The survival world was large and boundless.
This was a small world which General Yi had specially prepared, and the spirit energy here was very abundant. As soon as the students entered this small world, they were slowly lifted up in the air by the array’s power before finally stopping at a distance of about five kilometers above the ground.
Using his Heavenly Eye, Wang Ling found the boundary support in the center of the small world; at the very top of the boundary support was a flat plateau, and it was surrounded by a lot of rugged mountain roads. He realized that these roads had all been designed to allow people to reach the mountain plateau. For someone with a long-range magic weapon, the summit of the boundary support would be an advantageous position for an ambush. Beyond the boundary support was an urban area, with various tall buildings and replicated landmarks.
Apart from that, Wang Ling also noticed that past the horizon of the small world in all directions, at the furthest point that the Heavenly Eye could see, there was a black, dense fog which hovered beyond the sea.
This dense fog wasn’t some kind of demon spirit, but was also an elimination mechanism of the competition system. After everyone had touched down, this black fog would slowly begin to roll in. There was a very high chance that those who zealously continued fighting or who got carried away with collecting magic treasures would be engulfed by the black fog. The small world would then automatically consider them eliminated.
This military training exercise thus not only tested the students’ ability to adapt, but would also teach them to know when to act; the Foundation Establishment stage was the period when students were introduced more fully to cultivation, and for cultivators at this stage, the biggest weakness was greed.
The sky’s wide expanse was scattered with fully over ten thousand people as one by one they appeared in position. Looking around indifferently, Wang Ling noticed many of his schoolmates as well as allies from No. 59 High School.
He couldn’t see his idiot second brother’s figure, and even Super Chen and the others had been sent to who knew where.
Well, whatever…
Wang Ling kneaded his brow. Anyway, it would be enough to just lay low and slowly develop 1 in this competition like Teacher Pan had said to do.
He didn’t want to fight anyone, because he knew that in the outside world, that bunch of people in the surveillance room could follow each student’s movement by radar; he didn’t want his performance to be too obvious.
Quite a long period of time passed.
He realized that the array was starting to fluctuate again, and everyone who had been frozen in place high in the sky began to fall.
In the end, Wang Ling landed securely in a desert; it had the least number of people, so he could avoid most of the students participating in the competition.
Of course, he wasn’t the only one with this idea. Roughly over a hundred people had chosen to land in the desert outside the city.
The competition would be the most intense in the city center, and it was very likely that magic treasures were already starting to be snatched up in a frenzy as soon as people landed. Those who had chosen the desert for the sake of survival were planning to wait for the “drop as boxes” 2 , since according to the competition rules, after the small world had determined someone was out, survivors could pick up all the magic treasures which the eliminated person had been carrying.
Let’s see what’s nearby first…
Wang Ling sighed in his heart. Though there were more than a hundred people in the desert, at the moment there was no sign of them.
The desert environment was terrible. It was over thirty degrees hotter here than in the city center. It was deathly lonely, with the wind whistling endlessly, stirring up the sand, and not even a weed to be seen.
If a person couldn’t find something like a flying sword to pick up here, the black fog on the horizon would spread to this area, and whoever was in the desert would be dead for sure given the distance from here to the city center.
Just as Wang Ling was about to start looking around his surroundings, the sand under his feet suddenly caved in, and a hole the size of a person appeared. Then, following a spirit light, Wang Ming actually climbed out of the hole..
An underground escape talisman?
Wang Ming pulled off the painfully tight safety goggles. “As expected, I’m still not very familiar with using spirit talismans… the underground escape talisman is not very suitable for use in sand. If I hadn’t been careful, I would probably have been buried before I could climb out.”
Wang Ling stared at this hole in the sand, lost in deep thought. “…” This guy didn’t have spirit energy, so how could he have used a spirit talisman?
“In the team I brought with me this time, I’m the only one who can’t use spirit energy. But General Yi gave me this.” Saying that, Wang Ming pulled out a golden talisman from his pants pocket and said a little gleefully, “General Yi personally made this talisman, which is connected to his spirit energy as a source. As long as I have this on me, I’ll be able to use magic artifacts. But there’s a time limit to it, which is just a few days… today, I, your elder brother, can finally launch a counterattack!”
Wang Ling: “…”
As he spoke, Wang Ming rolled up his sleeve to reveal his wristwatch. This was a watch that only internal staff members had. To prevent the possibility of students exchanging information with each other, the array had already filtered out their wristwatches before sending them here.
“I’ve just blocked your signal, so now you don’t have to worry about your actions being monitored by the people outside. And look…” Wang Ming made use of the simple positioning system on the wristwatch, and a disc appeared in the air. This was in fact a radar. “Ling, there seems to be quite a few people nearby. Do you want to go ambush them and accept a delivery 3 ?”
Speaking up to this point, he patted Wang Ling on the shoulder and gave him a brilliant smile which showed off his gleaming white teeth. “Don’t worry, brother will protect you!”
Wang Ling was stupefied. “…”
How did a maintenance worker like you suddenly become a player?!
…
The two brothers walked on. They crossed a sand dune and found some cacti scattered in the desert ahead of them.
The desert was so hot that there hadn’t even been a stalk of weed in the area Wang Ling had landed in earlier. The appearance of these cacti here then could already be considered a unique landscape scene in this desert.
They hid behind an unscientifically huge cactus for a bit, but after thirty minutes or so, there still wasn’t any sign of anyone else.
Though the distance was very far, Wang Ling could already hear sounds of an intense “firefight” happening in the city center. That was the sound of various magic treasures colliding with each other; it had been less than half an hour since they had arrived in this small world, and already roughly several hundred people had been eliminated.
The current number of people remaining was clearly written in the air above the boundary support’s Pingding 4 Mountain: 9723… and the number kept declining.
In the desert, on the other hand, there wasn’t the slightest bit of movement; if it wasn’t because Wang Ling could still sense these people’s auras, or if Wang Ming hadn’t been able to see their signals on the radar, no one would have thought that there were actually still a hundred people here.
Most importantly, this was a desert! The place with the worst environment in the whole of the small world…
After about an hour, Wang Ling raised his head. The wind was still whistling through the desert and kicking up sand, and there was a field of clouds above his head, but as far as the eye could see, there wasn’t even an ant around.
At this unexpected tranquility, Wang Ming couldn’t help looking at the sky as he began to doubt his life: this was just too damn calm!