Southern Dipper

After a brief silence, Hong Yuan hoisted her giant axe onto her shoulder.

"Then we just wing it!"

The confusion in her eyes was completely swept away. Yin Chen looked speechless; if they were going to slack off, why act so passionate about it?

At two to one, his opposition was invalid, so he had no choice but to agree with a look of utter hopelessness.

The Crimson Slacker Squad was, at this very moment, officially formed.

"So," Yin Chen turned to Chen Guan, steering the topic to the core of their plan, "what do we do now? We will probably have to wander around this ice field for a while."

Chen Guan turned around and looked at the giant Black Tortoise tower that had stood in silence for a millennium.

After a long time, he finally withdrew his gaze.

"Let us just take first place in this training camp for starters."

...

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away from this extreme northern land, a windowless secret room operated amidst the humming of equipment.

An entire wall was made of a piece of dark crystal.

Billions of blue data streams silently cascaded down like a waterfall, the light reflecting the only figure in the room.

The man wore a pair of rimless glasses and had a cold, stern demeanor.

He stood straight and perfectly still in front of the data waterfall, forming a dead-silent contrast to the rushing information behind him.

Dozens of translucent interfaces floated in the air in front of him, pulsating in real-time with the coordinates of all the trainees in the camp.

A visible distortion appeared in the air, and White Tiger stepped out from it.

He slumped into a chair, crossed his legs, and propped them right onto the control console.

"I say, Southern Dipper, this plan of yours is just like you, cold and stiff."

White Tiger dragged out his words, his tone carrying a half-asleep laziness that broke the tranquility of the secret room.

"You almost scared away the good seedlings I picked out. If they just quit and walked away, my trip here would have been for nothing."

The man called Southern Dipper did not turn around, his eyes still locked on the data stream.

"According to the model deductions, your unauthorized improvisational script increased the probability of the Crimson Squad forming early by 12.7 percent. The result is within the controllable margin of error."

"Look at you, calculating again," White Tiger curled his lips. "Everything is within your calculations. How boring."

Southern Dipper's fingertips lightly tapped on the virtual screen in front of him.

The data waterfall instantly froze, and the billions of light points immediately scattered and reassembled, forming a massive three-dimensional star chart.

The center of the star chart was none other than the training camp.

Countless threads, some bright and some dim, extended from the camp, connecting to coordinates all over China.

"The rats among this year's freshmen are just a fuse," Southern Dipper explained.

"Their purpose is to detonate the big fish lurking behind them in the upper echelons of the major universities, or even higher."

"The entire freshman training camp, from the very beginning, was a screening process."

"To screen out people like Long Ao and Yin Chen, and then use them to trigger this trap."

White Tiger dropped his cynical expression, sat up straight, and stared at the star chart with great interest.

"And what about Chen Guan?" he asked. "Is this biggest variable also within your calculations?"

Southern Dipper's gaze shifted away from the screen for the first time and fell upon White Tiger.

His lenses reflected the faint blue data light, masking the emotions in his eyes.

"Chen Guan's behavioral patterns cannot be predicted by existing models and possess non-determinism."

"However," Southern Dipper's tone remained unchanged, "his core demands are constant. Centered around this core, I have already prepared three sets of interlocking redundant plans for him. No matter which path he chooses, he will ultimately be anchored to this chessboard, playing the role we need."

"Regardless, he has accepted the position of the Black Tortoise. Since he has obtained that token, he should go where he is meant to go."

Hearing this, White Tiger let out a whistle.

This guy Southern Dipper even set up his own colleagues. He had absolutely zero empathy.

That guy Beidou's squad did not have a single normal person; they were either bratty kids or psychos.

If not for the fact that he, the great White Tiger, was a cut above, he probably would have been severely screwed over too.

Southern Dipper ignored him and turned back to face the screen.

His fingertip swiped through the air, and a window enlarged.

Inside was a monster core, entirely pitch-black yet flowing with starlight. Below it was a line of small text: Void Beast Monster Core.

Seeing this, White Tiger was surprised for a moment. "Oh? You are actually willing to bring this thing out?"

"We must create a bait large enough to dredge up everything hiding beneath the surface."

Southern Dipper then asked, "How is the situation on Vermilion Bird's side?"

"Same as always, stubborn as a mule," White Tiger shrugged. "But she has made a lot of progress. The return of the Four Symbols is going smoothly. I have to say, putting these little guys together is actually quite interesting. It is just that Azure Dragon still cannot be found. Not only can we not find the person, but I do not even know where the Azure Dragon token went."

"The boss said that Azure Dragon will naturally appear when it is time. I cannot figure it out anyway. The boss is just like Beidou, they both love this kind of mysticism."

"Careful not to let Beidou hear you," Southern Dipper gave a rare, kindhearted friendly reminder. White Tiger had many identities on the outside and was the person who showed his face the most in the external world, but Beidou was not far behind.

His little black men truly achieved the feat of being everywhere.

The Life-type was simply unreasonable, unlike his frail Spirit-type, which could only hide behind the scenes.

"It is fine, I am guessing he has already heard it. As long as the boss does not hear it, we are good."

White Tiger did not care. A creature like Beidou loved nothing more than to sinisterly eavesdrop on other people's conversations. However, he had never said this to Southern Dipper's face. Southern Dipper might not respect the boss, but he absolutely respected Beidou.

Setting other things aside, White Tiger still admired Beidou's personal charisma.

Southern Dipper said no more. The command room returned to silence, leaving only the faint glow of flowing data.

...

"Taking first place in the training camp will not be hard."

He opened a simple map, which marked the known high-risk zones.

His knuckle tapped on a scarlet mark in the center of the map.

"The Golden Beast Emperor, at the peak of the sixth tier, is entrenched in the glacier rift. It is the acknowledged king of this trial ground. If we take it down, we are first."

Hong Yuan's fingers closed together, tightly gripping the cold axe handle.

Challenging a peak sixth-tier existence, the very thought was a ball of fire burning in her chest.

Yin Chen furrowed his brow, pointing out the most critical obstacle. "My family told me that last year a squad tried to encircle and kill it. Three died and two were severely injured. Its strength far exceeds others of the same tier. The three of us..."

Although he prided himself on having improved, he was not so confident as to think he could arm-wrestle an existence approaching the seventh tier.

"You have me."

Chen Guan's simple sentence was enough to dispel the hesitation in Yin Chen's eyes.

Right, just because he could not do it did not mean the fierce god in front of him could not.

The scene of Chen Guan single-handedly surrounding numerous monster beasts on the ice field earlier was still vivid in his mind. Yin Chen had no doubts about Chen Guan's combat power.

Even for him and Hong Yuan now, they probably still were not Chen Guan's match. The two of them had grown stronger, and the fierce god likely had too.