"Have any of you noticed there seem to be more animals near the camp lately?"
The morning training had just ended, and the sun was only starting to rise. Everyone was sprawled out on the training ground, too exhausted to even lift their hands.
Jian Jingyu spotted a few birds perched near the arcs on the wall and voiced his observation out loud.
In the past couple of days, he had noticed a number of animals appearing around the camp, not to mention that black cat he had seen the day before yesterday.
"It might just be springtime, everything waking up? It's been feeling a lot warmer these last couple of days."
Zhang Lyra replied with her eyes closed.
She recalled that when they first arrived for the competition, it was still winter. Every dormitory building had been completely full, and if you wanted to use the training rooms or mech bays, you had to make reservations well in advance.
Now three months had passed already, and unlike the desert moon of Shuomo, Tianshu Star was right in the season of lush grass and singing birds.
Their omni-thermal suits and temperature-regulating shoes had become impossible to wear; on sunny days, even long sleeves felt too hot.
After such a high-intensity training session, lying out here on the grass actually felt comfortable—not cold at all, with the temperature just right.
"Ha, has anyone here ever heard of zombie birds?"
Wang Tianwei had already started rambling nonsense.
"You know, the kind that look like regular birds but are actually zombies? They won't die unless you shoot them in the head, and they eat people."
Leola thought for a moment.
"Doesn't that sound like the mutated birds Ye Yingxuan and her team encountered during the first rainforest match?"
"Yeah, except those didn't breathe fire, and they weren't as big."
Wang Tianwei didn't really know why the thought of apocalyptic creatures had popped into her head. She let out a sheepish chuckle.
"Heh, we killed a ton of them in that virtual simulation that Commander Chao designed..."
"Sister Zebra sure knows a lot about the weirdest stuff."
Wu Fangyu was too exhausted to even open her eyes.
Her instincts for bad omens had never been wrong!
After Taylor went to check things out with the Qilin team, he came back and grabbed the captain's training plan, insisting on following it. She had no doubt the captain had pulled some underhanded trick here.
As for Barry, he was originally a heavy-weapons fire support specialist. After being pressured by the skill levels of Zhang Lyra and Wu Pingzhuo, there was no way he was turning down the extra training.
That meant four people on the team, and three of them were all training together. How could he possibly skip out?
The poor guy had only barely scraped into S-class physical fitness before joining the competition. Could someone please remember that his specialty was actually piloting mechs?! He really wasn’t Sister Zebra!
With Qilin setting such an exemplary standard, the First Military Academy naturally followed suit and went all in.
And so, the next day, after completing a double S-class morning physical training session, everyone was glamorously collapsed on the ground...
"Awesome!"
Wu Pingzhuo let out a loud shout, only to feel even more drained. He flopped back onto the grass and started snoring within moments.
At this point, none of the students cared about fancy sleep pods or low-temperature, low-pressure sleep environments.
As long as they could find enough space to stretch out their arms and legs, they could fall asleep anywhere. They had become completely un-picky.
"Huang Yan... was this how you trained before? And you, Wang Tianwei?"
Hiranuma Yusho was trying this kind of extreme physical training method for the very first time.
To be perfectly honest—he had been born with S-class mental and physical abilities, had never endured this kind of hardship before!
If he had been subjected to this intensity of training since childhood, considering what he knew about himself, he would very likely have given up on ever attending a military academy.
After all, he was someone who lived for the joy of winning; it gave him an unparalleled thrill. But this kind of physical training had no concept of "winning."
If he had to describe it, out of the three hours of this morning's training, two and a half felt like he was completely useless, and the other half-hour was spent gasping for breath or completely spacing out...
Even with his teammates there to suffer with him, he had nearly failed to persevere multiple times. And in the end, he had needed encouragement from Wang Tianwei—who only had A-class physical fitness?!
For someone like Hiranuma Yusho, who had always been the model of "other people's perfect child," this was a complete emotional crisis. Was he seriously not even better than someone with an A-class rating?
He had been so proud of himself for eighteen years, looking down on this one and that one, and in the end, it turned out he was the pathetic one? Unacceptable!
Wang Tianwei pulled out several pouches of nutrient fluid from her space buckle and started handing them out to everyone nearby.
"It's only the first day of training, so asking questions is normal."
Huang Yan thought for a moment before adding his own words of wisdom.
"Generally speaking, for the first three months, you'll have all sorts of questions pop up.
For example: Do I really have to do this? Do I really need to attend a military academy? Would the Federation fall apart without me? And what's even the meaning of life?
Emm... if you start wanting to die, that's also normal. When that happens, just remember to drink more nutrient fluid, get more sun, and sleep more."
"Heh."
He Siyu let out a bitter laugh.
It sounded ridiculous, but she was absolutely certain that the two of them were being completely serious in sharing their hard-won experience.
Because more than half of everything Huang Yan had just listed had already flashed through her own mind...
Zhang Lyra pondered her own experiences before she had upgraded her physical rating and chimed in as well.
"Eating can also help with those kinds of negative emotions, but you have to eat something tasty and satisfying.
If you end up with something terrible, it's not just wanting to die yourself—you might even want to take a few people with you. In that case, just have some chilled sweet drinks. If that's not enough, eat an entire cake."
"No wonder individual fighters always seem to have such short tempers. So there's a reason for it all..."
Wu Fangyu finally understood where her teammates' personalities came from.
"Taylor, Barry, back in the day, I always thought you two were like dynamite sticks that would explode at the slightest spark. My bad for that."
"It's fine. From now on, we'll all be the same way."
"..."
After handing out the nutrient fluid pouches, Wang Tianwei flopped back down again. Glancing at the messages on her light-brained device, she sent a notification in their group chat before speaking.
"Chief Mech Designer Liu from the Second Military District said he has some free time tonight. He'll guide us through using Liujin. Remember to clear your schedules.
Based on my calculations, we should finish up just in time for evening training. We'll just eat at the training room too—no need to trek back and forth."
The other eleven people lying on the ground all turned to stare at Wang Tianwei in unison. Did you even hear yourself just now? Even the King of Hell would have to bow in admiration at that schedule!
Fu Xingyuan suddenly spoke up.
"Since we're so close now, I might as well not hold anything back.
I'm going to teach everyone a breathing-based physical training technique. It can help mental and physical strength link up more smoothly, and it can raise your physical limits by at least five percentage points.
We'll start using it during this afternoon's training session, so the muscle fatigue barrier should become a little more bearable."
"..."
Did it really have to be now, bro?
He Siyu's eyes were vacant as it set in: Oh, so we're all escalating the stakes, is that it?
"Huang Yan, haven't you always wanted to know how to use mental power much more deeply, much more carefully? I'll use my spare time to make a PowerPoint lecture and try to keep it under five minutes. Everyone will listen together—no one gets left out."
Hiranuma Yusho took several deep breaths before slowly dropping his own bombshell.
"Hmph. I'll have my father record an advanced multi-layered illusion-weaving course, plus build a companion app. That's twelve of you—we'll do daily check-ins."
Fine. Let's all just take each other down.
