The next day, a new lesson began.
Everyone arrived at the training ground. Teacher Li Qingcheng still presided over the day's lesson, with the other teachers assisting.
This entire week would consist of Teacher Li Qingcheng's practical combat training.
Jiang Ziliu saw two red lines stretching from the clearing deep into the forest.
Clearly, the teachers must have laid them out last night or early this morning.
"Your task today is jogging practice!"
Teacher Li announced the focus of today's training.
"Do you see those two red lines? The strip between them is the route you'll follow for your running practice. As everyone knows, beast tamers often need to travel long distances through the wilderness. Even running for your lives requires the ability to cover long distances."
"All sorts of accidents could leave your contracted beasts unable to carry you. If you want to survive out here, you'll have to rely on your own two legs."
"I'm sure you all understand why this training is necessary!"
"Start now!"
Everyone in the class had long expected that they would have a bitter pill to swallow today. Sure enough, not only did they have to endure the stench on their bodies, but they also had to continue their grueling training.
Jiang Ziliu and the others who had escaped disaster yesterday ran at the front. The others smelled too strongly and started running at the rear after a short interval.
Even with Li Wanqiu, the class beauty, among them, Jiang Ziliu could still sense the other students' resentment toward their group.
It couldn't be helped. One group stank, while the other had no odor whatsoever.
The sting of comparison was always there.
The whole class had now invisibly split into two groups: those who smelled and those who didn't.
But soon, nobody had the energy to think about anything else.
The teachers had no intention of letting these students take a normal route. After entering the forest, the first thing they had to cross was a stretch of weeds and thorn bushes.
Teachers were supervising from the side, too. They had to go through it.
The weeds were manageable. At worst, they made walking a little harder and left grass seeds and the like clinging to their bodies.
The thorn bushes were terrifying. There was very little space between them, yet the students had to hurry through under the teachers' urging.
These thorn bushes were wild plants nourished by dark energy.
Their thorns made people's skin hurt and itch, and could even scratch it open.
Moving through quickly meant everyone inevitably got scratched. Pain and itching intertwined across their bodies, and they still had to keep jogging. How miserable that felt was easy to imagine.
Even Jiang Ziliu, already a Black Iron Grade lifeform, couldn't avoid falling victim.
His skin wasn't yet tough enough to withstand the scratches and negative effects of these thorns.
But Jiang Ziliu fared somewhat better. He had already experienced such things during his previous time in the wilderness.
Tang Yunu, Li Wanqiu, Chen Zheng, and Hu Yifeng, however, were miserable, wanting to scratch themselves as they ran.
The sensation was unbearably uncomfortable, confirming their suspicions that Li Qingcheng wouldn't let them have an easy time.
They finally made it through this area, only to face a second obstacle.
A wetland!
This was clearly an artificially created stretch of mud. Teachers supervised here as well, and they had to jog through it.
The area was filthy and slippery.
Tang Yunu even slipped and fell several times, while Jiang Ziliu also fell once.
In the end, Tang Yunu and Li Wanqiu supported each other, while Hu Yifeng and Chen Zheng helped one another along, before they finally made it through.
Jiang Ziliu performed much better. He seemed very familiar with terrain like this.
By now, they had left the training camp grounds.
The few at the front had already pulled away from the group behind. Whatever they encountered, those following would suffer the same fate.
Moreover, after they passed through, this wetland would become even more slippery and harder to traverse for those behind them.
The third difficult stretch was a slope.
They had to jog uphill and then back down. Sharp rocks lay everywhere on the slope, and a moment's carelessness could leave them bruised and cut.
The fourth obstacle was a stretch of river between one and one and a half meters deep.
They had to advance upstream for roughly a kilometer through a fairly strong current.
The teachers told them that whether they walked or swam, they had to get through this stretch within the allotted time.
Otherwise, they would be considered to have failed this section of the training.
These results would be compiled and recorded as part of their academic performance for the entire year, affecting their final resource allocations.
So everyone worked hard to find ways to advance against the surging water.
This time, Jiang Ziliu swam. It was faster that way.
If he walked, he would face a greater, fiercer impact from the current and would exhaust himself more easily.
After they passed through, the river became even muddier, making those behind them suffer all the more.
The next obstacle was the most unusual.
They didn't have to run for this one, but they had to cross a grove of relatively short trees.
The teachers had laid a layer of air cushions right in the middle of the grove.
They had to climb up one of three trees at the edge, then leap through the air onto a branch of a second tree.
Or they could move forward like gibbons, grabbing branches and swinging between them.
This part of the training was treetop leaping practice.
It was intended to give these beast tamers the ability to escape through a forest at a dangerous moment.
After all, if they escaped up a tree in a crisis but stayed in that one tree, the exotic beast below might simply snap it in half.
At that point, they needed to know how to leap through the air to other trees to preserve their lives.
Jiang Ziliu chose to advance by leaping, because he felt that method suited him better.
Humans and gibbons were different, after all.
The grove was five hundred meters long. By the time the group finally struggled through it, they were too exhausted to run another step.
Had they not been beast tamers who had already received life feedback from their contracted beasts, elevating and strengthening their level of life, they might not have endured even a tenth of the training.
Fortunately, when they slid down from the last tree, they saw Teacher Li Qingcheng waiting outside the grove.
That meant they had reached the end of this training route.
Once they arrived here, their morning training ended, and everyone rested and ate.
Chen Zheng, who was in the leading group, was rather fat and had the misfortune to fall out of a tree.
But after confirming that he wasn't injured, the supervising teacher drove him back up the tree to continue this stage of the training.
In the special class, there was simply no chance of slacking off unless they truly suffered an injury that made training impossible.
That entire morning, this long-distance cross-country "jog" tormented everyone in the class until they hovered between ecstasy and agony. They had no energy to spare for anything else and could only pray that the training would end sooner.
The afternoon brought another round of training.
Teacher Li Qingcheng prepared wooden swords, wooden sabers, wooden spears, and other weapons, then had everyone put on protective clothing for weapon training in defense and attack.
But this stage wasn't a free-for-all.
They had already received basic instruction in weapon training before awakening their Contract Marks.
Whenever someone's movements, attacks, or defenses were incorrect, or they failed to give their all while attacking or defending, Teacher Li would pull them out and spar with them personally, letting them understand what truly terrifying combat meant!
The training outfits were more than adequate. There was no need to worry about injuries, only considerable pain. Everyone therefore held nothing back, fighting their opponents for all they were worth.
Jiang Ziliu's opponent was his deskmate, Tang Yunu.
He had abundant experience, yet Tang Yunu nearly defeated him. Although his practical combat experience was extensive and he was more ruthless and decisive, his mastery of martial techniques and the caliber of the techniques he possessed were inferior to Tang Yunu's.
Thus, one fought ruthlessly and the other skillfully, ending in a draw.
Both landed several hits on the other, and both experienced pain.
Jiang Ziliu had no intention of holding back. His insensitive, straight-guy behavior also roused Tang Yunu's temper, and her attacks later became tricky and ruthless, giving him a hard time as well.
Over the following week, they practiced long-distance running across varied terrain every morning, then fought one another with weapons and their fists and feet every afternoon.
The routine didn't change. This training continued for an entire week, until those who had been hit no longer smelled.
Only on the final day did everyone learn that after being struck by a Stinky Little Demon Bat's attack, sustained, heavy sweating was the fastest way to eliminate the odor.
Li Qingcheng's arrangements were very sound. After a week, everyone in the class had become far more mature and composed, and their wills had grown resilient through these repeated bouts of "torture."
A certain sharpness also gradually emerged in them, a mark left by their constant, merciless combat against one another.
Li Qingcheng truly was formidable. In just one week, she had brought tremendous growth to the entire class, inside and out.
Now, nobody would let factors such as a little stench affect their judgment, their mental state, or their ability to bring their strength to bear again.
This week of training had been a transformation of everyone's spirit and will!