“What? Absolute Spirit Sand? My dear ancestor, I don’t even have a place to get that stuff for you.”
Lu Chenyi looked troubled after hearing An Li’s request.
“Chief An, if you have a need, you should submit it to the Research Institute or the Parliament. What’s the point of asking me? I’m just an ordinary base commander.”
An Li couldn’t be bothered to waste more time negotiating with Lu Chenyi when it came to her materials.
“Young Master Lu, you know better than anyone how slow the Parliament and Research Institute are. Why don’t you use some of your connections, or just go dig into your father’s little private stash and get me some first.”
Lu Chenyi’s vision went dark for a moment.
“Chief An, this isn’t following procedure. And even if I really dared to raid my dad’s private stash, he’d hang me up and beat me.”
That was right.
Lu Chenyi was the only son of the current Security Council Speaker.
Being sent to Rain Curtain City was considered field experience.
Once he rotated back, his position would shoot straight up.
“It’s fine. You’ve got thick skin. It’s not like you haven’t done this kind of thing before.”
An Li spoke casually and played her trump card.
“Help me this one time and I’ll sell you another exclusive piece of insider information.”
Lu Chenyi’s expression changed instantly.
“Is it about Miss Ye Chan again?”
Ye Chan was An Li’s close friend and the girl Lu Chenyi had been desperately pursuing.
However, due to certain differences in their positions, Ye Chan had been giving him the cold shoulder.
An Li nodded.
Lu Chenyi snapped to attention and gave a perfect military salute.
“Mission guaranteed to be completed!”
“Teacher An? What are you doing here?”
Su Xiaocheng, who happened to be passing by, saw An Li and Lu Chenyi huddled in a corner whispering and couldn’t help but come over to take a look.
“Oh, nothing. Did you finish the homework I assigned yesterday after class?”
“I finished it!” Su Xiaocheng answered proudly.
By now, she could already use the Aggregation formula at a basic level, even though she still didn’t know what use this attribute had for her.
“Alright then. I’ll go prepare new lessons for you all.”
“Huh? New lessons again? Teacher An, don’t we get any holidays or extracurricular activities?”
Su Xiaocheng asked reluctantly.
Ever since Su Xiaocheng helped An Li during Rain Curtain Night, An Li had grown much closer to them. Recently, she had been giving them private tutoring sessions on magic formula theory.
With An Li’s status, a single lesson would cost a fortune on the outside.
Su Xiaocheng and the others had been making a huge profit during this period.
But no matter how profitable it was, studying was still studying.
Aside from Lu Yinxi, none of them were particularly fond of learning.
“Then what do you want? There’s not much fun to be had in Rain Curtain City either. There’s only that free-fighting club, and we’ve already been there several times.”
“Sigh… You said there would be lots of wild witches out here, but we haven’t seen even one after all this time. I feel like there are fewer witches here than in Anning City.”
After studying every single day, Su Xiaocheng was even starting to miss the days in Anning City when witches would attack at the drop of a hat.
Back then, at least her magic power income and expenditure had been balanced.
Unlike now, when her magic power was so full it felt like it was about to overflow.
“There are plenty of witches in the Rain Curtain City area. Before you all arrived, we were frequently attacked by them. The wild witches in the desert are at least A-rank minimum. Every time one appears, a lot of people die.”
Lu Chenyi listened to Su Xiaocheng’s complaints with a face full of black lines.
“Huh? Really? We haven’t run into even a single witch after all this time.”
“Indeed. There hasn’t been a witch disaster for over half a month now. It’s rare for Rain Curtain City to be this quiet.”
Only after hearing Su Xiaocheng say this did Lu Chenyi realize that it had already been more than half a month since the last witch incident.
“If you’re bored because it’s too peaceful, then go play outside the city.”
Having listened to the group whispering in the corner for a long time, Li Yanyan directly decided today’s activity.
Didn’t like studying?
That was easy to fix.
Go out and get beaten up by a witch or two and they’d behave.
***
After Rain Curtain Night, the sunlight over this stretch of desert remained bright and clear.
In early May, the afternoon temperature had already climbed close to forty degrees.
Su Xiaowei considerately created some ice cubes and dropped them into everyone’s water bottles.
Su Xiaocheng took a bottle and gulped down a big mouthful.
Drinking something cold in the desert under this kind of weather sent a refreshing chill straight to her heart and lifted her spirits.
They had been walking in the wilderness for two hours.
Besides endless desert, there was nothing else around.
After climbing up a sand dune and looking around, all they could see was monotonous yellow sand.
“There’s really nothing out here in the wild…” Su Xiaocheng sounded disappointed.
To be honest, she was actually quite eager to fight a witch right now.
It had been so long since she obtained the Purification Seed, and the only time she had really fought was against the Flower Witch.
The other party had run away after just a couple of exchanges.
She hadn’t gotten to fight to her heart’s content at all.
Li Yanyan also found the silent desert somewhat strange.
They had gone deep into the northwest desert for several days now, yet they hadn’t encountered a single wild witch.
This was actually quite abnormal.
If the wilderness was truly this safe, the Magical Girl Alliance and the Security Council wouldn’t have stationed heavy troops along the border.
The Security Council’s most elite army groups, along with the majority of A-rank and S-rank magical girls from the Magical Girl Alliance, were all stationed in the border regions to guard against threats from the wilderness.
“If there’s nothing else, let’s head back,” An Li said while panting, her body covered in fragrant sweat.
She wasn’t a magical girl and didn’t have enhanced physical abilities.
Compared to Desert Fox, she was on a completely different level.
Having stayed in the laboratory doing research for so long, her physical fitness hadn’t even reached the passing mark.
“This is all it takes? Your body is really that weak?”
Desert Fox slapped An Li’s slender shoulder with one paw, nearly knocking her over.
“What was I even thinking, actually coming out to run around in the wilderness with you all…”
An Li was filled with regret inside.
“yanbao, bring out whatever that thing is you made earlier. The one over there.”
Desert Fox looked at the perfectly sloped dune in front of them and got an idea.
Li Yanyan curled her lip. Only she knew what Desert Fox was actually thinking.
Magic light flashed and condensed into several boards. Thoughtfully, handrails were installed along the edges.
“What is this?”
“Something fun.”
Desert Fox was the first to step onto one of the boards.
She kicked off against the sand and slid down the dune as a demonstration.
As she continued sliding, her speed kept increasing.
Desert Fox’s tail danced in the wind like a fluffy…
“Oh, I get it! This is sandboarding, right?” Su Xiaowei’s eyes lit up.
Watching Desert Fox’s dashing figure, even An Li felt a little tempted.
This feeling of moving forward against the wind was something she could never experience while cooped up in the laboratory.
“Why don’t we… give it a try?”
The thought had barely formed in her mind when Su Xiaocheng considerately pulled over a board for her.
“Chief An, if it’s your first time, you can sit on it. Hold onto the handrails tightly and try to keep your balance.”
Li Yanyan stepped forward to give guidance.
The way Desert Fox played was dangerous behavior — children should not imitate it.
Under everyone’s guidance, An Li sat down in a proper posture in a daze, gripped the handrails tightly, and was then given a gentle push.
She began sliding slowly down the sand dune.