The moment the pod door closed, Tu Sanqi felt the world blur in front of her.
Instinctively, she shut her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was no longer staring at the pod’s screens and equipment… but a vast desert.
Looking down, she saw both her feet sinking into the sand.
Tu Sanqi bent down in shock and grabbed a handful of sand.
The grains slipped through her fingers, and the sensation was so real that it felt as if she were truly standing in a desert.
An electronic prompt sounded above her head: “Prepare yourself. Training will begin in three seconds.”
The countdown started.
Snapping back to reality, Tu Sanqi braced herself.
Three seconds later, the ground beneath her feet suddenly disappeared. A weightless sensation spread through her body, and she couldn’t help but scream and instinctively shut her eyes.
A “plop” sounded beside her.
The feeling of weightlessness gradually faded, and her limbs floated upward, guided by some external force…
Opening her eyes, she saw that mutated fish.
Tu Sanqi: “……”
Bubbles gushed uncontrollably from her mouth; her face was turning blue from holding her breath. Struggling upward, she finally broke the surface, gasping and escaping the suffocating sensation.
Damn it!
Why was she suddenly underwater again?
Wiping the water off her face, she looked around, dazed. She was indeed at the river where she had encountered Tu Yu and the others.
It was the same river where the mutated fish had appeared.
After a brief pause, she took a deep breath and plunged into the water.
The riverbed stirred into murkiness under her thrashing. She searched for the fish when a holographic light suddenly appeared: [Objective: Survive underwater for 10 minutes]
Tu Sanqi: “……”
Instinctively, she touched her cheeks. No gill-like evolution had appeared.
How could she possibly hold her breath underwater for ten minutes?
Reluctantly, she thought of giving up, but three seconds later, the light disappeared, leaving only water and mud—there was no exit button.
Tu Sanqi: “?”
She looked around in confusion, trying to float up, but she couldn’t move.
Her body seemed trapped within an invisible boundary. Tu Sanqi widened her eyes in shock.
…
Meanwhile, Yan Shuang had finished her pod training by 6:30 a.m.
To awaken her abilities as quickly as possible, she assigned herself extra training sessions every morning and evening.
Lately, her performance had improved, so today she had set the parameters to 50%. When the pod door opened, she collapsed out, temporarily numb in her limbs.
It had been exhausting.
She lay on the floor, patiently waiting for her body to recover, when a sudden sound came from a training pod behind her.
Looking back, she saw Pod 73 flashing a red warning light.
Red?!
Yan Shuang’s pupils contracted as she rushed toward Pod 73, seeing that its parameters had been maxed out—someone had been careless.
She immediately tried contacting the training room manager, but before she could report the situation, the pod suddenly went unresponsive.
Its door opened without warning.
A figure tumbled out, disoriented, and Yan Shuang, unable to dodge in time, was knocked over.
The taste of water still lingered; Tu Sanqi felt dizzy and nauseous. She noticed a soft cushion beneath her and forced herself to roll aside, struggling to open her eyes.
“…Roommate?” she asked, surprised, instinctively concerned. “Are you okay?”
Yan Shuang: “…Not really.”
Tu Sanqi groaned but insisted, “What’s wrong?”
Yan Shuang frowned slightly and helped Tu Sanqi up. “Didn’t you check the parameters before entering the pod?”
Tu Sanqi: “No. I didn’t know what to check. I only saw a start button and pressed it.”
Yan Shuang: “……”
It dawned on Yan Shuang that Tu Sanqi was new.
“Remember next time,” she said seriously. “If the parameters are unsuitable, the damage to your body and mental strength could be irreversible.”
**
Yan Shuang took Tu Sanqi to the medical room for a checkup, then to the cafeteria for a snack, and finally to class, arriving just at 7:00 a.m.
Tu Sanqi peeked into the classroom.
New students joined daily, and occasionally, students awakened their abilities and were sent to sector training camps. So, the others weren’t particularly surprised by her presence; they just glanced at her briefly before returning to their own activities.
Tu Sanqi looked away as well.
Tu Yu had briefed her beforehand. After quickly scanning the other students, she followed Yan Shuang and sat in an empty seat at the back of the classroom.
Not long after, a brisk figure entered.
The female teacher didn’t look up, projecting an image onto the large screen, and began explaining: “Today, we’ll cover zombie classifications, and the essential differences between these virus-infected creatures and ability users.”
Tu Sanqi’s attention was immediately captured. She craned her neck to look at the images.
The first one was the low-level zombie she had destroyed herself.
Scrolling down, the final image was a huge question mark.
The caption read: Zombie King.
The teacher continued.
“Ability users awaken new skills to survive in the apocalypse, much like chopping wood or fetching water… Humans rely on skills to survive, but without skills, they don’t die immediately.”
“Ordinary humans, even without awakened abilities, can live normally.”
“But zombies, as virus carriers, have abilities that emerge as biological mutations under infection.”
“Each zombie, low-level or high-level, exhibits changes in strength, senses, and mental power, reflected in their visible abilities.”
“Zombies without abilities are considered failed mutations. Current data shows that failed zombies naturally die within a short period, and if not handled, their virus spreads like dandelion seeds.”
“So, if you encounter a wandering zombie, it must be destroyed—burn it to ashes.”
Tu Sanqi: “……”
So that’s why Lin Lu was so vicious.
The teacher returned to zombie classification.
After low, middle, and high levels comes the Zombie King.
Each level has distinct traits, determined by the strength of their abilities and the clarity of their zombie characteristics.
“Like us ability users, the key feature of zombies is their pupils. But while ability users’ pupils only change color, zombie pupils can vary in color or shape…”
A comparison chart appeared in black and white.
On the left were ability users, looking similar to ordinary humans in the center.
On the right, the zombies had bizarre eyes. Some had three or four eyeballs in a single socket.
Tu Sanqi: “……”
Her face grew tense as the teacher added, “The higher the zombie’s level, the less obvious their features, making them appear more like ordinary humans.”
Hearing this, Tu Sanqi’s mind raced.
After class, she ran to ask the teacher, “Is there such a thing as a high-level zombie that doesn’t show its traits?”
The teacher answered cautiously, “Generally no, but some may use abilities to make their appearance indistinguishable from humans.”
Tu Sanqi asked again, “Then how can we identify them?”
The teacher raised her wrist, a beam scanning her body. “Use a scanner.”
The device glowed green and reported: Human.
Tu Sanqi: “……”
She really was unlucky.