Dongting Lake. Mu Nujiao, who's been surviving here for three days already.
"This is some kind of hell. Do all Hunters do this constantly?" Mu Nujiao whispered, smeared with mud and blood.
From the start, she knew she shouldn't have come. She even almost mustered the strength to refuse Mu Bai, but the very expensive gifts weighed on her conscience with greed and ultimately convinced her to give in. Maybe that cheeky guy planned on it?
Now she understands the benefit of this experience is real—and substantial. In just three days, she increased her spell-casting speed by 10%! And that's without a good item like the star control pendant Mu Bai loaned TuTu indefinitely. That alone costs no less than seventy million yuan.
Mu Nujiao was even a bit jealous of her best friend. She found a dream guy. Strong, rich, not arrogant. Gold, not a husband candidate. If not for one big BUT.
Gradually, his fame as the conqueror of the entire green campus is spreading across the country. And that would even be good, if she didn't come bundled with his own version of how he gained his power. The company running the search engine notes a huge spike in interest in info about rich widows.
And that's not all—Mu Nujiao overheard that the Imperial Family itself initiated an investigation into the distribution of state funds allocated to the Magic Court.
Apparently, they've even caught someone for bribery already, but Tang Yue's uncle, the noisy "sugar mommy's" one, is holding out. The tax authority, dispatched personally by Forbidden City officials under sworn sealing marks guaranteeing impartial work, still can't find where he got the two billion yuan his niece spent on Mu Bai. But they're diligently searching.
Lost in thought, Mu Nujiao didn't notice tripping over a bump, earning an immediate non-injurious but very painful lightning shock from inside her body. Cursing politely—even to herself—she snapped back to reality and started watching her surroundings more carefully.
That electric shock was Mu Bai's main training method for her and TuTu. At the hike's start, this fiend placed his summon elemental inside them. In her, a lightning elemental named Pikachu; in his girl, a water elemental named Bul.
And the most infuriating part: if she missed a monster hit, got distracted en route, cast spells slowly, froze in fear, etc.—the list is endless—her inner elemental first protected her if needed, then painfully zapped her with lightning. As Mu Bai said: "So you definitely remember when you messed up."
TuTu's water elemental just soaked her, making clothes cling to her body, outlining the seductive curves of a young girl, to the delight of that tormentor-pervert's eyes. Though judging by TuTu's look, who even tried to show off extra by stretching her wet uniform, she loved it.
Surprisingly to Mu Nujiao, always lazy TuTu took practice very seriously and, despite light punishments, avoided repeating the same mistakes twice. Wonder what Mu Bai motivated her with?
Over these three days, following Mu Bai's advice and constantly erring, she and TuTu learned to survive on Dongting Lake, cast magic faster, react reflexively to attacks, and even wake in the middle of the night at the slightest suspicious rustle. As Mu Bai said, they were going through young fighter training.
They moved and practiced about two hundred meters apart. That way, they'd learn to act solo, help a comrade in time, then together overwhelm a stronger foe or escape alive.
In short, it was very hard, but they held on. Mu Nujiao didn't know what motivated TuTu, but noticing her first progress after such training, she forced herself to get up mornings and keep going. For strength now. For freedom later.
Their main opponents were Servant-level Giant Lizards ubiquitous here. Extremely agile predators that hid in the lake landscape. Luckily, their armor wasn't very tough, and restricting their mobility with plant elementals let her handle them with her wind element.
Once, she and TuTu ran into a young Pack Chieftain-level Giant Lizard. Panicking, they couldn't fight back properly and got "killed." Pikachu blew its head off with lightning to protect them.
Then Mu Bai dragged another similar lizard for them to practice resisting a stronger foe and escaping.
Without the gifted tropical vine seeds Mu Nujiao used to bind its legs, they would've failed and "died" again. As it was, they barely escaped.
And per Mu Bai, a week and four days of practice remain. Despite boosting her strength substantially, once it ends, she'll refuse Mu Bai any "outing" invitations.
Though watching those two lovebirds coo from afar, she sometimes thinks they'd be better without her. Mu Nujiao smiled sadly.
Dongting Lake. Mu Nujiao looking like a swamp kikimora. After two weeks of "practice."
Finally, this hell is over! thought the filthy Mu Nujiao with tangled hair clumps hanging. If her Mingzhu University fans saw her now, they wouldn't recognize her. At most, they'd toss a few yuan to the cute homeless girl.
But she'd strangle them with her vines—she'd mastered that excellently over the last two weeks, tying a Servant-level monster in a sea knot without blinking.
And that training fiend didn't spare his own girl. Utterly exhausted TuTu trudged beside her, only slightly better off—thanks to Bul periodically watering her.
Mu Nujiao doesn't get why Mu Bai drove them so hard these two weeks, like preparing for something intense. But the guy just said death lurks at every step in this world. His paranoid look then made her glance around involuntarily, searching for that death.
After the first week, when she and TuTu got good at lizards, Mu Bai sent them to Giant Centipedes' habitat. Those black-chitin-covered creeps with wriggling leg pairs would haunt her nightmares long.
Mu Bai justified it as opponent variety, to avoid getting used to one monster type.
Seeing Biyi City's walls at last, Mu Nujiao banished the past two weeks' horrors. Now she just wanted to wash and sleep in a soft bed, not damp ground lined with large fern leaves.
When she wakes, she'll make Mu Bai order White Eagles riders immediately for a quick return to Shanghai.
Mu Nujiao heard a famous singer's concert at Mingzhu University in five days. Now she'll drag Mu Bai there to suffer girly songs. At least she can relax and rub it in that paranoiac's face.
Who'd attack them in a magic university? A mob of the singer's fans? Mu Nujiao smirked at her silly guess.