It was ten o'clock at night.
The dormitory lights were still on.
The Divine Power School had an extremely relaxed approach to management.
There was no set bedtime.
As long as students didn't miss their classes the next day, they could go to bed whenever they liked.
"This is a super-powerful electromagnetic gun. It has five rounds in total. Each round delivers a powerful electric shock to whatever it hits, with a current as strong as the power grid around the city."
Fang Cheng showed Dong Kai and Xu Dazhuang the secret weapon he had brought.
Dong Kai's eyes lit up. "That must have cost a fortune, right?"
"It was all right, pretty average. Compared to this, it was much cheaper." He took a button out of his pocket. "This thing is also called a miniature nuclear bomb. To use it, you press it, then throw it hard against the ground, and it explodes. I've never used it myself, but I think it should be powerful enough to blow up our dorm room without any trouble."
Xu Dazhuang's face twitched. "You'd better put something that dangerous away."
"Is this the power of money?" Dong Kai was dying to know just how much Fang Cheng had brought. "How much more do you have?"
"Not that much." Fang Cheng pulled a suitcase out from under the bed and opened it. "Only twenty or thirty things."
Xu Yun and Dong Kai's eyelids twitched in succession.
"You call that not much? Can you give me a couple?!"
"No!" Fang Cheng refused outright. "These things are essential to keeping me alive. But if you help me with something, I could consider giving each of you one."
Duan Ming, who was sitting at his computer, turned to look at the three of them whispering together.
Uh... this was the first time he had seen anyone smile so lewdly...
Knock, knock, knock-!
Someone was knocking at the door.
All four of them looked toward the dorm room door at once.
"Who is it, this late at night?" Xu Yun went over to open it.
"Probably the guys next door again. Those four have nothing better to do than knock on our door and run away." Dong Kai grabbed a mop. "A wet mop, a god descends! Stay there if you've got the guts!"
The door opened.
Standing outside was Du Qinggang!
Xu Yun's expression turned extremely ugly.
After all, he had been tormented by this man plenty lately.
"Teacher... Teacher Xu."
Xu Yun turned to look at the three people in the room.
"Um... where's Duan Ming? I heard he's living on campus. Have him come out for a moment." Du Qinggang took the cigarette out of his mouth. "I need him for something."
Duan Ming stood up in confusion and went outside the room.
"You there, student, you're pretty diligent. Mopping the floor this late instead of sleeping. You deserve praise," Du Qinggang said to Dong Kai.
Dong Kai's face turned red, and he hurriedly hid the mop behind his back.
"All right, carry on. I need Duan Ming for something."
As he spoke, Du Qinggang gave Duan Ming a malicious smile. "Kid, you're in luck. I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Duan Ming thought for a moment. "The bad news first."
After all, if the news really was bad, at least there would be good news to fall back on.
"No, you'd better hear the good news first. Otherwise, the bad news will be hard for me to tell you."
Duan Ming's face filled with black lines. "All right, go ahead."
"I need to take care of something outside the city, and I'm planning to take you with me."
Uh...
"That's good news?"
"How is it not?" Du Qinggang took a solemn drag on his cigarette. "First-year freshmen like you rarely get a chance to go out and temper yourselves. Come with me, and you'll have a chance to experience some of the dangers out in the wild. So, are you interested?"
No matter how Duan Ming looked at it, it didn't seem like good news.
"What's the bad news, then?"
"The bad news is, I might not be able to protect you the whole time we're out there. If you run into danger, you'll have to deal with it yourself."
Duan Ming shook his head. "Forget it. I'm not going."
Going out did offer a chance to temper himself.
But he didn't have a hole in his head.
It wasn't as though he didn't know how dangerous the wild was.
If he was lucky, the monsters he ran into might be on the same level as a Human-Faced Arachnid.
If he was unlucky, they might not even need to buy him a coffin.
"You're not too scared to go, are you?" Du Qinggang began trying to goad him. "You've killed a Human-Faced Arachnid, yet now you don't even dare go out into the wild. Tsk, tsk, seems you don't have much courage after all. Forget it. Since you're too scared, I'll go alone."
With that, Du Qinggang turned to leave.
"Okay, take care."
Those words nearly made Du Qinggang fall over.
Why wouldn't this kid respond to either carrot or stick?
"Come on, come on, I'll protect you." Du Qinggang grabbed Duan Ming's hand. "Are you kidding me? You'll be with a Divine Power Master who has five Divine Marks. What the hell are you afraid of?!"
"Wait, let me get my blade!!"
On the school field.
Duan Ming climbed into the front passenger seat of a jeep.
"Teacher Du, you're going out into the wild wearing slippers?"
"What's wrong?" Du Qinggang started the car. "Are my slippers bothering you?"
"Mm... a little..." Duan Ming silently covered his nose.
The car drove out of the city.
It headed toward the power grid.
Ten kilometers later, the car stopped at a sentry post beside the grid.
Du Qinggang held his Divine Mark Association badge out the window.
When the two men from the City Protection Bureau saw it, they opened the gate in the grid.
"Is that guy really from the Divine Mark Association?" A young man pressed the button to close the gate. "Why does he look like a deliveryman to me?"
"That power grid is so tall."
It was also Duan Ming's first time getting this close to the power grid.
He pulled his head back in through the window and watched the surroundings warily for any movement.
"Don't worry. People patrol near the grid all the time, so there generally aren't any powerful monsters around. As for weaker ones, they generally don't even dare approach the grid." Du Qinggang lit a cigarette, keeping one hand steady on the steering wheel.
"Where exactly are we going?" Duan Ming looked outside. "We're already beyond the grid."
"To catch a wanted criminal!"
"A wanted criminal?"
"That's right, an A-rank wanted criminal!"
A kilometer later, several dead trees blocked the road ahead of the car.
Engine off, out of the car!
Duan Ming gripped the cold blade in his hand tightly and watched his surroundings warily.
"Don't worry. Although this area is a restricted zone, there are hardly ever any monsters around here. We'd have to go at least another eight hundred meters in before running into any." Du Qinggang suddenly slapped a hand on Duan Ming's shoulder, took a drag on his cigarette, and looked toward the wooded mountain on the right. "This way."
This place had once been a small town, but after the monsters appeared, everyone had long since left.
Over hundreds of years, the town had disappeared without a trace beneath the encroaching greenery.
They continued onward, and Duan Ming spotted a campfire in a large clearing ahead.
Hm?
A fire?
The lone fire stood out clearly in the pitch-black night.
But there wasn't a soul in the clearing.
There was only a piece of meat roasting over the campfire, giving off a peculiar aroma.
Duan Ming looked at a monster's corpse not far away.
Hm? A monster's corpse? Who would eat monster meat?
"Come out. Stop hiding."
Du Qinggang had a cigarette in his mouth and one hand on his hip.
Rustle, rustle, rustle-!
The footsteps of two people came from the darkness.
The ones who emerged were a man with a face full of scars and a young man in his early twenties.