Chapter 1 An Exhibition of Skills

In this assessment where everyone displayed their unique skills, the ambitious Zhang Wei didn't shake off the trio tracking him until the third night. With great perseverance, he controlled his rest and movement, not only conserving his physical strength and energy as much as possible, avoiding those soldiers who wanted to interfere, but also launching two counterattacks. The two counterattacks in the dead of night allowed him to deal with two members of the trio. One had his mouth stuffed with stinky socks and was hung upside down from a tree for a full hour before his companions, feeling something was wrong, rescued him. The other was attacked while urinating, getting his pants completely wet…

On the afternoon of the third day, he actually appeared openly in front of the trio, running and jumping, leading them on a wild chase through the forest for twenty *li* in an hour. Then, he rappelled down a cliff where he had previously set up ropes and set the ropes on fire. Two of the trio lost their number plates and could only watch as Zhang Wei disappeared into the shadows below the cliff. At this point, they no longer hoped to catch up with Zhang Wei and get his number plate, which would mean three points for one of them. Instead, they hoped Zhang Wei wouldn't suddenly decide to target them and take their last number plate.

Zhang Wei wasn't that bored. Messing with the trio for a few days in the forest had greatly hampered his plan to reclaim the number plate of the simple-minded giant, Number 317. Now he didn't even know where the guy was. Re-investigating the clues and catching up with Number 317, whose name he didn't even know, wouldn't be easy and would take a lot of time. If Number 317 was already out of the game, it would take even longer to track down the current location of the number plate.

It took Zhang Wei almost an entire day to return to the place where he had lost track of Number 317 because he was being pursued by the trio. He now had five points in hand and possessed a full set of homemade weapons and tools. He was carrying a considerable amount of food, and his vigilance was high when he moved, making it clear that he was not someone to be trifled with. In fact, as the assessment entered its fourth day, the second half of the assessment, and half of the soldiers had been eliminated, almost everyone remaining had their own unique skills. Unless necessary, or if they encountered an opponent worth three points, when they met in the forest, they no longer tried so hard to compete and take the one point in the other's hand, as they did in the first few days. Instead, they exchanged information, asking about the characteristics and location of their targets. The information exchange was also a mix of truth and falsehood. No one could know if what the other person said was true, and they were likely to be comrades in the same battalion in the future, so it wouldn't be good to force a confession. Although the entire assessment became less violent, it began to incorporate more and more intellectual factors in a subtle and complex way.

Zhang Wei encountered many people along the way. He described the appearance of the tribal giant very clearly, but the results he obtained were completely different. That is, until he met Song Feng. Song Feng was truly remarkable. He spent two days adjusting his body, and in the following day, he had seized two number plates and, without exception, sent his opponents out of the game. Song Feng didn't hit hard at all, only causing some bruises on his opponents' calves, but for this kind of assessment focused on tracking and counter-tracking, this could completely eliminate the possibility of the opponent continuing the assessment and gaining points. And Song Feng had actually seen the giant, Number 317. Song Feng had even friendly offered the giant named Lawo some food, reminding him that a certain Barrett had put laxatives in the supply pack. The Jingyun cavalry's tribal soldiers all knew that the son of Baal Xute, the great shaman of the Bloodhoof tribe, was serving in the Jingyun cavalry, but they didn't know who it was. Song Feng's friendliness made Lawo feel very favorable towards him.

Afterward, Zhang Wei and Song Feng reached a temporary agreement. Song Feng would help Zhang Wei deal with Number 317, and Zhang Wei would help Song Feng deal with Barrett, who had given him diarrhea all night. Zhang Wei now had two extra points in hand, and Song Feng also had two points. As long as they could quickly deal with Barrett, Zhang Wei could even spare those extra two points for Song Feng. It would definitely be no problem for the two of them to cooperate and eliminate two more idle soldiers. In this way, both would get what they wanted.

But the actual situation was even smoother than they expected. As they walked and chatted, Zhang Wei took out the two extra number plates he had obtained to show off, and one of them happened to be the number of the target Song Feng needed to hunt. This immediately expanded their advantage and greatly boosted their morale. And before they began to approach Barrett's current location, they had tacitly increased their scores to six points each. They could deal with Lawo and Barrett with absolutely no psychological pressure.

Lawo was very easy to deal with. This big guy was still running leisurely in the examination hall on the morning of the fifth day. This guy was very stubborn. Anyone he encountered either left his line of sight, or, whether peacefully or forcefully, handed over their number plate. When he encountered Song Feng earlier, Song Feng had no number plates on him at all, which was why he had approached Song Feng with confidence and even chatted with him for a while. Although this guy was a bit clumsy, he was indeed a good wrestler, and his physical fitness and combat skills were also quite strong. He even hunted a wild boar with his bare hands, accumulated a lot of ingredients, extracted the wild boar's tendons, and found suitable branches to make a simple bow and several arrows.

But with preparation against carelessness, Lawo was tricked by Zhang Wei for nearly ten *li*, shot all the arrows in his hand, and then was jointly knocked down by Song Feng and Zhang Wei. The extremely exquisite skills Zhang Wei displayed in close combat greatly surprised Song Feng, and he realized that the guy he had been with for a while was actually a military expert. Later, he learned that Zhang Wei's military position was actually a battalion deputy…

After dealing with Lawo, the two began to approach the area where Barrett was located. Barrett had traveled far from the starting point in the past few days. He no longer ran around relying on his foot speed. Instead, he cleared out all the supply points in a large area, stockpiled a batch of food in the center, treated the food in all other supply points with medicine, and then built a small fortress with branches and stones, seemingly preparing to hold out for a while. Because it was difficult to find ready-made supply points in the large area he occupied, or rather, the supply points he found were all treated with medicine, it was really difficult for others to threaten him.

However, the time was already approaching the end of the assessment. Even Barrett had to leave his carefully constructed small fortress and head towards the starting point, otherwise he would likely not make it back to the starting point on the seventh day. When Song Feng and Zhang Wei appeared in front of him, he was extremely surprised that Song Feng had not chosen to withdraw from the assessment but had persevered and stood in front of him again. However, Barrett was not an ordinary person. He understood Song Feng's mood very well, and he actually directly threw out his number plate, praising Song Feng's perseverance in an extremely respectful tone, calling him a warrior… and then asked him if the previous matter could just be forgotten and the three of them could return to the starting point together…

Song Feng didn't expect things to turn out this way. The obsession with revenge that had been supporting him until now was immediately reduced to nothing by Barrett's actions. He actually nodded subconsciously and took the number plate…

Barrett didn't care. Even if he handed over his number plate, he still had a full seven points on him. And after a few days of assessment, they had actually realized that probably no more than a hundred people who could get six points and still return to the starting point. Such a result was completely acceptable to them. After all, they were all elites from the Yun Province armies, not mortal enemies. The friendship formed in this assessment would be very beneficial for their future interactions in the special operations battalion. So, the matter came to an end.

After seven days of assessment, there were actually only two hundred and nineteen people left in the examination hall, of which only ninety-one returned to the starting point with six points or more. And those soldiers with insufficient scores, with a minimum of zero points and a maximum of five points, couldn't help but feel a little dejected when they looked at those soldiers who came back with six points, their faces full of pride.

Throughout the entire assessment process, except for reading the various reports sent by the "examiners" as novels, Ye Tao and Dai Yun hardly offered any opinions or requests regarding the entire assessment. They seemed to really be there for inspection, as they had said themselves. And when those soldiers who had stayed in the forest for seven full days walked out of the examination hall, entered the already bustling camp, and faced each other with those who had been eliminated in this final round of assessment, Ye Tao and Dai Yun still stood only at the tent entrance, watching from afar as the soldiers with various expressions greeted each other, exchanged information, patted each other on the shoulders, and pointed at those who had kicked them out of the game, cursing loudly… but they just didn't want to say anything or do anything.

"Attention!" Dai Qiong shouted loudly. The examiners called out to everyone to line up according to the different scores they had obtained in the assessment. And at this time, everyone began to wonder, where was Zhou Rui? Dai Qiong had hardly spoken to them before, burying himself in doing the most basic management work, preparing for the assessment through those "examiners." How could it be him standing here now?

"I've been following you for so many days, and no one noticed me. I'm really… very disappointed." Suddenly, on the roof of a carriage on the edge of the open space where the soldiers were gathered, Zhou Rui, who seemed to have been lying on the roof watching the clouds floating by, propped himself up. Then he jumped off the carriage and looked at the soldiers, saying, "But overall, the performance is still passable."

Everyone looked at each other in confusion. None of them had noticed Zhou Rui's presence. Indeed, the roof of the carriage was not an easy place to spot, especially since there were many miscellaneous items tied with ropes there, blocking the view. But there were many people among them who usually didn't rely solely on their eyes to detect the wind and grass around them. Zhou Rui's sudden appearance really surprised everyone. And was it true that he had been following them all along, as he said?