A few hours later.
A piercing noise awakened Yin Zhen from her sleep. The metal door suddenly slid open, and a cold mechanical voice echoed overhead.
"S717, please follow the ground guide line to enter the training ground!"
The training ground was a massive space with a towering dome. The cold-blooded blonde man from yesterday stood at the very front. Behind him were twenty men in crisp Combat Uniforms. They were all soldiers of the Night City Guard Team, and their eyes held undisguised contempt as they looked at the women.
In the center of the grounds, twenty female experimental subjects in identical black training uniforms stood stiffly in formation. Yin Zhen was among them. Their numbers were stitched onto their chests like barcodes on merchandise.
Yin Zhen looked at the male soldiers ahead and wondered why they had only chosen female experimental subjects if the goal was to replenish the Guard Team’s manpower to protect Night City.
"Pair up. The training begins!"
The crowd instantly dispersed. Just as Yin Zhen found her footing in a corner, the man walking toward her suddenly lunged forward, launching a heavy elbow strike straight at her temple!
ARGH!
Agony instantly exploded within Yin Zhen’s skull. She was knocked down viciously, the back of her head slamming hard against the alloy floor.
The combat knowledge poured into her brain couldn’t mobilize her rusty body at all. As she struggled to prop up her upper body, another unbelievably fierce side kick landed solidly on the soft underbelly of her waist.
The tremendous impact sent Yin Zhen flying off the ground, crashing down heavily over two meters away. Her bones felt as if they were falling apart.
The man sparring with her sneered hideously, baring a pair of Blood Clan fangs without the slightest intention of stopping.
"A bunch of trash!" the blonde man evaluated emotionlessly from the high platform.
Every female experimental subject on the field was enduring the same brutality. Some had already been beaten until they lay motionless, their fates unknown. The low growls of men, the miserable shrieks of women, and the crisp cracking of breaking bones rose and fell. The air was thick with the stench of blood and despair.
This wasn’t training at all; it was a targeted slaughter!
Yin Zhen forced her bloodshot eyes wide open, enduring the severe pain to observe her opponent’s movements. Amidst the howling storm of punches and kicks, she sought out tiny trajectories and flaws.
When her opponent raised his leg with inhuman speed once more, driving his knee toward her chest, Yin Zhen’s pupils contracted instantly. The torrent of instilled knowledge finally broke through her fear and physical restraints, briefly merging with her survival instinct!
Ignoring the pain of her fractured ribs, Yin Zhen forcefully twisted her waist and bent down, executing a roll almost flat against the ground. By a hair’s breadth, she slipped into her opponent’s blind spot. At the same time, her nearly numb right leg erupted with unprecedented Strength, viciously wrapping around the ankle of her opponent’s supporting leg.
"UGH!"
Caught off guard, the man’s body instantly lost its balance. Channeling her entire body’s Strength, Yin Zhen smashed her fist right into the man’s loathsome face!
BAM!
The opponent’s feet left the ground as he flew backward, the back of his head smashing heavily into the floor.
The entire world seemed to fall silent for a moment. Everyone turned to look at her.
Amidst heavy panting, Yin Zhen stood firmly in place. She slowly straightened her back, blood dyeing half of her sharp face red.
The blonde man’s gaze fell on Yin Zhen, a rare flash of appreciation crossing his eyes.
"S717, not bad!"
In the subsequent combat training, the other female experimental subjects also slowly found their rhythm, beginning to form effective defenses and counterattacks. Those who failed to pull through became corpses on the floor.
Through repeated clashes, the streams of combat information forcibly shoved into their brains slowly transformed into muscle memory and the natural rhythm of their bones and sinews. When the day’s high-intensity training concluded, Yin Zhen and four other experimental subjects stood out, receiving their respective rewards.
milliliters of viscous artificial blood plasma.
Her bottom line had been breached the moment Yin Zhen drank her first cup of plasma. Now, the thirst for survival crushed all moral shackles.
Yin Zhen tore open a corner of the bag, tilted her head back, and chugged the liquid down.
A sweet, vibrant, and warm current brimming with endless energy rapidly spread to every part of her body. She could clearly feel her muscle fibers frantically mending, and the jagged edges of her shattered bones accelerating their reconnection and reconstruction.
Within just a few minutes, Yin Zhen’s body completely recovered from its nearly broken state.
Amidst her internal shock, a thought bubbled up uncontrollably in Yin Zhen’s mind. She wondered if this power could be brought back to her original world, and if her legs could be completely healed. Yin Zhen suddenly found herself looking forward to the moment this countdown ended.
After a brief rest, the firearms training began.
A gun rack rose from the floor, presenting over a dozen Weapons Yin Zhen had never seen before.
"Disassembly and assembly. Time limit: 90 seconds."
At the command, everyone swiftly grabbed the pistols closest to them.
"Moving targets will activate shortly. A miss rate higher than 10% will result in elimination!"
Initially, the recoil shocked Yin Zhen’s wrist bones so hard they felt like splitting, and it was difficult for her bullets to hit the target. After reloading for the seventh time, Yin Zhen gradually adapted to the sensation of firing. The weight of the gun transformed from a burden into an extension of her limbs.
She focused entirely, her pupils locking dead onto the movement trajectories.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three bullets precisely pierced the core of the rotating target a hundred meters away.
Yin Zhen seemed to possess an extraordinary Talent in this regard. After a few attempts to adapt to the other types of firearms, she shot with increasing accuracy and used them with growing proficiency. Comparatively speaking, she was most accurate with close-range moving targets, displaying even faster reaction speeds.
Seeing this, the blonde man in the rear—who had been observing all the experimental subjects—took a tablet from a researcher’s hands. He opened S717’s file and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
Over the next two days, Yin Zhen only had two things to do every day: train and rest.
Besides combat and firearms, there was also simulated driving training for various vehicles, as well as operational training for the company’s high-tech equipment. As a member of the Blood Clan, her only daily food was that single bag of artificial blood plasma. She needed nothing else, nor did she need to excrete. Resting for four to six hours a day was enough to restore her energy.
Finally, Yin Zhen made it to the third day.
[00:30:29]
Only the last half hour remained before she could return to her own world.
"S717, please proceed to Individual Training Ground 3."
Yin Zhen’s heart skipped a beat as she realized the location had changed, but she didn’t hesitate in the slightest. She obediently stood up and walked briskly, following the directions of the ground guide line.
Besides her, four others emerged from different rest rooms, heading sequentially to different individual training rooms. They were all individuals whose training scores ranked in the top five over the past few days.
The metal doors closed silently behind Yin Zhen. Individual Training Ground 3 was much smaller than the main training ground, measuring only about ten square meters.
A single alloy table sat isolated in the center of the room. On the table were the dismantled parts of a pistol and a military High-frequency Vibrating Dagger.
Yin Zhen’s heart tightened.
ROAR!!!
As expected, a frenzied roar blasted from the side. The door situated flush against her left instantly opened, revealing a monster securely locked to the far wall by a metal restraint ring.
A Fallen Species!
The knowledge instilled in her brain activated. Those members of the Blood Clan who suffered from long-term starvation, fed on their own kind, or ingested a polluted blood Source would suffer mental breakdowns and physical mutations, turning into such a Fallen Species.
It was entirely covered in filthy gray skin, its atrophied muscles clinging to its skeletal frame. Its massive head had sparse hair, and its eyes were a murky, purulent yellow. It possessed no rationality, only the most primal desires to slaughter and devour. Its mouth was filled with overlapping, interlocking black fangs. Its sharp black nails curved like hooked claws, easily scraping piercing noises and tearing gouges into the high-strength alloy floor.
"The Fallen Species hunting test begins. Target unlocks in 30 seconds."
"30-second countdown initiates. 29, 28..."
The emotionless, synthesized mechanical voice echoed in the room.
Yin Zhen’s breathing nearly stopped. She immediately rushed to the table, grabbed the gun parts, and began assembling them. All the disassembly and assembly practices from the training grounds were perfectly replicated at this moment; she didn’t even need to think!
Just as Yin Zhen was about to face this life-or-death crisis that could crush her, behind the wall on the other side of the training ground, the tall blonde man leaned against the porthole-like observation glass with a posture of sluggish elegance.
He still wore his crisp Combat Uniform and held a goblet, slowly swirling the expensive cloned human blood plasma within. This was far more delicious than artificial blood plasma, an indulgence reserved only for Blood Clan nobles.
He took a shallow sip. Through the surrounding glass, his eyes locked firmly onto the performance of each experimental subject in the five training rooms, observing them with great interest as if watching fish thrash upon a chopping block.
By his side stood a tall, slender male researcher with a completely different aura. He had elegantly curled black hair, emerald green eyes, and facial features leaning toward the East. He wore glasses, and the gaze behind the lenses was calm and rational. Holding the files of the five individuals, he evaluated softly.
"Victor, their data curves are indeed impressive. Their maturity and adaptability have surpassed all experimental subjects from the same batch. However, doesn’t having them face a Fallen Species in its berserk phase alone right now seem a bit too radical to you?"
"Ian, the radical one has never been me. The West Coast of Night City has already been overrun by Deep Sea Mutants, and the Fallen Species in the city’s sewers are multiplying. The Rebel Army has been constantly active in the East, and the elders of the council are going crazy."
Victor drank the last mouthful of plasma in his cup and smacked his lips, still craving more.
"If they are torn to shreds by a Basic Fallen Species, it will only prove they are utterly incapable of becoming the ’seeds’ the company needs. They will only serve as waste to be thrown into the sea to feed the Mutants."
Before he could finish speaking, a loud BANG suddenly erupted from Individual Training Room 3.
With 10 seconds still left on the countdown, the Fallen Species behind Yin Zhen actually tore through its restraint ring early, lunging at Yin Zhen, who had yet to finish assembling her pistol.
Seeing this, Ian pushed up his glasses. This Fallen Species in Individual Training Room 3 was somewhat Special. It had mutated because its mind couldn’t bear the strain after awakening an Extraordinary Ability, making it far more berserk and dangerous than other Fallen Species.
At the same time, the system, which had been silent for nearly three days, popped up a new mission in Yin Zhen’s mind.
[Triggered Gray Card Event: The First to Die]
[Novel Law: At any time, cannon fodder will be the first to die]
[Event Requirement: Do not be the first to die. There are rewards~]