Please, graduates, slay the demon!

City No. 11, Southeast Military Region.

On August 15th, at 5:30 in the morning, Qi Zijian became the lucky one chosen by Chen Yang.

Initially, Qi Zijian thought that waking up at this time would make him very grumpy, and he would feel extremely tired with dark circles under his eyes, thus delaying his practice for the day.

But when he actually woke up, Qi Zijian found that he didn't feel sleepy at all, and even felt quite energetic in some ways.

The blacksmith breathing technique taught by Old Man Sun is rapidly changing the physical fitness of the new recruits in the criminal camp.

Chen Yang got up, took a cold shower, and then skillfully fetched water, brewed tea, and got to work.

Qi Zijian watched from the side, reciting the mantra while breathing in spiritual energy.

This practice of mental techniques has become deeply ingrained in his daily life.

Now that he has some free time, he doesn't have any random thoughts; his mind is full of mental techniques and incantations.

"Let's go."

After finishing his work, Chen Yang changed into a normal military uniform with Qi Zijian and then pushed open the courtyard gate and went out.

The sky was still overcast and gray, and apart from a few soldiers on guard duty, there were hardly any people on the main road.

Qi Zijian and Chen Yang walked side by side, their eyes glancing around every now and then.

It was his first time seeing the Southeast Military Region in the early morning, and he couldn't help but feel a little curious.

"Yangzi, how long until you reach the second rank? Or have you already reached the second rank?"

Walking down the street, Qi Zijian suddenly blurted out those words.

During their fight yesterday, he could clearly feel that Chen Yang's bones were rock hard.

The punch landed on Chen Yang, and he himself felt some pain.

Qi Zijian thought he had made good progress, but none of the three of them had gotten any benefit from Chen Yang.

Chen Yang looked down at his palm:

"Still at Grade One, just a week ago all that was left was the tempering of the skull."

"How could this be?" Qi Zijian reached out and touched Chen Yang's head. "Hey, your skull really hasn't been tempered. That shouldn't be the case. Given your cultivation speed, you should have completed the tempering in seven days at the earliest."

Chen Yang slapped Qi Zijian's hand away, looking at him with a complicated expression. He felt that this guy was taking advantage of him, but he had no evidence.

"The skull is the most difficult part, so it's normal for it to take longer. The tempering process was faster before because of Master Sun's breathing technique and the combined nourishment from spirit stones and pills."

Chen Yang took out a box of medicine from his pocket, opened it, and shook it; it was empty.

"Spirit stones and Qi-blood pills have been discontinued for a long time."

"You used up a quota that would last for months in just half a month? Are you even human?"

Qi Zijian looked at Chen Yang in shock. The three of them would feel their heart rate increase and experience physical discomfort if they consumed more than a certain amount of Qi and Blood Pills in a day.

Chen Yang takes a huge amount of medicine every day, yet he manages to use up all of its effects through cultivation.

"Were you secretly rolling around when we couldn't see you, kid?"

While muttering complaints, Qi Zijian's expression gradually turned serious:

"When we get back, Lao Zhang, Pengfei, and I will pool our resources to get you some more so you can break through to the second rank sooner, which will increase our chances of winning."

"unnecessary."

Chen Yang shook his head:

"Each of you has your own role. I've calculated the dosage, and it's just enough for the three of you until the eve of recruit night to complete your strength upgrade. If you give it to me, causing your rank to fall below the required level, and something goes wrong at some point on recruit night, you'll lose everything."

Qi Zijian looked at Chen Yang, who was quite calm when he said this, without any embarrassment or hesitation about valuing relationships.

Chen Yang looked at the empty medicine bottle in his hand and was shocked by the dosage he had taken.

His drug-taking rate is several times that of many people. Students in every top class at No. 7 City High School start taking drugs heavily from the first year of high school, so their ability to digest drugs is naturally stronger than that of most people.

Chen Yang, a top student who consistently ranks first, once spent an entire summer researching elixirs and even took them for two months, gaining considerable experience in how to digest their effects.

From this perspective, what they snatched from the three burly men was practically worthless.

The importance of the recruit's first night is increasing day by day.

"arrive."

As the two chatted, they came to the entrance of an alley.

Qi Zijian and Chen Yang exchanged a glance. Qi Zijian's blood surged, and he activated his Still Steps technique, rushing into the alleyway.

Chen Yang followed closely behind Qi Zijian, with the two of them only a body length apart at most.

These intricate alleyways are the perfect place to practice walking silently.

"Turn left here and you'll find the armory."

"The girls' dormitory is at one o'clock directly ahead, and the boys' dormitory is at nine o'clock. Across this block, there's a fire hydrant with a rusty top. I need to throw a smoke bomb here..."

As Qi Zijian drove at high speed, he told Chen Yang every detail of his work, word for word, without missing a single thing.

Throughout this process, his mental cultivation never stopped, and he would occasionally stop and use his sword finger technique to spar with Chen Yang.

A certain quality emanating from Chen Yang is subtly influencing Qi Zijian.

That means you should cultivate whenever you have time, seizing every opportunity to cultivate!

If you can handle it, then train; if you can't, then just keep pushing through.

As long as the heart continues to beat, the cultivation will never stop.

The two circled and spun around the alley entrance, testing each other and exploring the route. Chen Yang also corrected Qi Zijian's mistakes in the circulation of his skills again and again. The process lasted for almost an hour.

"Yangzi, starting tomorrow, let's invite Pengfei and Lao Zhang to come together."

"it is good."

At 7:00 AM on August 14th.

The two men wiped the sweat from their foreheads, walked out of the chaotic alleyway of the military district, and returned to the main road to go to the canteen to buy breakfast for Old Man Sun and the others.

But when I got to the cafeteria entrance, I found that the main road in front of me was crowded with people.

Chen Yang was taken aback. He had been buying breakfast for Old Man Sun at this time every day for half a month, and he had never seen so many people at the cafeteria entrance.

The main road of the camp was filled with the sounds of people.

New recruits surged in from all directions, their uniform new camouflage uniforms packed tightly together, forming a massive crowd that completely blocked the main road, making it difficult to even walk without having to squeeze through.

The open space outside the cafeteria was packed with people.

The once orderly line for food had long since dispersed, and thousands of new recruits were piled up in layers, forming a human wall with no gaps left.

The shorter recruits craned their necks and stood on tiptoe to look in the middle. No one was thinking about food; everyone's attention was fixed on the center of the field.

Qi Zijian smacked his lips: "What's going on?"

"Let's go take a look."

Qi Zijian was in front, and Chen Yang was behind. The two of them held their breath and squeezed three people in before they could see the scene inside.

A dozen or so new recruits stood there straight, each holding a colorful "GG" sign.

These "GG" signs likely contain the same wording.

Chen Yang and his companion scanned the text one by one; it read:

"Zhang Wei, ranked ninth on the new recruit leaderboard, is recruiting new recruits for the night."

"Wang Jiacheng, ranked sixth on the new recruit leaderboard, is recruiting new recruits for the night."

"Zhao Kexin, ranked fourth on the new recruit leaderboard, is recruiting new recruits for the night."

"..."

"Yang Ji, ranked number one on the new recruit leaderboard, is recruiting new recruits for the night."

"What...what's going on here? Are there rankings for new recruits?"

"I don't know either."

Chen Yang and Qi Zijian stared at each other, their eyes simultaneously drawn to the words "Yang Ji, ranked number one on the new recruit leaderboard, is recruiting new recruits for the night."

Standing next to this GG card is a male soldier with a buzz cut and bronze skin.

With eagle eyes, a high nose bridge, and good bone structure, he belongs to the type of boy with a rather aggressive appearance.

In addition, with all the other recruits standing tall and straight, he was leaning on his GG sign and shaking his leg, which reinforced his stereotypical image with a carefree and worldly air.

"Hey? Brother Chen Yang?"

In the crowd, Chen Yang seemed to hear someone calling his name.

He turned around and saw a bruised and swollen face squeezing through the crowd.

His face was covered in wounds, and his hands were in casts when he emerged from the crowd.

"Chen Yang? Is it Chen Yang?"

"You are... Li Jiatong?"

When Chen Yang first arrived in the Southeast Military Region from City 7, there was a group of graduates from City 7, just like him.

During the time he was waiting alone in the military region for Old Man Sun to pick him up, he had some conversations with these graduates from City No. 7.

One of the new recruits, a very talkative graduate named Li Jiatong, left a deep impression on him.

"Come on, let's go outside and talk."

Li Jiatong used his only remaining arm to pull Chen Yang out of the crowd.

Chen Yang was about to call Qi Zijian along when he found the surrounding crowd chaotic and Qi Zijian's figure disappearing into the crowd. Chen Yang couldn't find him immediately.

Chen Yang glanced down at his normal military uniform, then looked at Li Jiatong: "Jiatong, what are these people doing?"

Li Jiatong was taken aback:

"Don't you know what day it is while you're in the army?"

Li Jiatong looked at Chen Yang with suspicion, and Chen Yang immediately felt a little guilty.

The fact that so many people are gathered here suggests they know what's going on here, so asking that question was clearly a miscalculation on his part.

Just as Chen Yang was pondering how to answer Li Jiatong, the other party suddenly slapped him across the face:

"Hey bro, you didn't know this? You're not from the mess hall, are you?"

The logistics corps of the Southeast Military Region is divided into two types of soldiers.

One type is soldiers like Chen Yang and Qi Zijian from criminal battalions, who specialize in doing dirty and tiring work, and when necessary, they will go to the battlefield as cannon fodder.

Another type is the cookhouse or the finance clerk.

Although these soldiers successfully enter the military camp, their martial arts training makes no progress, and they are classified into this type of soldier due to their low martial arts talent.

These soldiers have the lowest rank and status, and they are often unaware of information within the military.

Because Chen Yang was wearing a normal military uniform and was unaware of the latest and hottest news from the military region.

Li Jiatong naturally assumed that Chen Yang was either a new recruit in the cooking squad or another ordinary clerk.

"It's alright, it's alright. I don't discriminate against you. Although you can't go to the battlefield, going to the cookhouse is like saving your own life. It's not a bad deal."

"From now on, if you can't slay a demon, I'll slay it for you, brother."

Chen Yang was taken aback because Li Jiatong spoke of slaying the demon with great pride, a kind of radiance he had never seen before in this military camp.

"Jiatong, why did you come from City Seven to join the army...?"

"Just like you," Li Jiatong replied without hesitation. "Slaying demons. But I did it for revenge. My father was a commander in the Southeast Military Region, my grandfather was a platoon leader, my grandmother was a frontline soldier, and my uncles and aunts were all... hehe... except they were all dead."

Li Jiatong said this with a grin.

Unlike Qi Zijian's cheeky, carefree laugh, Li Jiatong's laugh for Chen Yang was a kind of simple, genuine one.

"So I joined the army. My mom didn't want me to come at first, but I did a lot of work on her, and she remarried and had a younger brother or sister for me. Then I convinced my stepfather to help me persuade my mom, and she agreed to let me come."

"You must have siblings, right? Don't die a heroic death without any brothers or sisters to take care of your parents!"

Chen Yang pondered for a moment and said:

"I have a younger brother, my parents have a good relationship, and I also have a grandfather. They all have a very good relationship."

"That's good, that's good. Going to the mess hall is no big deal, cooking for us guys is an honor. After I've eaten my fill, I'll go help you slay the great demon."

The person in front of me seems to always be so optimistic, and a little naive.

Chen Yang smiled awkwardly:

"Hey, Jiatong, I'd like to ask, what's the purpose of all of you gathering here?"

"Oh, that's exactly what I was going to tell you."

Li Jiatong pulled Chen Yang away from the crowd slightly and whispered:

"Bro, you know what recruit night is like, right?"

Chen Yang was taken aback. He remembered that Zhang Xianzhong had once said that every branch of the military could participate in the recruit night. Even though his status as a "cook" was relatively low and he didn't know other information, he should definitely know about the recruit night.

Seeing Chen Yang nod blankly, Li Jiatong suddenly became flustered:

"Brother, I originally wanted to advise you to assess your abilities before participating in recruit night. But you're in the mess hall, so I'm telling you, whatever you do, whatever you do, don't participate in recruit night. Not only will you not get anything, but you'll also get injured."

As Li Jiatong spoke, he pointed ahead with the hand that wasn't wrapped in plaster and said:

"I originally thought that the recruit night team formation was just about each recruit forming a squad to grab supply depots, which was basically working with people you knew. But after the strongest recruit this year was selected, the nature of this event changed."

"Yesterday, the military region held a competition among the new recruits present, and selected one hundred of the winners to compete against veteran soldiers of the second rank."

"This is a tradition of the Survey Corps; you should have heard of it. It's an activity where veterans put the new recruits to their toes."

Li Jiatong swallowed hard, as if recalling something incredibly shocking:

"Logically, these victorious recruits should have been beaten to a pulp by the veterans, but this year is completely different. More than a dozen recruits are on par with the veterans, and one recruit even took down a whole squad of veterans."

"Later, a veteran at the peak of the second rank stepped up and won against the new recruit; otherwise, the veteran would have lost face big time."

Li Jiatong pointed to the eagle-eyed boy named Yang Ji in the crowd:

"He's the strongest recruit. He's supposedly a rich kid from City Seven. He used to have three really strong henchmen, but they apparently committed some serious crime and are currently in a military court."

"Oh, I see."

Looking at the figure of Yang Ji, the strongest recruit, Chen Yang suddenly felt a pang of emotion:

"What a small world, and so many acquaintances."