Gu Lin moved across the grassy lands, bending low to stay hidden. The Guardian's voice whispered clear in his mind, as if the being had just spoken: Survive until the next day.
He understood why his fellow contestants were killing eachother. He just couldn't do the same.
He wasn't sure how many people were in his batch, but he was told—very explicitly so—that the test would end early if half of them died before the night fell.
He just needed to survive until the night. He just needed to hide. And hope no one would find him until then. Hope nothing would find him after dusk. It was when the test became "serious", according to the Guardian.
Yet, the sun already marked noon. The test would last for many hours more. Could he truly wait that long, hoping for a miracle?
For all he knew, a sword could spring from the grass at any moment. He gripped his shortspear tighter, the rough wood digging into his palm, trembling at the sheer vulnerability of the thought.
His years as an apothecary and his much-regretted Perfect Memory made him know every herb, every poison he had ever seen, like he had just read about it yesterday.
Even the grass around him, swaying in the faint breeze, was instantly recognizable: [Yellow Breath Grass]. He had only read about it in ancient scrolls; it was of high rarity and little usage, so his father wouldn't bother bringing it to him. He wouldn't bother with anything that wasn't both extremely rare and even more deadly.
He wouldn't have time to do anything with it now, would he?
Suddenly, another scream shattered his thoughts, closer this time, muffled behind the dense grass. From the sounds he could discern, it was a close-quarters struggle. Grappling, perhaps, or a flurry of desperate blows. He needed to act before the victor recovered. He needed to get closer.
Gu Lin dropped to one knee, grabbing a blade of grass, pulled it out of the dry earth, and started ripping it apart with his fingers—accustumed to deal with finer things, yet blackened by dealing with poison for more than a decade.
Cutting it with his teeth, even, on the hardest parts—the "spine" of the [Yellow Breath Grass] is harder to tear than a regular leaf's, and he needed it thoroughly broken.
Slamming a pile of it with the shaft of his spear, grinding it against a flat stone.
He even spat on it. More than once.
Then he rolled it into a foul-smelling, wet, yellow sphere. It glowed a little, leaking miniscule amounts of Breath, barely noticeable from the sun's yellow hue, even as close as Gu Lin held it.
The yellow pulp clung to his skin, his mouth, and the stone alike, and yet the gist of it was done.
Before moving, he shoved the wad into his mouth, chewing furiously as he tried to break it apart even more.
It wasn't what his father would call "proper alchemy", but rather a crude application of the principles of how to make Breath more easily acessible. But if it worked as he intended, his father's approval was less than important.
Gu Lin moved with the swiftness of an old scholar—young as he was, physical labor was never a strength of his. His sister—Gu Mei—would often tease him about it. "Walk like a man, Gu Lin!" she'd shout from behind the counter of the Flying Smoke like the brat she was.
The tall grass rustled around his body, and his bare steps, though careful, still sounded clear to a truly trained ear. He hoped they hadn't noticed him yet. Who would pay attention to him, fighting for their life?
As he got close enough to peer through the gaps in the shifting green, the fight was already coming to a brutal end.
A bulky man, easily taller than Gu Lin (who was often complimented on his own height by the apothecary's elderly customers), had fallen to the ground, raising a cloud of fine dust. His clothes were larger than Gu Lin's, and his frame spoke more of a laborer's sturdy build than a killer's lean grace.
Within an arm's reach of the strong man, there was a longsword. He could grab it and…
It did not matter.
Before the man could even gasp for breath, the fight ended with a sickening crunch. Blood spattered in all directions, warm and metallic in the air, his head smashed into pieces by his opponent's weapon.
Above him, one foot planted casually on the man's belly, stood a petite girl—no taller than Gu Mei. Covered in crimson, her dull rags seemed to take on a strange, horrifying grace.
In her hands, a war hammer, still dripping red from the blow, looked impossibly light. If Gu Lin had met her back home, in the Flying Smoke or on the busy streets of his hometown, Gu Mei would have nudged him. "Talk to her, Gu Lin," she'd surely say, a mischievous look in her face. "You'll never see someone as pretty—except me, of course." That bastard...
The bloodstained girl had brown hair and bright—almost glowing—hazel eyes, with a smattering of freckles across her face. She was more cute than beautiful, in his eyes. And more menacing than anything else, having just killed a man with such a brutal strike.
Nothing on her slender build screamed strength—how could a girl his sister's size be strong enough to overpower a man that large and pop his brains in one strike?
There was just one possibility, really.
As he finished pondering this—still chewing the "gum"—the girl stepped off the man's corpse, her head turning slowly as she scanned her surroundings.
Then, she muttered something—too low for him to hear—and stiffened, as if sensing him. To sense such a half-baked pill inside his mouth, her Breath sensing must be among the best…
A faint amount of Breath leaked from her skin. It was a kind of gaseous energy that glowed faintly white, with a subtle tint for its natural element. In her case, it was a clear, vivid yellow, of Earth. Her bright hazel eyes seemed to fade slightly, growing duller, alongside her gradual weakening.
The Breath leaked slowly and little at first, so much so that Gu Lin barely noticed it, mistaking it for heat haze before she had felt him—Gu Lin was sure, then, that she was Infused. And at the peak of the Elementary Realm, at that.
Foreseeing an attack, Gu Lin gulped the makeshift pill, raised his spear point-forward, and waited behind the grass. He tried calming his breath, to avoid giving away his exact location. She couldn't tell that by that faint leak, could she? His father surely could. His sister surely couldn't. None of them were good comparisons, though for entirely different reasons.
His gaze locked with hers. Shit.
Her eyes wided slightly—more out of confirmation than surprise.
The next thing Gu Lin saw was a war hammer flying towards his face.