Elite Mages’ Academy (Web Novel)
chapter-217

Chapter 217: Landfall (1)

Xiao Lin separated the close- and long-ranged combatants equally into each group, reminding them all to listen to the commands of the group leaders. When the time came, communications would be relayed by their hierarchies.

Of course, Xiao Lin could not ignore the possibility that his orders would be ignored. He was actually quite disappointed that Wang Dalin did not fall into the sea that night, but that man had at least held back recently, not publicly trying to cause trouble.

Xiao Lin did not know how to deal with the few dissenters. They were still part of Class Seven in name, but if they were to cause trouble when the time came, he did not mind cutting them off.

He was definitely not going to be able to get much sleep that night thanks to the swaying ship and the damp room. Xiao Lin instead decided to look for Captain Song for more information. It was only until he made sure that nothing could possibly happen to them on their way to shore did he finally relax, checking his gear once again before sleeping. Xiao Lin was actually quite anxious himself, but as the monitor, he felt that he could not afford to show it.

When dawn finally came, the sea was still a blanket of darkness as dark clouds obscured the sky. The weather constantly changed, but Captain Song was quite happy when he saw that. He told Xiao Lin there was no way the nagas would come under those weather conditions, so he was confident that their assault would not be interfered with.

After rousing everyone from their sleep, their spirits left much to be desired. Most of them were yawned constantly, obviously not having slept well.

Xiao Lin then observed the state of everyone’s equipment, which comforted him quite a bit. After realizing this examination would be extremely difficult, no one had bothered saving their redemption points, having spent everything on equipment and items, but obviously the grades were not of too high rank.

Comparatively, Xiao Lin’s Bronze-ranked Warbear Leather Armor was extremely eye-catching, and the jewels on his Holy Soul Sword caused everyone to stare with envy.

They had yet to learn how to determine the quality of any given equipment, but they at least understood that embedding magical items into gear would cause it to perform exceptionally better, and the price would obviously increase accordingly.

Xiao Lin had attracted practically everyone’s attention, and he noticed that their looks of unease were somewhat calmed. As the commanding officer, his skill was definitely pivotal to everyone else’s confidence, which was something Xiao Lin did not anticipate.

The weather conditions did nothing to help their eyesight, but they already started to make out faint traces of land on the horizon. However, even Xiao Lin could not make out what was happening on the beach.

“Do you have a telescope?” Xiao Lin asked the captain who was approaching.

“Telescope?” Captain Song asked in surprise.

Xiao Lin felt that he must have said something wrong, but he could not figure out what. Thankfully, Captain Song did not seem to mind, passing Xiao Lin a scroll as he shook his head, “We usually use this over here, a magical scroll that has both eagle vision and long-distance sight; it’s much more useful on Planet Norma.

Unfurling the scroll caused the magic contained within to activate. Xiao Lin suddenly felt a warmth in his eyes, and everything started to brighten. His eyes felt like they had binoculars fixed onto them, and he could even make out the rocks that were on the shore.

On the shoreline, a few merfolk were patrolling the area, but they did not have magical scrolls, and the warships were still quite a distance away, so they did not notice the fleet approaching.

“It looks like we’re quite lucky; their defenses are way too thin. No, it seems like they have practically no defenses! Ah, these low-lives underestimate us!” Captain Song was pleasantly surprised, but he could not help but feel like the merfolk were underestimating Dawn Academy by way too much.

Captain Song decided that they would be stopping there, since they might start running into difficulties if they moved any further. After that, landing crafts were prepared for Xiao Lin’s team, he noticed the other warships were doing the same as well.

It was called a landing craft, but it was actually just a regular sampan. After that, a shield-like object with magical runes inscribed on it was placed at the head of the ship. That was used as a defense mechanism against long-range attacks, especially magical ones. The runes mainly were meant to reduce damage from fire-type spells. The sampans might not be too damaged from a few arrows, but a few flame spells could quickly sink them.

Each boat could seat around eight students, so a total of eight landing crafts were launched from the ship, and they needed to be rowed manually, causing some cursing from a few people, probably feeling like it was too much of a chore for a world filled with magic.

“Everyone shut up! Quit talking! After you reach shore, you will find your group leaders based on yesterday’s allocations. After that, we split into two teams. Zhou Feng, your team will be in charge of clearing the merfolk on the shore and protecting everyone else. Gu Xiaoyue, you organize the long-range specialists and start firing at the supply depot.”

“The supply depot is on top of the hill. What if the enemies start rushing down to attack us?” someone asked with concern. Amphibious assaults usually struggled to deal with enemies with the higher ground.

“Don’t worry. The warships will provide suppressing fire, especially on their archer towers.” With that, Xiao Lin paused, assessing the warship behind him. These types of wooden warships were already a thing of the past on Earth, but it was quite normal considering what era they were in.

The warships did not seem to have any type of cannons. He remembered Song Junlang had mentioned that Planet Norma’s research into gunpowder took very long before it had any results, so he was not expecting anything on that front. He might have consoled the others, but he could not help but worry himself. Was Captain Song planning on just having his crew shoot arrows or cast spells as support?

It was already too late to consider any of that. Following his command, everyone started to row their boats with the wooden paddles they were provided with. The landing crafts shot forward like rockets, quickly leaving the warships far behind them. At that moment, everyone gaped as they finally understood that they were not in a regular boat.

That speed was not something just rowing could normally achieve. Xiao Lin guessed that there was probably magic or equipment in the boat that was speeding them up, but it did make things a lot easier. The shore started to look clearer despite the darkness as they got closer.

With the closing of the distance, the merfolk on the shore also started to look clearer. Even though they had seen pictures of that race numerous times during their history classes, when they were finally faced with the real thing, everyone could not help but exclaim, “How ugly!”