Dig Tunnel! Dig Tunnel! Dig Tunnel!!!

Beneath a barrage of cannon fire from the endless scarecrow legion, a spear far too small for the storm danced through the air, whipping and weaving. Shells caught in the blade's arc spun off in every direction, not a single one landing on the tiny girl — they simply veered away and vanished into the distance.

A few short bursts of footwork later, she had already slipped through the wall of shield-bearing scarecrows. In her hands was a monstrous spear whose blade alone looked twice the length of her own body, and she danced with it.

Even with the other Humanity Clones making a racket, the one gripping the body's controls never stopped.

She flicked the monstrous spear from her hand as if discarding it, drew twin spears from midair, and shot through the scarecrows' encirclement. The moment she did, scarecrows that had been lurking with short daggers took the rebounding monstrous spear full-on, their cover blown — and were shredded to pieces by the twin spears in the same breath.

Stats and spear technique alone were enough to tear the scarecrow army apart. But the Training Ground's scarecrows came with a baseline feature: their levels scaled to the Training Ground itself, and they spawned infinitely.

The Training Ground the Humanity Clones had entered was a full level-350 zone. Purely by stats and raw power, it was the kind of place that spat out a scarecrow army at early Golden Core strength. It gave no experience — only skill proficiency. That was why it was a Training Ground. The fact that slaughter energy could be stockpiled here at all had always been something close to a bug.

"...Switch out."

And of course, Humanity Clones who were nothing more than Mortals had neither the mental fortitude nor the grit to keep grinding in the body themselves. One of them thrashing spear techniques alone against a scarecrow legion until she burned out and quit on the spot was only natural.

The others couldn't use spear arts either, so all they had was spiritual power and a clumsy grip on the body — which meant they couldn't properly fight the scarecrow legion at all. What followed was, inevitably, a chaotic brawl.

"Ack! Aaagh!"

One clone grabbed a single scarecrow and smashed it apart with pure physical stats while tanking attacks from every direction with her bare body — a brutally stupid approach. The scolding that followed was immediate, and she switched out just as fast.

A dozen-odd Humanity Clones fractured among themselves in an instant and started bickering inside the Mental World. If Yu Hee — who had sealed herself away inside and told them to handle it — had seen the scene, she would have pointed and laughed.

"Wait! Time-out! Stop!"

The Training Ground did have a pause function, but it only worked through the innate talent of the Status Window — a feature the Humanity Clones were not permitted to use.

No matter how superior the physical stats, numbers still won. In a single blink she was shoved back, tumbling across the floor, and the clone controlling the body broke down crying inside the Mental World.

"...Auto-Battle."

The Humanity Clones felt their control over the body vanish completely. Hia's body staggered like a puppet with its strings cut, then locked into a proper stance.

Her blood-red eyes flashed as they locked onto the scarecrows — and at the same time, the crimson slaughter energy that had been invisible while the clones piloted the body erupted outward in an explosive surge, sweeping the surrounding scarecrows away all at once.

The body wreathed in slaughter energy made the clones' earlier struggling look like a lie. A bare fist clad in slaughter energy slammed down through empty air and shattered scarecrows outright. A Spoon-buffed weapon swung with raw brutality and crushed the ones trying to defend into their own shields.

Watching a body that moved like a literal slaughter doll massacre the scarecrow legion, the Humanity Clones could only shake their heads in stunned silence.

The targets were scarecrows, so the worst that flew was straw — and thank goodness for that. If those had been living creatures, the carnage would have been vivid enough to paint itself behind their eyes.

Of course, in xianxia mode even non-living things counted as living beings once they accumulated spiritual energy and spiritual power, which was how slaughter energy could be farmed so freely in the Training Ground in the first place. The Humanity Clones had no room to think that far.

Calling it "sleeping sealed inside" was generous. In reality it was closer to stabilizing an overinflated Golden Core, and she had farmed the work out to the Humanity Clones because she didn't want to waste the time. They could say what they said because they could read that much of the main body's thoughts.

And they all agreed with the thinking itself. Multitasking like this was overwhelmingly more efficient than just sitting still and stabilizing a Golden Core. If things had gone the main body's way — if they kept running maps while she lay around inside — experience and loot would have rolled in like an idle game, and with her past-life memories they could have prepared for every event in their own way, stacking stats generously.

That was, of course, until the Training Ground Yu Hee had been hunting for so long popped into existence right in front of the Humanity Clones.

Change the map and the Training Ground would vanish. They couldn't wake the main body, so they had no choice but to enter. For all their thrashing, they hadn't produced any meaningful results.

Because this place was a Training Ground from the start.

A place built for skill practice, where you couldn't gain experience or stats — so useless that a mode to lower Training Ground spawn rates came installed by default.

"Bomb!"

The bomb skill, activated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as a skill, was a far shoddier shack than the main body stacking slaughter energy like Tetris or Auto-Battle lining up dominoes. Naturally its power was so pathetic that as an AoE it couldn't even clear a single scarecrow — while the slaughter energy cost was very real.

The other clones immediately screamed at her not to use it, so bomb skill grinding was dead on arrival.

"If that won't work, then Spoon!"

"Wait, there's still one skill we haven't used!"

One of the Humanity Clones seized control of the body and charged the scarecrows.

She ran at them with both arms spread awkwardly, relying on physical stats alone. The scarecrows, true to their purpose, only moved mechanically for training. Looking at them, the clone opened her mouth with grim resolve.

"...Dig Tunnel!"

A faint thread of slaughter energy flowed through the body. Confirming the blood-red slaughter energy coiling up both hands, she thrust her arms forward and drove straight through the scarecrows.

The slaughter energy cost was tiny, and like any slaughter-based skill, the attack power was more than enough. Short activation range and hard-to-land accuracy weren't problems at all.

Because every direction was nothing but scarecrows.

At last the Humanity Clones' opinions aligned: raise Dig Tunnel's proficiency first. In between, they would rotate turns for the one clone who could use spear arts so Spoon could get practiced too. And so the Humanity Clones threw themselves into skill grinding.

"Dig Tunnel! Dig Tunnel! Dig Tunnel!!!"

Hia's body became a crimson comet, ramming through scarecrows and grinding them into glittering dust. The red comet even swerved and changed direction at will, making it nearly impossible to block or dodge.

But when the sturdier-looking scarecrows gathered into a defensive formation, even a comet's charge couldn't shatter them all at once.

The moment Yu Hee's hands thrust forward, though, both arms drove through without resistance — the trajectory itself boring holes straight through the scarecrows' bodies.

Once both hands had punched through and dug in, that was the end of it.

"Uryaaaaaaah!!!"

Even with Dig Tunnel's effect over and not a scrap of slaughter energy left, raw physical power alone was enough. She spread both hands with a battle cry and split the impaled scarecrows clean in two.

Apparently starting to have fun, the clone became a crimson comet again and slammed gleefully back into the scarecrows.