Ten seconds passed in a flash.
Boom!
An indescribably vast surge of energy appeared out of nowhere inside his body.
Then it felt as though countless sharp little knives were scraping the impurities from his bones, bit by bit.
Su Ye clenched his teeth hard, veins bulging on his forehead as cold sweat poured off him like a waterfall.
Great Xia had already told him that breaking through to First Tier required marrow cleansing and meridian purging, and that the process would be somewhat painful.
Besides that, his mental sea was changing too. His previously indistinct mental power now became clearer and more acute.
Only after roughly half an hour did the tearing agony recede like the tide.
Su Ye slowly opened his eyes. He could feel that he had improved enormously in every respect, and his mental perception had grown stronger as well.
[System notification: Player breakthrough to First Tier detected. Skill Bar unlocked.] [Player]: Su Ye [Nickname]: Never Checks the Fuel Gauge [Race]: Humanity [Status]: Healthy [Tier]: First Tier [Physique]: 11.5 (Base 10 + Vest 1 + Strength Bracer 0.5) [Mental]: 12 (Base 10 + Necklace 1 + Headscarf 1) [Talent]: Unawakened [Skills]: None
"I finally reached First Tier."
A smile spread across Su Ye's face as his gaze settled on the bottom of the panel.
"I've got a Skill Bar now, too. I can start learning skills, though skill drops seem pretty hard to come by during the Beginner Period."
Su Ye was no stranger to skills.
The fierce blade ray Zhou Chang had unleashed on the first day had been a skill.
He had also told Su Ye that only after reaching First Tier could the body and mind withstand a skill's imprint, allowing someone to start learning skills.
There were many ways to obtain skills, but they were all difficult during the Beginner Period.
Zhou Chang had also said that skills couldn't be learned indiscriminately. It mainly depended on one's tier and mental attribute.
The higher one's tier and mental attribute, the more skills one could learn.
Players who had just broken through to First Tier could learn no more than two skills.
"There's no rush to get skills. I can ask Great Xia for help once the Beginner Period ends."
"It'd be best to wait until my talent awakens, then have them work out which skills I should learn."
Su Ye then looked down at himself. The impurities expelled during marrow cleansing and meridian purging had coated him in a layer of black liquid that reeked horribly.
With a thought, he immediately left the Training Room and returned to the driver's seat. After bringing the car to a stop, he pushed open the door and got out.
The night wind outside carried a hint of desolation and chill.
Su Ye took a huge bucket of water from his Storage Ring, stripped off his dirty clothes, and lifted the bucket, pouring the water over himself from head to toe.
Once he had rinsed himself clean, Su Ye changed into fresh clothes. Instead of returning to the driver's seat, he went to lie down on the bed in the rear compartment.
He had worn himself out all day. It was time for a good rest.
The Gale Ranger's engine let out a low, steady rumble once more. The car continued driving automatically, moving smoothly forward into the deep night.
The next day was also the fifth day of Road Survival.
Su Ye woke early that morning and stretched, feeling that all of last night's exhaustion had vanished.
Outside the window, the first pale light had just touched the gray horizon, and a thin, chilly mist hung over the desolate road.
The Gale Ranger was still driving smoothly on its own.
"Stop."
At Su Ye's thought, the Gale Ranger came to a steady stop by the roadside.
He got out, and the biting morning wind struck his face. Taking a deep breath, Su Ye retrieved clean water and toiletries from his Storage Ring and quickly washed up.
While washing, Su Ye opened the Mileage Leaderboard.
His eyes immediately lit up at what he saw.
[Fifth place: Never Checks the Fuel Gauge. Mileage: 22,951 kilometers.]
Between yesterday's daytime driving and the entire night, he had covered more than nine thousand kilometers.
His gaze moved upward.
[First place: Ling Yue. Mileage: 23,645 kilometers.]
Ling Yue had covered more than seven thousand kilometers yesterday, an equally impressive pace. But with Su Ye's nearly nonstop Autopilot, the gap between them had shrunk dramatically.
"At this rate, I'll overtake Ling Yue today and claim first place."
Today was the fifth day, and three days remained in the Beginner Period.
With his current level-twelve Vehicle and its tireless Autopilot function, once he pulled ahead, Ling Yue wouldn't stand a chance of catching him again, even if he stomped the accelerator all the way into the fuel tank.
After washing up, Su Ye returned to the car and took out the Mutant Crocodile meat Mo Yu had given him yesterday from his Storage Ring.
As soon as he ate the crocodile meat, however, Su Ye sensed a faint stream of warmth moving through his body.
But after he waited a moment, no system notification appeared announcing an increase in attribute points.
"Looks like once you reach First Tier, meat from low-level Mutant Beasts like this can no longer increase your attributes directly."
Su Ye understood.
That was perfectly normal. If eating low-level meat let people stack their attributes indefinitely, this Survival Game would have fallen into chaos long ago.
Although it couldn't increase his attributes, this Mutant Beast meat was still good for restoring stamina and staving off hunger.
"Time to go."
Su Ye started the car.
One hundred kilometers per hour... three hundred... five hundred!
When the speedometer needle settled firmly at five hundred kilometers per hour, Su Ye activated the [Sprint] function without hesitation.
Double speed!
Vroom!
The car shuddered violently, and the surrounding scenery instantly stretched into blurred streaks.
Its speed shot past one thousand kilometers per hour.
The acceleration pinned Su Ye to his seat, but his First Tier physique could easily withstand the strain. Even his breathing remained steady.
"Still not enough. Triple speed!"
His speed soared to fifteen hundred kilometers per hour.
Wind howled outside the windows with a piercing shriek. The Gale Ranger seemed to turn into a streak of black lightning, tearing through the air along the road.
"Quadruple speed!"
Boom!
The instant it broke the sound barrier, a deep sonic boom erupted behind the car.
Two thousand kilometers per hour.
Only now did Su Ye finally begin to feel some pressure.
The scenery outside had become completely impossible to make out. Only the straight road ahead remained, a gray-white ribbon of light hurtling backward.
At this speed, even a tiny pebble on the road could cause a devastating disaster.
But his mental attribute of twelve played an enormous role at that moment, pushing his dynamic vision and reflexes to their limits.
"I can go even faster!"
Rather than activating quintuple speed, Su Ye pressed down on the accelerator.
Twenty-five hundred kilometers per hour... twenty-eight hundred... three thousand!
When his speed reached three thousand kilometers per hour, Su Ye felt his nerves stretched to their limit.
His heartbeat thundered through his chest, and his brain worked furiously to process the constantly changing road conditions ahead.
"I can't go any faster."
Su Ye kept his eyes fixed ahead, a trace of cold sweat seeping onto his forehead.
Any faster, and his body might hold up, but his reflexes wouldn't keep pace. If anything unexpected happened, he wouldn't have time to turn the wheel.
"This should do. I can still cover five hundred kilometers in ten minutes."
Su Ye calculated rapidly in his head. Using Sprint three times a day will let me cover another fifteen hundred kilometers.
Ten minutes of driving flat out at his limit took an enormous mental toll.
Along the way, dots flickered on the Radar, and Su Ye encountered several monsters roaming the road.
But he didn't even consider slowing down. He simply flashed past at terrifying speed.
Those monsters wouldn't drop anything good anyway. They were nothing but a waste of time.
[Ding! Sprint duration ended!]
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