Chapter 291: Everyone Passes (1/2)

Chapter 291: Everyone Passes

DreamNet’s evolution was under way. Deimos, the Starlord, has retired. The Star Alliance is lauded as the greatest god-ranked team in history. A day after the games, it was front page news across all three Alliances.

DreamNet’s gambit was a success, and mecha fever was sweeping the realms of man.

For the students of the NEU’s ARC class, though, their life was still an abyss of suffering.

While the sim training the Demon Drillmaster had them doing was very basic, it was a far sight better than the razor blades and boiling water they’d faced earlier. Of course, as time progressed, so too did their feelings.

Eventually they determined these pods not to be simulators of mecha combat, but a vision of what hell must be like. They could not hesitate, even for a moment, otherwise they were punished. That jolt of electricity only needd to be experienced once to convince the students they didn’t want to try it again. It was like their insides were squished together and pan seared. The feeling indeed was…

They had no recourse but to put their full effort towards completing the tasks.

Indomitable will persisted, until it didn’t, and then the shock stimulated them back in to action. They were performing at their peak, because anything less equaled pain.

This program designed by the Gobi Group was constructed to increase their fundamentals, so that they became second nature. They would never forget these basic movements, they were so deep in their muscle memory they performed them in their sleep.

Beyond that it was dull, but required their full attention at every moment.

After the third day everyone’s face was pale, drawn and gaunt. They looked like a coterie of starved vampires. As they left for the cafeteria on the fifth day, every student needed help getting there.

After seven days, only a fraction of the students could keep down food.

But for Tang Xiao this was a silver lining. After all, there was no better way to lose weight!

Jin Tao was one of the few who were able to take any sustenance. Like Lan Jue determined so long ago, here was a young man who was vicious, rabid, and would relentlessly pursue whatever he felt to be right. No matter the hardships, his willpower saw him through.

And he ate like a glutton.

Other than he, the only others who could eat were three women. The Savage Goddess was one, and though she was a sovereign-ranked pilot before they’d begun she didn’t look any better than the students she was looking after. But she did have a much more solid grasp of the basics, and that helped. She was progressing faster than any of the other participants.

Tang Mi was also among them, and though the training hadn’t even progressed to the one-month mark, the changes she’d undergone were surprising to behold. She hadn’t smiled in ages, and her pretty face grew hard and frigid. Her capricious and headstrong actions had caused her classmates to suffer inhumane torment, and it was a fact she lived with daily. The lesson was a scar she still felt stinging.

I won’t drag anyone down. I will be the strongest! A woman’s tenacity will trump a man’s strength any day. The mantra ran through her head again and again. Though she would vomit up a portion of everything she ate, she persisted. Her brother found it hard to watch, and any time he felt the need to step in, Mika was there to – violently – dissuade him.

The final girl still able to eat, much to Lan Jue’s surprise, was Zhou Qianlin. She was also performing best out of everyone, Tan Lingyun and Wang Hongyuan included.

Her clearance speed may not have been as fast as Tan Lingyun’s, but her adaptive abilities were unmatched. Though there was a pallor to her face as well, it wasn’t as pronounced as the others.

Zeus’ amazons were all simultaneously impressed and surprised by what they were seeing. As Lan Jue and Hua Li were not present, they were in charge of observing the students. Qianlin was the one they spent the most time watching. Their ultimate determination was that her balanced capacity and adaptive abilities were almost super human. What others had to grit their teeth and fight vehemently to sustain, she did with half the effort.

During meal times she didn’t eat as much as Jin Tao, but ate as she normally would as though the effort she was expending on training wasn’t having any adverse effects. It was like this training wasn’t anything different from the normal one’s she’d participated in at school.

Eleven days passed. They were approaching the fasted recorded time this procedure had been completed. Of course, no one participated in this batch would be able to beat it. In fact, many of them were reaching their physical limit.

Killing one’s students wasn’t conducive to proper training, though, so the program was designed to be at least moderately humane. When a body reached critical dehydration levels, the pod itself injected them with nutritive fluids to keep them going. There were also medications to keep them alert and awake so that they could finish.

When Hua Li and Lan Jue returned, they began by carefully examining the conditions of their charges. The most surprising discoveries for the Demon Drillmaster came in the form of his client, Zhou Qianlin. Hua Li was stunned by the progress of all the students.

“They’re doing much better than I’d have expected,” Hua Li revealed to Lan Jue.

“Oh?” Lan Jue turned his masked face toward his friend.

Hua Li continued with a nod. “They’re progressing very quickly. If they keep this up, they’ll be done in around twenty days.”