Arknights: Studying medicine can't save Terra

"Hey, practice your medical skills properly." Qi Yan walked past the two with a smile. "These are rare live subjects for practice. Don't waste them for your dream of studying medicine."

Qi Yan walked casually in the direction the hunter had fled from.

The hunter saw through his intention and tried to warn him, but a mouthful of blood got stuck in his throat, and he coughed incessantly.

Qi Lin also raised her head, opened her mouth to speak, but was a step too late.

An arrow pierced through the thickets of jungle and embedded itself in Qi Yan's shoulder.

"Hmm, the accuracy is just so-so."

Qi Yan staggered, wincing in pain as he forced a smile.

Several figures dressed in black uniforms and wearing protective masks slowly walked out in front of him, their crossbows locked tightly on Qi Yan and the two people behind him.

"They're infected. Kill them."

The captain of the Ursus soldiers noticed Qi Lin's Originium Arts and issued an order without hesitation.

"Hey, there's a perfectly healthy person here."

Qi Yan stood between them, shouting with a crossbow bolt pointed at his shoulder, "I wasn't killed by your arrows, can't you at least finish me off as a sign of respect?"

"...Are you crazy?"

One of the Ursus soldiers couldn't help but speak up.

His captain, with a hint of mockery in his tone, took over the conversation:

“They were already patients; once they contracted Oripathy, they became like everyone else.”

The captain's words elicited hushed laughter from the team members.

No one paid any attention to the two children who looked to be seventeen or eighteen, or the hunter who had lost half his life.

It's just the effort of shooting two more arrows.

"Hey hey hey."

Just as the Ursus soldiers were laughing, a somewhat discordant laugh broke into their chorus.

Their laughter stopped abruptly, and they looked in bewilderment toward the source of the laughter.

Qi Yan, feeling their gazes, gradually lowered his laughter and asked in confusion:

"Why are you all looking at me? Your captain just told a joke. Isn't it basic courtesy to laugh along when you hear a joke?"

The atmosphere at the scene suddenly became somewhat strange.

Even the hunter couldn't help but stare at Qi Yan, looking like he'd seen a fool.

"I hope you can take care of them quickly. Just seeing Ursus's uniform makes me sick."

Qi Lin's voice broke the deathly silence.

She didn't even raise her head, focusing on controlling her Originium Arts, her tone flat as if discussing something as mundane as a slightly burnt rabbit.

Everyone, including the hunter, couldn't help but look at Qi Lin again.

Everyone couldn't help but have a thought pop into their head.

Are these two young people both mentally ill?

"Well, I was originally planning to turn them into Oripathy patients and then do some experiments."

Qi Yan touched his neck and helplessly pulled a black pebble the size of a fingernail from his pocket.

"It's Originium. What do you want to do with it?"

Upon seeing the black pebble in Qi Yan's hand, the Ursus soldiers all took a half-step back.

Then, to their astonishment, Qi Yan casually tossed the source stone into his mouth.

The crisp chewing sound from Qi Yan's mouth sent a chill down the spines of the Ursus soldiers.

"Swallowing Originium raw?" The hunter was so shocked by this scene that he almost jumped up from the ground. "You're an infected person. Wouldn't doing this directly cause an acute outbreak of Oripathy? Are you courting death?"

"You're a patient, behave yourself."

Qi Lin exerted her strength again, pinning the hunter to the ground.

But the hunter's eyes were fixed on Qi Yan, and he felt a sharp pain in his heart.

A perfectly healthy young man was about to die before his eyes, and tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision.

In this blurry vision, he seemed to see Qi Yan's figure sway, and then his short white hair drew a blur in the air before rushing into the ranks of soldiers.

Screams rang out one after another, interspersed with terrified roars.

The chaos erupted suddenly and ended quickly.

The hunter blinked sharply, squeezing the tears from his eyes, and his vision cleared again.

All the Ursus soldiers lay on the ground, their necks twisted at a horrific angle, facing backward.

Amidst a group of corpses, Qi Yan pulled out a crossbow bolt from his shoulder and turned to look.

Golden pupils, like the morning sun, are radiant yet not dazzling.

"Hehehe, the speed is a bit slower than last time. The crossbow bolt on my shoulder is still having some effect."

Qi Yan slowly walked back to the two of them, and the injury on his shoulder healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"This...this is your Originium Arts?" The hunter's voice was somewhat hoarse.

"Stay away from us."

Qi Lin suddenly spoke up to stop Qi Yan from getting closer.

The hunter turned his head in surprise, only to be chopped on the neck by Qi Lin, his eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness.

Qi Yan took two steps back, casually rubbed the bloodstains on his shoulder into his palm, and then wiped them on the tree trunk next to him.

"Don't worry, the blood will lose its activity after ten minutes or so," Qi Yan said with a smile.

“Let’s go check the village.” Qi Lin got up and continued walking in the direction the hunters had come from. “If there are any survivors, we can ask them for directions to the Ice Plains.”

"To be precise, I want to ask about the direction of Chernobyl."

Qi Yan corrected him.

He paused for a moment, then asked, somewhat puzzled, "Why don't you just ask Uncle Hunter?"

Qi Lin quickened her pace:

"Stop dawdling, what if there are still people alive in the village?"

"You were so focused on showing off that you forgot to ask, right?"

Qi Yan ran a few steps to his younger sister's side, his face full of smug, punchable expressions.

"I told you to stop dawdling!"

"You really have forgotten."

Chapter 003 I'm not a fly, can I go in?

Qi Lin walked a short distance away in annoyance, then glanced at Qi Yan and said expressionlessly:

"You look better with black eyes."

Qi Yan scratched his head innocently and said:

"There's nothing I can do about this. The enhancement effect of that size of Originium lasts for half an hour. I know I can last a long time, so just bear with it."

Qi Lin clenched her small fists slightly and quickened her pace.

This time, however, Qi Yan easily kept up with her speed.

This is an ability that Qi Yan discovered unintentionally.

After his soul transmigrated, although his physique weakened, he underwent new changes. Upon contact with Originium, especially Active Originium, his body would exhibit a reversion-like condition.

Its speed and strength have increased exponentially, and its self-healing ability has reached a terrifying level, capable of regenerating severed limbs.

But in Qi Yan's view, these were merely additional abilities.

What truly surprised him was that after spending Originium, he awakened a second Originium Art: the ability to manipulate blood.

This is a relatively common Originium Arts technique, which can only manipulate one's own blood. It cannot be used in the same creative way as the Blood Demon branch of a race called Sarkaz on this land.

Even so, Qi Yan was not discouraged at all, because he didn't need to do anything fancy.

After his soul transmigrated, his physique is changing, and his blood has the ability to melt Originium.

It melts upon contact with anything, regardless of the object!

Qi Yan, who manipulates his own blood, can be considered a true killer of infected individuals; the deeper the infection, the more lethal he becomes.

After all, other infected individuals do not have Qi Yan's recovery ability. Once the Originium crystals that are highly integrated with somatic cells are melted, it is equivalent to the body being directly hollowed out like a honeycomb briquette, and they are beyond dead.

If it were really a case of dealing with an infected like Patriot, Qi Yan could just throw a ball of blood at him without any further action, and Patriot would probably melt away like a snowman.

"I think I passed the onboarding test."

Qi Yan nodded leisurely, passed Qi Lin, and led the way for a distance.

Qi Lin was already used to his rambling and pretended not to hear it, following behind him in silence.

The two quickly reached the edge of the woods.

With his golden eyes now in a state of heightened sense of smell, Qi Yan sniffed the air and clearly detected the burnt smell of flames and the pungent smell of human blood.

"It's right ahead! This time I can smell it!"

"Open your dog eyes! The smoke is almost reaching the sky, why do you need to smell it?" Qi Lin said irritably.

Qi Yan awkwardly stood on tiptoe and, sure enough, saw a thick cloud of smoke rising in the distance.

He looked away and said matter-of-factly:

"You're insulting Pello. Watch out, they might bite you."

Qi Lin ignored him and sped off toward the direction where the thick smoke was rising.

Qi Yan easily overtook her again and ran far away in a flash.

When Qi Lin arrived outside the hunter's village, the roars of Ursus soldiers could already be heard from inside.

There were sounds of crossbow bolts piercing the air and things exploding, making the village seem like a chaotic stage play for a moment.

Finally, the farce came to an end, and Qi Yan, rubbing his face blackened by the explosion, slowly walked out of the village.

"They're all dead. At least everyone who stayed in the village is dead. There are also some corpses of infected people. It seems that the village attracted the attention of the Ursus soldiers because it took in infected people."

Qi Lin responded indifferently, then turned and walked towards the northeast without any hesitation.

Qi Yan hesitated for a moment, then turned and ran back to the village. He then took a wet towel, wiped his face, and caught up with Qi Lin.

"Are you sure you're heading in the right direction?" Qi Yan questioned.

“It’s still better than some people.” Qi Lin seemed to recall some unpleasant experience, her eyes full of disdain. “They inexplicably said they were going to Chernobog, but they even went the wrong way and ended up in northern Letania. They were kicked back and ended up going in a big circle for no reason.”

The people Qi Lin mentioned blushed, but still stubbornly insisted despite their lack of conviction:

"Young people should travel more and see more of the world. I'm doing this so you can broaden your horizons."

"Getting hit on the head with a flute and covered in bumps was quite an eye-opener."

Qi Yan chuckled twice, speechless after being rebuked.

Who would have thought that the group of musicians from Leitania would be so irritable? He just thought he had met a fellow enthusiast, so he sang a couple of lines at the top of his lungs, and was chased for several kilometers.

Qi Lin glanced at him sideways, stopped mocking him, and instead looked into the distance.

As the view fades, the terrain flattens out, the jungle disappears, and faint traces of white remain.

"It seems we've at least entered the ice field," Qi Lin confirmed.

"Traveling is so tiring, my Originium status is slowly fading."

Qi Yan yawned, the gold in his pupils gradually fading, and fatigue slowly showing on his face.

"If only there were a means of transportation, I'd heard there's a kind of rock crab the size of a car, it would be really cool to ride on it."

"Yes, and then when it gets hungry, it stuffs you into its mouth and eats you as food."