44: I want to be a salted fish

From Jianghuai City High School to the city base outside, it would take about two to three hours by car.

Because most of these students were leaving Jianghuai City for the first time, they were not tired from the long bus ride but were especially excited!

Even though most of the time, the scenery on both sides of the bus was familiar streets and alleys of Jianghuai City, it couldn't suppress the excitement of these high school seniors.

They were chatting with friends or couldn't contain their excitement, constantly looking out the bus windows.

Like her excited classmates, Song Yu tilted her head to look out the window.

With a sweet strawberry-flavored lollipop in her mouth, her slightly misty black eyes carefully observed from the bus window.

Compared to ordinary buses circulating in the city, this bus looked more like a safari tour bus, except it was taller, larger, and sturdier. Each window was made of high-strength tempered glass, and both sides of the windows were installed with two rows of steel bars each as thick as two fingers!

"Mmm~" Song Yu licked the strawberry candy that had spread out on her tongue a couple of times. Her rosy fingertips lightly tapped on the cold steel bars.

The hard steel bars immediately made a 'ding ding' metallic sound.

"The strength of this third-grade Mahler metal is not bad, right?"

"These specially made metal protection windows, even if they encounter a third-tier elementary beast, they won't be able to break through the protection in a short time."

Sitting next to Song Yu, Zhou Ting saw Song Yu's curiosity about the metal window and immediately leaned over to take a look, saying with a playful tone, "The bus we are currently riding is also a Mahler company product, the large horsepower H3 model. Once in danger in the wilderness... not only can it reach a super high speed of 480 kilometers per hour on flat ground, leaving ordinary beasts behind, but it can also run at speeds of over 250 in ordinary mountainous areas."

"If it weren't for Jianghuai City not allowing such high speeds to prevent accidents, we could reach the Qingshan Wilderness Area in less than an hour!" Zhou Ting spoke confidently, attracting the attention of many people on the bus.

Zhou Ting spoke so convincingly that some students inside the bus curiously asked, "How do you know all this so clearly?"

As high school seniors, they usually spent their time hovering between studies, and they were not familiar with the specific details of even the city's ordinary buses, let alone these specially-made buses.

"Because my dad works at Mahler Company; he is a quality control engineer for the company."

Zhou Ting patted the sturdy and reliable bus seats, pretending to be casual and said with a hint of annoyance, "The thing I dislike the most about my dad is that he likes to talk to me about their company at breakfast. From company gossip to product quality, he always wants me to work for their company after graduating from college... How is that possible? I want to become a professional Beast Tamer!"

"Tsk!"

Seeing this Versailles...

Some students rubbed their arms, and even goosebumps were about to appear.

Due to the widespread occurrence of space rifts globally, many times, when traveling from one city to another, it was necessary to cross multiple wilderness forests and secret realms, making the long-distance transportation of various supplies inconvenient.

Therefore, companies that could establish stores across cities were all top-notch.

Due to the powerful rise of Mahler Metal, Mahler Company was almost one of the most aggressive high-tech emerging companies globally in the past fifty years.

 

Mahler Company had more than five hundred stores worldwide, with one in Jianghuai City. The employee benefits were excellent.

It's no wonder Zhou Ting's parents hope that after graduating from college, she will work at Mahler Company.

Song Yu listened half-heartedly; she wasn't particularly interested in Mahler Company, which specialized in selling Mahler metal and off-road buses.

On the other hand, many students around, upon hearing that Zhou Ting's father worked for Mahler Company, immediately became interested and engaged in discussions with Zhou Ting about Mahler metal and cars. Many eyes lit up, hoping that one day they could buy their own Mahler off-road vehicles instead of renting a bus every time they went to the wilderness with other classmates and teachers.

Song Yu blinked. No matter the era, cars were always a topic everyone would discuss.

 

*****

 

As sixty or seventy buses raced along the highway, weaving through various city streets, it looked like the most beautiful scenery within the city.

This attracted the attention of many pedestrians, causing the students inside the bus to hold their heads high instinctively, and even their spirits seemed to rise a few notches.

Passing through bustling city streets, heading towards the outskirts...

The lush vegetation grew rapidly, visible to the naked eye. Even in autumn, the outskirts of Jianghuai City remained predominantly green, with only some areas adorned in shades of yellow and red. From bushes to ancient trees, the scenery outside the window changed continuously.

Song Yu watched as gray wild rabbits occasionally emerged from the grass, deer leaped in the woods, and the fresh air infiltrated through the cracks in the window, creating a gradually unfolding wilderness panorama for Song Yu.

With her keen eyesight, she even saw agile monkeys frolicking in the trees.

After all, they were lively 18-year-olds, and the students who left Jianghuai City for the first time were surprised, looking around at the serene surroundings.

"Splash! —"

Suddenly! A giant dog, about 1.5 meters tall, covered in black fur with a red horn on its head, leaped out of the jungle by the roadside!

Its slender body, sharp white fangs like steel spikes, almost instantly jumped and swiftly pounced on a monkey five or six meters high in the tree!

Its movements were as fast as lightning, and it bit the unsuspecting monkey in an instant!

The scene became quite bloody and brutal.

"Hiss! —"

Someone inside the bus gasped for breath.

But some people, after glancing, sneered disdainfully, "Level 0 Poison Fang Dog, without even a bloodline skill. It's just a waste beast slightly stronger in speed and strength than ordinary dogs. It's only suitable to live outside these wilderness areas where source energy is extremely scarce, hunting these ordinary animals."

Like the Beast Tamer space inside humans, secret realms also contained a large amount of source energy.

The higher the assessed level of the secret realm, the more source energy it contained.

The wilderness area was originally a secret realm. Although the fusion with the Blue Star caused the dispersion of source energy, spreading to the ordinary land of the Blue Star, most of the source energy was still confined within the original boundaries of the secret realm due to the magnetic field...

So, this was also one of the main reasons why most beasts in the wilderness area didn't like to roam around.

Except for some special cases, only those low-tier beasts that couldn't survive in their original areas liked to run out from the wilderness area to the periphery.

"Indeed, these beasts are too low in level. Even the soldiers and Beast Tamers on the border don't bother to clean them up..." someone glanced a few times and nodded.

As the bus continued to shuttle, Song Yu and the others soon arrived at a supply base for military Beast Tamers.

A military force was patrolling with electrically fenced high-speed protective walls, holding metal guns and accompanied by contracted beasts. It felt as if they had suddenly crossed from a nature reserve to another world of steel!

The supply base was large, and a dense array of buses and off-road vehicles entered through the base gate.

Some of these vehicles carried high school seniors from other schools, some were service personnel coming to the supply base from Jianghuai City, and some were Beast Tamer teams returning from the wilderness area. Some of these team vehicles were relatively clean, while others were stained with mud, grass, and bloodstains, indicating that they had experienced intense battles in the wilderness area. Some people sat on their contracted beasts, running like nomads, vigorous and bold.

"Wow! —"

Some of the mighty contracted beasts immediately attracted exclamations from many students inside the bus.

Their eyes sparkled, and they stared out the window at the Beast Tamer teams.

As the bus skillfully continued to shuttle, a group of people passed through a square and a few shops, soon stopping in a parking lot in front of a residential area.

As soon as the bus stopped, each class's teacher urged the students to get off quickly.

Some teachers who had arrived early had already started explaining various precautions.

Zhou Tao, dressed in black, stood in front of Class 5's lineup, pointing to the five registration points at the neighborhood entrance, saying, "Everyone pays attention! I will only say these things once today!"

"After this practical training in the wilderness area... when you enter the wilderness area again, the school will not escort you! You will need to handle these matters yourselves!"

"Those five registration points over there are where everyone entering the wilderness area supply base must go!"

"You only need to hand over your ID card to the other party! You can then rent a high-efficiency communication wristband! Through the wristband, you can find your teammates in this wilderness area, notify them to seek supplies from the base or seek help from other Beast Tamers! You can also use the wristband to bind and open an uninhabited house! Until you leave the wilderness area, return the high-efficiency communication wristband to the registration point!"

With his hands behind his back, Zhou Tao raised his eyebrows and smiled, "However, because these houses are provided free of charge by the supply base for everyone to use, the quantity is limited. So, I suggest you look for accommodation as a team... Otherwise, you might run into a few professional Beast Tamers who don't have a place to stay in the wilderness area... and get beaten up. Don't blame me for not warning you."

Zhou Tao's dark eyes carried a mocking smile as he carefully examined the many students of Class 5 present. "The supply base prohibits killing, but not sparring. There are even several sparring arenas. So you all need to work hard, don't get beaten up by students from other schools! The beast materials and spirit minerals collected from the wilderness can be exchanged for money at the material procurement point east of the supply base... Lucky students might even cover their university tuition after this."

While Zhou Tao stood upfront, drumming on, Song Yu's mind kept looping — 'Don't get beaten up by students from other schools!'

Song Yu: "..."

Song Yu adjusted the heavy backpack pressing down her shoulders and sighed helplessly.

The annoying competition and internal strife among Beast Tamers were omnipresent, hidden in every corner of the streets and alleys.

As the parking lot echoed with the screech of brakes, Song Yu also saw buses from other schools gradually arriving at the residential area.

The three registration points, originally with long queues, immediately attracted more people...

The long queue resembled a python, and who knew how long they would have to wait.

Yawning, feeling drowsy, Song Yu, wearing a specially designed thick and stuffy green wilderness outfit with a sun hat, followed behind the crowd. Listening to the excited chattering of other students behind her, she couldn't resist the boredom of queuing and sneakily took out her phone from her backpack.

After entering the wilderness, her phone indeed lost signal. It had 86% battery left, showing traces of secretly listening to music on the bus earlier.

Taking out her earphones, she opened a video app on her phone.

Satisfied, Song Yu watched the video resources downloaded in advance from a legitimate website over the past two days. She opened a cheesy romance drama — Episode 3 of "Going Back Home ***."

In the drama.

The female lead, eating hot pot and singing, returned home with her contracted beast. She coincidentally caught sight of the second female lead, who lived in the top-floor garden, having an affair with the male lead, catching them in the act...

Song Yu's eyes sparkled as she watched attentively, eager to witness the moment when the female lead would tear apart the scumbag and the third party in the next second!

Her concentration was abruptly interrupted by a voice that suddenly rose eight octaves.

"Alas! Nowadays, why does everyone want to be a professional Beast Tamer? Does the threshold for professional Beast Tamers become so low now? Or do they think they can earn money as long as they have hands?"

"Hahaha, Old Wei, don't say that. After all, being a Beast Tamer requires some level of expertise. Some people might last only three days. I've grown up, and this is the first time I've seen someone come to the wilderness area with a phone to watch TV shows."

Several boys stood behind Song Yu, pointing and laughing.

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