"Let’s head back."
Leaning on his blade, Logan gave the order to the girls who had finished resting.
The trek back to camp felt unusually long.
After marching for over half an hour, the familiar outline of the camp finally appeared in sight.
"Hey, the Chief and the others are back!"
Ye Xing’er, who had been smoking wolf meat by the campfire, spotted them first and let out a joyful cry.
Hearing the commotion, Bai Nian also scrambled out of the shelter.
When she caught sight of Logan, she flew across the clearing as if she had finally found her anchor, sprinting straight toward him.
"Logan!"
Without a word, she threw her arms around him and buried her face against his chest, holding on tight.
The familiar scent filled his nose, and the soft warmth in his arms finally made the nerves that had been strung tight all morning snap loose.
Logan wrapped his arms around Bai Nian, resting his chin on her shoulder as he took a deep, grounding breath.
Good.
It felt like coming home.
He noticed Ye Xing’er standing nearby, watching them with wide eyes full of worry and relief.
Acting on impulse, Logan stretched out his free arm and pulled the shy girl into his embrace as well.
"Eep!"
Ye Xing’er let out a small gasp, her face flushing crimson red in an instant. She froze completely, unsure of where to place her hands.
"Hmph."
A barely audible scoff came from close by.
Logan didn’t even need to look to know it was Gu Xinran.
The girl was standing with her arms crossed and her lips puckered, shooting an unhappy glare at the two girls currently hugging him.
They hadn’t even defined their relationship yet, but she had already mastered the art of jealousy.
Logan released the two girls. Before he could say anything, Bai Nian spoke up anxiously.
"Why were you gone so long? Where’s the water?"
Seeing their empty hands and the dried blood coating their gear, her heart skipped a beat.
Logan sighed.
"Good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?"
"Good news!"
Logan nodded, pulling the black-barreled AK-47 straight out of his inventory and holding up the ancient, leather-bound tome Yu Le had found.
"The good news is we looted an assault rifle, and this."
The Epic-tier quality of the [Wilderness Bestiary & Flora Guide] made both Bai Nian and Ye Xing’er stare in shock.
As for the AK-47, the visual impact of a modern firearm left their minds completely blank.
A gun!
In a primitive world dominated by cold steel, the meaning of a modern ranged weapon went without saying!
"And the bad news?"
"The bad news is we can’t go back to that stream ever again."
Logan’s expression turned grim. "For now, we’ll have to rely on trading for water."
"Can’t go back?"
Bai Nian blinked, then recovered her composure. "That’s fine, water isn’t a huge crisis. We can trade for cheap runoff water and run it through our purifier; it cleans anything. But... why can’t we go back?"
She looked at the dried blood staining Logan, Tang Yuqing, and the others, her anxiety spiking again.
Logan didn’t hide anything, recounting the events of the morning from start to finish.
He explained how the scar-faced leader appeared, how a dozen men surrounded them, how he staged a surprise counter-attack, and how the skirmish ended in a bloodbath.
When she heard that Logan had split a skill-buffed enemy leader in half with a single swing, Bai Nian and Ye Xing’er both clapped hands over their mouths.
"So that stream is full of corpses now, and I’d rather not drink bathwater mixed with dead bodies."
"Worse still, those guys aren’t just random street punks. They’re organized, they have combat professionals, and their main camp is right near our territory!"
"That scar-faced brute was only their second-in-command. He answers to a main boss, and they have around forty members total."
Logan’s final statement hit the room like a physical blow.
A chill crawled up everyone’s spine.
It meant that right next door to their settlement lurked a hostile faction larger and better organized than their own—and they had already crossed swords in blood.
It was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off!
Even the normally level-headed Bai Nian lost every drop of color in her face.
Seeing the pale expressions on Bai Nian and Ye Xing’er, Logan reached out and gently ruffled both of their heads.
"Relax, stop scaring yourselves."
He called all the girls together and addressed the group.
"When trouble comes, we handle it. panicking right now accomplishes nothing."
He paused to steady their nerves.
"So what if they have forty people? A bunch of disorganized thugs. That scar-faced guy was their second-in-command, and he still got split down the middle by my blade."
"Our advantage is that they think we’re just a bunch of young students and soft targets."
"They’ll be impatient to hunt us down, which means they won’t have time to properly prep."
"We can use that window to secure our perimeter!"
Logan’s logical breakdown smoothed out the worst of their panic.
True, being afraid solved nothing.
Growing stronger was the only way out.
"I’m in!"
Tang Yuqing, currently acting as Logan’s number-one supporter, stepped forward instantly. "We’ll do whatever you say, Chief!"
"Yeah! We listen to the Chief!"
"Let’s take them down!"
The girls rallied quickly, replacing their fear with a shared, combative drive.
"Alright!" Logan nodded with satisfaction. "Then let’s move!"
Once the plan was set, the entire camp swung into high gear.
Teacher Chen took charge of the [Fence Blueprint], utilizing the timber collected over the past few days to craft palisades.
She led a few girls into the treeline to chop down suitable logs, establishing their first line of defense.
Tang Wei, holding the Blacksmith class, set up a makeshift forge near the campfire.
She swung her hammer *clang-clang-clang*, setting to work repairing the chipped and rolled-edge machetes they had looted from the enemy.
Before heading back, Logan had carefully wrapped up all the toxic red mushrooms in leaves and brought them back, handing the whole batch over to Bai Nian.
With her Witch class, she could combine those fungi with other harvested items to brew lethal poisons and tactical agents.
"I’ll do my best," Bai Nian nodded.
Meanwhile, Lin Bing had been sitting off in the corner alone, carving sharp wooden spikes and weaving vines. She walked up to Logan.
"Logan, give me a few people. I’m going to set up perimeter trip-wires and traps outside the camp."
Logan realized what she was up to.
No wonder Lin Bing had been tinkering with vines this whole time—she was building trap lines!
Logan agreed instantly. "No problem. Pick whoever you want from the gathering or logging squads!"
He also handed the AK-47 over to Lin Bing.
They were mostly students; trying to train a squad to use firearms efficiently would waste precious ammo. Lin Bing’s background wasn’t ordinary; he figured she knew how to handle a rifle.
Sure enough, Lin Bing took the weapon without hesitation, shouldering it with practiced ease as she cycled the bolt and peered down the sights.
Moments later, she raised it and dropped a passing bird flying overhead with a crisp crack.
Looking at the fallen bird, Logan silently gave her a thumbs-up.
Everyone was moving. The whole camp hummed with intense, focused labor.
Finally, it was Logan’s turn.
His objective was to whip a functioning combat unit into shape!
He gathered all the Hunter-class girls along with a few bold volunteers who wanted to carry steel—including Wang Ke, Tang Yuqing, and Yu Le—totaling a dozen recruits.
"From now on, you all have one mission."
Holding his Miao dao, Logan stood before them. "Training!"
"You don’t need fancy moves. Just drill the basics of chopping and slashing until it’s second nature!"
"Just like I showed you before—go at the trees until you build the exact mix of force, speed, and accuracy!"
Logan stepped forward and demonstrated on a nearby tree trunk. His swing was clean and sharp, the blade burying itself deep into the wood with zero wasted motion.
He didn’t expect these girls to become martial arts masters, but they needed core strength and the killer instinct so they wouldn’t freeze up in a real fight.
Using his blade, he carved rough outlines of human vitals—heads and lower torsos—onto the tree bark.
"Smash those targets!"
"Yes, Chief!"
The girls shouted in unison, scattering to their designated trees and starting their reps.
For a long stretch, the camp rang with the steady *clang* of the forge, the rhythmic *thump* of axes hitting wood, and the occasional battle cry from the recruits.
Logan kept his hands behind his back, pacing the line to inspect their form.
Most of them were just swinging wildly on pure muscle memory, their footing completely off.
Except for Wang Ke.
The quiet girl demonstrated staggering adaptation speed!
Even with her left arm wrapped in bandages, her execution was razor-focused.
Her output lacked raw power, but her form was infinitely cleaner than the others.
Logan walked over and watched her for a moment.
"Wrong stance." He spoke up.
Wang Ke stopped, looking at him with a questioning tilt of her head.
"Your posture is off. Your hip rotation is backwards, and your wrists are too stiff."
Logan corrected her grip. "Swing like that and you won’t generate real power; you’ll just wreck your own joints."
Logan had made that exact mistake himself until Lin Bing corrected him earlier.
A flicker of frustration crossed Wang Ke’s sharp features as she frowned. "Chief, I... I don’t quite get it."
"I’ll show you."
Logan naturally stepped in directly behind her.
Wang Ke stood tall—nearly five-foot-nine, almost matching Logan’s height.
Clad in primitive hide gear, her clean short hair framed a smooth neck and a tight back line.
Logan reached out, resting one hand lightly on her waist while his other hand closed over her wrist to correct the angle.
"Relax."
The warm contact sent a visible jolt through Wang Ke, the tips of her ears turning red in a heartbeat.
The distinct scent of a male closed in around her.
"Feel the force route."
Logan’s voice murmured right by her ear. "Power starts from the ground, travels up your legs into your hips, transfers through your shoulders down your arms, and explodes right out of the wrist!"
Guiding her frame through the kinetic chain, he executed a textbook strike.
*Whoosh!*
The machete cut through the air with a clean whistle, burying itself twice as deep into the wood as Wang Ke’s previous attempts.
Wang Ke froze.
She could clearly feel how a massive output of kinetic energy channeled naturally through her body.
"G-Got it..." Her voice trembled slightly.
"Run it a few more times and build the muscle memory."
Logan didn’t pull away immediately, staying close to guide her stroke through a few more reps.
Not far away, Gu Xinran was hacking at a tree while watching the interaction out of the corner of her eye.
Finally, she snapped.
The second Logan stepped back from Wang Ke—
"Oops!"
Gu Xinran let out an exaggerated shriek, dropping her machete clattering onto the dirt.
Then, deliberately imitating Wang Ke’s earlier stance, she arched her lower back and struck an awkward, over-exaggerated pose.
"Chief!"
"Is my form right here? Can you teach me hand-on-hand too?!"
Logan stared blankly at her dramatic display.
He walked over, eyeing her exaggerated posture.
"Your problem isn’t your form."
"Oh? Then what is it?" Gu Xinran batted her eyelashes innocently.
Logan kept a completely straight face.
"It’s that your backside is begging to be slapped."
Before she could process the warning, his palm came down hard.