Chapter 67

Chapter 67 "We can help you with the cutting and processing," said the man holding the dragon-patterned staff, patting his chest confidently. "We're quite experienced at this and can save you a lot of space." They genuinely had no intention of competing with Jiang Tianming and the others for the money. After all, although they had discovered the snake first, it was Jiang Tianming and his team who had defeated it. Without these students, they might have met their demise here. Another important reason was that they simply couldn't defeat these students. Facing opponents they had no chance of beating, it was only natural to comply with their requests. Both emotionally and logically, they had no reason to refuse. Since they weren't planning to refuse, they might as well help them thoroughly. Honestly, the fact that the ones helping them were students was a huge relief to the four of them. What did students represent? Naivety and gullibility, of course. If they were seasoned ability users who frequently took on missions in alternate space, they would have already started extorting them. They wouldn't be as reserved as these students. Hearing that the other party could help with the dissection, Jiang Tianming nodded in agreement. With such a large snake, cutting it up was necessary. They had, of course, learned how to handle nightmare beasts at school, but their skills were still quite rusty. Practicing on smaller nightmare beasts was one thing, but with such a large one, it was better not to waste the materials. Seeing their agreement, the staff guy patted the crew-cut man on the shoulder: "It's your time to shine." However, the crew-cut man ignored him, stubbornly staring at the green-haired woman. The team seemed used to this, and the green-haired woman directly ordered: "Go handle the nightmare snake's corpse." Only after she spoke did the crew-cut man finally spring into action like a robot, walking over and skillfully dissecting the snake with his ability knife. The others took this opportunity to start chatting. Zhao Xiaoyu curiously asked the green-haired woman: "Sister, how did your bow change color earlier?" "You mean this?" The green-haired woman summoned her sleek blue-green bow, which with a flash of pink light transformed into a mini cute pink bow. Zhao Xiaoyu nodded, and the other girls also gathered around. Ling You glanced over a few times, but ultimately couldn't resist her curiosity and coolly approached. "This blue-green bow and pink bow are two forms of my ability, 【Cupid's Arrow】," the green-haired woman didn't mind explaining her ability, as they weren't in a hostile relationship. "The blue-green form is the normal mode, used for attacking enemies. The pink form is the Cupid mode, used for healing." "What an interesting ability!" Mo Xiaotian, who had seamlessly integrated into the girls' group, widened his eyes in amazement, then asked puzzledly, "But what does it have to do with Cupid?" Hearing this, the green-haired woman felt a bit awkward. What she hadn't mentioned earlier was that being hit by her Cupid mode arrow not only provided healing but also temporarily increased the target's favorability towards her. This was the unique aspect of her【Cupid's Arrow】ability. But such an ability was better kept as a hidden trump card, and she naturally wouldn't reveal it. Who would have thought that this seemingly innocent foolish boy would directly hit the key point? Seeing her awkward expression, Zhao Xiaoyu's eyes flickered, and she took the initiative to help her out: "Isn't pink enough for Cupid?" After saying that, she changed the subject: "By the way, all four of you have weapon-related abilities, did you deliberately form a team like this?" "Yes," the green-haired woman gave her a grateful look. "The four of us are classmates, have a good relationship, and all have weapon-related abilities. With close combat, ranged attacks, healing, and defense covered, it was natural to form a team. It's been about four or five years since we graduated, right?" It was indeed common for ability users to form teams with classmates, as they were familiar with each other and knew each other's backgrounds. Many classmates could even become lifelong teammates. After hearing her words, Ai Baozhu sighed with emotion: "That's really nice. I also hope to keep teaming up with my classmates and not separate." The others nodded in agreement. If they could team up with acquaintances, who would want to team up with strangers? As for being a lone wolf, it wasn't impossible. But if an ability user chose to be a lone wolf, they could die outside without anyone knowing. Not far away, Wu Jin stood alone in silence. He had always been this gloomy, and since everyone knew he might have gotten in through connections, no one really approached him. Even if he was related to the principal, the current strongest ability user, so what? Who didn't have their own pride? Of course, Zhou Renjie actually wanted to get closer. If he could build a good relationship with him, it would be beneficial for his family. But Wu Jin was truly unapproachable, always actively avoiding Zhou Renjie whenever he got close. After a few attempts, Zhou Renjie stopped trying to warm up to his cold shoulder. This resulted in Wu Jin, after a month in Class S, only being able to speak with Zhao Xiaoyu and Su Bei. Seeing him rarely staring in the direction of the crowd, Su Bei, with a lollipop he had taken from Mo Xiaotian in his mouth, walked over and asked: "What are you looking at?" Wu Jin's voice was soft, and it was rare for him to utter a complete sentence: "I can smell the scent of affection." "The scent of affection"? Su Bei followed his gaze and saw the pink bow in the green-haired woman's hand. He had naturally heard the green-haired woman's explanation earlier—her ability was called 【Cupid's Arrow】. Now, with Wu Jin saying something like this, combined with Mo Xiaotian's earlier question, Su Bei had already guessed what the green-haired woman had omitted. Would someone hit by the pink arrow fall in love with her? An interesting ability. Su Bei glanced at the crew-cut man. It seemed his unusual behavior earlier was due to being struck by the pink arrow. He couldn't help but think of Wu Jin. That scene in the comic where Wu Jin made his opponent's pupils turn into hearts also seemed related to affection. However, when he later asked the opponent he had defeated, the person claimed to have felt nothing. The trail went cold, and there was no way to investigate further. For now, it was better not to pry into his teammate's secrets. Su Bei thoughtfully withdrew his gaze: "Is affection also an emotion you can sense?" Earlier, Wu Jin had mentioned that he was particularly sensitive to emotions. After a moment of hesitation, Wu Jin nodded: "Yes." "Is that crew-cut man feeling affection for the 【Cupid's Arrow】 user?" Though phrased as a question, Su Bei's tone was matter-of-fact. "Yes." This time, Wu Jin answered quickly. Su Bei smiled and handed him an orange-flavored lollipop as a form of payment: "Let me know if his affection fades. Also, if anyone else develops such feelings, don't forget to tell me." Finally, the snake was processed. Large chunks of dark snake meat were stacked together and packed into several large bags brought by the four-person team. The snake skin was carefully peeled off and set aside, while the blood was stored separately in another bag. It was clear that the crew-cut man was indeed skilled, his technique rivaling that of a professional skinner with years of experience. "The snake blood has medicinal value, and the meat and skin should be sold separately. Here's a price list we've compiled for the current nightmare beast market. Use it as a reference when selling to avoid being scammed." The green-haired woman, clearly intent on helping them to the fullest, provided detailed advice, saving the group a lot of trouble. The group was speechless. While they knew these were fake names, the sheer lack of effort was astounding. Compared to these, the name "Qingqing," which they had initially thought was fake, now seemed the most genuine of the bunch! "We’re heading north," Jiang Tianming laid out the ground rules. "We’re not fixated on hunting nightmare beasts. If you decide to change routes midway, we’ll settle accounts then and there." He had seen the price list Qingqing provided earlier, and it matched what he had seen in the market, so it seemed they weren’t being scammed. "North?" Sister Shield glanced at the sun, puzzled. "What’s in the north?" Jiang Tianming naturally wouldn’t reveal that they suspected a "closed point" might be in that direction. He didn’t know these people well enough to disclose their objective. Discovering a "closed point" could yield significant rewards, and greed could easily lead to betrayal. He didn’t want to risk everything over a careless remark. So Jiang Tianming calmly replied, "Nothing in particular. We just want to traverse the alternate space and see what lies in one direction." Hearing this, Sister Shield chuckled. "You haven’t been to many alternate space, have you? Newcomers always have all sorts of curiosities." She turned to Brother Staff. "What silly things did we do during our first few trips?" Not wanting to embarrass himself, Brother Staff played dumb. "Huh? We’ve always been brilliant. When did we ever do anything silly?" What a shameless response! Sister Shield glared at him before turning back to the group. "Don’t mind him. We were all newcomers once. Since you’re curious, we won’t spoil the surprise. Let’s go!" ***** By noon, they gathered in the shade of a massive rock to prepare lunch. After walking all morning under the scorching sun and defeating several nightmare beasts, everyone’s stomachs were growling. Mo Xiaotian, Brother Blade, and Sister Shield worked together to grill the snake meat, while the others sat down to rest. "Why does it feel like we’re not getting any closer to the edge?" Ai Baozhu wiped the sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief and reapplied sunscreen to her exposed skin. "If you’re trying to reach the edge of the alternate space, you’ve got a long way to go," Qingqing said with a smile. "This place seems pretty vast." Si Zhaohua was also discussing the distance with Su Bei and Jiang Tianming: "The teacher said we’d be staying at the inn tonight, so the 'closed point' can’t be too far." That made sense. Jiang Tianming nodded. "And we only need to discover the 'closed point,' so the test is probably about our observational skills, right?" After saying this, both of them turned to Su Bei. "Why aren’t you saying anything?" Su Bei, deep in thought, replied, "I was thinking... This alternate space has been around for over a year. If the 'closed point' hasn’t been found in all that time, but the teachers found it within a month and believe we can too, there must be something special about it." What Su Bei said was correct. Currently, there were no tools or abilities in the abilities community that could accurately locate "closed points." Therefore, finding them relied entirely on manual effort. The fact that it hadn’t been found in a year was enough to prove that the "closed point" in this alternate space was well-hidden. The teachers likely discovered it within a month because they had noticed some conspicuous marker. The above reasoning was sound, but the question was—"How did you know this alternate space has been open for a year?" Before coming here, they had no idea which alternate space they would be visiting, and such information obviously couldn’t be found online. So, everyone was completely in the dark about this place. Before entering, they didn’t even know the terrain, let alone how long it had existed. Su Bei shrugged, acting nonchalant. "Who knows where I got it from?" Hearing this, the other two didn’t press further. If he didn’t want to say, there was no point in asking. But Jiang Tianming was still pondering the question. Logically, Su Bei should have obtained this information through his ability, as he usually did. If that were the case, he would have casually responded with a "Guess," as he always did, rather than saying he got it from "another source." "Another source" implied an unconventional channel, meaning it wasn’t obtained through his ability. But if it wasn’t his ability, how did he know this information? Watching the two walk away to join their companions, Su Bei lowered his gaze and rubbed the silver ring on his index finger. After a moment, the corners of his mouth curled into a sly smile. Inside the storage space of that silver ring, alongside the snake meat and some talismans, lay a magazine. If Jiang Tianming and the others saw the name of this magazine, they would probably be stunned. Because the magazine was called—"Guide to the Shahai Alternate space." While they were discussing, the others weren’t idle either. They were busy exchanging knowledge about alternate space with Qingqing and her team. Zhao Xiaoyu was sharp and skillfully steered the conversation toward "closed points." Although her reason for cooperating with them wasn’t for this, she had to maintain appearances. "To be honest, in the past four or five years, we’ve only seen a 'closed point' once," Qingqing said with a helpless smile. "And that was during school, when our teacher showed it to us." Sister Shield chimed in, "Yeah, so I told you not to be too curious. Your teachers will usually find opportunities to show you things and broaden your horizons. For example, 'closed points'—from what I know, most schools make sure students get to see one within three years." Zhao Xiaoyu and Wu Mingbai exchanged glances, their eyes filled with bitterness. They weren’t curious—they were being forced into this. Now they understood why today’s mission was like this. It was probably to let them see a "closed point" firsthand. But while other schools had teachers leading students to find them, why were they the ones doing the searching? Though they complained, they knew the teachers meant well, so they had to give it their all. Zhao Xiaoyu naturally switched to a coquettish tone. "But who knows how long it’ll be before our teacher takes us to see one? I just want to learn about it in advance! Sister, what did the 'closed point' you saw look like?" Note: Why did school never teach us about taxes? Should I just dip, move overseas, and vanish so I never have to stress about this pointless job again? A Cup of coffee for my sanity