Chapter 173. Map

     After arriving home, Ye Mo first let Grandma Ye know she was safe. Then, using the Hawk eye in her forehead, she glanced at Ling Xiao, who was still in the closed training at Yanshan.

     She noticed that today, many of them were gathered on a flat open area.

     This open area wasn’t small, but because there were so many people, some were still forced into the nearby woods, hanging onto trees to watch. A single tree might have quite a few people crammed onto it.

     On the flat open area, Ye Mo first saw an acquaintance – Zhou Qi.

     She has worked with him in Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period, and Maria Shop, he was Wang Qi/Pea Shooter Qiu Qianren.

     Zhou Qi looked fair-skinned and clean-cut, with bright and clear dark eyes. He appeared particularly young, looking like a middle school student. Ye Mo didn’t recognize any of the others.

     Her gaze shifted elsewhere.

     Ye Mo did a preliminary count and found that the number of ordinary disciples in the Yanshan training had increased from several dozen to over seven thousand. They wore the same Huafu-style training uniforms, each appearing radiant and full of fighting spirit, creating a rather spectacular scene.

     On the plaza, in addition to these ordinary disciples, there was also a squad of soldiers selected from the national army. They were newcomers who had started training at the same time as the ordinary people.

     Today happened to be the day when the top 54 trainees from both groups were having their first-stage results assessed.

     The first step was to test physical data: strength, speed, high jump, shooting, dodging sandbags, navigating plum blossom poles, etc. The teachers from the Supernatural Investigation Bureau meticulously recorded everything.

     Looking at the data, many people’s physical fitness had improved significantly in a short period.

     Oh, right, there was also the written exam.

     Ling Xiao, who had already taken his written exam, was loudly reciting Kaiyuan Zhanjing of the Great Tang Dynasty, an ancient astronomical work. Judging by his spirited state, he must have been doing quite well recently: “In ancient times, when the former kings were about to traverse the celestial path, they used it to determine the spiritual orbits and investigate the fundamental origins. First, they calibrated it with the celestial sphere, which established the correct instruments and measurements, so that the imperial standard could be established and the movement of the celestial pivot could be examined…”

     His memory had also improved a lot during this time, at least he could memorize texts now.

     The other students also had written exam content, but it was generally not exactly the same for everyone. Some even had written tests. The training teachers had put in effort to differentiate the content in this aspect.

     After the physical and written exams, the final item was the martial arts assessment.

     This seemed to be the first time that the training disciples faced the soldiers who came in at the same time next door.

     Three platforms were set up, with 3 participants on each platform per round.

     The students’ cheers were loud and full of momentum, but the order was chaotic. The soldiers’ cheers were also loud and full of momentum, but the order was disciplined.

     3 vs 3.

     Soldiers’ wins: 3.

     Ordinary people’s wins: 0.

     This didn’t necessarily mean that the ordinary people had worse talent. In fact, their average talent might even be higher. It was likely because they hadn’t yet found their specific training goals.

     Round after round, the soldiers won most of the matches. There was one close draw and only one narrow victory for the ordinary people.

     The students’ cheers went from strong to weak, until a male voice in the crowd shouted “Jiayou!” (Go!), and their voices went from weak back to strong, with some even becoming hysterical.

     Ye Mo glanced at Ling Xiao, who was the leader. He was quite energetic.

     By the way, those seven thousand-plus disciples, regardless of age, all seemed to call him Shīxiōng (Senior Brother)?

     The students’ voices could also give the battle a boost. The battle situation was reversed twice, and they also felt the joy of victory even more.

     The final round of the competition was approaching, and Ling Xiao was rubbing his fists, eager to try.

     Then, amidst shouts of “Senior Brother Ling, beat them to death!”, “Senior Brother Ling, go!”, and “Senior Brother Ling, you’re the fattest!”, the smile on his face grew even brighter.

     Ling Xiao was just about to go on stage when he was stopped by the expressionless training instructor, who told him to wait alone.

     Seeing Ling Xiao’s bewildered expression, Ye Mo couldn’t help but laugh, “Pfft.”

     After everyone else had finished competing, a person appeared in the center of the plaza. He wasn’t a soldier – you could tell just by his posture – and the training disciples had never seen him before.

     Ye Mo recognized him: “It’s actually a survivor.”

     After the Jurassic dungeon, many organizations had absorbed quite a few more survivors. Besides the soldiers assigned to instances, the Supernatural Investigation Bureau had also invited many survivors to join.

     To avoid the app information being leaked, they were training at a different base.

     This survivor’s appearance today was to complete a task. He was of intermediate strength, his magical abilities were not yet activated, but his root bone talent was excellent, and he had already awakened strength and speed abilities.

     Ling Xiao was, so far, the strongest non-survivor discovered by the Supernatural Investigation Bureau. He had awakened strength abilities, had the highest potential value, and was suspected of having some special talent. He was one of the key talents being cultivated by the Bureau.

     The battle between the two could provide data and also serve as a lesson for ordinary people who hadn’t yet entered the app. The recorded video of their fight would also be shown to the survivors.

     Finally, it was also a way to curb Ling Xiao’s somewhat complacent attitude recently.

     “Senior Brother Ling!”

     “Senior Brother Ling is the most handsome!”

     “Jiayou!” (Come on!)

…

     Amidst the lively cheers, the PK officially began.

     Knowing Ling Xiao’s personality, it wasn’t hard to guess that he would take the initiative, turning into a bolt of lightning as his fist aimed for the Zhongwan acupoint, four inches above the survivor’s navel.

     When his fist was an inch away from the abdomen, the survivor dodged to the left, evading Ling Xiao’s punch, and launched a right leg attack towards his lower body.

     Ling Xiao jumped upwards, avoiding the survivor’s leg attack, but before he could retract his wrist, it was forcefully grabbed by the survivor’s right hand.

     Round one, the survivor took the lead.

     The boxing and leg techniques Ling Xiao practiced were all martial arts suitable for his pure Yang constitution, and his awakened strength ability wasn’t forced.

     He showed surprise at the survivor, then took a step forward proactively. The survivor retreated, and the arm that had been grabbed bent instantly. Using this momentum, an elbow struck the survivor’s abdomen for the second time.

     The survivor dodged, but also allowed Ling Xiao to break free.

     Round two, Ling Xiao had a slight advantage.

     One of them followed orthodox methods, proficient in all sorts of boxing and kicking techniques, while the other fought unpredictably, but with the added benefits of strength and speed. Their back-and-forth exchanges drew frequent cheers from the audience.

     After ten minutes, both fighters, who were hitting hard, had sustained injuries. Ling Xiao was hit more and more frequently and was increasingly suppressed.

     The survivor, who had spent three months in the instance, even if just living among herbivorous dinosaurs, had gained very high endurance and perseverance during the migrations.

     Bang!

     Ling Xiao was thrown out by the survivor. Before being thrown, he finally managed to punch the survivor’s abdomen, but it was only a minor injury for the latter, while Ling Xiao coughed up blood.

     Result: Survivor wins.

     Two doctors came online, each attending to one person, diagnosing their injuries, and administering medication and acupuncture according to their conditions.

     Next is the rest time, during which they watched Ling Xiao and his several senior sisters and brothers, elite disciples who also hadn’t entered the survivor app – fight against other strength and speed-based survivors.

     These matches were even more exciting.

     This kind of competition gave the soldier students a greater sense of crisis and combat inspiration; made students like Ling Xiao understand their lack of skill; and showed the survivors that strength and speed also required technique to maximize their value.

     The final part of the assessment was listening to a song, to train the students’ sense of crisis.

     Ye Mo saw that familiar array instrument, made by her own hands – the melody came from Wang Xue’s passionate performance on the Zheng (钲), a bronze percussion instrument shaped like a long, narrow bell with an upward-facing mouth, played during marches as military music.

     It would have been even better with accompanying dance, but even without it, the feeling of advance, hot-bloodedness, charge, and kill made everyone’s hearts surge. For the first time in their lives, they felt the terrifying power of music.

     There’s always someone better.

     Zhou Qi is the only one who can keep going. Inspired by the Survivor App and the non-investigation game, he has become one of the top 100 players in the new rankings.

     Of course, his personality is still lively and lively. “Newbies, see, a song can kill you!”

     Instantly, Zhou Qi, the “pretty boy”, received countless murderous looks.

     …

     In the evening, Ye Mo talked with Watson and Wang Xue about the Supernatural Investigation Bureau training today.

     Wang Xue was both happy and sighing. She was happy that her military music was being appreciated by more and more people, and sighed at how interesting it must have been to witness that scene firsthand!

   【 … 】

     Ye Mo asked Wang Xue to stop making trouble and give her 100,000 points first. She wanted to set up space arrays at more than a dozen points across the country according to the map given by Watson.

     The newly appointed finance manager, Wang Xue, had recently become obsessed with watching the points increase. Points were transferred over without a blink, generously: 【Spend it however you like!】

      Ye Mo was very happy to hear this. What she didn’t say was that she didn’t think their group had many points. They wouldn’t even be enough to buy a single piece of top-grade spirit jade. Only one 500-square-meter jade bracelet had been sold, and the points really didn’t last long.

     …

     For the following week, during the day, Ye Mo went to work as usual.

     In reality, she spent all her time studying and conducting experiments, learning about mechanics, artificial intelligence, electronic chips, and doing related experiments.

     Refining weapons, on the other hand, was just something she did in passing.

     This was because Ye Mo had discovered that the bottleneck in her weapon-making was that the weapons she crafted were just weapons.

     They couldn’t achieve a 100% fit, as if they were part of the body; they couldn’t even reach 30%.

     Ye Mo needed to find a breakthrough inspiration from these other fields.

     Wang Xue: 【Watching the points flow out like water is so heartbreaking! Jing-jie , Watson, you two take it easy! Jing-jie, have you forgotten? You still need to buy gold-element spirit jade… We’re really so poor!】

     Ye Mo threw a lot of the second batch of goods to Wang Xue, as well as some semi-finished experimental products. Wang Xue kept a part of them and sold the rest to the Supernatural Investigation Bureau.

     Supernatural Investigation Bureau:【We’re still a little short on points, can we get credit?】

     Wang Xue:【… Suffocation, no, interest.^[1]“……窒息，不，利息。” (……zhìxī, bù, lìxī.) is a short, humorous exchange where Wang Xue initially types “窒息” (zhìxī), which means … Continue reading 】

     And after 10 PM in the evening, Ye Mo would begin her nationwide parkour, centered around her own small Western-style house.

     This involved establishing spatial anchor points in high-end apartments, private hospital laboratories, hotel apartments, and other locations in different cities.

     Just in case, Ye Mo had also prepared several faceless disguises for herself, suggested by Wang Xue, with body data customized by Hua Sheng.

     This was because mental illusions would only make living beings ignore her; they wouldn’t deceive non-living surveillance cameras. At most, they would cause the cameras to show static glitches.

     And China’s Skynet surveillance system was extremely dense, especially in the cities.

     The final spatial anchor point in southern China is planned to be in the sea view villa where Watson and Wang Xue currently live.

     On a starry night, in Watson’s villa, Ye Mo, Watson, and Wang Xue finally had their first real-world meeting together.