Chapter 7: Enlisting as a Mercenary

The staff member led Wei Zi toward the testing hall, frequently turning his head to glance at the young girl, whose beauty felt almost excessive. He could not fathom what young people these days were thinking; with looks like that, if she went out into the wilderness, she wouldn't just be eaten by monsters—she would be "eaten" by people.

With a face that could bring ruin to a city, wouldn't it be better to just find a decent man to marry within the base city? With such beauty, there was no one she couldn't have.

The assessment for a junior mercenary was not difficult. Any well-trained guard from the Huatian Kingdom could pass it easily. It consisted of three categories: attack power, speed, and evasion.

Attack power was simple enough; a special testing device measured the force of a single punch. An untrained adult male typically scored above 50, and reaching 100 was the threshold to pass.

The staff member glanced at Wei Zi’s slender arms, certain that he would be ushering her back out the door after this first test.

Wei Zi seemed oblivious to his skeptical gaze. She delivered a nonchalant punch to the sensor, imbuing it with a sliver of frost energy. Although she had yet to obtain any Profound Runes and could not unleash powerful Profound Arts, the frost energy inherent in her awakened Profound Core was more than enough to meet the test's requirements.

*Ding!*

The display clearly showed Wei Zi’s attack stat: 123 points.

The staff member rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing. He knew that even burly men often struggled to hit such a number even while gritting their teeth, yet Wei Zi had achieved it with a light, effortless strike.

"What about the second test?" Wei Zi asked, urging him on as she noticed him staring at the machine. She did not have time to waste.

"Oh—oh, right, follow me this way!" The staff member abandoned his suspicion that the machine might be broken; he certainly didn't know how to tinker with such precision equipment.

The second test measured speed. According to mercenary regulations, one had to reach a speed of 10 meters per second to qualify. The primary purpose of this test was to ensure that a candidate had the capacity to flee if necessary—if you could sprint a hundred meters in ten seconds, you had a decent chance of escaping danger.

"You may begin. The timer starts from the moment you begin running, and we will calculate your average performance..." Before the staff member could finish his explanation, he felt a sudden chill in the air. Wei Zi had vanished from where she stood.

There was no sound of running. Wei Zi had kept her left foot forward and her right foot at a ninety-degree angle, gliding forward with ease.

The hundred-meter track was not slippery; it was made of plastic to facilitate better traction for testing. How was she sliding?

As he pondered this, the staff member looked down at Wei Zi’s feet and his jaw dropped.

He realized that the first twenty meters of the track were covered in a layer of incredibly smooth ice. Wei Zi was essentially ice-skating, shooting forward with a *whoosh*.

This method of conserving momentum was far faster than running; she finished the hundred-meter track in six or seven seconds.

"A Profound Practitioner?" the staff member gasped, finally understanding how Wei Zi had delivered such a powerful punch with such ease.

As for the final evasion test, Wei Zi cleared it effortlessly, successfully obtaining her junior mercenary certification.

With the certificate in hand, it cost only ten coins to complete the registration. Wei Zi received a mercenary badge, similar to a military medal, which could be pinned to her clothing. Her digital profile on her communicator was also updated with the certification, linked directly to her ID.

Holding this certification meant she was finally permitted to leave the city gates. Of course, before doing so, she had to stop by the mission hall to pick up some tasks; otherwise, she would have no reason to leave the city at all.

The mercenary hall was filled with countless missions. Wei Zi did not want to waste time browsing; she filtered out the high-level tasks and looked for G-level or unrestricted ones. Even so, as this was the Imperial Capital, there were thousands of missions available.

Wei Zi’s gaze fell upon a mission to collect Frost-Prism Grass, and her expression shifted. She began to contemplate.

She recalled that in her previous life, someone had accepted this very mission, traveling to an ice cave in the wilderness. They hadn't found any Frost-Prism Grass, but they had discovered five Ice-Skin Fruits instead.

Frost-Prism Grass was merely a low-level herb used in basic potions. But the Ice-Skin Fruit was different—it was a natural treasure imbued with Profound Runes. Consuming it could lead to the enlightenment of Profound Arts. Moreover, it was named for its ability to purge impurities from the skin, leaving it translucent and clear—a form of marrow-cleansing, albeit one that primarily affected the skin.

Each such fruit was worth five million.

The mercenary who originally discovered them sold them to a noblewoman in the capital. When another noblewoman failed to secure them, the mercenary was killed before he could even leave the city with his twenty-million-plus earnings.

The power of the capital’s elite was absolute, and they viewed human life as nothing more than blades of grass. Killing one person was a trivial matter; the indignation of other common mercenaries was ignored. This incident had apparently occurred this very year. Wei Zi had only heard of it from old mercenaries. Because she had been disfigured, she had secretly searched for anything that could improve her appearance, and the Ice-Skin Fruit was something she had only dared to dream of. She had memorized the location of that ice cave, hoping that one day it might bear fruit again, however slim the chance.

She had not expected heaven to be so kind. After her rebirth, she would be the one to harvest these fruits.

As for the original discoverer, he had died because of the fruit; it was better that he never found it, as it would have spared him his life.

Half an hour later, Wei Zi walked out of the sealed gates of the Huatian Imperial Capital. She turned to look at the massive, thick walls, a cold sneer playing on her lips: "Next time I return, you will have lost everything."

Because of the registration, it was already six o'clock in the evening by the time Wei Zi left the capital. In July, the weather was scorching, and night fell late; the sky was not yet completely dark.

Wei Zi took a deep breath and began to walk. Ten kilometers from the capital stood a small outpost; she would have to rest there for the night.

Two hours later, a circular structure over ten meters tall appeared in her sight. The outpost walls were topped with barbed wire, and grey-white concrete walls were punctuated with half-meter-wide crystal cannon ports, radiating a menacing aura. The entire outpost looked more like a prison.

Before she even approached, she felt dozens of sharp, murderous gazes locking onto her. Snipers.

An ordinary person would not have noticed, but having been a mercenary for ten years in her past life, Wei Zi’s senses were as sharp as ever—and it seemed that with her soul's awakening, they had become even keener.