiar with.

You had to understand, in the half-month since they were transported here, every surviving student had established their own fixed hunting grounds. They knew where to find abundant wild fruit, edible plants, or signs of animal activity.

If they rashly changed areas, their harvest would undoubtedly be greatly diminished.

After all, they would need to scout the new environment, find traces of prey, and search for resources all over again...

To be able to adapt to a new environment in just one day and still find so many resources was proof enough that these three squads possessed exceptional survival and hunting skills.

This was especially true for Squad 3 from the North Region, which had the largest haul.

Chen Chong vaguely recalled that to the east was a large river, to the south was the Desolate Grass River Stream, and to the west was the Celestial Pit. All three of these places had abundant resources to find.

Only the north, near the poisonous hornets of the low woods, was different. Chen Chong had personally scouted it before. Although it was possible to find food there, it was the most barren region compared to the other three.

The fact that North Region’s Squad 3 could secure the largest harvest in the most barren area was a clear indicator of just how strong they were.

"Jia Wen, if these three squads remain in the top three over the next few days, give them some extra attention. Especially North Region’s Squad 3. If they can stay in the top five for the next week, allocate more resources to them and focus on their development."

Jia Wen quickly replied, "My lord, I’ve noted it down."

Chen Chong nodded. It was only the first day. The success of the top three squads could be largely due to luck; it was impossible to gauge their true ability yet.

But if they could consistently rank at the top over the next few days, it would prove that their ability outweighed their luck.

In that case, Chen Chong certainly wouldn’t mind focusing on developing them.

If they continued to perform exceptionally, he would not only promote them to leadership positions within their region but also grant them Extraordinary Meat Blocks, and even Extraordinary Artifacts.

This would allow at least one Pseudo-Transcendent to emerge within their squad, boosting the team’s overall strength.

Chen Chong would never be the least bit stingy with members who were capable and dedicated to the team.

Besides these top three squads with the biggest hauls, the fourth, fifth, and even sixth-ranked squads also had considerable harvests.

While not impressive enough to be eye-catching, the resources they acquired were at least enough to meet the team’s daily contribution standard, with some even left over.

As for the middle-ranked teams, their harvests were mediocre, barely meeting the standard or, in some cases, falling slightly short.

But considering it was only the first day and they were likely spending more time scouting the environment than gathering resources, the standards naturally had to be a bit more lenient.

Just as some results were impressive, others were exasperating.

The thirty-two squads were divided into four groups, searching for resources in four regions.

There were those with outstanding harvests, those with mediocre harvests, and naturally, those with barely any harvest at all—some didn’t even bring back a single blade of grass.

The bottom three teams.

All of them showed zero harvest.

Even the four or five squads ranked just above them had only brought back a few wild fruits and some wild vegetables.

Most of which they couldn’t even identify as edible, their value listed as "pending."

This left Chen Chong, Xu Jun, and the others speechless.

’Good grief. Ten people go out for a whole day and bring back this little? Were they out looking for resources or on a picnic?’

’Never mind the ones who only brought back a few wild vegetables and fruits, but how did the bottom three manage to get absolutely nothing?’

’Even if you just wandered aimlessly through the Primitive Jungle, you should be able to bring back *something*, right?’

If they were college students with absolutely no survival experience, it would be understandable.

But they had to remember that any student who had survived until now couldn’t possibly lack survival skills. Otherwise, they would have starved to death long ago.

’Not to mention they were in a group of ten. Even if they just searched blindly, they should have found something, right?’

The only explanation for this situation was...

...they were having internal conflicts, which kept them from focusing their energy on finding resources.

And that was indeed the case.

Chen Chong discovered that these teams with zero or negligible harvests were almost all teams that had not yet chosen a leader.

Of the thirty-two squads, twenty-one had already selected their leaders. The remaining eleven were all experiencing disagreements and had too many people nominating themselves for the leadership role.

These teams were mostly composed of unaffiliated members who didn’t know each other, which had led to this situation.

According to their prior discussions, Jia Wen and Zhong Fang had not interfered with these discordant teams. Instead, they let them work things out on their own and choose a leader based on ability.

’The only way to tell a mule from a horse is to take it for a spin. If someone wants to be a leader but can’t even win over ten people, it just proves the whole squad is useless.’

Teams that were serious about surviving and earning points would naturally figure out who was most suited to lead during the resource-gathering process and gradually get on the right track.

In any case, if they could never choose a leader and failed to earn points, the squad would be disbanded and its members absorbed into other teams.

So neither Chen Chong, nor Jia Wen, nor Zhong Fang was in a hurry...

Obviously, the issue of who would be leader was affecting their motivation to find resources.

They had probably spent the entire day fighting and sulking over who would get to be in charge.

After a moment of silence, Chen Chong smiled.

He was quite philosophical about the difference in harvests among the team members.

As a team established for survival, its entire purpose revolved around survival.

Aside from a few hard-and-fast, bottom-line rules, it was very accommodating to all members in other aspects, offering a high degree of freedom.

So, regarding the hunting groups, his philosophy was simple...

’For the capable: provide more resources and focus on their development!’

’For the incapable: deduct points, disband, and reorganize!’

’It’s all up to them...’

...