After the four squads were assigned, Qian Wu came to Qi Xia’s side again.
“What is it?” Qi Xia asked.
“This…” Qian Wu pulled out another note from his chest—it was Heavenly-Snake’s ‘prescription.’ “Don’t you want to take a look?”
Qi Xia looked at the note’s size and said, “I estimate it only has one sentence written inside. I feel its authenticity is questionable.”
“At least take a look.” Qian Wu handed the note to Qi Xia. “After all, you won this with your own abilities.”
“Let’s look together.” Qi Xia said.
“Together…?”
“Qian Wu, you’ve shown me your sincerity, so I must also display my sincerity.” Qi Xia said. “Regardless of whether what’s written on this note is true or false, I’ll share it with you.”
After hearing this, Qian Wu paused for a brief second before nodding. “Alright.”
Hearing these words, Qi Xia unfolded the note in front of Qian Wu. As expected, there was only a very brief sentence on it—
“Let him eat the eyes of an Echoer.”
After reading it carefully several times, both Qian Wu and Qi Xia frowned.
After a few seconds, Qian Wu asked in a low voice, “Do you think… it’s real…?”
“This…” Qi Xia scratched his head. “Although this sentence is written very clearly… it really exceeds my cognitive range. I can’t be certain.”
“If there’s time, I’ll help you keep an eye out.” Qian Wu said. “After today… we might obtain ‘Echoers,’ and we might also obtain ‘Echoer corpses’… so this matter should be easy to verify.”
“Good.” Qi Xia nodded. A few seconds later he added, “But I’d much prefer there be no corpses.”
The four squads took small amounts of supplies and then set off in different directions.
Qi Xia led the four ‘problem youth’ behind him along the wide, dilapidated road, casually reaching out to pull out and look at each person’s ‘Echo trigger.’
Zhou Liu, ‘Echo trigger’ was ‘isolation.’
Wang Ba, ‘Echo trigger’ was ‘humiliation.’
Luo Shiyi, ‘Echo trigger’ was ‘defeat.’
Qiu Shiliu, ‘Echo trigger’ was ‘fury.’
“Wang Ba… Qiu Shiliu…” Qi Xia helplessly shook his head. “Qian Wu, you really outdid yourself.”
Qi Xia put the note back in his pocket, then pondered for a moment. This seemed to be the first time formally exploring the ‘triggers’ for ‘Echo.’ Although each person’s ‘trigger’ was just two brief words, if the actual situation were truly this easy, everyone wouldn’t need to venture into ‘Earth-level’ games at such risk.
“What are your abilities…?” Qi Xia turned his head to ask.
“Tch, you already know my ability.” Zhou Liu answered. “As for them… Wang Ba is ‘Gigantification,’ Luo Shiyi is ‘Forget Worry,’ and Qiu Shiliu is ‘Red Flame.'”
After hearing this, Qi Xia rubbed his chin. He roughly understood the ability of ‘Forget Worry.’ The other two ‘Echoes’ seemed like they could be inferred from their names.
To be safe, Qi Xia still asked, “‘Gigantification’ and ‘Red Flame’ are…?”
The short, fat man called Wang Ba slowly raised his head and said with a grieved expression, “I can make things become more gigantic…”
“I can catch fire.” Qiu Shiliu said.
“As expected…” Qi Xia nodded and looked at Wang Ba. “Then how strong is your ‘Gigantification’ ability? Can you become a ‘giant’? Will your strength increase accordingly?”
“I…” The short, fat man suddenly put away his aggrieved expression and said, “Hehe, making my entire self ‘gigantic’ won’t work, but if it’s just a local part, maybe…”
After hearing this, Zhou Liu said “Tch” extremely loudly, then spat on the ground in front of him. “Damn perverted man… I’ll kill you one of these days.”
“Hehe! Sister Six, Sister Six!” The short, fat man gave a silly laugh, then immediately changed to an aggrieved expression. “Don’t be angry… I meant making my ‘fist’ gigantic to help you all fight!”
“Tch, you better be.” After Zhou Liu finished speaking, she rolled her eyes enormously.
“As for you…” Qi Xia turned his head to look at Qiu Shiliu again. “How useful is your ‘ignition’? Can you make objects catch fire, or can you spray flames?”
After hearing this, Qiu Shiliu sighed and said, “Can you really be my captain?! When did I say I could ‘ignite’ things?”
“Isn’t that it?”
“I’ll reiterate once more—I can ‘catch fire.'” Qiu Shiliu said. “When I activate ‘Echo,’ my entire body will burn with flames.”
“Mm…?” Qi Xia frowned slightly, feeling he couldn’t quite understand this ability. “Your, your flames burn from your body…?”
“Yeah.” Qiu Shiliu nodded.
“Then can you withstand high temperatures?” Qi Xia asked.
“No.”
These two brief words made Qi Xia feel very confused.
“Are you sick?!” Qiu Shiliu said somewhat angrily. “I’m a ‘person’! I’m human—what high temperatures can I withstand? If you were burned, could you resist it?”
Qi Xia looked at her with furrowed brows. “Which means…”
“Every time I activate ‘Echo’ I’ll be burned to death.” Qiu Shiliu said nonchalantly. “But this isn’t a problem, right? Over all these years, I’ve been burned to death every single time. I’m pretty much used to it by now.”
After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded with some bewilderment.
An ‘Echo’ that could make one’s entire body burn with flames…
Would ‘Cat’ actually recruit this kind of person into the team?
As long as she achieved ‘Echo,’ she would inevitably die, and die by the most painful death method in this world.
This ‘Echo’s’ mortality rate surpassed even ‘Inviting Disaster.’ It should be the most dangerous of all known ‘Echoes’ to date.
“With all due respect…” Qi Xia said, “Is it really necessary for you to obtain your ‘Echo’?”
“What do you mean?” Qiu Shiliu asked.
“The original intention this time is to train the team.” Qi Xia explained. “But if you’ll die once you achieve ‘Echo,’ there’s no need to participate in this game at all.”
“Are you stupid?” Qiu Shiliu once again cast a suspicious look at Qi Xia. “Why would I die if I achieve ‘Echo’?”
Qi Xia felt he still didn’t understand. “Didn’t you just say so…?”
“Pay attention…” Qiu Shiliu held up one finger to clarify to Qi Xia. “I just said that as long as I ‘activate Echo’ I will die, but I can choose not to ‘activate’ it.”
Only then did Qi Xia finally understand this critical threshold-like distinction.
Qiu Shiliu could simply hear the ‘bell sound,’ but not let the flames burn.
“Fifth Brother should have told you my ‘Echo trigger’ is ‘fury’…” Qiu Shiliu sighed. “But I really get angry very easily… so your challenge isn’t how to trigger my ‘Echo,’ but rather how to make me calm down immediately after I hear the ‘bell sound.'”