A blinding white light flashed, and Xie Heng’s team appeared in a sandy wasteland. Fierce winds whipped up clouds of dust.
The weather outside was clearly winter, yet inside this Secret Realm, a blazing sun hung overhead.
Jiang You stepped onto the soft sand. A hot, dry wind carrying grains of sand blasted against her delicate face.
Winter outside, summer in the Secret Realm. Jiang You was still having a little trouble adjusting to the one-second transition from winter to summer.
"This Secret Realm is actually summer. Good thing I prepared supplies for all four seasons." As Li Xiang spoke, he accidentally got a mouthful of sand and hurriedly spat it out. "PTUI, PTUI, PTUI! The wind in this desert is way too strong."
"We got a pretty bad starting location this time," Xu Wen said, wiping his face and coming away with a handful of dust. "If I remember the exam details, Earth Element Beasts are worth the least points in this assessment. Even if we killed ten Earth Element Beasts, it wouldn’t be worth as much as a single Water-type Beast."
That was right. In the assessment, different types of mutant beasts corresponded to different point values.
Jiang You put on a face mask, but feeling it wasn’t enough, she also put on a sand-proof hat. Through a layer of white gauze, her beautiful face was slightly obscured, her delicate brows furrowed.
Although she already knew they would land in a desert and had prepared accordingly, she still found the weather in this Secret Realm hard to bear.
Xie Heng noticed Jiang You’s actions. He wanted to ask if she felt stuffy like that, but in the end, he didn’t.
He took a small cooling fan out of his Space Ring and handed it to Jiang You.
Jiang You froze for a moment before taking the small fan. She was just about to ask him why he had something like a small fan.
Xie Heng looked away from her, raising his terminal to check the exam details. His voice was calm and steady. "This assessment states that the three mutant beasts worth the most—100 points each—are all Water-type Beasts. The ten 50-point mutant beasts are Wood Element Beasts. Among the other ordinary mutant beasts, Water-type Beasts have the highest point value, and Earth Element the lowest."
This assessment clearly emphasized combat against Water-type Beasts.
"Then we really are unlucky." Li Xiang had also prepared small fans and was handing them out to everyone. When he saw that Jiang You already had one from their leader, he skipped her.
When Jiang You saw that Li Xiang had also prepared small fans, she didn’t ask anything.
’They must have been fully prepared.’
’It’s normal for them to have small fans.’
"There are other teams just as unlucky as us," Lin Zhi said slowly, looking into the distance.
The others instinctively followed his gaze and saw Zhou Yan’s team.
Seeing the female lead, Jiang You just raised an eyebrow slightly.
’It seems some parts of the plot are unavoidable. For instance, we were indeed assigned to the same location.’
’And for another, a large group of human-sized sand scorpions is about to appear.’
Ling Tingyue’s group seemed surprised to run into Jiang You’s team again. They paused for a moment, then gave them a polite nod before continuing on with their own people in another direction.
In the direction they were heading, a sliver of green could be seen in the distance, through the swirling sandstorm.
"Ah!" Xu Yan cried out, having tripped on something.
Hearing the cry, Jiang You tightened her small hand on the cooling fan. She began to feel nervous. ’The plot is starting, it’s starting...’
"Let’s get going too. To that forest. Wood Element Beasts are worth more points than Earth Element ones. We should conserve our energy as much as possible to kill Wood Element Beasts and get our score up to the passing mark first." Xie Heng lowered his wrist, his gaze also falling on the distant oasis.
"Okay." The team had no objections.
While they were talking, Xu Yan, who had been helped up, furiously kicked the thing that had tripped her. She looked utterly exasperated. "What is this thing!"
Xu Yan kicked it, and her foot immediately throbbed with pain. Staring at the yellow shell on the ground, she grew even angrier. Not knowing what it was, she instantly summoned her soul beast, a White Ice Dog. "Drag this thing out for me!"
"Wait!" Zhou Yan’s expression suddenly turned cold and stern. "Don’t move!"
Xu Yan was taken aback by Zhou Yan’s seriousness, but then she became even more furious. "Zhou! I’ll do what I want! Who gave you the right to boss me around?"
The White Ice Dog fiercely bit down on the yellow object and yanked hard, trying to pull the thing out of the sand. It pulled so hard that it tumbled over, dragging out a segmented, shell-like tail.
"Watch out!" Ling Tingyue’s brow twitched.
The scorpion tail shot up high and struck at the White Ice Dog. The white dog couldn’t dodge in time and was stung.
"AWOOO!!!" The White Ice Dog let out a painful howl.
A sharp Helical Blade shot past, viciously severing the scorpion tail and splattering a large amount of green blood.
The severed tail fell to the ground, still twitching violently.
The next second, a human-sized scorpion burst out of the ground.
Zhou Yan’s team members were scattered by the force.
Ling Tingyue rolled away from her spot and caught her returning Helical Blade.
The ground began to tremble.
"Brother Ling! Protect me!" Xu Yan cried in a panic as she ran toward Ling Yu.
Her White Ice Dog soul beast was still whimpering and rolling on the ground in pain, a layer of sand and dirt covering its body.
But Xu Yan paid it no mind.
The sand began to soften and sink. The White Ice Dog thrashed in the pit, about to be completely swallowed by the sand, when Zhou Yan rushed over, yanked the dog out, and carried it to safety.
More and more sand scorpions crawled out of the ground. The fierce wind whipped up clouds of sand, blasting them in the face.
"They’re sand scorpions. We need to get out of here, now." Xie Heng’s brow tightened. He grabbed Jiang You’s wrist to leave, but his feet suddenly sank. The sand had already reached his ankles, and the more he moved, the deeper he sank.
"It’s a scorpion skill, Sand Bog." Xu Wen’s eyes widened, and he quickly looked toward Xie Heng. "Boss!"
Xie Heng summoned his giant eagle. Xu Wen and the other two deftly climbed onto the Black Eagle’s back.
In just that short time, the sand bog had already risen to their calves. Any longer and it would bury them completely.
The surrounding human-sized scorpions raised their venomous tails and attacked them.
Xie Heng scooped Jiang You up with one arm, as if carrying a child, and placed her on the Black Eagle’s back. A scorpion tail shot menacingly toward them from nearby. Jiang You caught sight of it, her heart pounding. Following the plot, she threw her arms around Xie Heng’s neck and feigned a startled cry, "Xie Heng, the tail!"
Xie Heng was inwardly startled. He had planned to push her up and then dodge himself, but he hadn’t expected Jiang You to suddenly hug him.
A vein throbbed on his forehead. He had no choice but to hold on to Jiang You and hastily roll out of the way.
The scorpion tail struck empty air.
The Black Eagle, carrying Xu Wen and the others, kicked up a storm of sand as it soared into the sky.
Xie Heng held Jiang You protectively in his arms as they rolled onto the sand, sinking halfway into the bog.
"Xie Heng! Pick me up, quickly!" The scorching sand burned Jiang You’s back through her clothes. Unwilling to give up, she feigned panic, though her displeasure was genuine. She tightened her arms around Xie Heng’s neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, her voice a command.