Chapter 85-2: The Water Valley Attack (2) |
The Grind Kings group was founded five years ago.
Back then, these gold-farming players forged a deep friendship in the game and created a chat group to exchange gold-farming strategies and information.
The term ‘Grind Kings’ represented their style of gameplay.
By dedicating enormous hours to the game, they gathered resources that they could sell for real-world money.
The most extreme case was when they stayed online for half a month straight, surviving entirely on nutrient solutions while gold-farming in-game.
After that insane marathon, they changed the group’s name to Grind Kings, and this name became their core creed in gaming.
Their ability to endure a week-long stretch of non-stop brawling also stemmed from this drive and belief.
Every player had their own gaming style, but the Grind Kings played by one rule: if you’re not dead, keep grinding to death.
When it came down to it, they never backed down.
With every wave of mental shock, Li Zheng and the others trembled all over, sweat involuntarily dripping from their foreheads.
Yet they kept holding on.
When the intensity reached 150, the pain became unbearable.
The number had already surpassed the endurance limit of the Four-Eyed race. The taut string in their hearts finally slackened.
Just as they were about to turn and pound on the door to ask Mad Sand to let them out, the Challenger Notification suddenly popped up.
[Challenger Notification: Mental stress has reached the danger threshold. Pain feedback temporarily adjusted to 0%.]
In an instant, it felt like the mountain crushing their heads had been lifted. The pain feedback vanished entirely.
Li Zheng and the others had pushed their endurance to the limit, triggering the protection threshold of the Purification System, which then activated to safeguard their mental state.
Qi Sheng had designed two types of pain feedback protection.
The first was physical pain feedback. This feedback had no limit settings, because any physical pain, once reduced to 10%, remained within tolerable levels.
Physically, pain feedback essentially had two layers: first was the bodily pain itself, and second was the mental distress caused by the bodily pain.
When physical pain was reduced by 10%, its subsequent mental impact was also drastically weakened.
The second was mental pain feedback. For this, Qi Sheng set a danger threshold based on the limits of what an ordinary person could endure.
If mental pain exceeded this threshold, the system would completely shut off pain feedback and, once the feedback ended, would purify any negative emotions generated during the suffering, soothing mental trauma and ensuring the player’s psychological health.
This prevented mental trauma from carrying over into real life.
Li Zheng and the others had now pushed beyond what ordinary people could endure, activating the protection of the Purification System.
At this moment, the chamber detected mental damage in Li Zheng and the others. The white formation on the ceiling activated, releasing starlight rain.
As the starlight rain touched them, their bodies felt a soothing warmth, and the damaged mental state began to repair itself.
Outside, Mad Sand and the other freshmen of different races had rather colorful expressions.
The number on the wall had reached 160, yet Li Zheng and the others were still holding on. Even the occasional groans of pain had disappeared.
Mad Sand raised his hand, and life monitoring data appeared on the wall.
After confirming that Li Zheng and the others had no physical abnormalities, he fell into deep thought.
This outcome had completely exceeded his expectations.
In his view, the player race had weak willpower. They always quietly complained during training and constantly tried to find ways to slack off.
But he never imagined they could endure pain feedback to this extent.
“No wonder they can endure hunger like that. These beasts are really something,” a trainee from the Brass race said emotionally while staring at the number on the wall.
At this moment, even the Four-Eyed race trainees were full of respect.
The numbers on the wall further confirmed a previous suspicion.
Earlier, when competing with the player race in hunger endurance, they had repeatedly suspected that the player race might possess some racial talent for resisting hunger, allowing them to break down stored body energy to sustain themselves.
But there was also another theory: that the player race was simply enduring through pure willpower.
Which one was correct? The Four-Eyed race trainees had never known.
But now, this mystery had an answer.
These beasts had simply been holding out with their sheer willpower all along.
Such determination deserved respect.
The number finally reached 200, and Mad Sand chose to manually terminate the test. The mental impact formation shut down, and the metal door slowly opened.
When they saw Li Zheng and the others looking completely at ease, the reserve trainees from all races cursed silently, calling them monsters.
After this test, even Mad Sand found the player race much more pleasing to the eye.
He came to think that the player race’s constant complaining during training was more like a habitual chant, something they had to say to feel better.
This pain test had fully proven their willpower.
His previous intention to expel the player race from the training camp had already wavered after the cafeteria war. This test made him abandon the idea entirely.
For a warrior, strength was certainly the most important proof, but a warrior with strong willpower was equally valuable.
With the mental pain endurance test complete, a new round of training immediately followed.
Li Zheng and the others resumed their usual grumbling, but to the other races, their complaints now held a different meaning.
—
In the afternoon, Mad Sand did not assign any new training.
Instead, he brought them to the training camp’s medicinal bath chamber.
There, Li Zheng and the others saw dozens of large wooden tubs, each filled with a thick purple liquid.
Through Mad Sand’s explanation, they learned that.
They wouldn’t have any training this afternoon; they simply had to soak fully in the tubs until dinnertime.
Mad Sand then gave a detailed explanation of the origin of the purple liquid.
He said it was a boiling concoction carefully prepared by the Anti-Tide Legion’s alchemists, made from materials such as beast hearts, black-thorn tree roots, scale fruits, purple vine roots, and spirit spring water. Soaking in it could temper physical strength.
Upon learning they didn’t have to train, Li Zheng and the others were overjoyed.
At Mad Sand’s signal, they jumped into the tubs one by one.
The moment their skin touched the purple liquid, their smiles instantly vanished. An intense stinging sensation surged like a raging flood, nearly forcing curses from their mouths.
“Oh right, forgot to mention, the liquid in the tubs is not for drinking. Your bodies can’t handle it,” Mad Sand added casually before turning to leave.
At that moment, Li Zheng and the others twisted and writhed like snakes thrown into boiling water, gasping heavily but not daring to climb out.
The intense stimulation felt like countless needles piercing their skin, with pain spreading inward through their bodies. Their skin reddened under the bath’s stimulation.
Looking over at the Four-Eyed and other trainees, their contorted faces showed they too were gritting their teeth to endure the sharp sting of the bath.
But this phase only lasted a little over ten minutes before gradually easing.
The sharp stinging subsided bit by bit, replaced by a gentle warmth that penetrated deep into their bodies, lightly brushing their cells. Amidst the lingering pain, there was even a faint sense of comfort.
As time went on, the stimulation became ever softer, transforming into a warm current that flowed through every corner of their bodies, bringing a spring breeze-like comfort to Li Zheng and the others. Their tense bodies fully relaxed under the rising steamy mist.
Leaning against the tubs, their expressions turned leisurely.
“Brothers, check your log info,” Dirt Poor suddenly reminded them.
Everyone quickly summoned their function panels and opened their information logs.
They were surprised to see that the log displayed a continuous string of Body Tempering Experience +1 notifications.
There were so many notifications that they had already been auto-suppressed by the system.
They immediately opened their attribute panels to check and discovered that after just half an hour of soaking in the medicinal bath, they had gained a total of 3000 points of Body Tempering Experience.
At that moment, Li Zheng and the others were moved to tears.
All the days of endurance had finally brought new rewards.
The rest of the soaking process was no longer tormenting; they even wished they could soak like this forever.
However, the effect of the medicinal bath gradually diminished.
At first, they gained multiple Body Tempering Experience +1 notifications per second, but after three hours, it took several dozen seconds for a single notification to appear.
The originally thick purple liquid also became clearer as their bodies continuously absorbed it.
This round of enjoyment ended just before mealtime.
When Mad Sand returned, the thick purple liquid in the tubs had completely disappeared, leaving the liquid crystal clear.
In the livestream chat, the onlookers screamed ‘You guys deserve to die!’ as Li Zheng and the others collectively gained 7284 points of Body Tempering Experience.