Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 22
Mission to Luyuan Valley
Thick mist poured down from the towering crags of the Cang Lei Mountains like a sprawling shroud of milky-white silk, coiling relentlessly around Frontier Outpost No. 9.
A biting mountain wind howled through the passes, laden with the damp scent of cliffside moss and the metallic tang of rust rising from towering coils of razor-wire fencing. Freezing northern gales roared through the narrow slits of reinforced concrete watchtowers, shrieking with an ominous cadence that mirrored the low, feral growls of starving predators lurking in the dead of night.
Across the base’s training plaza, paved in rough-hewn cobblestones, one hundred students of Feng Lan Magic High’s elite experimental class had assembled in full force.
Uprooted from the climate-controlled comfort of their classrooms back in the inner district of Bian’an City, these sixteen-year-olds were tasting the razor-sharp chill of the front lines for the very first time. Pampered scions accustomed to lives of silk and luxury shivered so violently that their teeth clattered in rapid staccato, frantically blowing hot breath into their pale, numb hands. Their crisp, spotless uniforms suddenly looked thoroughly out of place amidst the suffocating, blood-soaked solemnity of an active military staging ground.
Standing at the front of the ranks, Teacher Kang Mu and the other class advisors maintained rigid postures, their expressions tight with unspoken tension. Their gazes drifted continuously upward toward the towering command dais ahead.
There, perched atop the command platform cast from blackened alloy—its surface heavily gouged by the savage claw-marks of magical beasts—a towering silhouette stood as unyielding as an ancient fortress.
Military Commander Lei Zhen.
A moss-green field officer’s greatcoat hung loosely over his broad shoulders, revealing a weather-worn short-sleeved combat uniform that exposed thick, sinewy arms forged like cold-rolled steel and crisscrossed with jagged scars. A crumpled, cheap rolled cigarette dangled from the corner of his lips, its ember glowing dull crimson as plumes of white smoke drifted into the morning fog. With his unkempt scruff and unruly mop of hair, he looked far more like a battle-hardened mercenary who had crawled out from the dirt than a decorated legion commander whose martial authority governed an entire territorial border.
Yet the instant Lei Zhen cracked his heavy eyelids, letting an eagle-sharp glare sweep across the assembled ranks, every whisper and restless murmur died in an instant.
A crushing, suffocating pressure slammed down from above!
It felt as though a thousand-pound boulder had crashed onto their chests, driving the breath from their lungs and turning their pulses into frantic thumps. This was genuine slaughterous intent—an aura forged through hundreds of life-and-death bloodbaths against ravenous magical beasts across meat-grinder battlefields.
“Look at the sorry lot of you...”
Lei Zhen spat a flick of ash onto the steel deck and took a slow, measured step forward to the iron railing. When he spoke, his voice was like a rolling clap of thunder that battered directly against their eardrums:
“Pressed uniforms, baby-soft faces, shivering like dry straw after less than half an hour in the mountain wind. Do you think this outpost is some scenic eco-park where you can stroll through the flowers on horseback?!”
The students kept their heads bowed, not a single one daring to utter a squeak.
The corner of Lei Zhen’s lips curled into a harsh, mocking sneer.
“Back in your classrooms, your teachers flatter you as geniuses because you can stand completely still, leisurely linking seven Star Cores together to lob spells at motionless stone dummies! But let me tell you the truth: in the eyes of the beasts prowling beyond those iron gates, every single one of you is nothing more than fresh, tender meat—fragrant, succulent, and pathetically slow!”
He swept a corded, muscular arm outward, pointing straight past the fortress walls toward the pitch-black primeval canopy drowning in the sea of fog:
“The monsters out there do not possess the courtesy to wait around while you chant your incantations. A single split-second of hesitation, and their talons will rip your ribcage wide open! Their venomous fangs will crush your windpipe into pulp long before the first spark of flame or bolt of lightning even flickers on your fingertips!”
Every word he barked was a heavy sledgehammer smashing against the fragile psyches of these sheltered teenagers.
Standing in the formation of Class 8, Li Peng’s face was ashen, his knees trembling uncontrollably as he instinctively shrank behind Ling Bai’s back. A few paces away, Zhang Hu nudged Lin Feng in the ribs with an elbow, whispering under his breath:
“Damn, this commander doesn’t pull any punches! Feng-zi, the way he looks at us... it’s like we’re a bunch of lambs lined up outside a slaughterhouse.”
Lin Feng remained motionless, standing straight as a spear with his arms resting loosely at his sides. He looked up at Lei Zhen on the high platform, his dark eyes brimming with razor-sharp lucidity.
“Don’t get distracted. He isn’t wrong,” Lin Feng said softly. “The moment we stepped beyond the city’s safe zone, we crossed the boundary of death.”
Up on the command deck, Lei Zhen ground the glowing stub of his cigarette against the iron handrail until it went dark. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted into freezing, uncompromising steel:
“Listen well! This year’s field examination for the experimental class is no scenic hike. You have exactly one objective: march deep into Luyuan Valley, locate, and bring back a chunk of pure Raw Mana Mineral Crystal!”
“Luyuan Valley?!”
Down on the flagstones, Teacher Kang Mu started in shock, stepping forward half a pace, his weathered face filled with profound alarm.
“Commander Lei Zhen! Luyuan Valley is fifteen kilometers through dense, uncharted mountain terrain from this outpost! The cliffs are sheer, the ravines treacherous, and it serves as the direct buffer zone bordering the Tier-3 Wilderness... Letting these children venture that deep on their own—isn’t that far too dangerous?!”
Several other instructors blanched as well, trading anxious glances. Fifteen kilometers through primeval wilderness—a treacherous expanse teeming with toxic miasma, sinkholes, treacherous mudflats, and apex predators!
Lei Zhen cast a frigid side-eye toward Kang Mu, waving his hand in blunt dismissal.
“Teacher Kang, if you’re so terrified of death, pack them up and take them back to nursery school to feed them warm milk! My Cang Lei Ridge Garrison doesn’t have the time to play babysitter to a flock of coddled rich kids! The moment their boots touched the frontier, they submitted to the iron law of the strong!”
He turned back to the entire assembly of students, his voice dropping into a harsh, grating growl:
“Luyuan Valley is a buffer zone with documented sightings of Minion-tier magical beasts! Your textbooks should have drilled it into your heads: a single adult Dark Wolf can effortlessly butcher three Basic Mages who lack combat experience! However, each of your five-man squads will be issued one crimson mana distress flare.”
Lei Zhen held aloft a blood-red metallic cylinder roughly the length of a forearm:
“If you find yourselves driven to the brink and your lives are in mortal peril, pull the pin on this flare. Within ten minutes, the outpost’s aerial winged-eagle cavalry will descend from the skies and drag your sorry hides out from between the beasts’ jaws!”
A collective sigh of relief began to ripple through the students—only for Lei Zhen to immediately drench them in an avalanche of freezing water.
“But mark my words! The instant a squad’s distress flare detonates in the sky, every single member of that squad receives a flat, resounding ZERO! A failed examination means your priority recommendations for national key magic universities are permanently erased! You will be stripped of your candidate status and consigned to manual base labor here at the outpost for the remainder of the practical term!”
The air in the square froze solid.
A zero mark and the permanent revocation of their chance to enter a premier magic academy! That brutal penalty sent violent shivers down the spines of the teenagers.
“And what if a squad completes the mission with distinction?”
A clear, resonant voice brimming with towering arrogance abruptly rang out from the middle of the crowd.
Ling Bai stepped forward from the ranks, his chin held high in a tailored, form-fitting high-grade wilderness combat suit. Even though the bitter humiliation of having his vassal contract ripped to shreds and hot goose grease splattered across his patriarch’s face at the Moon Garden banquet still festered like an open wound in his heart, in front of his peers, he still strove to project the haughty, untouchable aura of a great clan’s direct heir.
Lei Zhen narrowed his eyes at Ling Bai, the corners of his mouth twitching into a knowing, enigmatic grin.
“A fair question, little brat of the Ling Clan! The reward for whoever claims first place is always worthy of the price demanded at death’s door!”
Lei Zhen clapped his hands once.
An iron-clad adjutant stepped forward from behind him, carrying a silver platter draped in black velvet. With a casual flick of his wrist, Lei Zhen swept the velvet cloth away.
Whoosh!
A warm, radiant golden light burst forth, emanating an overwhelming sense of indestructible solidity that instantly parted the freezing mist swirling around the command platform!
Resting upon the silver tray was an exquisite, palm-sized hexagonal jade talisman. Ancient runic formations and intricate magic arrays were carved across its lustrous surface, pulsing with dense, rhythmic waves of pure Earth elemental energy.
“That is... Magic Equipment?!” Kang Mu blurted out.
“Precisely! A Basic Magic Shield Talisman!”
Lei Zhen’s deep baritone carried an intoxicating, irresistible allure:
“A single-use defensive magical artifact! With just a wisp of mana to trigger the inscription, it instantly deploys a Golden Guardian Shield around your body! Its defensive threshold... is stout enough to withstand a full-powered strike from a WARRIOR-TIER magical beast!”
BOOM——!!
The entire training ground erupted into a tempest of stunned gasps and deafening clamor!
Withstand a full-strength strike from a Warrior-tier beast?!
Even Minion-tier beasts were waking nightmares capable of slaughtering ordinary humans, while Warrior-tier monsters... those were towering titans capable of flattening entire city blocks and decimating an entire company of border garrison troops in a single rampage! A full-powered blow from a Warrior-tier fiend could pulverize a three-meter-thick reinforced concrete rampart into powdered gravel!
Possessing this Magic Shield Talisman was nothing short of carrying a second life upon one’s person the moment one stepped onto the battlefield! On the black market, an artifact of this caliber easily commanded tens of thousands of magic coins—a staggering fortune that ordinary commoners couldn’t hope to amass in several lifetimes of backbreaking toil!
Ling Bai’s eyes flared with an inferno of ravenous greed and manic obsession!
He clenched his fists so hard that his manicured fingernails dug deep into his palms, threatening to break skin.
Following the scandalous catastrophe at Moon Garden Manor, Patriarch Ling Zhuofeng had unloaded his boiling fury square onto Ling Bai’s head for allowing a destitute South Street peasant to trample the proud dignity of the Ling Clan. The monthly cultivation resources the family had promised him had been slashed by half as a stinging reprimand!
If he could claim this Magic Shield Talisman today, he wouldn’t just reclaim his lost face before the clan elders—he would cement his standing as the undisputed, peerless prodigy of Feng Lan High!
Ling Bai pivoted on his heel, his eyes dripping with venomous malice as his gaze locked onto Lin Feng like two poisoned daggers. Grinding his back molars, he hissed under his breath:
“Lin Feng... Luyuan Valley will be your burial mound! I’ll take that Magic Shield Talisman for myself, and then I’ll make you kneel in the mud and lick the dirt off my boots for mercy!”
Beside him, Li Peng chimed in with sycophantic haste:
“Brother Ling, with your supreme mastery over the Ice Element, that Magic Shield Talisman is already as good as yours! That pauper Lin Feng is just a stray mutt who had a stroke of blind luck. Once he steps into the deep forest, he’ll probably piss himself in terror before he even catches sight of a wolf’s tail!”
In the face of Ling Bai’s venomous glare and Li Peng’s petty jeers, Lin Feng merely stood with arms folded, his expression as serene as the surface of an undisturbed mountain lake. He didn’t even deign to spare either of them a single glance.
That absolute, indifferent silence was far more stinging than any curse or insult could ever be, making Ling Bai’s chest tighten with suffocating fury.
Lin Feng lowered his chin slightly. Slipping a hand beneath the collar of his field jacket, his fingertips lightly brushed the ancient dragon pendant resting snugly against his chest.
Thrum...
The moment Lei Zhen had unveiled the shimmering artifact, the normally dormant Primordial Dragon Pendant had pulsed with a bizarre, feverish warmth. A wild, primal hunger radiated outward from the pendant, rippling through Lin Feng’s meridians.
It was starving!
Yet what the Dragon Pendant truly hungered for was not that man-made talisman on the dais—it was the raw life-force and ferocious souls of the magical beasts lurking within the primeval shadows of the wilderness ahead!
He needed Beast Soul Remnants to feed the Dragon Pendant, refining its ancient spiritual power to expand the Lightning and Fire Stardust domains within his Sea of Consciousness!
The top squad gets the Magic Shield Talisman? A faint, icy smirk tugged at the corners of Lin Feng’s lips. Ling Bai, you’re desperate to reclaim your pride, aren’t you? Let’s see if you have any face left to show your elders when this is over!
“All units, pay attention!”
Lei Zhen’s thunderous shout snapped everyone back to attention.
“Each five-person squad, step forward to draw your military map, survival packs, and distress flare! You have exactly ten minutes to prepare before the outer gates open! The deadline for mission completion is sunset tomorrow! Whichever squad returns earliest with an intact specimen of pure Raw Mana Mineral Crystal shall be declared the victor!”
The moment the command dropped, dozens of heavily armored soldiers jogged into the square, hauling massive wooden supply crates.
The students broke into a hurried scramble to receive their gear.
Each five-member squad was issued olive-drab canvas rucksacks packed with mana-dense compressed rations, wilderness water filtration canteens, titanium-alloy survival daggers, heavy climbing ropes, and a topographical military map crudely marked in crimson ink on rough parchment. At the dead center of the map, the sunken basin of Luyuan Valley was circled in thick, blood-red ink alongside a stark skull-and-crossbones warning symbol denoting extreme lethal danger.
Lin Feng and Zhang Hu claimed their assigned rucksacks. Lin Feng methodically checked every single item: the dagger’s edge was razor-sharp, the canteen’s rubber seal was airtight, and the nutrient bars were sufficient for three days of high-intensity exertion.
CLANG——!! CLANG——!!
Abruptly, the heavy bronze bell atop the watchtower tolled in rapid, violent succession, shattering the morning’s suffocating stillness!
RUMBLE... SCREEECH...
A deafening, agonizing chorus of grinding metal and groaning gears detonated along the base of the fortress ramparts!
Two massive iron chains, each as thick as a grown man’s thigh, began winding steadily around colossal steam-driven winches. At the foot of the fortress, a pitch-black steel portcullis half a meter thick and over thirty meters high—the solitary barrier separating the civilized realm of mankind from the merciless savage wild—slowly began to rise from the bedrock!
Plumes of dark crimson dust billowed into the air with every agonizing inch the iron gate ascended.
A gust of damp, freezing wilderness air carrying the foul reek of stagnant marshes, rotting vegetation, and the musky stench of carnivorous beasts rushed inward like a tidal wave from the pitch-black void beyond, slamming square into the faces of the one hundred stunned teenagers standing on the plaza!
Beyond those towering steel gates lay no paved asphalt highways, no luminous crystal streetlamps.
There was only a rugged, blood-red dirt trail churned with the fresh tracks of savage beasts, snaking outward before disappearing into the fathomless depths of an endless primeval forest submerged in choking mist—like the gaping, ravenous maw of an ancient leviathan waiting to swallow its prey whole.
From deep within the gloomy, tangled shadows of thousand-year-old titan trees in the distance, a low, guttural, beastly roar rolled faintly through the mountain wind...
Signaling that the bloody hunt had officially begun.