From Robinson Crusoe

Have you lost faith in life? Do you want to understand the meaning of life?
Do you want to truly...live?

Please, don't be naive. The Time and Space Administration isn't that cruel. They won't treat you like gladiators and beasts in an arena, deriving pleasure from your pain and struggle.

According to Article 15 of the Time and Space Administration, we have no right to decide whether any living being is alive or dead.

Before selecting challengers, we must conduct rigorous psychological tests to ensure that they are willing and qualified to complete the challenge.

Whether you're a first-time participant or a seasoned veteran who's survived a round of competition.

Please note that the following clauses will only appear once, and they will determine your survival during the challenge, as well as, most importantly, the richness of the rewards.

Do not break the rules; try your best to become the winner within the scope defined by the rules and win the mysterious final prize.

The rules are as follows:

I. This challenge is a multiplayer challenge with competitive elements and no time limit.

The total number of participants in the challenge is 100, divided into 50 groups. Team members are randomly assigned and cannot choose to form a group with others before a teammate voluntarily gives up the challenge or fails.

Second, the challenge will take place on the West Siberian Plain of Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene, where you will have a close encounter with prehistoric behemoths that modern humans have never seen.

Many prehistoric giants, such as the steppe mammoth, ancient rhinoceros, aurochs, cave lion, cave hyena, ferocious polar bear, and woolly rhinoceros, may become your partners.

Of course, they are more likely to become your competitors, so be careful not to get swallowed by them and turn into dung scattered across the grassland.

Third, due to some uncontrollable factors, which we call "biological migration", the challenge site has a very high probability of encountering not only the megafauna living in Eurasia, but also creatures from North America, South America, Australia and islands from the same period.

Don't worry, they'll just add a touch of color to your otherwise mundane and challenging life.

After all, animals such as the American lion, dire wolf, short-faced bear, saber-toothed cat, Newton's giant bird, moa, and Astor eagle have never appeared alive in a zoo in your world. Being able to appreciate their agile appearance will surely be of great benefit to you.

Moreover, since they are also carbon-based life forms, I believe that with your intelligence, you will surely be able to coexist harmoniously with them.

IV. The challenge area covers a total area of ​​60 square kilometers, with an altitude ranging from 50 to 300 meters, and the edges are clearly marked with isolation signs.

If a challenger ignores warnings and leaves the challenge area without authorization, it will be considered as a voluntary abandonment of the challenge. The challenger will be permanently stranded in this world and will lose the eligibility to receive rewards. The challenger will bear the consequences himself/herself.

V. The challenge ends when all 49 groups of challengers withdraw or fail. The remaining two will then share the rewards, thus ending the challenge.

VI. To reduce the challenge time and increase the fun, the Time and Space Administration will periodically distribute airdrop supplies with laser beacons after the challenge officially begins, which challengers can compete for themselves.

Note: Airdrop supplies are not included in the total rewards after the challenge ends, and the number of airdrop supplies received does not affect the final reward value.

7. Challengers will travel to the venue alone and are not allowed to bring any items other than clothing. The Management Bureau will randomly distribute practical survival tools to the challengers, and the survival tools obtained by the same group of contestants will definitely not be duplicated.

Enjoy this prehistoric journey with your companions.

Of course, if you are confident enough, taking the tools of survival from him is also a good option.

8. The time a challenger spends in the arena will not proportionally consume their time in the real world. When a challenger completes the challenge and leaves, 0.003 seconds will pass in the real world.

9. Once the challenge begins, it cannot be paused. If you die during the challenge, you will also die in the real world. The Time and Space Administration is not responsible for the life safety of the challenger, nor will it provide any compensation for the death of the challenger.

10. The organizer reserves the right to interpret all aspects of this challenge. For any objections, please contact the Time Travel Administration.

[Additional rule: To ensure this challenge is interesting enough, please do not give up and end the challenge early, and do not cooperate privately, which will make the challenge lose its competitive nature.]

In this reconstructed prehistoric world, the brutal Ice Age will arrive much sooner.

Believe me, even if 100 people worked together, they couldn't possibly defeat the Ice Age, because we deliberately lowered the Ice Age temperature by a tiny bit.

Don't worry, it's only -65 degrees Celsius.

……

The challenge rules, which aren't too long, are followed by a brief description of the challenge venue—

The late Pleistocene coincided with the Quaternary Ice Age.

The challenge area is roughly located in the modern West Siberian Plain, which was called the Mammoth Plain during the Pleistocene. The vast land is dotted with scattered forests and large grasslands, with polar deserts to the north and permafrost to the south.

When Chen Zhou opened his eyes and looked out through the helmet visor of his protective suit, he saw an endless expanse of green land, a dark blue sky, and a setting red sun. Several tall trees resembling pine trees were rooted around him, their not-so-dense canopies more than ten meters above the ground.

The insects chirped in unison from time to time, and in the distance, a group of giant beasts covered in brown fur could be seen walking on the grassland.

They seemed oblivious to the little creature that appeared beside the woodland, leisurely flicking their noses and dragging their heavy bodies forward, soon disappearing from Chen Zhou's sight after crossing the embankment.

……

"Oh shit!
Despite all our precautions, we still got tricked by that old bastard Ivan…

Whether it was a memory lapse or a temporary reversal of time caused by time travel, the helmet he remembered taking off was still firmly on his head, giving Chen Zhou a suffocating feeling as he found himself in the wilderness.

Muttering curses under his breath, Chen Zhou quickly removed his helmet and, recalling the rules of this challenge, began searching for the survival tools issued to him by the Time and Space Administration.

Unfortunately, after searching through all his clothes, he couldn't find anything other than his protective suit and a few portable tools; it seemed the Time and Space Administration had overlooked him.

"How could I encounter such a bug? Where are my tools?"

Refusing to accept his fate, Chen Zhou broke off a thick tree branch and swept up all the tall grass nearby. Finally, he reluctantly accepted the reality.

As an unexpected challenger, he enjoyed "privileges" that ordinary people do not have, but did not receive any survival tools.

Even more frightening is that he didn't see the "companion" mentioned in the challenge rules, and he might have to start this even more brutal and ruthless challenge alone.

……

Looking at the waning sun and the dark grassland, Chen Zhou, having accepted reality, decided that he should first solve the problems of shelter and food.

As for survival tools, they are not that important; if all else fails, you can "borrow" from other challengers.

Faced with a threat to his survival, and the possibility of not even being able to eat, Chen Zhou couldn't afford to talk about "morality."

Moreover, the nature of this challenge is inherently cruel. Even if he doesn't try to seize it, the challengers will be killed or wounded in the process, devouring each other until a final winner emerges.

Under these circumstances, even Superman cannot act as a "benevolent gentleman".

The rules of the Time and Space Administration will not grant anyone any special leniency. This place is completely different from an isolated island where one person reigns supreme or from a generally stable modern society. Any challenger must recognize this fact.

……

Fortunately, his previous 28 years of living on a deserted island and more than two years of extreme sports career in the real world have given him a wealth of wilderness survival and emergency survival skills.

Although he couldn't conjure up survival tools out of thin air, Chen Zhou was still quite adept at making fire, hunting, and building simple shelters.

He had already decided that he must first settle himself down and stockpile enough food before setting off to find other challengers.

It's best to wait until the first supply drop attracts all the challengers to the supply location before setting off.

Otherwise, it would be too difficult to find 99 people in this complex land of 60 square kilometers. Without the attraction of supplies, it would be possible to search for a whole year without finding a single person.

As he thought about it, Chen Zhou took off his protective suit, folded it up and placed it aside. Then he broke off a thick tree branch, shaped the cut surface into a shovel, and started digging a hole in the grass.

Judging from the current temperature and air dryness, it is currently mostly summer in the Mammoth Steppe, characterized by strong winds, large temperature differences between day and night, and overall dryness.

If you start a fire directly on the grass without digging a pit, it is very easy to cause a fire.

Chen Zhou wasn't afraid of damaging the ecological environment; he dug the pit because he was afraid the fire would get out of control and he would be roasted alive.

His physical condition was vastly different from when he first took the challenge, and soon enough, a shallow pit of sufficient size appeared at the edge of the woodland.

The increasingly dim environment did not affect Chen Zhou's extraordinary eyesight. He circled the woods near the shallow pit twice and quickly collected sticks, strips of wood, and dry tinder for making fire by friction.

Press the top of the thin wooden stick onto the rough stone surface and grind it into a cone shape. Then peel off the bark from the surface of the thick wooden strip and carve a groove on it with a width wide enough to accommodate the thin wooden stick.

Tear the dry grass leaves to be used as tinder into pieces, stuff them into the groove, squat down, puff out his cheeks, and was about to rub the thin wooden stick to drill the wood and create sparks when he suddenly looked up sharply—

Not far from the shallow pit he dug, a blue light was now emanating from it.

In the hazy glow, a tall, robust body slowly took shape, like a baby born from the void, crying its first cry upon entering the earth. (End of Chapter)