Forging 3

Sweat dripped from her neck onto the cracks in the rocks. Xu Lingqu reached the first rest stop the instructors had set up, panting hard. Half the day was already gone.

She opened her supply pack, sat down, and silently downed a tube of nutrient fluid. Glancing at the main force's movement routes, the front-runners had almost reached the second rest stop.

"The first leg is the easiest; the third leg is the hardest," Instructor Chen said, lounging in his hover-vehicle nearby, watching her with an air of leisure. "You've already fallen far behind."

This nutrient fluid wasn't good—the peach flavor was cloyingly sweet, enough to make one gag. Xu Lingqu took a swig of water to wash away the sugary aftertaste. "My task today is to finish, not to compete."

"If Kai Ang were here, your tone alone would earn you an extra five kilometers," Instructor Chen said with a raised eyebrow.

Xu Lingqu nodded impassively. "Then I'm grateful you're not so autocratic." Rest time over, she rose to her feet and hoisted the weighted gear back onto her shoulders.

The artificial sun hung directly overhead, its rays scorching her skin. The path was narrow, littered with broken stones underfoot, and she pressed one hand against the cliff wall to her left—which was itself burning hot from the sunlight.

Instructor Chen stayed in his hover-vehicle, watching her struggle through. "If you want to give up, you can choose to take a point deduction. I'll take you back."

Xu Lingqu didn't answer. She truly didn't have the strength to. Somewhere along the way, her ankle had been sliced open in two places, and blood was seeping out. After running across the gravel path and reaching the grass, she paused, poured hemostatic powder over the wounds, then resumed running.

She never thought about giving up, and she never intended to. She pushed forward relentlessly for two hours until she finally reached the second rest stop. Xu Lingqu spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the dirt ground. Instructor Chen finally jumped out of his hover-vehicle and extended a hand toward her. "How's your ankle?"

"It's nothing serious." Xu Lingqu waved him off, her voice hoarse.

"Several students ahead have already given up and boarded the instructors' flyers to head back. Quite a few injured their feet." The implication in Instructor Chen's words was unmistakable.

Kai Ang had been called back for a reprimand precisely because of the objective dangers of the river raid. Despite putting on a front of "we don't care if we drive you to death," the instructors were actually terrified something might happen to the students.

With an injury, the odds of an accident on this route were far from negligible, and Xu Lingqu's pace was visibly slow. Night was falling, and a weighted cross-country trek in the dark would only get harder.

Xu Lingqu understood exactly what Instructor Chen meant. She sat and rested for a long while, waiting until her throat no longer ached so much before speaking. "Instructor Chen, I'm someone who values my life dearly."

Yesterday's consecutive training had indeed made her feel like her life was hanging by a thread, which was why she'd requested a temporary break. Her body needed time to adapt—she'd been running at overcapacity for the past several days.

Today's weighted trek sounded daunting, but with a good rest the day before and her ability to regulate her own pace, completing today's training sat right at her limit, not beyond her expectations.

Hearing that, Instructor Chen said no more and returned to his hover-vehicle.

Night gradually fell. Xu Lingqu pressed forward in the dark, guided by the sound of babbling water. There was a river to cross. She waded through; the stones were slick, though under Instructor Chen's tacit approval, she could take her time here.

"Was it here that you released the water two nights ago?" The cold current washed over her wounds, sending a jolt of icy pain through her like an electric shock, sharpening her mind to full alertness.

Instructor Chen watched her wade across the river, pausing two seconds before answering. "A bit further downstream."

He glanced at his smart device. Everyone who could complete today's training had already returned to the base. Those who were injured and couldn't finish had been sent back one by one. On the map, only Xu Lingqu remained, still moving at a slow, steady pace.

This was the last stretch. They'd set off in staggered batches today, scheduled based on their assessments of each student's physical condition. In his estimation, Xu Lingqu's true level should have had her giving up midway through the first leg—which was why she'd been assigned to the fifth batch, alone.

But she'd already run through half of the third leg.

Instructor Chen inexplicably recalled an old joke he'd once seen on the Sky Network, one with a long history.

If a snail, armed with unwavering determination and perseverance, resolved to hunt down a human, its odds of failure were absolutely not one hundred percent.

Inside the confinement room of the training base, Xu Xiqin was pressed against the room's single small window, straining to see outside. Jin, sitting on a chair, couldn't help but speak up. "You can't see anything from there. What's the point of looking?"

With their smart devices confiscated and both confined to writing self-criticism essays by hand, the two were completely in the dark. Just thinking about it made Xu Xiqin furious. "It's all your fault! Your movements were too obvious—you got us both exposed."

"Tsk, how was I supposed to know that instructor would happen to look over?" Jin slumped over the table, writing his essay with a look of utter despair. "Your movements were pretty obvious too, you know."

Unfortunately for them, the one they'd teamed up to kick into the water was none other than Sun Liao—the very person who went out of his way to cause trouble for Xu Lingqu. Xu Xiqin, staying true to her word, had originally been in the first echelon, but she dawdled and loitered until she dropped back to the third, all to fulfill her wish of kicking Sun Liao into the water.

Who would've thought Jin would catch wind of her plan and insist on joining? She'd kick his rear, he'd trip his legs. They hit it off instantly—and right in front of an instructor, no less, they'd pulled off their stunt and landed themselves in hot water.

Seeing him hunched over the table diligently writing, Xu Xiqin leaned in for a look. "Your handwriting... is actually quite nice." It was clearly professionally practiced from a young age, and it carried a strangely familiar air.

Xu Xiqin nodded. "The educational resources of the Third Galaxy aren't bad at all."

The Empire consisted of four star systems, with wealth decreasing as the numbers increased. Jin's place of origin was listed as the Third Galaxy on his smart device.

And as the era advanced, with smart device technology and artificial intelligence constantly improving, few families nowadays had their children study calligraphy. Talent kept draining away, and with professional calligraphy teachers becoming increasingly scarce, calligraphy had gradually become a pretentious pastime for a certain segment of the nobility.

Children from ordinary families rarely received formal training in calligraphy.

Jin paused, spinning the pen in his hand. "You might as well go back to that window and gawk. Wouldn't want you to miss the precious footage of your commander's return."

That comment actually sent Xu Xiqin scampering back to the window, though her mouth kept running. "Speaking of which, how did you and Shen Shouli meet? You're from the Third Galaxy, yet you're chummy with the Empire's future star of the Military Department?"

She raised an eyebrow, tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear. Over the past few days, everyone had realized Jin was no ordinary person, but try as she might, Xu Xiqin couldn't recall any major figure from the Third Galaxy.

Jin's pen kept moving. "Shen Shouli isn't exactly hard to get to know."

"Yeah, right. Those dukes and barons and their young masters and misses are always fawning over Shen Shouli. Getting a single word out of him is enough for them to treat it as some sort of badge of honor to flaunt around." Just remembering the sycophantic way those people had groveled before Shen Shouli sent a shudder of disgust through Xu Xiqin.

Before actually dealing with him, she'd always thought Shen Shouli was some pretentious show-off. Now that she'd actually gotten to know him, Xu Xiqin was even more convinced: Shen Shouli was a fussy, fastidious, pretentious show-off.