Chapter 701: My Own Rhythm

Leaving Ninglan New City, I once again threw myself into the role of the teaching assistant.

Last night, I took advantage of a loophole to return to the city for the night, but now that this matter was spreading, it would be difficult to do so in the following days.

Of course, it wasn't just difficult for me, but for all the teaching assistants like me.

The difference was that I had enjoyed one night, but they hadn't enjoyed even one.

And reality was indeed as I had guessed.

After I exposed my identity at the city gate, Ninglan New City, although not crowded in the morning, nearly exploded!

The incident was even spread on the special website of the Plant Network, causing widespread discussion.

However, that was not my concern; I only needed to manage myself.

Last night, I thought a lot.

About what I should do, and what I came here for.

Did I come here deliberately to repay a favor to Teacher Lina?

Or to monitor the stability of the Myriad Connection Main Network Tree and the power network?

In fact, ever since I signed the contract, all these reasons have become mere excuses.

With such a large Myriad Connection Main Network Tree laboratory team in charge here, did they really still need me to be responsible for this project?

No, they did not.

Therefore, my initial purpose for coming here was to accept a test.

As for the specific content of the test, I would put that aside for the moment and first consider what I could gain from it.

Was it to eliminate the complacency bred by the continuous success and smoothness of the past year?

Was it to sharpen the combat awareness that I currently lacked?

Or was it to make me realize that there was no such thing as absolute power?

These answers, which seemed like solutions, were filled with questions.

But these were the questions I pondered over the most.

Before the joint exam, I had already considered these questions and arrived at similar answers, but I always felt in my heart that something was… not quite right.

It wasn't until this morning that I finally understood.

I was always looking at things from others' perspectives, thinking about what others needed me to understand, but I had never considered what I truly needed from my own standpoint.

After an entire day of being chased yesterday, I realized many issues, and the people chasing me were the same.

Life is not just about pursuit and escape; there are more meaningful things.

What is a more meaningful thing?

It is the right to freely engage in combat with opponents I enjoy.

Fighting those students now is not worthwhile, and fighting a large group of students is meaningless, because I am still immersed in low-quality duels.

I predicted that I would be chased by a large group of people.

I had already foreseen their actions and figured out the underlying logic and self-interest of their pursuit, yet I still wasted energy on them.

Fighting those people all day long, chasing and fighting, lasted so long, but the experience gained from these battles was not even as memorable as the few exchanges when I was ambushed at the very beginning of the joint exam.

Although those three people were not very strong, the impression they left on me was profound.

If those two people hadn't immediately chosen to run away, but had continued to stubbornly confront me, it would have definitely been a battle that was not so hastily concluded.

I should not expect the mentors to arrange anything for me, nor should I bother thinking about their intentions.

I should follow my own rhythm.

Just as the principle I realized earlier: I should not be overly distracted and focused on my enemies, and similarly, I should not let my friends or mentors interfere with my rhythm.

If there are no opponents now, then I will seek them out myself.

If individual students are not strong enough to help me grow, then I'll look for teaching assistants.

If teaching assistants are not enough, then I'll confront Mutated Beast packs directly…

The world will not cater to me, so I must find my own rhythm.

"Is that Teaching Assistant Xiao Han?"

While hurrying forward, I would always casually encounter students.

"Yes, you have encountered Boss Xiao Han. Do you want to make a move? If not, I'll continue on my way."

I looked at them and called out to them as if in jest.

After all, they were a five-person team, and the team's class composition was quite diverse.

"Huh? Big Sis Xiao Han, aren't you going to make a move on us?" 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Well, if I were to be honest… I'm too lazy to make a move?"

I shrugged and said truthfully.

"It's a rare opportunity… Should we make a move?"

These five people were clearly very eager to try.

And by the looks of them, they probably hadn't participated in the teaching assistant hunt yesterday, and had been hunting Mutated Beasts step-by-step instead.

"I heard that Teaching Assistant Xiao Han was chased all day yesterday and no one caught her. The five of us… we have a numerical advantage. I think we can try."

"I also think we can try."

"Fine! Then it's decided!"

"Wait, aren't you going to ask for our opinions?"

At this time, the other two girls in the team of five spoke.

"It's already 3/5. Alright… so do the two of you want to try?"

"Of course, we want to try!"

"So, do the two of you have any dissatisfaction with the decision I just agreed to?"

The leader of the group slapped her own face, as if she had just asked a stupid question.

"So you have decided to challenge me, right?"

I also asked at this moment, then grasped the Book in the Casket in my hand.

"Yes, we have decided! We want to try and challenge you!"

As the girl holding the greatsword, who was the leader, finished speaking, the four behind her also took up their prepared stances.

"Let us see your strength, Teaching Assistant Xiao Han!"

The five of them looked at the health bar above my head, and everyone was eager to try!

As if they possessed some kind of mysterious confidence.

Five minutes later…

Five figures opened their eyes within the mentor's Resurrection Formation, their eyes still holding a moment of clear confusion.

"Who was the one who first suggested challenging Xiao Han just now?"

"Not me."

"It wasn't me either. Don't look at me."

"The five of you, return to the safety zone after death, check in, and leave the city again. Also, there's a scoring deduction. Don't harbor any lazy thoughts of not following the rules, otherwise, any action to gain scoring during this period will not be counted in your personal score."

The resurrecting mentors explained to the crowd and then vanished.

And I, having left the scene, was awarded a five-hour Wanted order.

However, besides the five-hour Wanted order, I did have other gains, such as… unlocking the fifth skill, "Wound Cleaning," which was a healing spell.

The consumption for that powerful healing spell, similar to the Flesh and Blood Healing Spell, was simply too high.

Therefore, the power network's healing-type spell only offered Wound Cleaning.

But a simple Wound Cleaning spell had the effects of rapid impurity removal, sterilization, pain relief, and minor healing.

It was indeed very effective against general injuries, especially for cleaning out embedded stones, wood splinters, and so on from a wound.

It even had a certain effect on bruises, necrotic tissue, and minor wound poisoning.

This spell belonged to the category of all-purpose spells.

Even for students with Undying Nature, this spell still had a significant effect.

After all, wound conditions are complex and varied, and this spell could quickly provide favorable conditions for the Undying Nature to self-heal and recover.

Otherwise, no one would want to suffer a serious injury, have the wound contact the ground, become contaminated with dust, stones, and small fragments, and then have it recover into the body under the effect of Undying Nature, right?

The mere thought of that situation made one's scalp tingle.

Then, depending on the body's condition, relying on the self-healing ability to gradually push out those foreign objects from the body would be even more uncomfortable.

Although the battle just now seemed easy to win, I could still feel the pressure brought by a multi-person team with good coordination.

Moreover, a five-person team was not a large number of people, and the class composition was reasonable to a certain extent.

The deterrent power of this kind of team was much stronger than that large group of rabble who chased me all over the mountain back then.

Yes, I classified that large group of people as "rabble."

More people does not necessarily mean greater power.

Even if people like Tan Han and Lucianne were mixed into that crowd, I would still not be afraid, because the team would drag them down.

But a five-person team and their coordination were different.

For example, the team just now had already forced me to use my Time Sense.

And the main reason was… the speed of combat reaction.

The combat styles of the five of them were all different, but they had basic coordination.

If I previously thought of combat as merely power plus reaction speed, then now, under the restrictions, I understood one more thing, and that was… rhythm.

The combat rhythm of those five people was different, but their mutual cooperation could easily break my rhythm.

Just one unexpected move that exceeded my reaction speed, and I would be overwhelmed by the opponent in terms of rhythm.

And the initial form of my Time Sense, which provided me with extra reaction time, also made me realize one thing: ample reaction time is for giving yourself time to adjust your combat rhythm, not just for thinking of countermeasures.

So, after experiencing this battle, in order to repay them for the revelation they gave me, I also used my strongest posture to thoroughly defeat them.

Originally, I wanted to spare their lives.

After all, I didn't want to carry the burden of a five-hour Wanted order, but the inspiration they gave me made it worthwhile.

They were just a team of people I had no impression of!

But they were already able to pose a threat to me.

This was indeed a good warning for me.

However, a five-person team that could restrain themselves from pursuing shortcuts in the beginning was formidable in itself.

After leaving that place, I had been reviewing the brief battle just now.

It seemed that I had found the right method.

I should be fighting against high-quality teams like this, not those rabble.

Just as I demonstrated to Mentor Cheryl: since I had already predicted what those people would do to me, I shouldn't walk into their encirclement.

That group of rabble was driven by low-level self-interest, so I could use this pattern to evade them.

My goal was never them, but to find those who broke from the norm and truly had ability, by surprising them on the path of evading the rabble.

They were the ones worthy of a fight with me.

Coincidentally, I was now under a Wanted order.

Although it was a bit outside of the plan, I also had my own countermeasures.

The best way to stop those people was… Mutated Beasts.

Rather than letting them consume my energy, I would let the Mutated Beasts consume theirs.

It would also help them discover hunting targets.

Furthermore, don't forget that many Mutated Beast packs in the Expansion Realm have my clones.

I used the Mimetic Soul Technique, Reincarnation Spell, and some derivative techniques from the Great Tree of Knowledge, such as some techniques of the Shadow of Knowledge, to refine the consciousness communication of these clones when I made them.

After all, I wasn't trying to become a real Mutated Beast.

Therefore, those Mutated Beast clones were very different from ordinary clones.

They were more like my synchronous perception, while the physical actions were still driven by the Mutated Beast's instinct.

To use a very illustrative analogy, it was like playing a "Mutated Beast simulator."

I had complete control over the movement of this Mutated Beast clone.

If I wanted to move forward, it was entirely based on the Mutated Beast's instinctive behavior pattern to move forward, and I didn't actually need to learn how to walk on four limbs to control the Mutated Beast's actions.

And I also had an automatic idling mode.

The current contract restricted my Transcendent powers, but I only temporarily lost the ability to control the clones.

Currently, all the clones are still acting normally in "idling" mode.

But I could still perceive the basic information from the clones, such as where there were large Mutated Beast packs…

I could use this information in advance to effectively prevent them from finding me.

Even if the examinees had my precise location tracking, running into a Mutated Beast pack on the shortest straight line to my location was not something they could easily disengage from.

If they truly wanted to disengage, then that large group would fall apart.

Scattered individual examinees posed no threat to me.

So, after making this decision, the examinees who chased me using the Wanted order's location tracking were truly blessed.

In a short five hours, they were led on a chase by me for two hours.

Those two hours were the time it took me to leave the area surrounding Ninglan New City.

In the remaining three hours, they encountered two medium-sized Mutated Beast packs.

Don't ask why there wasn't a third wave, because after the second wave, the combined crowd had mostly dispersed.

Don't underestimate the Mutated Beasts in the Ninglan area.

Mutated Beasts that are still alive and active in this region generally have some intelligence.

Perhaps their combat power is not the absolute top-tier, but they are definitely the most resilient and the most aggressive.

And the Mutated Beasts outside the Ninglan area were even more formidable.

Due to the alliance of seven cities in the Ninglan area, there were no large Mutated Beast packs here anymore.

But for the areas outside the Ninglan area, where there were not many natural enemies, the Mutated Beasts felt like they were in paradise.

After the Wanted order's tracking time had passed, I finally had some free time.

"It's really interesting… sigh, the network really is a major time sink."

I looked at the information on the Seed of Knowledge, stretching my back on a tree.

After the Seed of Knowledge interconnected with the Myriad Connection Main Network Tree, it wasn't just the power network that was shared, but naturally also the Plant Network.

And the Seed of Knowledge also interconnected with the Academy Network, otherwise, it couldn't obtain and replace the function of a mobile phone's operating system.

The coverage of the Academy Network in the current Expansion Realm was not large, but the Plant Network already covered the entire world.

Therefore, on the Plant Network, someone had specially created a temporary communication website for the joint exam hunt.

After all, hunting relies on intelligence.

Where the prey is requires intelligence support, not luck.

The academy did not discourage this method.

Making flexible use of newly acquired tools was also a sign of a student's ability and performance.

Furthermore, the academy also synchronized the locations of some of the special creature groups they released onto this website, which was a form of official recognition from the academy.

However, I only read these materials and posts for fun.

A large amount of information was constantly being born or disappearing on the Plant Network every moment.

It was just that some of it was useful, and some of it was not.

"Found it."

After clicking on a post and seeing the photos uploaded on it, I clapped my hands and jumped down from the tree.

My busyness this morning made me realize one thing: blindly evading was not very useful.

Only by actively taking the initiative could I encounter opponents worthy of a fight.

"Although I didn't see Tan Han, Lucianne… hmm, she's conveniently not too far from me."