The transport platform docked steadily at the edge of Base Plaza, the deep blue flames gradually extinguishing.
Instructor Behemoth stood at the front of the other instructors like a towering pillar, his sharp gaze sweeping across the crowd.
“Congratulations on passing the first phase assessment.” His voice was icy and piercing. “Out of ten thousand trainees, 7,236 passed. That result is slightly better than I expected.”
“But this is only the beginning. Twelve hours from now, in the second phase assessment, we’ll eliminate another 2,236 trainees. Cherish these final moments of rest!”
With that, Behemoth clapped his hands in signal.
The instructors from each squad immediately stepped forward, leading their respective groups toward the infirmary.
At this point, Yun Ruoxi had to part ways with the main character group. She watched Lin Zhen and the others walk away, then bent down to gently pick up Aili, joining the flow of people entering Squad Nine.
After settling Aili into an empty healing pod, she opened the one next to it and climbed in herself.
Having endured nearly thirty days of “wilderness survival,” everyone had some lingering injuries, big or small. Even if there weren’t any, the healing pod could help trainees recover their strength quickly.
The pod next door hummed loudly, already in operation.
But Yun Ruoxi didn’t hurry to start her own. Her gaze burned as she stared at the anime screen in the upper right corner.
When she and Lin Zhen reached the finish line earlier, it seemed the fourth episode was already nearing its end—the progress bar looked like it couldn’t hold out any longer.
A “Progress Bar Danger” comment floated across her view from time to time.
As each member of the main character group lay down in their healing pods and the camera focused on Lin Zhen’s face, covered by healing fluid—the fourth episode officially ended.
***
The scene shifted to the familiar boundless starry sky, and the equally familiar barrage of crazy comments began flooding the screen.
“Gone again? Gone again?!”
“Netflix, where’s your money magic? You said you’d drop the whole season!”
“One more episode, one person, one episode!”
“Old Lin’s locked up for a week with this!”
“Where’s that brother bragging about binging four episodes at the start? Now you have to wait for updates along with the rest of us!”
“It’s finally over.”
Yun Ruoxi let out a soft breath, her tense nerves at last relaxing.
There was an undisguisable exhaustion in her eyes.
That fourth episode had been a real endurance test for her.
During the ten-odd days with Lin Zhen, she was almost constantly under the camera’s gaze.
Sure, that made her popularity soar.
But it was truly exhausting.
She couldn’t let her guard down for a moment—she had to stay in character the whole time, strictly acting out her assigned role.
The “Yun Ruoxi” in the anime and in front of the main character group was innately strong, a bit stubborn, but reliable, trusting and dependent on those she cared about, and occasionally an adorably muddled little loli.
But her real personality and the one she played weren’t exactly worlds apart, but at most they shared only four or five tenths in common.
The real her was more reserved, not so scatterbrained, and didn’t like making a fuss.
After all, what viewers saw as the “anime world” was her real world.
Anime characters’ personalities were highly abstracted, exaggerated in some aspects by the creators.
But in reality, who lives every day like an anime character—shocked by every little thing, extremely dramatic, behaving as flamboyantly as Jiahao?
So, when designing her character, Yun Ruoxi had deliberately hidden her “ordinary person” side, exaggerating the traits she thought were cute.
As a result, playing this role was quite tiring.
To put it simply, it was like running.
When jogging leisurely at home, you could run however you liked—slow down when tired, speed up when energetic.
But acting in front of the camera was like competing in an international race—she had to give it her all, at all times, running at full throttle.
A few hours, or even a few days, would be fine.
But like this time, performing for eighteen days straight—she almost lost her mind.
Yun Ruoxi nearly acted herself sick!
Recalling everything that happened in these eighteen days—playing both mother and father to take care of Lin Zhen, even snuggling into his arms and crying several times…
Just thinking about it now gave her goosebumps.
All the rare good feelings she’d built up for Lin Zhen had now turned into indescribable frustration!
“What a mess!” Yun Ruoxi secretly griped, then opened her system panel.
After all this hard work, it was finally time to see her results.
[Name: Yun Ruoxi]
[Age: 11]
[Reputation: “Fragrant Demise” (Empire), “Gifted Prodigy” (War Camp)]
[Character Rank: Female Lead #2 (Villain)]
[Stellar Energy Index: 1]
[Potential: A+ ( ??? )]
[Bloodline: Grade A Bloodline (Awakening Level 2%) Unknown Bloodline (Not Awakened)]
[Physical Attributes: Strength B+, Agility A+, Willpower S, Constitution A, Spiritual Power A+]
[Current Skills: Ultimate Acting, Beast Combat Instincts, Pain Suppression, Learning Mindset, Enhanced Brainpower, Hyper-Perception, Synesthesia Domain (Current self-developed at 52%, can be fully developed by spending 60,000 popularity points)]
[Popularity Points: 251,245]
[Outstanding Popularity Debt: 100,000]
Yun Ruoxi’s gaze instinctively fell on the second-to-last line of the panel. Her breath hitched slightly, and a subtle delight appeared on her face.
“Two hundred fifty thousand popularity points? Whoa, just my performance in episode four earned me a bump of 150,000?”
One hundred fifty thousand popularity points—what did that even mean!
Her total for the first three episodes was just 300,000, and now episode four alone gave her half of that.
Absolutely ridiculous.
And this was only the initial airing of episode four—she could accumulate even more over time.
“Awesome!”
Yun Ruoxi quietly clenched her fist.
Turns out, sticking close to the main character really was the way to go.
In the latter half of episode four, she was on camera almost the whole time. No wonder her popularity shot up like this—it was completely extraordinary.
Sure, it was exhausting, but compared to the popularity boost, this level of fatigue was nothing.
Yun Ruoxi wasn’t in a hurry to exchange for new skills. She’d wait until the second phase assessment was over.
After she awakened her Stellar Energy Bloodline, she’d need to spend her popularity on plenty of other things.
Even though 250,000 points seemed like a lot, it probably still wouldn’t be enough when the time came.
After checking her popularity points, she glanced a bit higher, mainly to see if her attributes or skills had changed.
Her physical abilities had temporarily hit a bottleneck—thirty days wasn’t enough to break through just yet.
But her [Synesthesia Domain] had made solid progress after all the intense combat in phase one; full development was now within reach.
“Grade A bloodline awakening at 2%—just as I expected. Tapping into the Stellar Energy Bloodline early would naturally trigger some awakening, but since it’s only a little, it won’t affect my performance in phase two, so it doesn’t matter.”
“But this reputation… I haven’t checked in a while, so why has it changed all of a sudden?”
Yun Ruoxi stared at the [Popularity] entry in confusion.