Chapter 123: The Drowned Valley
The practical examination trial realm was officially called the Drowned Valley Sector. According to the ancient background history files that Nexus had dropped into Ayla’s mind, this massive world was once home to a highly advanced artificial intelligence civilization.
That robotic society had completely fallen during a previous cosmic war, and now the entire territory was slowly being drowned by a rising global ocean.
The entire simulation zone spanned the physical size of a regular planet. To normal humans, a world of that scale would take forever to explore.
But for the ten thousand elite Crusaders who were participating in this survival test, a distance of that magnitude was nothing.
Their high-tier stats and movement traits allowed them to cross vast territories within minutes.
When Ayla finally reached the grand grand stone entrance leading toward the teleportation arrays of the realm, the wide plaza had already been filled to the brim with other anxious students.
Every single recruit was completely immersed in their own private anticipation, talking in hushed tones about strategy and positioning.
Since they had collectively decided to boycott the small slime over the past week, absolutely none of them paid any attention to her as she rolled onto the stone floorboards.
A heavy shadow suddenly blanketed the high stage at the front of the plaza.
The person who came out to greet the massive crowd was the official director in charge of this entire freshman batch of students.
His name was General Vane, and he was an imposing bird-man from a noble avian lineage. His feathers were as black as obsidian armor plates, and his sharp golden beak gleamed under the magical light fixtures.
General Vane stepped up to the central pedestal, his massive wings expanding to their full width to catch everyone’s attention.
"Silence, beginners," General Vane’s harsh, raspy voice boomed across the plaza, instantly cutting through the eager chatter of the thousand-man groups. "The gates to the Drowned Valley Sector are now officially open. You have seven full days to collect survival points. Remember the rules. Do not show mercy to your rivals, because they will certainly not show any mercy to you. Enter the arrays!"
"Let’s move out before the drop zones get crowded!" a student with scaly blue skin yelled to his companions.
"Stay close to the defensive shields the moment we land," a rocky-skinned warrior replied, his hands tightening around his massive iron club. "We don’t want to get separated in the deep water areas."
The massive crowd began to surge forward into the glowing blue teleportation pillars. Ayla didn’t wait around for the teenagers to finish their dramatic goodbyes.
She smoothly slid past a pair of tall warriors, rolled right into the center of an open array, and allowed the brilliant spatial mana to swallow her translucent blue body whole.
Within a fraction of a second, the dry stone plaza vanished completely, replaced by the humid, heavy air of a sinking world.
Ayla materialized with a soft splash, her round jelly form landing directly into a shallow pool of murky green water. She quickly looked around to analyze her coordinates.
The environment looked exactly like the files Nexus had described. It was a half-submerged forest where giant metallic trees, rusted pipes, and ruined robotic structures rose straight out of the swampy water.
The water level came up to about three feet deep, stretching endlessly in every direction under a gray, stormy sky.
Suddenly, a series of heavy splashing noises echoed from behind a cluster of rusted metal beams.
Ayla tilted her mass toward the noise. Emerging from the deep water was a group of five monstrous bipedal crocodiles.
These beasts were over eight feet tall, walking confidently on two powerful legs, their thick green hides covered in protective spiky scales.
They carried heavy stone axes and serrated bone daggers, their yellow vertical pupils locking onto the small blue ball of fluid with an immediate, predatory hunger.
These were local Silver-ranked simulation monsters, and they clearly viewed a tiny slime as an easy morning snack.
"Look what we have here," the lead crocodile beast hissed out in a guttural language that the system translated instantly. "A tiny piece of jelly dropped right into our swamp. Let’s chop it up and split the core."
’They can talk...’ Ayla was taken aback, and she was impressed how Nexus managed to translate their words to her. The system was really helping the students with this feature.
Unknown to her, this translation feature was only available to her.
The other four crocodile monsters let out cruel, low growls, their long tails whipping through the surface of the water as they began to fan out, surrounding Ayla’s position from all sides.
Ayla didn’t feel a single trace of fear as the massive reptiles closed the distance. Instead, a pleasant wave of excitement bubbled up inside her metal core.
This was the absolute perfect opportunity to test her newly invented Emotion Weaversub-functions on real, living targets before she went hunting for the students.
The lead crocodile lunged forward first, raising his heavy stone axe high into the air. His face was twisted in a look of pure, bloodthirsty rage as he brought the weapon down toward her center.
Ayla didn’t bother using her Abyssal Shadow Blink to dodge. She focused her golden eyes, activated her Twin Lens of the Weaver, and directly deployed the first function of her new technique: Removal.
With a silent pulse of mana, she targeted the lead crocodile’s soul container and completely deleted his feeling of rage and aggression.
Instantly, the giant beast froze mid-stride. His heavy stone axe stopped just a few inches above Ayla’s head as his yellow pupils dilated into a blank, unseeing stare.
The burning anger that had been driving his muscles vanished into thin air, leaving his mind completely hollow.
He didn’t feel angry anymore, he didn’t feel hungry, and he couldn’t find a single logical reason to continue swinging his weapon.
He simply stood there in the muddy water like a brainless statue, his arms going totally limp by his sides.
"What are you doing, idiot?" the second crocodile warrior shouted from the left, looking deeply confused by his leader’s sudden hesitation. "Just smash the fluid already!"
Seeing that the leader was completely unresponsive, the second and third crocodiles lost their patience and rushed forward simultaneously from opposite sides.
The one on the left was filled with supreme, arrogant confidence, while the one on the right was visibly nervous, his tail twitching with a slight trace of caution.
Ayla smiled inwardly and immediately activated her second sub-function: Interchange.
She locked onto both targets at the exact same moment and swiftly swapped their internal emotional states.
The results were instantaneous and hilarious. The arrogant crocodile on the left suddenly dropped his axe, his eyes widening in absolute, paralyzing terror as the fake cowardice flooded his nervous system.
He let out a high-pitched whimper, turned around, and began splashing frantically through the mud to escape.
Meanwhile, the previously cautious crocodile on the right was suddenly hit with a wave of delusional, blinding arrogance.
He let out a wild roar, completely ignored his own defensive stance, and ran headfirst into a sharp, rusted metal beam sticking out of the water, knocking himself completely senseless.
The two remaining crocodile monsters at the back stopped their advance, their jaws hanging open in sheer horror as they watched their powerful squad members fall into complete madness without the blue slime even moving an inch.
"This thing is a demon!" the fourth crocodile screamed, his survival instinct finally kicking in as a heavy wave of pure panic took over his brain.
Ayla didn’t give them a chance to turn around and run. She focused her remaining mana and unleashed her absolute pinnacle function on the final two beasts: Combination.
She forcefully forced two completely opposite emotional states—hysterical, laughing joy and profound, suicidal despair—directly into their minds at the exact same time.
The sudden, brutal conceptual contradiction was far too much for the crocodiles’ primitive brains to process.
The clashing data packets violently short-circuited their cognitive pathways within a millisecond. The two giant reptiles didn’t even have time to let out a cry.
Their eyes instantly rolled into the backs of their heads as their physical bodies fell into violent, uncontrollable muscular seizures.
They crashed heavily into the three-foot-deep water, splashing mud everywhere as their hearts stopped beating from pure neurological overload.
Within less than a minute, the entire group of five Silver-ranked monsters had been completely annihilated.
Ayla rolled forward smoothly across the rippling water, extending five sharp blue fluid tendrils from her mass.
She quickly pierced through the thick scaled chests of the fallen reptiles, pulling their glowing system cores directly into her body to digest the raw energy.
Just like always, she didn’t get traits from them, since they were merely simulations. But she could feel her core slowly being saturated.
So she could saturate her core, and perhaps breakthrough to Gold!
"Five silver points collected," the automated system voice chimed softly over her interface.
Ayla bobbled her round blue body in complete satisfaction as she felt the fresh energy saturate her silver core.
Her new Emotion Weaver technique worked even better than she had imagined. She looked past the rusted metal trees toward the deeper sectors of the Drowned Valley, her golden pupils expanding with a dark, predatory hunger.
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