Chapter 8: The Three Days Before the Assessment
After registration was complete, there were exactly three days left before the official start of the assessment.
No unified training was arranged during these three days. The Military Affairs Bureau left all the remaining time for the candidates to rest and prepare on their own. Some people seized the opportunity to inquire about the details of the ruins site, seeking advice from veterans who had participated in the assessment in previous years; some stayed indoors, meditating day and night to polish the stability of their Sea of Consciousness with all their might; while others fell into endless fear, suffering from sleepless nights and repeatedly regretting signing the risk confirmation form.
Back at the shelter, Lin Yan did not run around gathering intelligence like the others. He had already seen enough true cruelty at the city wall, the adjustment center, the Wall of Martyrs, and from Uncle Chen, whose Sea of Consciousness was permanently damaged. No amount of rumors could change his judgment now.
His plan was simple: stabilize his mind, adapt to the faint psychic fluctuations omnipresent in this world, and familiarize himself with the underlying logic of drawing in and guarding his Sea of Consciousness.
At dusk, the public hall of the shelter was still lively. Many newcomers sat in several clusters, exchanging intelligence in low voices. Some said that the ruins of the old defense zone were filled with collapsed reinforced concrete buildings, and there were abandoned air-raid tunnels underground, making the terrain complex and easy to get lost in. Others warned that in certain enclosed spaces deep within the ruins, the concentration of psychic turbulence would suddenly spike. Even without scaled beasts around, ordinary people would suffer splitting headaches and disorientation if they stayed too long.
Some even took out hand-drawn, simple sketches of the ruins' general topography, drawn from memory by candidates from previous years. The sketches were passed around the crowd, drawing a cluster of people who leaned in to examine them carefully.
Lin Yan leaned quietly against a pillar in the hall, listening without stepping forward to join the discussion.
He had no intention of memorizing the terrain of the ruins by rote. The most important lesson the Jianghu battles had taught him was never to memorize maps in advance, but to observe on the spot and adapt to changing circumstances. Even in completely unfamiliar terrain, as long as he remained calm, he could quickly judge the positions of cover, escape routes, and enemies.
As night fell and the crowd in the hall gradually dispersed, most returning to their compartments to rest, Lin Yan walked alone to the rooftop platform of the shelter. The platform was surrounded by metal railings half a person's height, wrapped in fine psychic shielding mesh to block out drifting psychic residue from the outside. From here, one could see the scattered buildings of the entire L City Bastion. In the distance, the hundred-meter-high giant wall spanning heaven and earth had turned into a thick black shadow in the night, while the wilderness outside the wall was completely submerged in boundless darkness.
The evening wind blew through the net framework, carrying a hint of icy chill.
Lin Yan sat cross-legged on the ground and slowly closed his eyes.
He tried to open his perception, allowing the scattered, chaotic psychic ripples around him to flood into his senses. The emotions, exhaustion, anxiety, fear, and hopes of countless ordinary people within the bastion flowed like countless tiny streams, weaving into a hazy ocean of psychic energy.
For ordinary people in this world who had not undergone training, keeping their perception open and soaking in such mixed emotional fluctuations for a long time would easily cause their minds to be dragged along, becoming restless and suffering from sleep disorders. This was why civilians with weak Seas of Consciousness rarely stayed in densely populated areas for extended periods.
Yet, Lin Yan's mind was as steady as a boulder.
Having fought countless life-and-death battles in Boulder Valley, facing blades, traps, and coordinated ambushes, he had long forged a mental fortitude that remained unshaken by external forces. This mental disturbance was subtly connected to the methods used by Jianghu masters to disrupt opponents' minds with sound waves and auras. The underlying logic was similar; only the carrier had changed from physical blood and qi to the consciousness of the Sea of Consciousness.
Bit by bit, he explored, trying to gather his own consciousness, drawing in the scattered perceptions inward, and condensing them into a stable core. This was what people in this world called "guarding the Sea of Consciousness."
At first, it did not go smoothly.
He was accustomed to controlling his physical body, regulating his breathing, and sensing the movements of tangible objects around him. The Sea of Consciousness belonged to a purely spiritual realm; it was invisible and intangible, without meridians or the flow of internal energy. After several repeated attempts, he slowly found the trick. Instead of forcibly suppressing the external fluctuations, he simply guarded his own true heart, letting countless ripples wash over him while his core remained immovable.
Time passed bit by bit. He immersed himself in this perception practice, completely ignoring the passage of time.
"Are you also practicing to solidify your Sea of Consciousness?"
A soft voice sounded beside him, interrupting Lin Yan's meditation.
Lin Yan opened his eyes and turned his head. It was a woman in her early twenties, slender of build with short black hair, wearing the grey work uniform uniformly issued by the shelter. She held a metal Sea of Consciousness stabilizer pendant in her hand, her fingertips gently rubbing the patterns on the surface of the pendant, her gaze calm as she looked at Lin Yan.
"Mm." Lin Yan nodded slightly.
"My name is Su Qin. I'm also a candidate for this assessment." The woman walked to the railing and looked toward the silhouette of the massive city wall in the distance. "My hometown was in the Luoshi Bastion to the west. Three months ago, a large near-sea rift erupted, and a tide of scaled beasts directly broke through the outer city. My parents didn't make it out. I fled all the way to L City with the refugee convoy."
Her voice was very calm, without hysterical sorrow, only a settled numbness. In the post-Cataclysm era, partings and death had long become the norm.
"I know that many people take the assessment to gamble for a better life. But I'm different. I just want to have the power to protect myself. I don't want to passively wait for others to protect me or watch the people around me die when the next disaster strikes." Su Qin looked down at the stabilizer pendant in her palm. "My Sea of Consciousness talent is average. Despite practicing repeatedly for a long time, I can barely withstand low-intensity psychic turbulence. For the ruins test, I don't have absolute confidence."
"Just do your best to guard your mind," Lin Yan replied faintly.
"Easier said than done." Su Qin gave a slight, bitter smile. "I've seen fellow refugees in my team. After signing up for the assessment, during the pre-exam meditation phase, their Sea of Consciousness became chaotic simply from extreme mental tension. They fainted on the spot and directly lost their qualification for the assessment. Fear itself erodes the Sea of Consciousness."
Lin Yan fell silent. She was right. The Sea of Consciousness was tightly bound to emotions; the more panicked and flustered one was, the easier it was for the Sea of Consciousness to collapse. This was why many people with excellent physical fitness would fail at the Sea of Consciousness assessment stage.
The two chatted quietly on the rooftop for a while. Su Qin told him about various accidents that had occurred in previous assessments. Some were trapped in ruined buildings by scaled beasts in the ruins, desperately relying on cover to stall until rescue arrived; others never encountered monsters but were struck by a sudden surge in the concentration of psychic turbulence in the area, losing their ability to move directly and triggering their signalers to be eliminated.
She did not deliberately exaggerate the horror, but only objectively stated the past events that had truly happened.
The night grew deeper, and the temperature on the rooftop continued to drop. Su Qin stood up, preparing to return to her compartment to rest.
"Rest well. On the assessment field, survival comes first. Don't force yourself to endure," she left a word of advice, then turned and left down the stairs.
Once again, only Lin Yan was left alone on the rooftop.
He closed his eyes again and continued to practice guarding his Sea of Consciousness. Over and over, he felt the washing of psychic fluctuations, practicing gathering and stabilizing the core of his consciousness. He could clearly feel that after a short period of practice, his control over his Sea of Consciousness was gradually becoming more proficient.
But he would not be blindly confident.
His advantage was the strong mental fortitude tempered by life and death. His shortcoming was that he had never received systematic Sea of Consciousness training in this world. Once confronted with high-intensity, targeted psychic attacks from scaled beasts, he still did not know where the limits of his Sea of Consciousness lay.
The night passed slowly amidst meditation on the rooftop.
For the next two days, Lin Yan maintained a regular routine. He collected his rationed food in the morning, did some simple physical exercises, and spent his days either practicing guarding his Sea of Consciousness on the rooftop or moving his bones in the open areas of the shelter, revisiting the adaptability techniques of his past Jianghu battles. At night, he meditated quietly to ensure sufficient rest, never overtaxing his mind.
The atmosphere in the shelter also fermented with increasing oppression as the assessment date drew closer. Some people completely broke down, gave up their registration, and voluntarily applied for logistics positions; some still gritted their teeth and persisted, practicing day and night with bloodshot eyes; and others formed cliques, agreeing to cover each other and move in groups once they entered the ruins.
Lin Yan did not join any small groups.
The ruins were fraught with dangers: scaled beasts, psychic turbulence, and unknown blind spots in the terrain. Companions could provide mutual cover, but in desperate situations, they could also become a burden. He was accustomed to dealing with dangerous situations alone.
In the blink of an eye, it was the last night before the assessment.
The air in the shelter was almost frozen solid. Most candidates returned to their compartments early, trying to rest quietly and build up their strength for the assembly at six in the morning the next day. There were no longer the usual hushed discussions echoing in the corridors; only sporadic, suppressed breathing sounds remained.
Lin Yan sat on the iron-frame bed in his compartment. Borrowing the faint emergency light in the room, he took out the assessment voucher once again. The printed number on the voucher gleamed with a cold white luster under the light.
Tomorrow, the abandoned defense zone of the old city wall. Sea of Consciousness assessment, ruins survival test. Gambling his Sea of Consciousness, gambling on whether he could continue to stay in this plane to fulfill his wish.
He put away the voucher and lay on the bed to close his eyes and rest. He did not imagine what he would encounter in the ruins, nor did he anticipate success or failure in advance.
When the enemy comes, send a general to block them; when water comes, build earthworks to stop it.
The trial of the broken world begins tomorrow.
End of Chapter
No unified training was arranged during these three days. The Military Affairs Bureau left all the remaining time for the candidates to rest and prepare on their own. Some people seized the opportunity to inquire about the details of the ruins site, seeking advice from veterans who had participated in the assessment in previous years; some stayed indoors, meditating day and night to polish the stability of their Sea of Consciousness with all their might; while others fell into endless fear, suffering from sleepless nights and repeatedly regretting signing the risk confirmation form.
Back at the shelter, Lin Yan did not run around gathering intelligence like the others. He had already seen enough true cruelty at the city wall, the adjustment center, the Wall of Martyrs, and from Uncle Chen, whose Sea of Consciousness was permanently damaged. No amount of rumors could change his judgment now.
His plan was simple: stabilize his mind, adapt to the faint psychic fluctuations omnipresent in this world, and familiarize himself with the underlying logic of drawing in and guarding his Sea of Consciousness.
At dusk, the public hall of the shelter was still lively. Many newcomers sat in several clusters, exchanging intelligence in low voices. Some said that the ruins of the old defense zone were filled with collapsed reinforced concrete buildings, and there were abandoned air-raid tunnels underground, making the terrain complex and easy to get lost in. Others warned that in certain enclosed spaces deep within the ruins, the concentration of psychic turbulence would suddenly spike. Even without scaled beasts around, ordinary people would suffer splitting headaches and disorientation if they stayed too long.
Some even took out hand-drawn, simple sketches of the ruins' general topography, drawn from memory by candidates from previous years. The sketches were passed around the crowd, drawing a cluster of people who leaned in to examine them carefully.
Lin Yan leaned quietly against a pillar in the hall, listening without stepping forward to join the discussion.
He had no intention of memorizing the terrain of the ruins by rote. The most important lesson the Jianghu battles had taught him was never to memorize maps in advance, but to observe on the spot and adapt to changing circumstances. Even in completely unfamiliar terrain, as long as he remained calm, he could quickly judge the positions of cover, escape routes, and enemies.
As night fell and the crowd in the hall gradually dispersed, most returning to their compartments to rest, Lin Yan walked alone to the rooftop platform of the shelter. The platform was surrounded by metal railings half a person's height, wrapped in fine psychic shielding mesh to block out drifting psychic residue from the outside. From here, one could see the scattered buildings of the entire L City Bastion. In the distance, the hundred-meter-high giant wall spanning heaven and earth had turned into a thick black shadow in the night, while the wilderness outside the wall was completely submerged in boundless darkness.
The evening wind blew through the net framework, carrying a hint of icy chill.
Lin Yan sat cross-legged on the ground and slowly closed his eyes.
He tried to open his perception, allowing the scattered, chaotic psychic ripples around him to flood into his senses. The emotions, exhaustion, anxiety, fear, and hopes of countless ordinary people within the bastion flowed like countless tiny streams, weaving into a hazy ocean of psychic energy.
For ordinary people in this world who had not undergone training, keeping their perception open and soaking in such mixed emotional fluctuations for a long time would easily cause their minds to be dragged along, becoming restless and suffering from sleep disorders. This was why civilians with weak Seas of Consciousness rarely stayed in densely populated areas for extended periods.
Yet, Lin Yan's mind was as steady as a boulder.
Having fought countless life-and-death battles in Boulder Valley, facing blades, traps, and coordinated ambushes, he had long forged a mental fortitude that remained unshaken by external forces. This mental disturbance was subtly connected to the methods used by Jianghu masters to disrupt opponents' minds with sound waves and auras. The underlying logic was similar; only the carrier had changed from physical blood and qi to the consciousness of the Sea of Consciousness.
Bit by bit, he explored, trying to gather his own consciousness, drawing in the scattered perceptions inward, and condensing them into a stable core. This was what people in this world called "guarding the Sea of Consciousness."
At first, it did not go smoothly.
He was accustomed to controlling his physical body, regulating his breathing, and sensing the movements of tangible objects around him. The Sea of Consciousness belonged to a purely spiritual realm; it was invisible and intangible, without meridians or the flow of internal energy. After several repeated attempts, he slowly found the trick. Instead of forcibly suppressing the external fluctuations, he simply guarded his own true heart, letting countless ripples wash over him while his core remained immovable.
Time passed bit by bit. He immersed himself in this perception practice, completely ignoring the passage of time.
"Are you also practicing to solidify your Sea of Consciousness?"
A soft voice sounded beside him, interrupting Lin Yan's meditation.
Lin Yan opened his eyes and turned his head. It was a woman in her early twenties, slender of build with short black hair, wearing the grey work uniform uniformly issued by the shelter. She held a metal Sea of Consciousness stabilizer pendant in her hand, her fingertips gently rubbing the patterns on the surface of the pendant, her gaze calm as she looked at Lin Yan.
"Mm." Lin Yan nodded slightly.
"My name is Su Qin. I'm also a candidate for this assessment." The woman walked to the railing and looked toward the silhouette of the massive city wall in the distance. "My hometown was in the Luoshi Bastion to the west. Three months ago, a large near-sea rift erupted, and a tide of scaled beasts directly broke through the outer city. My parents didn't make it out. I fled all the way to L City with the refugee convoy."
Her voice was very calm, without hysterical sorrow, only a settled numbness. In the post-Cataclysm era, partings and death had long become the norm.
"I know that many people take the assessment to gamble for a better life. But I'm different. I just want to have the power to protect myself. I don't want to passively wait for others to protect me or watch the people around me die when the next disaster strikes." Su Qin looked down at the stabilizer pendant in her palm. "My Sea of Consciousness talent is average. Despite practicing repeatedly for a long time, I can barely withstand low-intensity psychic turbulence. For the ruins test, I don't have absolute confidence."
"Just do your best to guard your mind," Lin Yan replied faintly.
"Easier said than done." Su Qin gave a slight, bitter smile. "I've seen fellow refugees in my team. After signing up for the assessment, during the pre-exam meditation phase, their Sea of Consciousness became chaotic simply from extreme mental tension. They fainted on the spot and directly lost their qualification for the assessment. Fear itself erodes the Sea of Consciousness."
Lin Yan fell silent. She was right. The Sea of Consciousness was tightly bound to emotions; the more panicked and flustered one was, the easier it was for the Sea of Consciousness to collapse. This was why many people with excellent physical fitness would fail at the Sea of Consciousness assessment stage.
The two chatted quietly on the rooftop for a while. Su Qin told him about various accidents that had occurred in previous assessments. Some were trapped in ruined buildings by scaled beasts in the ruins, desperately relying on cover to stall until rescue arrived; others never encountered monsters but were struck by a sudden surge in the concentration of psychic turbulence in the area, losing their ability to move directly and triggering their signalers to be eliminated.
She did not deliberately exaggerate the horror, but only objectively stated the past events that had truly happened.
The night grew deeper, and the temperature on the rooftop continued to drop. Su Qin stood up, preparing to return to her compartment to rest.
"Rest well. On the assessment field, survival comes first. Don't force yourself to endure," she left a word of advice, then turned and left down the stairs.
Once again, only Lin Yan was left alone on the rooftop.
He closed his eyes again and continued to practice guarding his Sea of Consciousness. Over and over, he felt the washing of psychic fluctuations, practicing gathering and stabilizing the core of his consciousness. He could clearly feel that after a short period of practice, his control over his Sea of Consciousness was gradually becoming more proficient.
But he would not be blindly confident.
His advantage was the strong mental fortitude tempered by life and death. His shortcoming was that he had never received systematic Sea of Consciousness training in this world. Once confronted with high-intensity, targeted psychic attacks from scaled beasts, he still did not know where the limits of his Sea of Consciousness lay.
The night passed slowly amidst meditation on the rooftop.
For the next two days, Lin Yan maintained a regular routine. He collected his rationed food in the morning, did some simple physical exercises, and spent his days either practicing guarding his Sea of Consciousness on the rooftop or moving his bones in the open areas of the shelter, revisiting the adaptability techniques of his past Jianghu battles. At night, he meditated quietly to ensure sufficient rest, never overtaxing his mind.
The atmosphere in the shelter also fermented with increasing oppression as the assessment date drew closer. Some people completely broke down, gave up their registration, and voluntarily applied for logistics positions; some still gritted their teeth and persisted, practicing day and night with bloodshot eyes; and others formed cliques, agreeing to cover each other and move in groups once they entered the ruins.
Lin Yan did not join any small groups.
The ruins were fraught with dangers: scaled beasts, psychic turbulence, and unknown blind spots in the terrain. Companions could provide mutual cover, but in desperate situations, they could also become a burden. He was accustomed to dealing with dangerous situations alone.
In the blink of an eye, it was the last night before the assessment.
The air in the shelter was almost frozen solid. Most candidates returned to their compartments early, trying to rest quietly and build up their strength for the assembly at six in the morning the next day. There were no longer the usual hushed discussions echoing in the corridors; only sporadic, suppressed breathing sounds remained.
Lin Yan sat on the iron-frame bed in his compartment. Borrowing the faint emergency light in the room, he took out the assessment voucher once again. The printed number on the voucher gleamed with a cold white luster under the light.
Tomorrow, the abandoned defense zone of the old city wall. Sea of Consciousness assessment, ruins survival test. Gambling his Sea of Consciousness, gambling on whether he could continue to stay in this plane to fulfill his wish.
He put away the voucher and lay on the bed to close his eyes and rest. He did not imagine what he would encounter in the ruins, nor did he anticipate success or failure in advance.
When the enemy comes, send a general to block them; when water comes, build earthworks to stop it.
The trial of the broken world begins tomorrow.
End of Chapter