The rules for the annual assessment were not complicated; the only real restriction placed on the trainees was food.
Yet the implications hidden within these rules sent a shock through their hearts.
Hunting down the [Sinners] sounded easy enough.
But the prerequisite for becoming a [Sinner] was at least being human!
The Battle Camp was essentially ordering them to take human lives with their own hands!
Although the trainees had long grown accustomed to taking lives with their fists and feet in virtual combat, how could reality and virtual combat be the same?
No matter how realistic virtual combat was, they all knew it was just an illusion.
Death could be undone there. They could resurrect and start over.
But in reality, it was different. When a person was killed, they were truly dead!
Everyone only had one life. There was no Resurrection Coin, no “play again” button.
“Is this really the annual assessment? Is this what the Battle Camp is about?”
Lin Zhen slowly raised his right hand, staring at his trembling fingers before suddenly clenching his fist tightly.
One second, two seconds…
A full ten seconds passed before his right hand stopped shaking, and his breathing steadied once more.
Taking a life came with a cost. Human life was not a number to be erased with a casual wave of the hand.
But he had to leave this place. His family was waiting for him!
He… could not stop here!
If this was the price of going home, he was willing to bear this sin for now!
“Kill, kill someone?”
By the pond, Aili’s face instantly went pale.
She instinctively reached into her pocket, her fingertips brushing the cold, hard wooden comb.
Her mind suddenly flashed back to everything that had happened last night.
“My sister and I promised…”
She whispered softly, her eyes gradually hardening with resolve.
As Lin Zhen’s inner monologue echoed, the kaleidoscope-like camera finally restored itself, focusing on Lin Zhen.
“Lao Lin’s determination isn’t bad at all.”
“Much more pleasing to the eye than some indecisive protagonists.”
“Lu Mingfei: Just give me your ID number already.”
Yun Ruoxi’s gaze scanned the barrage of comments and nodded in approval.
Lin Zhen’s personality was exactly her type.
If the world-altering incident hadn’t forced them into opposing roles of protagonist and antagonist, maybe they really could have been good friends.
Instead, they were stuck maintaining this distorted, utilitarian relationship.
Yun Ruoxi rested at the cliff’s edge for a while, waiting until the aftereffects of the electric shock completely wore off before slowly standing.
She prepared to leave her “birthplace.”
Entering the Thin Mist Forest, the real annual assessment officially began.
Meanwhile, Lin Zhen had long since set out. His A+ grade physique allowed him to recover much faster than Yun Ruoxi.
On this thirty-day survival hunting journey, those with superior physical condition held a significant advantage.
However, the Battle Camp was not without mercy for the weaker trainees who struggled in close combat.
They had hidden many [Weapon Supply] caches throughout the Thin Mist Forest.
Most were similar to treasure chests or buried containers.
Hidden all over the forest, they contained broken weapons and materials.
The goal was to test the trainees’ ability to search for and repair weapons.
There were also some [Weapon Supply] caches that Yun Ruoxi preferred to call mysterious “jungle supply points”—
where weapons could be exchanged for sinners’ ears.
These weapons could even be carried into the second stage.
In the original storyline, Lin Zhen had shone brilliantly in the annual assessment thanks to these “benefits.”
That was also why Yun Ruoxi had repeatedly urged Aili to diligently practice weapon repairs recently.
It was her only chance.
Otherwise, with Aili’s lame fighting skills—so weak that Yun Ruoxi could defeat her with a single finger—
she genuinely had no idea how the other could even pass the first or second stages of the assessment.
“Actually, many trainees misunderstand. The sinners released into the forest include some innocents, but most are bloodthirsty fiends. They are not easy prey… The safest way to deal with them is to first find some weapons.”
Yun Ruoxi had never killed anyone.
But she had seen mountains of corpses with her own eyes, and had traversed true hell several times.
So killing just one person…
felt like crushing an ant. She didn’t expect it to weigh heavily on her conscience.
Yun Ruoxi walked straight ahead for a long while until a seemingly endless dense forest suddenly appeared.
The Battle Camp’s geography lesson had introduced many common planetary and stellar types across the universe, along with their typical ecologies and terrains.
But it hadn’t included Pandora-35 beneath their feet.
So aside from knowing the forest was located north of the base and that terrifying beasts lived within it, the trainees knew almost nothing about this land.
But now, looking around…
Yun Ruoxi pushed aside waist-high undergrowth and stepped into the woods. A grayish-white fog immediately enveloped her.
Hmm, the name Thin Mist Forest was indeed apt.
She reached into the mist and scooped up some moisture. Her palm was wet instantly. Looking up, she could only see about a hundred meters ahead.
Beyond that, the thick fog and dense jungle reduced everything to a gray blur.
“Visibility is worse than what the storyline described. This is also a way the Battle Camp restricts weapon use…”
Yun Ruoxi looked around and roughly confirmed north by the two barely visible suns above.
Then she quickened her pace.
The Battle Camp clearly did not care for Pandora-35’s natural resources. There was no sign of human activity in the Thin Mist Forest.
Strange plants grew wildly, and the narrow “Beast Paths” made by unknown creatures were short-lived.
Walking in such an environment drained enormous energy.
If not for the Battle Camp-issued trainee uniform—simple, but made from good materials—Yun Ruoxi would probably be wrapped in rags by now.
After several hours of trekking, Yun Ruoxi had found nothing.
Aside from a few fleeting glimpses of eerie green eyes in the shadows, there were no weapon supplies to be found, nor any sinners as the Battle Camp had mentioned.
She lifted the collar around her neck.
Her fingertips tapped the device, checking the time.
21:32.
They had been woken from sleep at around four in the morning.
And by her feeling, not nearly as much time had passed since the assessment began.
The Battle Camp had truly picked a “birth point” far from everything.
Lowering the collar, Yun Ruoxi looked up at the sky again.
Although the day-night cycle on Pandora-35 was chaotic, the changing sky still offered some clues.
The sky was darkening, heavy gray clouds gathering as night approached.
It was time to find shelter.
The beasts in this Thin Mist Forest were not like the trainees back at the base, strictly following a twenty-four-hour schedule.
They adapted to the planet’s chaotic day-night cycle, hunting at every sudden nightfall.
This was only the first day of the assessment. Until she was familiar with the environment, Yun Ruoxi was not willing to take risks in the dark.
Reverence for the natural laws of every star—this was a phrase their geography teacher had repeated countless times.