"What's your name?"
"Xu Ye, Instructor."
"How do you feel?"
"Very... very good..."
Xu Ye lay atop the Cliff, struggling to open one eye and gaze ahead.
The sun was peeking over the horizon.
He had been mistaken. That wasn't the setting sun, but the rising sun, slowly struggling upward. Its golden light spread from the distance toward him, then bathed his entire body.
Xu Ye felt warm, inside and out, as though he had just finished a shower in winter, with no heating, and wrapped himself in his blankets.
First came a shiver, then warmth in his arms and feet, before it finally seeped into his blood and bones.
He let out a deep breath.
A strange power was nourishing him.
He understood that it wasn't his body growing stronger, but his will, his soul...
He felt himself recovering. The strength he had lost surged through his body like a tide, his bones crackling.
It was a kind of transcendence.
Wonderful.
Like surviving a catastrophe.
"What do you think of me?" Yang Chang suddenly asked. Perhaps he had taken a liking to this new recruit. After all, very, very few could climb up through sheer perseverance on their first night.
"Your skin's really pale..." Xu Ye answered instinctively.
Yang Chang stared at him, then burst out laughing. In the sunlight, his face looked wild and arrogant, though his skin was indeed pale.
"I was born that way. No amount of sun ever gives me a tan." Yang Chang's expression suddenly froze, and he fired a shot downward. Some other unlucky bastard had just had his head blown off.
Xu Ye's eyelid twitched.
"Did they tell you I'm crazy?"
"I really am crazy. I've lost control before. Undergone aberration."
"Huh?" Xu Ye was stunned.
"Don't be surprised. We're actually very