Half an hour later, the combat assessment began.

The long‑closed Entrance No. 9 finally opened slowly at this moment.

The entrance was large, roughly fifty meters wide by eye.

At the person in charge’s command, hundreds of candidates poured in at once, rushing into the forest to seize the initiative.

Lin Zichen wasn’t in a hurry at all and only after the crowd had rushed in and the entrance was no longer crowded did he stroll in with Shen Qinghan.

“Xiao Chen, there are actually maps in the forest and even signposts!”

Looking around at the surroundings, Shen Qinghan noticed a standing map board ahead and every path had signposts indicating how far it was to the deepest part of the forest.

There was also a red‑marked warning saying that the deeper you go, the more dangerous it is, so proceed within your limits.

“The point of the exam is to screen people, not to decide life and death. Having maps and signposts is normal, otherwise there’d be multiple casualties.”

After speaking, Lin Zichen stepped up, glanced over the map and signposts, then casually chose a path and headed deeper into the forest with Shen Qinghan.

Along the way, he carefully observed the environment around them.

There was a surveillance camera almost every hundred meters.

As for security officers, there was one roughly every five hundred meters.

In other words, as long as you didn’t deliberately court death, there was no real danger in this combat assessment.

After walking about two kilometers, Lin Zichen used the effect of his biological attribute Eye of the Sky and spotted a Score Card on a big tree ahead.

It was a 1‑point card, tied by a rope and hanging more than ten meters up.

If you weren’t looking for it on purpose, it was hard to notice.

“Hanhan, there’s a Score Card on that tree up ahead, right there, see it?”

“I see it, there really is one!”

“Climb up and take it down.”

For Lin Zichen, this combat assessment was meaningless—he could clear it with his eyes closed.

So he planned to let Shen Qinghan take the lead for the next seven days to train her wilderness survival skills.

He would serve as her mentor, stepping in only when she ran into a problem she couldn’t handle.

They had agreed on this before entering the forest.

Soon, Shen Qinghan reached the tree.

Using both hands and feet, she scrambled up quickly and in no time, took down the Score Card hanging more than ten meters high.

“Xiao Chen, wasn’t that awesome?”

After climbing down, she immediately returned to Lin Zichen with pride.

From up to down, she had taken less than a minute—her climbing skills were excellent.

“Amazing!”

Lin Zichen gave her a thumbs‑up.

After chatting for a moment, the two continued deeper into the forest.

Lin Zichen acted as the radar, calling out where Score Cards were so Shen Qinghan could retrieve them.

Working like this for half a day, they easily collected twelve points.

Several Safety Officers along the way were amazed by their performance.

No matter how well hidden the Score Cards were, the pair plucked them as if by sleight of hand—like they had x‑ray vision.

* * *

In the blink of an eye, it was afternoon.

Just as they were about to look for food, the sky suddenly darkened.

Looking up, they saw it was about to rain.

Happily, there was a patch of banana plants not far away, so they ran over, tore off leaves to make a rain shelter and picked some bananas for food.

Right as they finished the shelter, the rain poured down, fat drops drumming against the leaves.

“So lucky—we finished just before the rain.”

Standing beneath the shelter and eating a banana, Shen Qinghan spoke between bites.

The rain didn’t last long and stopped in less than half an hour.

Seeing it was getting close to evening, Lin Zichen urged Shen Qinghan to go find food and water before dark, or they’d go hungry tonight.

Patting her chest, Shen Qinghan said, “Leave it to me. You’ve always taken care of me—let me take care of you these seven days!”

The ground after the rain was full of puddles.

Before long, her shoes and pant legs were wet.

Strangely, she didn’t feel uncomfortable—in fact the dampness felt pleasant.

She knew it was the effect of her as‑yet‑undeveloped superpower.

Attuned to water, she felt comfortable whenever she touched it.

“Can we eat these?”

In a thicket, Shen Qinghan found many wild fruits, grape‑sized, emerald green, firm to the touch.

Unsure if they were edible, she turned to Lin Zichen and asked.

Lin Zichen refused to answer. With a smile he said, “You said you’d take care of me—I can’t help you with this kind of thing.”

“Alright, then I’ll try them myself.”

She picked the one that looked ripest, hesitated, then bit into it.

A second later, her brows knit and she spat with a grimace—it was very sour.

* * *

In the blink of an eye, darkness fell and night came on.

Using banana leaves, Shen Qinghan made a bed and fixed it to a tree with vines so they could sleep on it.

She originally wanted to sleep without pants, but with Lin Zichen right beside her, it wasn’t convenient, so she chose to trust she wouldn’t wet herself.

* * *

At first light the next day, Lin Zichen woke to find Shen Qinghan sleeping soundly sprawled over him.

There was drool at the corner of her mouth, a little of it on his neck.

‘Good thing she didn’t wet herself…’

He glanced at her lower half, saw her pants were dry and breathed a sigh of relief.

Soon, Shen Qinghan woke up as well.

They climbed down from the tree and continued deeper into the forest.

As before, Lin Zichen acted as a radar, calling out the locations of Score Cards for her to take.

Around noon, they ran into a familiar face on the road.

It was the top student from Qianzhen City who had tried to use ‘teaming up’ as a pretext to hit on Shen Qinghan yesterday.

Seeing them, the boy was surprised, “What a coincidence?”

“It is,” Lin Zichen replied politely.

The boy’s gaze quickly fell on Shen Qinghan. One extra glance and his heart pounded wildly—as if it might explode.

‘So pretty. So adorable.’

If he didn’t get to know her today, he would regret it forever.

Thinking this, he took more than twenty Score Cards from his pocket and displayed them before the two of them, speaking earnestly.

“I’m the kind of person who repays a drop of kindness with a spring. I’ve kept the bread and biscuits you gave me yesterday in mind. Maybe it meant nothing to you, but for me, if I can’t repay a spring for a drop, I feel awful all over. Really—let me carry you two. We’ll split whatever Score Cards we collect evenly among the three of us.”

The combat assessment wasn’t that important in the martial arts exam—as long as you passed, it was fine.

The written test was the same—passing was enough.

What truly mattered were the physical test already completed and the final compatibility test.

That was why this top student from Qianzhen was willing to split Score Cards evenly.

Lin Zichen glanced at the cards in the boy’s hands—twenty‑eight in total.

That was nearly triple what he and Shen Qinghan had, especially for the outer zone where the number of Score Cards was low. One person couldn’t possibly have gathered that many in a single day.

For this boy to have so many now, he had most likely robbed other candidates of theirs.

With that in mind, Lin Zichen said, “No need to team up. If you really can’t rest easy and want to repay us with a spring, then give us the Score Cards you’re holding.”

Hearing this, the boy’s expression turned ugly.

He had asked to team up three times and been refused three times—it left him flushed with anger and shame.

“Classmate, you’ve chosen a narrow road.”

Dropping the pretense, he narrowed his eyes, menace in his voice.

In that instant, Lin Zichen’s biological attribute Danger Perception thrummed repeatedly—he sensed the strong malice radiating from the boy.

He responded with a calm smile.

“Yeah, a narrow road it is.”