After spending two days on Mount Juji, the freshmen of the Qilin Military Academy had gained a new understanding of the training's intensity and their own physical limits.
The daily designated routes were impossible to finish... Accidents could happen at any moment, and their arrival at the destination was only ever later than expected, never earlier!
Yesterday, some relied on their good physique and slacked off instead of setting up camp, only to be drenched to the bone by the heavy rain this morning.
Some slipped while climbing and broke their legs; others, their vision obscured by the heavy rain, looked up only to lock eyes with mutant beasts or star beasts; there were even those who did not have time to press their emergency alarms and had their heads halfway into a star beast's mouth before being forcibly rescued by the instructors...
The reasons for elimination were varied, and several aircraft carrying rescue teams and class instructors shuttled back and forth above Mount Juji.
The students who were picked up were all crestfallen, but the instructors were quite used to this.
"Rainy days always bring a peak in eliminations. I originally wanted to see how they would perform once they reached the desert..."
A rescue team instructor sighed with emotion, but another person beside him said,
"The remaining students should be thankful for this rain, otherwise the rest of the journey would be truly unbearable!"
Wang Tianwei hid in a concave cave to escape the rain, taking out pots, plastic bags, and any other containers that could hold water to catch the rainfall. She also placed some weeds inside them to muffle the sound of the raindrops hitting the surfaces.
She sat on the ground, staring at the map issued by the school to estimate her time, a heavy expression on her face.
Before coming here, she knew that half of Planet Shuomo was covered in yellow sand, and looking at this map, Mount Juji was the dividing line between the desert and the oasis.
The school's map was very cunningly made, with no color coding. The desert was indicated by sand ripple patterns, while the other side was marked with vegetation patterns.
The pattern colors were very faint, almost invisible if one did not look closely.
If one only cared about the location or estimating distance, it would be easy to overlook these terrain changes.
However, no matter how she planned her route ahead, she would have to cross a section of the desert in the last two days to reach the exit...
Even though two days seemed short, traveling in the desert and traveling outside were completely different experiences!
Even with the same amount of water, a distance that could be covered in two days outside might not be completed inside the desert.
The first reason was the inability to see the destination. Because the surroundings all looked the same, one could only rely on a compass and the sun to identify directions in the desert, and over time, one would lose their sense of direction.
The second was that the temperature difference between day and night would be much greater than outside, so she needed more measures to keep warm.
The third was the lack of water.
Speaking of which, if all the water containers on her were filled to the brim now, she could probably last about 48 hours...
But a person's water intake in the desert would far exceed the norm. Whether due to psychological suggestion or daytime sun exposure, it would make one unknowingly drink more water...
Moreover, she could not possibly carry a container like a frying pan while walking.
Sometimes, just drinking water was not enough; she had to prepare some electrolytes in advance, as well as food and firewood...
Her gaze fell on the water droplets continuously dripping at the cave entrance, her mind calculating the remaining time and the extra supplies she needed.
This rain could actually save her a lot of time, and she would not need to look for a water source when setting up camp at night.
However, if it kept raining like this, her progress would fall behind again...
Amidst her thoughts, she suddenly heard the sound of military boots stepping on the waterlogged stone path!
Oh no!
The sound of the heavy rain had also affected her hearing. The other party was already very close, and it was too late to run!
Wang Tianwei frantically grabbed the laser gun next to her, and in the next second, she locked eyes with a curly-haired boy wearing a raincoat poking his head in from outside...
"I guessed it was you."
Jian Jingyu shook off the rainwater from his body and greeted her familiarly.
Seeing that he was alone, Wang Tianwei finally felt a little relieved.
"Phew... You scared me."
Since they were both "guinea pigs," he wouldn't go so far as to eliminate her, right?
Jian Jingyu had no intention of targeting her at all.
He took off his outermost raincoat on his own, pulled out a large bottle of about two liters from his backpack, and imitating her, plucked a few blades of grass to put inside before placing it at the cave entrance to catch the rainwater.
"How did you know it was me? What if it was another team?"
Wang Tianwei lowered the muzzle of her gun to the ground, wanting to know where she had failed to hide properly.
"I saw half a footprint on my way up."
Jian Jingyu sat down and shook his curly hair from side to side.
Wang Tianwei also returned to her previous spot.
"You saw a footprint and still dared to follow it?"
"I only saw half of one. Other people wouldn't deliberately hide their tracks; the only ones who need to do so are the three of us."
"..."
Although it was the truth, it stung a bit.
"Don't worry, I've already wiped it away for you."
Jian Jingyu noticed she looked much more haggard than on the day they set out.
"Ran into some classmates?"
Wang Tianwei gave a bitter smile.
"Yeah... I almost didn't get away."
Jian Jingyu leaned back.
"...Me too. By the way, did you know that our classmates aren't the only ones with elimination missions?"
Wang Tianwei looked over in confusion.
"There are others?"
"There's another class whose class mission is to eliminate teams from other classes..."
Wang Tianwei stared with dead fish eyes.
"...You ran into them? How many waves did you encounter in total?"
Jian Jingyu held up one finger.
"One wave?"
The opposite voice sounded desolate.
"One continuous wave... It hasn't stopped since the first day..."
...He was a warrior.
To encounter so many people and still stand strong!
Wang Tianwei gave him a thumbs up.
"Awesome, you even managed to escape that."
Jian Jingyu sighed.
"Add star beasts to the mix... I haven't really closed my eyes since I got in... What about you?"
"I didn't sleep well yesterday, but the day before was okay."
The heavy rain outside showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
The two fell silent for a while. Jian Jingyu could no longer keep his eyes open, so he simply asked directly,
"You're not going to sneak attack me, are you?"
Wang Tianwei glanced at him.
"...We are grasshoppers on the same string right now... If you get eliminated, the firepower directed at me and Huang Yan will increase significantly."
Hearing this, Jian Jingyu finally felt at ease and tilted to his side.
"Great, then I'll take a quick nap."
Just two breaths after speaking, he started to snore softly.
Wang Tianwei looked at his back and shook her head. How could someone with this kind of gullible personality last three days on Mount Juji!?
However, she truly had no intention of eliminating Jian Jingyu; what she had just told him was only one aspect.
Besides, the three of them had entered the mountain together and were collectively targeted by Yama Chao, so there was at least a bit of revolutionary camaraderie between them...
From here on out, as long as she could safely complete the entire journey, she wouldn't lose points. Plus, the star beasts and mutated plants and animals she had defeated would earn her some bonus points.
If she unluckily got eliminated, no amount of points would matter... She wasn't greedy; just passing was enough.
Here, she took out a pen and paper from her backpack, rustling as she wrote down the things she needed to prepare in advance for entering the desert, repeatedly calculating her load weight.
Over there, Jian Jingyu lay on the ground, wishing he could catch up on all the sleep he had missed over the past two days!
At first, he was unaccustomed to not having a sleep pod, but now, lying on the damp ground, he was completely dead to the world...
While waiting for the rain to stop, Wang Tianwei took the time to inventory and reorganize her backpack, going so far as to filter out the accumulated rainwater.
Yama Chao had only forbidden the three of them from traveling together; he never said they couldn't cross paths at all. Because of this, she wasn't panicked.
Jian Jingyu had no idea how long he had been asleep. In a daze, he vaguely heard someone calling out to him,
"Jian Jingyu, Jian Jingyu!"
