Chapter 701: My Own Rhythm
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 701: My Own Rhythm
Leaving Ninglan New City, I once again immersed myself in the role of a teaching assistant.
Yesterday, I had taken a shortcut to spend the night in the city, but word of it had spread. It would be difficult to pull that off again in the coming days—not just for me, but for all the other TAs as well.
The difference was that I had enjoyed one night of it, while they hadn't enjoyed any.
Reality matched my suspicions. After I had revealed my identity at the city gates, Ninglan New City nearly exploded with gossip, even though there weren't many people around in the morning.
The news had even reached the specialized websites on the Plant Network, sparking widespread discussion.
However, that wasn't my concern. I only needed to manage myself.
Last night, I had actually thought a lot.
I thought about how I should proceed and why I had come here in the first place.
Was it specifically to return a favor to Teacher Lina? Or was it to monitor the stability of the Omni-Link Main Network Tree and the Power Network?
In truth, from the moment I signed the contract, those reasons became mere excuses.
With such a massive Omni-Link Main Network Tree laboratory team in control here, did they really need me to be responsible for the project?
No, they didn't.
Therefore, my original purpose for coming here was to undergo a trial.
As for the specific details of that trial, I set them aside for a moment to consider what I could gain from it.
Was it to strip away the complacency bred by a year of constant success? Was it to hone the combat intuition I lacked at my current level? Or was it to make me realize that "absolute power" simply does not exist?
These answers, which seemed like solutions, were actually riddled with questions.
Yet, this was the problem I found myself pondering most frequently.
I had considered these questions before the Joint Exam and reached similar conclusions, but my heart always felt... that something wasn't quite right.
It wasn't until this morning that I finally understood.
I had always been looking at things from the perspective of others, thinking about what they wanted me to learn, without ever considering my own stance—what I truly needed.
After a full day of being hunted yesterday, I realized many things, as did those chasing me.
Life isn't just about chasing and fleeing; there are more meaningful things to pursue.
What is more meaningful?
The right to fight freely against opponents I actually like.
Currently, fighting those students one-on-one provided no "nutrition," and fighting a massive crowd of them was meaningless. That was because I was still mired in low-quality matches.
I had foreseen that I would be chased by a mob. I had predicted their behavior and understood the underlying logic and interests driving their pursuit, yet I continued to waste my energy on them.
I had spent an entire day fighting these people—chasing and clashing for so long—yet the experience gained from those battles didn't even compare to the few exchanges I had when I was ambushed at the very start of the Joint Exam. Those had left a deep impression on me.
Even though those three weren't particularly strong, they had made an impact.
If those two hadn't chosen to flee immediately back then and had instead continued to go head-to-head with me, it would have been a much less perfunctory battle.
I shouldn't wait for the mentors to arrange things for me, nor do I need to overthink their intentions. I should move at my own pace.
It was just like the realization I had earlier: I cannot let my enemies distract me or drain my energy excessively. Similarly, I cannot let the friends and mentors around me disrupt my rhythm.
If there are no opponents now, I will find them myself. If a single student's combat power is too low to help me grow, I'll go find a TA. If a TA isn't enough, I'll face a swarm of variant beasts...
The world won't cater to me, so I must find my own rhythm.
"Is that TA Xiao Han?"
While traveling forward, I would occasionally run into students.
"Yup, you've encountered the Xiao Han BOSS. Want to make a move? If not, I'm moving on," I said, looking at them and shouting with a playful tone.
After all, they were a five-person squad with a very diverse range of professions.
"Huh? Sister Xiao Han, you're not going to attack us?"
"Well, if I'm being honest... I'm too lazy to bother?" I shrugged truthfully.
"This is a rare chance... should we do it?" The five of them were clearly eager to try. Looking at them, they probably hadn't participated in the TA hunt yesterday and had been hunting variant beasts according to plan.
"I heard TA Xiao Han was chased all day yesterday and no one caught her. There are five of us... we have the numbers. I think we can do it."
"I think it's worth a shot too."
"Right! It's settled then!"
"Wait, aren't you going to ask what the two of us think?" the other two girls in the group spoke up.
"It's already 3 out of 5... fine. Do you two want to try?"
"Of course we do!" they replied in unison.
"So, do you two have some kind of problem with the decision I just agreed to?" The leader slapped her forehead as if she had just asked a stupid question.
"So, you've decided to challenge me, right?" I asked, gripping the Book in the Box.
"Yes, we've decided! We want to try and challenge you!" As the girl leading them with the greatsword finished speaking, the four behind her took up their combat stances.
"Let us witness your strength, TA Xiao Han!"
The five of them looked at the health bar above my head, each brimming with excitement!
They seemed to possess a mysterious sort of confidence.
Five minutes later...
Five figures opened their eyes within a mentor's resurrection array, their gazes filled with a clear sense of bewilderment.
"Who was the one who said we should challenge Xiao Han first?"
"Not me."
"Not me either. Don't look at me."
"You five, after dying and returning to the safe zone, you must check in before heading out of the city again. There will also be a points deduction. Don't try to be lazy or ignore the rules; otherwise, any points you earn during this period will not be counted toward your personal score." After the resurrection mentors finished their explanation, they vanished.
As for me, having left the scene, I had "happily" earned a five-hour bounty.
However, besides the five-hour bounty, I hadn't come away empty-handed. For instance... I had unlocked my fifth skill, "Wound Cleansing," a type of healing spell.
The mana consumption for powerful spells like Flesh Healing was simply too high, so the only healing spell available on the Power Network was Wound Cleansing.
But even a simple Wound Cleansing had the effects of rapid debris removal, disinfection, pain relief, and minor healing.
It was very effective for general injuries, especially for clearing out pebbles or wood splinters embedded in a wound. It even had a certain effect on bruises, necrotic flesh, and minor wound poisoning.
It was a jack-of-all-trades spell.
Even for students with Immortality, this spell was quite useful. Wound conditions could be complex and varied; this spell could quickly provide a good environment for their Immortality to trigger self-healing.
After all, no one wanted to get seriously injured, have their wound touch the ground and get covered in dust and pebbles, and then have those foreign objects heal inside their body due to the Immortality effect.
Just thinking about that was enough to make one's skin crawl. Having to rely on self-healing to slowly push those foreign objects out of the body bit by bit would be even more miserable.
Although the previous battle seemed like an easy win, I could still feel the pressure brought by a coordinated team.
A five-person team wasn't considered large, but their composition was reasonable to a certain extent. The threat of such a team was much stronger than the disorganized mob that had chased me all over the mountains.
Yes, I categorized that large group of people as a "disorganized mob."
Numbers don't always mean strength. Even if people like Tan Han or Lucianne were mixed into that crowd, I still wouldn't fear them, because the group would only drag them down.
But a five-person team with coordination was different. For example, that team just now had forced me to use my Time Sense.
The main reason was... combat reaction speed.
Each of the five had a different fighting style, yet they possessed basic coordination.
If I felt previous battles were just about pure power and reaction speed, then now, under these restricted conditions, I understood something else: rhythm.
The combat rhythms of those five were different, but their mutual cooperation could easily break my rhythm. All it took was one unexpected move that exceeded my reaction speed, and I would be overwhelmed in terms of rhythm.
The reaction time granted by my prototype Time Sense also made me realize one thing: ample reaction time is for adjusting one's own combat rhythm, not just for thinking up countermeasures.
So, after experiencing that battle, to repay them for the inspiration they gave me, I used my strongest form to thoroughly kill them.
Originally, I had intended to spare them, as I didn't want to carry a five-hour bounty, but the inspiration they provided was worth it.
They were just a team I barely recognized!
Yet they were already capable of threatening me. This was a good wake-up call.
Then again, a five-person team that could restrain themselves from chasing easy shortcuts from the start was bound to be formidable.
After leaving that area, I spent my time reviewing the brief battle.
It seemed I had found the right method. I should be fighting high-quality teams like that, not the disorganized mobs.
Just as I had told Mentor Sheryl, since I had already predicted what those people would do to me, I shouldn't walk into their encirclement.
That mob was a group swayed by low-level interests. I could use that pattern to avoid them. My goal was never them; it was the people who found me in unexpected ways while I was avoiding the masses—because they were the ones who broke the mold, the ones with real skill.
They were the ones worthy of fighting me.
As it happened, I was now a wanted woman. Although it was slightly outside the plan, I had my own way of dealing with it.
The best way to block those people was... variant beasts.
Instead of letting them drain my energy, I'd rather let the variant beasts drain theirs. It would also help them find targets to hunt.
Furthermore, don't forget that many variant beast groups in the Expansion Realm contained my clones.
Back when I created those clones, I used Mimicry Soul Technique, the Resurrection Spell, and some derivative techniques from the Tree of Great Knowledge—such as Knowledge Shadow techniques—to perfect the clones' consciousness communication.
After all, I didn't want to actually become a variant beast. Those variant beast clones were very different from my usual clones; they were more like a synchronized perception. The physical behavior was still driven by the variant beast's instincts.
To use a vivid analogy, it was like playing a "Variant Beast Simulator."
I had complete dominance over the variant beast clone. If I wanted to move forward, it would move forward based on the variant beast's instinctive behavioral patterns, rather than me needing to actually learn how to walk on four legs to control it.
I also had an "idle mode."
The current contract restricted my transcendent power, but I had only temporarily lost the ability to dominate the clones. Currently, all the clones were still acting normally in "idle mode."
However, I could still perceive basic information from the clones, such as where large variant beast swarms were located...
I could use this information in advance to effectively block them from finding me. Even if the examinees had my exact coordinates, if they ran into a variant beast swarm on the shortest straight line to me, they wouldn't be able to leave the fight just because they wanted to.
If they truly wanted to escape, the large group would fall apart. And individual examinees posed no threat to me.
So, after making this decision, the examinees following the bounty coordinates to hunt me were in for a real treat.
In just five hours, I led them on a chase for two hours as I moved away from the outskirts of Ninglan New City. For the remaining three hours, they encountered two waves of mid-sized variant beast swarms.
Don't ask why there wasn't a third wave—after the second wave, the united crowd had pretty much scattered.
One should not underestimate the variant beasts in the Ninglan Territory. Any beast still thriving in this region had to have some brains. Their combat power might not be the absolute peak, but they were certainly the hardiest and most aggressive.
As for the variant beasts outside the Ninglan Territory, they were even more formidable.
Because of the alliance of the seven cities, there were no longer any large variant beast tribes within the Ninglan Territory. But in the lands beyond, variant beasts with few natural enemies lived as if they were in paradise.
Once the bounty duration passed, I finally had some rare leisure time.
"This is really interesting... Ah, the internet really is a massive time-sink."
I looked at the information on my Knowledge Seed and stretched on a tree branch.
After the Knowledge Seed interfaced with the Omni-Link Main Network Tree, it wasn't just the Power Network that was interconnected, but the Plant Network as well.
The Knowledge Seed was also linked to the Academy Network; otherwise, it wouldn't be able to access or replace a phone's operating system.
Currently, the Academy Network's coverage in the Expansion Realm wasn't very large, but the Plant Network already covered the entire world. Consequently, someone had set up a temporary exchange site on the Plant Network specifically for the League Hunting Exam.
After all, hunting is all about intelligence. Knowing where the prey is requires data, not just luck.
The academy didn't stop this. Utilizing newly acquired tools was also a reflection of a student's ability, and the academy even synchronized the locations of certain specially released biological groups to this website as a form of official endorsement.
However, I only looked at these files and posts for entertainment. On the Plant Network, massive amounts of information were born and vanished every second; some were useful, while most were junk.
"Found it."
After clicking on a post and seeing the attached photo, I clapped my hands and leaped down from the tree.
My busy morning had taught me one thing: constant evasion was useless. Only by taking the initiative could I encounter opponents worth fighting.
"I haven't seen Tan Han yet, but Lucianne... hmm, she's actually not that far from me."