Chapter 34: Forty Kilometers

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The principal raised his fist. “Students! Do you have confidence?”

...

“Yes!”

A clear, ringing voice broke through the air.

Zhuang Yun held her head high, her eyes shining with spirit. Everyone turned to look at her.

“Isn’t she the Daoist who claimed she would defeat Pasa Military Academy?”

“She really got into military school?”

The crowd erupted into a clamor.

The principal adjusted his glasses and took a closer look. It really was Zhuang Yun.

“Very well. Now, let us invite Zhuang Yun to speak as the representative of the new students!”

Under the gaze of the entire school, Zhuang Yun walked confidently onto the stage amid Lin Yiwen’s applause.

She adjusted the microphone, her expression resolute.

“Hello, everyone! I am from Cloud-Hidden Abbey in Five-Ox Village, Muggle Street, Xiaoxiang County, Lu City, District Eleven. You are all welcome to visit our temple and study there when you have the opportunity...”

“Finally, I would like to say this!”

“The champion of next year’s Winston Tournament will definitely belong to Tianfu Imperial Academy!”

The video soon spread throughout Tianfu Imperial Academy. Not only did everyone on campus come to know about it, but it was also frantically clicked on across the forums of other military academies, with its view count rapidly surpassing ten thousand.

“Just another clown seeking attention.”

“She’s only a freshman, yet she’s already making such wild claims. She’ll be lucky if she can even qualify for the tournament.”

“She’s merely a defeated opponent. Besides, I heard that Tianfu Imperial Academy has an especially poor intake of students this year. It’ll be difficult—extremely difficult!”

The next day, Zhuang Yun arrived at her new class. There were a hundred students, and not one of them failed to recognize her.

Zhuang Yun, for her part, recognized someone familiar as well: the girl she had seen in the District Eleven testing hall last time, Su Qingtian.

During the first month of the new term, the Armored Infantry Department began physical training.

For the first five days, Class Monitor Li Yun led everyone through basic stretching and other conditioning exercises.

After class, Zhuang Yun went to the library to study, and her days passed in perfect comfort.

Lin Yiwen’s instructor had high hopes for him and assigned him an extremely demanding schedule. He was busy studying as well and had no time to see Zhuang Yun.

On the sixth day, someone finally arrived.

“New recruits of the Armored Infantry Department, good morning! I am your instructor, Deng Long!”

“You are reserve soldiers of the Imperial Federation. As soldiers, you must obey orders!”

Zhuang Yun had grown accustomed to idleness. She gazed around at the vast training grounds, looking this way and that.

Instructor Deng noticed her from the corner of his eye. He had not expected a freshman to be slacking off already. Raising his voice, he shouted:

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“Next, I will put you through physical training. This will lay a solid foundation for controlling your mechs more effectively in the future!”

“Go over there and collect your gear. Put on your step counters. No slacking! Run forty kilometers around the field!”

“No one eats until the course is finished!”

Zhuang Yun weighed the equipment in her hands. It was only about thirty pounds.

Forty kilometers? With her lightness skills, it would be effortless.

However, Zhuang Qitong had told her that no one in this era knew lightness skills. Unless absolutely necessary, she must not reveal her cultivation, lest she be taken away for human experimentation. Apparently, they would slice a person into pieces for that sort of thing.

Zhuang Yun felt the hairs on her body stand on end.

Afterward, she made up her mind. To be safe, she would run directly behind the first student, keeping close enough that no one would suspect her.

The sun was blazing overhead.

Li Yun had always ranked first in physical fitness at the Mech Preparatory Academy, and he had surpassed the second-place student by an overwhelming margin.

He had even won the junior long-distance running championship.

But today, he was especially annoyed. No matter how much he accelerated, the distance between him and Zhuang Yun behind him remained no more than a single step.

Tentatively, he slowed down.

Zhuang Yun slowed down as well.

Forget it. Run! Shake her off!

Yet Zhuang Yun remained right behind him...

The other students were panting desperately. Some who could no longer continue had already collapsed and been carried away.

Zhuang Yun calculated the time. The dining hall opened at five, but at this pace with Li Yun, it would probably be six before they finished. The dining hall would be closing by then, leaving nothing but leftovers!

So Zhuang Yun called lightly from behind him, “Class Monitor, could you run a little faster?”

Li Yun: “...?”

Had someone actually called him slow?

She had actually looked down on him!

During the final ten kilometers, Li Yun’s pace slowed considerably, though compared with the students sprawled in misery all over the distant track, he was still doing remarkably well.

Gritting his teeth, Li Yun launched into a final sprint.

He snatched up the nutrient drink on the table, gulped it down, replenished his energy, and kept running.

“The first-place student is pretty good,” Instructor Deng remarked to his assistant.

“The second-place student is a girl. She’s not bad either.”

“I’m not so sure about that. If she hadn’t had someone leading the way in front of her, she might not have held out.” Instructor Deng looked at Zhuang Yun’s utterly unconcerned expression. She really was asking to be beaten.

Li Yun finished at five-thirty. Sweat streamed down his cheeks, his training uniform was soaked through, and he lay on the ground gasping heavily, his legs trembling faintly.

Li Yun raised his head and looked toward Zhuang Yun.

She appeared completely relaxed, her breathing steady. A slight sheen of sweat covered her skin, but her clothes remained neat, and unlike Li Yun, there were no traces of spilled nutrient drink across her chest.

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“You didn’t drink any nutrient solution the entire time?!”

When Zhuang Yun heard the class monitor ask, she replied, “No. That stuff tastes awful.”

Li Yun: “!!!”

Instructor Deng removed Li Yun’s step counter and praised him. “Well done! You broke the academy team record!”

In truth, Li Yun felt that if Zhuang Yun had not stayed a single step behind him for the entire run, he could never have maintained such an all-out pace from beginning to end.

“Instructor Deng, I’ve finished! Can we eat now?!” Zhuang Yun’s delighted voice sounded exceptionally out of place on a training ground filled with groans of resentment.

Instructor Deng gave a cold snort. “You’re finished, but look at the others! You’re a collective. You must learn to advance and retreat together.”

At that, Zhuang Yun collapsed helplessly onto the ground.

After getting back to her feet, Zhuang Yun quickly became a cheerleader, shouting encouragement with great enthusiasm beside her classmates.

“Bleed and sweat, but never shed tears! Lose skin and flesh, but never fall behind!”

“Come on, come on! For the honor of the Federation! For the future of our homeland!”

The exhausted Li Yun lay on the ground, watching Zhuang Yun’s boundless energy. He could only sigh at his own inferiority. Then he got up and joined her cheering squad.

Spurred on by Zhuang Yun and the others, the entire class finally completed the run at six-thirty.

Instructor Deng was somewhat astonished. In previous years, when he assigned new students the same task, they usually did not finish until seven or eight o’clock. He had not expected this year’s class to complete it both earlier and better than any before them. Hadn’t he heard that the quality of this year’s recruits was worse?

“Very well. Dismissed!”

The moment Zhuang Yun heard the word “dismissed,” she hurried straight to the dining hall.

Sure enough, scarcely any dishes remained at the serving windows.

For a moment, Zhuang Yun felt like crying.

Lin Yiwen had heard that the Armored Infantry students were conducting an endurance drill on the field that day. The scene had reportedly descended into chaos, with one student after another being carried away on stretchers, and he was deeply worried.

So he skipped lunch and took no break, working as quickly as he could. He finally completed his assignment ahead of schedule and prepared to check on Zhuang Yun, whom he had not seen for five days.

When he reached the training field and looked around, he saw many people lying motionless on the ground—but not Zhuang Yun.

“Oh no. Could Zhuang Yun really have been carried away on a stretcher?”

Su Qingtian, who was lying on the ground, recognized Lin Yiwen. “They could carry away anyone else, but never her! She went to the dining hall. She just left.”

“Thank you!”

When Lin Yiwen reached Zhuang Yun’s favorite meat counter, he spotted her at once—

her face filled with disappointment.