“Hmm…”
Standing to the side, Ye Yao looked at Su Aoxue’s somewhat flushed face, and a question mark vaguely rose in her heart: ‘Why does… Xue Bao look so pitiful like this, like a weak girl!’
At this moment, Su Aoxue was not only flushed from sparring with Shen Yan, but even the white baseball cap on his head had fallen off long ago, allowing his long, flowing hair to scatter in an instant.
It draped casually over Su Aoxue’s shoulders. On his androgynous face, while his features were well-defined, there was a strangely enchanting beauty about them.
Because in his past life, Su Aoxue had also kept long hair in the later stages—though he usually tied it back—Shen Yan didn’t find anything strange about it at first.
Right now, Shen Yan’s mind was filled with doubt. His intuition told him that Su Aoxue was radiating a faint, intermittent sense of threat—an extreme threat.
If he kept fighting, something bad might happen…
But where did this sense of crisis come from?
He clearly had the upper hand throughout the entire spar, didn’t he?
In the end, the three of them remained silent, each occupied with their own thoughts.
Of course, the flush on Su Aoxue’s face vanished shortly after the sparring ended.
Su Aoxue used his own Cold Disaster Talent to give his body a cooling wave, bringing it back down to a normal temperature.
After the stalemate lasted for a while, Su Aoxue was the first to stand up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
……
However, upon entering the restroom area, Su Aoxue subconsciously looked toward the women’s room.
‘Tsk, in my current state, which bathroom should I enter?’
‘What am I thinking! My current public identity is male; how could I choose the women’s room!’
Rubbing his forehead, Su Aoxue decisively chose to walk into the men’s room.
Fortunately, the Academy was not stingy, and the stalls for more private business were equipped with doors.
Of course, Su Aoxue didn’t come in here to use the toilet.
After entering a stall, he quickly pulled up his clothes and loosened the bandages wrapped around his chest.
The moment the pressure was released, Su Aoxue couldn’t help but bite his lip, looking as if he had been liberated.
‘That feels better~’
‘I shouldn’t have agreed to spar with Old Shen. If he had kept attacking, I really wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from freezing him into an ice sculpture…’
Afterward, when Su Aoxue returned to the training ground, he had no further desire to spar.
He sat honestly on the mat and practiced his Visualization Method.
……
Time approached the end of the school day.
As a loud bell rang out, the students still on the training ground looked toward the source of the sound in confusion.
They then hurried back to their classrooms. This was the bell for an emergency assembly at the Academy.
“It’s almost time to go home, why are they suddenly calling an assembly now?”
Su Aoxue rubbed his chest, speaking with some dissatisfaction.
The bandages had been tight against his chest all day; he was truly about to suffocate!
Shen Yan, on the other hand, frowned in thought.
Then, as if remembering something, he let out a helpless sigh: ‘It seems the note I submitted was ignored? That mission where they’re rushing to their deaths is still being carried out.’
He reached out and grabbed Su Aoxue, whispering, “If the next thing the Class Teacher mentions is us following the Hunt Team into the Gray Mist World for training, absolutely do not sign your name.”
“Remember what I said before? A City-Destroying Level Disaster. So, absolutely do not sign.”
“Hmm?”
Hearing this, Su Aoxue looked at Shen Yan in confusion and asked with uncertainty, “Where are you getting all this inside information?”
“The source is accurate regardless. Just listen to me.”
“Hiss… then should we tell Ye Yao?”
Su Aoxue couldn’t help but look toward Ye Yao, who was currently with a few of her girlfriends.
To this, Shen Yan replied somewhat helplessly, “You barely believe me yourself. It’s hard to say if others will believe it or not.”
At that moment, Shen Yan patted Su Aoxue on the shoulder. “Ye Yao’s family background isn’t simple. Do you want to guess if she has her own inside information?”
“Hiss… you have a point.”
In the end, Su Aoxue chose to remain silent.
Similarly, only after saying this did Shen Yan suddenly remember that in his past life, Ye Yao didn’t seem to appear during this hunting mission.
He remembered that Ye Yao had indeed signed up, but she didn’t show up in the end.
At that time, he and Su Aoxue had signed up together.
Fortunately, before the City-Destroying Level Disaster erupted, they had just been dispatched to the northern part of the city for a mission.
It was very far from the southern part of the city where the main conflict occurred, allowing them to escape with their lives.
Looking at it now, Ye Yao’s family truly lived up to its reputation as a merchant household; their foresight was indeed unique.
They likely realized early on that the impending Gray Mist Tide was not simple, so they called Ye Yao back halfway through.
……
When Su Aoxue and the others returned to the classroom, they soon learned that the reason they were called back was because the Martial Arts Association had suddenly issued a task.
They were inviting these students, who had just undergone Talent Awakening, to directly follow the Hunt Team into the Gray Mist World for a trial.
Since very few people entered the Gray Mist World before their Talent Awakening, they could refuse this temporary task.
But similarly, joining this task would increase their evaluation scores and provide special rewards.
On the podium, after explaining the general situation, the Class Teacher cleared his throat and spoke in a serious tone, “According to the assessment provided by the Martial Arts Association, a Gray Mist Tide of no less than B-rank may erupt soon. This is a situation that hasn’t occurred in nearly eight years.”
“Before the Gray Mist Tide erupts, a large number of pioneer Mist Wraiths will approach the city. The Martial Arts Association has promised to dispatch more than 80% of the B-rank and higher Martial Artists to let you follow them and slay these pioneer Mist Wraiths. Therefore, this is a rare opportunity.”
“But it is also very dangerous. After all, before your Talent Awakening, you rarely even had the chance to stay in the Gray Mist World for a few hours.”
“You are the Martial Artists of the new era. In the days to come, you will be the pillars of society. You will have to go to those city walls sooner or later, and your future lives will be closely linked to the Gray Mist World outside.”
“Although the final decision is up to you, I still suggest that even if you don’t follow the Hunt Team out, you can still go to the city walls to observe and experience it firsthand.”
“It will be beneficial for your future growth.”
Below the podium, Shen Yan showed a look that said ‘as expected,’ feeling quite helpless in his heart.
‘The mission is being executed after all. No one even looked at my Risk Assessment Report, or no one believed it.’
‘It makes sense. At this point in time, humans have the upper hand. Having been the dominant force for nearly twenty years—with two decades having passed since the last civilization-destroying danger—who can still remember the despair from the beginning of the disaster?’
After Shen Yan returned and sorted out the timeline, he had chosen a period when strange incidents in the Gray Mist World were frequent to anonymously submit a Risk Assessment Report to the City Guard Department.
But looking at it now, the report he submitted—which suggested a City-Destroying Level Disaster was about to erupt—did not attract any attention at all.
In that Risk Assessment Report, he had described in detail the specific factors that would constitute a City-Destroying Level Disaster.
There was plenty of data to prove it, yet it was still ignored…
Perhaps it was precisely because of the arrogance of these people that when the full-scale Gray Mist Tide eventually erupted, many Base Cities fell one after another.
At this moment, Su Aoxue looked at Shen Yan with a face full of surprise and whispered an exclamation, “Wait, Old Shen, how did you actually guess correctly?”
“Where did you get this inside information? You aren’t some ‘powerful second-generation’ hiding your identity, are you?”