Lin Xiaoran and Issho finished their instant noodles and rested for a while, then set off again before they had stayed a full hour.
Finally, after an entire afternoon of traveling, it was six in the evening, and the whole city sank into darkness.
From now until six tomorrow morning, all challengers in the game instance could remain in one place for extended periods without being eliminated.
For many challengers, this was a desperately needed period of rest. After all, moving through the fog during the day required constant vigilance and intense concentration, while their hearts were filled with tension and fear. Never mind whether their bodies were tired-their minds were surely already stretched almost to the breaking point!
And today was only the first day. They had only started at noon, so all the challengers had merely been on the move for half a day.
Tomorrow was when the real challenge would begin!
The challengers would encounter ferocious beasts more frequently and start running into other competitors, sending the difficulty soaring!
So, once night fell, the challengers who had spent half a day exhausted and worried could finally rest for a while.
Although ferocious beasts would come out to hunt at night too, potentially putting them in danger, the challengers could still survive safely until the next day as long as they hid inside a reasonably sturdy, well-concealed building.
Unless they insisted on staying outside-that was another matter.
Also, the livestreams would shut off at night.
[Time flew by so fast. The first day is over.]
[Yeah, I'm about to get off work too. Luckily, my boss was watching the livestream as well and didn't notice me slacking off.]
[Who are you? Which company do you work for?!]
[Come on, the challengers affect Country L's national fortune and everyone living here. This is important! We have to watch the livestream!]
[Luckily, we made it through the first day with a scare but no harm done. Student Lin and Uncle Issho did really well! Looking forward to what comes next!]
[Go, Student Lin! Go, Uncle Issho! We've got a really good chance of winning!]
[Good night, Student Lin! Good night, Uncle Issho!]
Although the livestream had gone black, the number of bullet comments had not decreased. Everyone was still chatting and discussing things with fiery enthusiasm.
The most frequently discussed topic was the situation of the other countries' challengers. Everyone was analyzing who was stronger and who posed the greatest threat.
Of course, arguments and disputes with viewers from other countries were unavoidable too.
But Lin Xiaoran could not see any of this.
At that moment, she and Fujitora Issho were preparing dinner inside a reasonably intact and fairly clean house.
Over the afternoon, besides dealing with quite a few ferocious beasts, the two had also picked up plenty of ordinary supplies. Their food included bread, instant noodles, roast meat, claypot rice, cola, mineral water, and even a bottle of the erguotou Fujitora Issho loved drinking!
As for equipment, they had also found a three-piece cooking set and gathered a pot, bowls, a basin, chopsticks, toiletries, and other items, along with plenty of clean water for Lin Xiaoran to wash her face and rinse her mouth that night.
Right, there was somewhere to store all these finds too. Every challenger entering the game received a spatial backpack inside the silver ring on their wrist, specifically for storing the things they picked up. Moreover, the backpack could only be used inside the game. Once the game ended, no matter how much was inside, it would automatically disappear and could not be carried over to the next round.
Issho sat to one side, busy sorting the ingredients. He had already fallen in love with these things called instant noodles, and after hearing Lin Xiaoran say that roast meat and the like tasted even better, he was looking forward to them even more.
Meanwhile, Lin Xiaoran opened the light screen and checked the points rankings.
Without a doubt, thanks to Lin Xiaoran and Issho deliberately seeking out ferocious beasts, she was far ahead with 215 points!
With such a high score, if she won in the end, the national fortune rewards would not be too shabby!
After all, even Andrei, the winner of the previous round, had earned fewer than 300 points!
Yet on her very first day, Lin Xiaoran had already caught up to nearly the same score he had earned over five days of gameplay!!
It was easy to imagine that, by the final day, Lin Xiaoran's points would reach an utterly terrifying number that all the other challengers could hardly even look up to!
And all of this had been achieved because Lin Xiaoran had summoned a powerful Heroic Spirit!
Without Fujitora Issho's tremendous combat strength, never mind killing ferocious beasts-it was questionable whether Lin Xiaoran could even have survived this long!
Most importantly, none of the E-rank and F-rank ferocious beasts they had killed today had made Issho use his full strength! At most, he had only used twenty percent!
Lin Xiaoran thought it would be far too wasteful not to put such powerful combat strength to use. She thought she might be able to go pick a fight with some A-rank ferocious beasts!
As for the other competitors, Lin Xiaoran did not think any of their Heroic Spirits could surpass Fujitora Issho.
One look at the rankings made that clear.
In second place was Park Bu from Country H, with 50 points.
Third was the previous round's winner, Andrei from E Country, with 40 points.
Fourth was Julian Reik from the U.S., with 25 points.
Although the first day's points could not prove anything, they at least offered a small glimpse of how strong their summoned Heroic Spirits were.
Someone like Lin Xiaoran, whose Heroic Spirit was extremely powerful, would find ways to earn as many points as possible and strengthen her country.
If a Heroic Spirit's strength was average or uncertain, the game strategy would focus on ensuring the challenger's own safety while finding ways to eliminate other opponents. Thus, their first-day points would not exceed the normal range. Andrei's situation was probably something like this.
As for those with weak Heroic Spirits, never mind points-even staying alive was a problem. So, by six in the evening on the first day, nearly fifty of the two hundred challengers had already been eliminated!
Lin Xiaoran would not have noticed if she had not checked the rankings!
Whew! Thank goodness I have the system! Lin Xiaoran felt immensely fortunate.
Then Lin Xiaoran stared at Park Bu in second place. "Andrei actually isn't first?" This surprised her too.
Because his Heroic Spirit, the Bear-headed Man, had been very powerful in the previous round!
Then, in this round, he was bound to be even stronger!
Yet despite having such a formidable Heroic Spirit, his score was lower than Park Bu's?
"So, did this Park Bu summon some really powerful Heroic Spirit?" Lin Xiaoran silently made a note of him.
At the same time.
Elsewhere in the instance, Andrei gulped down a large mouthful of liquor, then took a piece of roast meat from the fire in front of him and dug in with relish.
Beside him, his Heroic Spirit, the Barbarian King, was doing the same, taking great bites of meat and great swigs of liquor.
"There are two opponents we'll have to face next. The first is that one called Lin Xiaoran. She earned such a high score on the very first day-her Heroic Spirit must be strong!"
Andrei spoke to the Barbarian King as he ate his roast meat.
"Glug, glug~" The Barbarian King put down his bottle and said dismissively, "What's there to fear! Isn't it just a slightly higher score? If we'd run into more ferocious beasts along the way, our score wouldn't be low either!"
Apart from Lin Xiaoran, who deliberately took detours to seek out ferocious beasts, all the other challengers were advancing normally. Thus, the number of ferocious beasts they encountered was random; the only difference was who had traveled farther.
Park Bu, for example, had relied on his greater numbers and was also riding a horse, so he was now far ahead of everyone else in distance traveled. As a result, he had encountered somewhat more ferocious beasts than Andrei, and his score was naturally higher too.
But Andrei did not know that.
So Park Bu was also one of the people he needed to watch out for.