Ling Cage, pick up Lu Mingfei at the start.

The scorching afternoon sun baked the dust on the training field until it was almost hot, and the air was filled with the unique smell of sweat and dirt.

Lu Mingfei mechanically followed every instruction given by Instructor Wulan Aodeng—squats, sprints, and obstacle crossings.

His movements were more precise and even smoother than when he first arrived, but his eyes, which usually held a hint of cleverness or dejection, now seemed shrouded in a thin mist, their focus unfocused.

Bai Yuekui's words, "Next week's task," played like an inescapable curse on repeat in his mind.

The ferocious maw of the Devouring Beast, its stench, its chilling roars... these terrifying memories, which he had deliberately suppressed for more than half a month, were now vying to break through his psychological defenses as the mission date approached.

He felt like a duck being forced onto a shelf; the vanity he felt from "learning to return to the origin in ten minutes" was incredibly fragile in the face of a real threat to his life.

"Lu Mingfei!"

A deep, steady shout exploded in his ears like thunder. Lu Mingfei jolted awake, realizing he had almost slipped while climbing over the low wall due to distraction. He quickly steadied himself and looked towards the source of the sound.

Ulan Aodeng stood not far away with his arms crossed, his bronze face revealing neither joy nor anger. This burly, resolute instructor was the backbone of the Guiyuan Sports Training Team and also Maiduo's father.

He scrutinized Lu Mingfei, his gaze sharp as an eagle's. He had already heard about the boy's extraordinary mastery of the Returning to Origin technique, and while he was surprised, he couldn't help but feel a sense of regret for his talent.

But at this moment, seeing Lu Mingfei's absent-minded appearance, his thick eyebrows couldn't help but furrow.

After training, the team members dispersed in twos and threes. Ulan Aodeng, however, did not leave immediately. He walked over to Lu Mingfei, who was slowly packing his things.

"Kid," his voice was gentler than during training, carrying a gruff concern typical of an elder, "Is something on your mind? You've been distracted since the start of training. Is there something wrong with Guiyuan, or something else?"

Lu Mingfei raised his head and met Wulan Aodeng's worldly-wise eyes, his lips trembling slightly. Under the instructor's steady gaze, his hidden unease seemed to have nowhere to hide.

He lowered his head, staring at the dusty tips of his shoes, and his voice seemed to be squeezed out of his throat: "Instructor... I, I'm going on a mission with Boss Bai and the others next week..."

A knowing glint flashed in Ulan Aodeng's eyes. He hummed in agreement, unsurprised: "I've heard. It's that old-fashioned medical research institute, isn't it?"

"Yes..." Lu Mingfei's voice was even lower, "I...I'm scared."

He finally uttered those two words, as if a burden had been lifted, but what followed was a deeper sense of shame.

In Dragonbone Village, everyone is fighting for survival, but he is hesitant and fearful.

"I'm afraid I won't do a good job, afraid that Guiyuan will fail at the crucial moment, afraid... that I'll drag down Sister Maiduo and Xutong," he added, his voice trembling slightly.

He knew that Maiduo's team was the main force in this mission.

Upon hearing his daughter's name, Ulan Aodeng's eyes softened for a moment. He reached out his broad hand and patted Lu Mingfei's shoulder forcefully, almost causing the thin Lu Mingfei to stumble.

"Young birds always have to leave the nest and fly, kid." Ulan Aodeng's voice was deep and powerful, carrying a resilience forged in the apocalypse. "Burying your head under your wings is certainly safe, but you'll never see how big the sky is. This is our world... there's no choice. Everyone has to fight with all their might to earn a sliver of hope."

He paused, his gaze falling on the towering rock wall outside the training ground that guarded the village, as if it could penetrate the rock and reveal the perilous wilderness beyond.

"Being scared isn't shameful. The first time I went out with the veteran team, I almost wet my pants." Ulan Aodeng suddenly swore, with a hint of self-deprecation, but strangely it eased Lu Mingfei's tension. "But just remember, your teammates are right beside you. Trust them, just as they trust you. Since Boss Bai sent you, it means she thinks you're ready. Her judgment of people is rarely wrong."

These words were like a gentle stream of water, slowly seeping into Lu Mingfei's parched and anxious heart.

Although the fear has not completely dissipated, the feeling of fighting alone and bearing the pressure alone has lessened considerably.

He took a deep breath and felt the tightness in his chest ease a little.

"Thank you, Instructor," Lu Mingfei said sincerely.

"Go on," Ulan Aodeng waved his hand, "Go do what you need to do. Remember, every drop of sweat shed during training is for a better chance of survival on the battlefield."

After leaving the training ground, Lu Mingfei did not go straight back to his residence. The restlessness in his heart prevented him from calming down.

He instinctively walked towards the shooting range. Perhaps only by holding a familiar firearm and hearing the sound of a bullet hitting the bullseye could he regain some sense of control over the situation.

To be fair, his shooting talent was indeed outstanding, even to the point that it left Xia Dou and the others speechless. He could have comfortably enjoyed this talent, but at this moment, he urgently needed to do something to prove himself, or rather, to convince himself.

The firing range was as empty as ever, with only the faint whistling sound of the wind blowing through the targets.

He skillfully inspected the firearm, loaded the ammunition, then raised the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Bullets fired one after another, accurately hitting the bullseye of the stationary target in the distance.

The repetitive mechanical movements create a strange flow experience, temporarily shielding one from chaotic thoughts.

He was immersed in the steady touch of his fingertips and the sharp sound of bullets cutting through the air.

Just as he finished firing a magazine and was about to change it, a very faint whooshing sound came from his side.

"call out--"

An arrow with a simple design and stable fletching, like a ghost gliding silently in the dark, accurately struck the center of the target next to him. The shaft trembled slightly due to the enormous kinetic energy, emitting a fine hum.

Lu Mingfei paused, looking in the direction the arrow had come from.

On a high point formed by a pile of discarded tires at the edge of the firing range, a figure stood quietly.

The setting sun cast a long, slender silhouette behind her, which was none other than Shattered Star.

She was still wearing those signature goggles, making it impossible to see her eyes, but Lu Mingfei could feel that her gaze was fixed on him.

When did she arrive? He hadn't noticed at all.

Sui Xing leaped lightly off the tire, her movements silent and nimble, like a cat. She walked to the shooting position next to Lu Mingfei, not looking at him, but instead drawing another arrow from the quiver on her back and nocking it onto the sleek composite bow in her hand.

"Next week's mission, together." She spoke, her voice cold and flat, as if stating a given fact.

Lu Mingfei was taken aback for a moment before realizing she was talking to him. "Ah...yes, Boss Bai said he'll be with your team."

Sui Xing tilted her head slightly and glanced at him through her goggles. Lu Mingfei felt that her gaze had a tangible weight, capable of easily crushing the little pretense he had just built up.

"Your breathing is more erratic than usual," she pointed out succinctly. "Are you nervous?"

Lu Mingfei opened his mouth, wanting to deny it, but under Sui Xing's all-seeing gaze, any attempt to conceal it seemed futile. In the end, he lowered his head in dejection, tacitly admitting it.

Suixing didn't say anything more. She turned around, raised her bow, aimed, and released. The movements were fluid and seamless, as smooth as breathing. Another arrow struck the bullseye, right next to the first.

A silent understanding spread between the two. Lu Mingfei silently changed his magazine and continued practicing. For a moment, only Lu Mingfei's rhythmic gunfire and the occasional, almost inaudible vibration of the bowstring from Sui Xing could be heard on the shooting range.

However, Shattered Star quickly noticed the problem.

Lu Mingfei's shooting was indeed terrifyingly accurate, every shot locking onto the same bullseye. But to Sui Xing, this accuracy carried a rigid, textbook-like inflexibility. It was as if he were completing isolated tasks, rather than preparing for a dynamic, unpredictable battle.

Just as Lu Mingfei emptied another magazine and was about to repeat the process, Sui Xing finally spoke again.

"You only know how to shoot stationary targets?" Her voice remained calm, but Lu Mingfei detected a barely perceptible hint of... doubt in it.

Lu Mingfei retorted somewhat defiantly, "I've also practiced with moving targets..."

Ignoring his explanation, Sui Xing walked straight to a control panel in the corner of the shooting range and operated it a few times. Accompanied by a low hum of motors, several devices on the other side of the range rose up; they were multi-target disc launchers.

"Try this." Shattered Star walked back, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Enemies on the battlefield won't line up waiting for you to call their names."

Looking at the several dark launch ports, Lu Mingfei felt a little uncertain, but he still nodded with a forced smile.

Shatter Star pressed the start button.

"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—"

In an instant, four or five brightly colored frisbees were launched from different launchers, drawing chaotic parabolic arcs in the air at extremely high speeds!

Lu Mingfei's mind went blank for a moment, as if it had gone completely empty. When shooting at moving targets, there is usually only one target, giving him ample time to aim and anticipate.

But now, with multiple fast-moving targets appearing at the same time, his attention was completely distracted. His eyes frantically tracked the different frisbees, and his finger was on the trigger, but he didn't know which one to lock onto first.

Hesitation, fatal hesitation.

In the brief one or two seconds of his hesitation, the frisbee had already traveled more than halfway and was about to land.

"Bang!"

He finally fired a shot hastily, but only hit the wingtip of the outermost disc. The other discs landed intact on the sand in the distance.

The scene was a bit embarrassing.

Lu Mingfei gripped the still-warm gun barrel, his face flushed.

He secretly glanced at Sui Xing. The other party still had no expression, but he seemed to sense a very faint understanding flashing beneath the goggles.

"Your priorities are all mixed up," Shattered Star pointed out his problem incisively. "Your attention is unevenly distributed. Your eyes and brain fight each other when processing multiple pieces of information. Try again."

She pressed the launch button again.

This time, Lu Mingfei forced himself to stay calm and tried to quickly lock onto one of them. He succeeded, shattering a flying disc. But almost simultaneously, Shattered Star moved.

She didn't even aim deliberately; she just moved her wrist slightly, and the bowstring twanged softly.

"Slap! Slap! Slap!"

With three crisp sounds, the other three flying discs still in the air were precisely pierced by the arrows almost simultaneously and exploded into fragments! Her movements were so fast that they left only a blur, as if she had created three clones at the same time, each locking onto a target.

Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded. He finally understood that Sui Xing's title of "Dragon Bone Village's Number One Archer" was well-deserved.

Her seemingly effortless movements contained muscle memory honed through countless hours of practice, extraordinary dynamic vision, and an almost terrifying ability to make split-second judgments.

Sui Xing lowered her bow and turned to Lu Mingfei. Although he couldn't see her eyes, Lu Mingfei could feel her scrutiny.

"Your talent is excellent," she objectively assessed, her tone ambiguous between praise and statement. "Your static shooting at a single target is near perfect. But combat isn't target practice; enemies move, and they move very fast. They may seem mindless, but they're far more cunning than you think."

She paused, seemingly organizing her thoughts on how to make this "genius" understand more thoroughly.

"You need to develop your own 'attack sequence'," she explained. "In the instant multiple targets appear, you need to rely on intuition and experience to decide the order of attack within a fraction of a second. The most threatening, the closest, the easiest to hit... these all require instantaneous judgment."

Seeing Lu Mingfei's thoughtful yet somewhat bewildered expression, Sui Xing's slight imbalance caused by the other party's incredibly fast return to the origin suddenly subsided.

Fortunately, his shooting skills haven't reached an entirely superhuman level. For now, he's still a solid "number one shooter."

This thought stirred a barely perceptible ripple in her usually calm mind, and a hint of relief flashed in her eyes.

"Again." Without saying anything more, Shattered Star pressed the launch button.

This time, Lu Mingfei tried hard to recall Sui Xing's words. He no longer tried to focus on all the frisbees at the same time, but instead forced himself to scan them quickly the moment they were launched, choosing one as his primary target.

"Bang!"

A frisbee shattered instantly.

Although other targets were still missed, it was a huge improvement compared to the initial helplessness.

Shattered Star didn't speak, but simply pressed the button again.

"Bang!" "Smack!"

This time, Lu Mingfei shattered one, and almost at the same moment his gun fired, Shattering Star's arrow also took one away. The two seemed to have formed a strange kind of coordination.

In the time that followed, Sui Xing was no longer just an observer. She began to intervene in Lu Mingfei's training. She would suddenly point out the disorder in his breathing, shout "Left!" when he hesitated, and give a soft "hmm" to show her approval when he successfully established an attack sequence and quickly destroyed two targets.

She even simulated real-world scenarios, no longer launching frisbees simultaneously, but in a sequence, with varying speeds, and sometimes deliberately creating visual distractions.

Lu Mingfei learned extremely quickly. His ability to predict high-speed moving objects, honed in the game, began to gradually merge with the "attack sequence" concept taught by Shattered Star.

His reaction speed and the efficiency of his attention switching are improving at a visible rate.

Although he is far from reaching the level of effortless skill and perfect accuracy of Shattered Star, at least he is no longer the rookie who would be terrified by multiple targets.

As the setting sun painted the sky a brilliant orange-red, the training finally came to an end. Lu Mingfei's combat uniform was soaked with sweat, and his arms were trembling slightly from holding the gun for so long, but his eyes were much brighter than when he arrived, as if the thin mist covering them had been washed away by the sweat.

"Thank you... Sister Suixing," Lu Mingfei said sincerely. He could sense that Suixing's guidance was a great act of kindness for someone of her personality.

Sui Xing was wiping her composite bow when she heard this, she paused for a moment, and simply replied, "Hmm."

She slung the bow over her shoulder and turned to leave. After taking a few steps, she suddenly stopped, without looking back. Her voice drifted on the wind, clearly reaching Lu Mingfei's ears:

"Remember the attack sequence. During the mission, stick close to me and be responsible for catching any stragglers at close to mid-range."

After saying that, she walked briskly and disappeared at the exit of the shooting range.

Lu Mingfei stood there, pondering Sui Xing's last words. It wasn't exactly enthusiastic encouragement, but it reassured him more than any other words. It was a form of recognition, a signal that he was being incorporated into the combat system.

He gazed in the direction where the shattered star had disappeared, then looked at the distant remains of the broken flying discs, and clenched his fist tightly. Fear still lingered, but alongside it was a newfound determination to reciprocate that trust.

Night began to fall, and the village houses in the distance lit up with scattered lights. Lu Mingfei packed up his gear and headed towards the lights.

His steps were a little more determined than when he came. The road ahead was still unknown and dangerous, but at least for now, he felt that he was no longer facing it alone.