In schools, students were often divided into "regular classes" and "elite classes." Likewise, in this joint exploration operation, the prospecting workers were divided into regular and elite groups.
The elite group consisted of Sid, Hops, Ruby, and Dudu.
Each of the four possessed considerable strength. Even Hops, the weakest among them, would not lose to ordinary seasoned adventurers if he got serious—his martial skills were decent enough, and he knew a couple of nature spells. One plus one would most likely be greater than two. In short, though he usually looked rather pathetic, if it truly came down to a fight for his life, ordinary so-called "adventurers" really could not handle him unless they were veterans like Ruby, who had spent more than a decade licking blood from the edge of a blade.
Of course, unless he was at death's door, Hops could not bring out that kind of ability. People could only unleash their true strength when they were forced into a corner with no way out. For example, back when Sui Xiong had worked as an illustrator, he had heard a story: there was a senior illustrator in the industry who normally produced about one painting a week. Once, when he was desperately short of money, he gritted his teeth, cut off all entertainment and socializing, and painted sixteen or seventeen hours a day. In the end, he finished in just two weeks what would normally have taken two months, and the quality was quite high besides.
Although the Northwest Republic Ministry of Mining had arranged such an elite team, it had no intention of letting them actually encounter danger. The arrangement was merely a precaution—so that should they run into a difficult situation, they would have a group of capable hands ready to use.
In fact, their