Chapter Twelve: "Beginner’s Welfare Quest"

After completing the draft of the human genome map, Zhou Shu began to consider entering the virtual battlefield.

After all, the world of "Edge of Tomorrow" was incredibly alluring: powered exoskeleton suits, quadrotor transport helicopters, information relays that, when stabbed into oneself, could reveal alien thoughts—every detail, even the alien creatures themselves, brimmed with research value.

Despite the fact that these alien monsters seemed to have overrun all of Europe, there was, in truth, only one entity—they were a single collective being.

Most importantly, their ability to reset time was essentially a cheat code, and Zhou Shu was deeply eager to study it.

This time, he was fully conscious—not stumbling in and out in a daze as before. Being lucid naturally came with different privileges compared to being "unconscious." This time, the system assessed his mental state.

Don't misunderstand—it wasn’t evaluating his sanity, but rather determining how many times his mind could endure "death."

The Hunter System had identified "Edge of Tomorrow" as an ideal setting for rookie training: the process of "clearing" a run was short, at most two days, or even less if killed along the way.

Given that the monsters weren’t overwhelmingly powerful, this scenario was perfectly suited for new recruits to familiarize themselves with virtual combat.

[Mental assessment successful. You may "reload" up to ten times during this virtual training.]

Ten times in one night?

Goodness, truly the vigor of youth!

What was he waiting for? Zhou Shu closed his eyes and shouted in his heart, "Lin Ke, you’re dead meat!"

Hunter: [???]

"Ahem, I mean, I wish to enter the 'Edge of Tomorrow' virtual battlefield for training!"

[Understood. 'Edge of Tomorrow' virtual battlefield initializing. User logging in...]

In a flash, Zhou Shu felt that the darkness before his eyes was not merely black, but a kaleidoscopic void. He realized he had once again entered the virtual battlefield.

He had braced himself for another "zipline drop," but when he opened his eyes, the scene was utterly unlike what he expected.

"Wait, something’s not right!"

He stared, dumbfounded, at a military base with sentries patrolling and a constant flow of military vehicles—more precisely, a civilian airport temporarily converted into an operational command post.

As an armed sentry at the gate cast a scrutinizing gaze his way, Zhou Shu immediately turned and retreated.

If they shot him without question, who could bear that?

He had watched "Edge of Tomorrow" multiple times; the film existed not only here but in the previous "parallel world" too, so he was intimately familiar with the plot.

But in every version, the training always involved powered exoskeletons and fighting those sea-urchin-like "Mimic" aliens. Wouldn’t it make sense for the system to drop him straight onto the beach to fight monsters? Why send him here instead?

From his memory of the movie, this had to be London’s Heathrow International Airport, repurposed as a recruit camp and command base to respond to the alien onslaught.

Slipping into a corner, he waited until the gate guards lost interest in him, then whispered to the Hunter System, "Hey, did you mess something up? Why am I here?"

The Hunter System replied, methodical as ever: [No mistake. Recruits always start from the training camp. Even super-soldiers don’t leap straight into fighting monsters; there are a series of preparations before battle.]

[Moreover, you are at the 'recruit' stage and must undergo effective training before entering the frontlines, so the training program has assigned you this mission.]

[PS: As this virtual battlefield is generated from your memory, the plot may deviate slightly. Please understand.]

Zhou Shu was momentarily stunned. He glanced at the "(Recruit)" tag next to his name on the data panel, then peered at the Heathrow recruit camp. He found himself speechless.

A rookie should indeed start in the recruit camp, but this was a bit too fresh—what kind of beginning was being "born" at the camp gates?

It was true that rushing onto the battlefield without preparation was unwise—he knew well the consequences of skipping "newbie tutorials." Those players always suffered the most.

But if this was training, why not start in the training yard directly? He remembered there was a training ground at the camp, where those wild, spinning steel four-claw targets served as sparring machines—if trainees got hit, they’d be flung aside, sometimes even breaking their… spine.

Thinking of this, Zhou Shu rubbed his own back. Suddenly, this training didn’t seem so easy.

"Indeed, there’s no shortcut to acquiring power."

Well, so be it. If he had to start at the gate, then so be it. He’d never experienced the military enlistment process before.

But as he patted his pockets, searching for any proof of identity, he found nothing at all.

Not only did he lack any form of identification, but he didn’t even have keys, a wallet, or a phone.

He was utterly penniless, dressed only in a dark green, military-style casual uniform that clearly wasn’t his.

He felt his face—yes, there were glasses, but he wasn’t even sure if the face was his own.

"Little Hunter, care to explain?"

[According to training guidelines, unless specified otherwise, a trainee’s identity, appearance, and base attributes in the virtual battlefield must match their real selves, to ensure the best training results. Thus, in this scenario, all trainees are undocumented persons.]

[This time, you must become a recruit using this identity-less status. This is designed to train your adaptability—a core part of the program.]

[Note: As requested, the system has modeled this mission on game mechanics as a 'newbie welfare quest,' with a difficulty rating of 'easy,' so you may train with confidence.]

Zhou Shu had words in his heart, but didn’t know if he should say them.

True, he had requested a cheat code and asked for the virtual battlefield to resemble a game.

But… was this really the system’s idea of a newbie quest?

Someone translate this—what kind of starter mission was this?

No identification meant he was a person of unknown origin. What country would let a stranger sign up for their army?

Moreover, he obviously didn’t look like a local. Compared to Westerners, Asians tended to look younger, and with his handsome, fair features, the recruitment officers might even suspect he was underage.

Of course, he really was underage—still a month shy of his eighteenth birthday. But by the traditional count, he could claim adulthood.

He wasn’t entirely sure about this, since he hadn’t tried it yet, but he was almost certain of one thing: he was about to be schooled by his cheat code.

Serves him right—he’d tried to teach the cheat code a lesson before, and now it was turning the tables.

He wondered if this was a preset in the program—after all, in some online novels, the cheat code always seemed to have a mind of its own.

Glancing again at the armed soldiers at the airport gate, Zhou Shu began to put his clever mind to work.

He peeked out, closely observing the guard post.

Now that he knew his mission, careful observation was in order.

"A military zone is no place to trespass—especially not one guarded this heavily," he muttered to himself as he took in the scene.

"Good grief, apart from the officer at the checkpoint in standard gear, everyone else is wearing mechanical exoskeletons, live ammunition, and there’s even a machine gun nest nearby—is that really necessary?"

"So I need a proper plan… for instance, can I quit the training now?"

[Absolutely not!]