“Euphemia Athena?”

  Ling Jiu raised an eyebrow and could not help sizing up her. But with a Venom Suit on, he could not see her face.

  “I heard that you were the camp beauty. What are you doing here? Are you thinking of getting revenge after being dethroned as the camp’s beauty?”

  “Camp beauty? That’s just flattery, words made up by a bunch of boring dudes in the camp. I, Euphemia have never taken it to heart.” Euphemia giggled. “But I came looking for her.”

  She suddenly appeared in front of Bai Ya like a ghost as soon as her voice trailed off. “I hope you stay away from Arthur.”

  “Who is Arthur?” Ling Jiu asked in puzzlement. “We just arrived, and we don’t know the veteran trainees in the camp all that well.”

  “The one in 28th place on the scoreboard is Arthur Austin,” Euphemia said.

  “I thought you were talking about a super great dude. I didn’t expect him to just be 28th in the ranking.” Ling Jiu curled his lips in a smirk.

  “You don’t understand, rookie.” Euphemia shook her head. “Arthur came to the matriculation camp with me in December last year. It only took him six months to reach 28th place in the standings. It’s a terrific result.”

  “December last year?”

  Ling Jiu was silenced. Twenty-eighth place was indeed not high, but if his time there was taken into consideration, then 28th place was fantastic.

  Given a few more years, how far would Arthur Austin go?

  Ling Jiu remembered someone in the forum said that anyone who could enter the top 100 in the standings in the first year was definitely a veritable genius. Unlike the veterans who took years to climb to the top, they were much stronger and more talented.

  All in all, the standings of the matriculation camp were different from the training camp rankings. These were rankings that all previous students competed for together.

  The top rankings were not necessarily more talented and more capable than the rest. Time was a factor here.

  “Given time, Arthur will climb to the top of the standings, eventually,” Euphemia continued. “I love Arthur very much. I won’t quarrel with him, let alone fight. What I can do is keep the targets he’s interested in away from him. Nothing more.”

  “What does it have to do with me?” Bai Ya frowned.

  “Of course it has to do with you. Since you came, Arthur has become restless again. He is attracted by your beauty and has a keen interest in you.”

  “So?” Bai Ya was calm.

  “I hope you can stay away from him,” Euphemia said. “I won’t let go of any woman who dares to approach Arthur easily. You should know that except for sabotaging the Arcana tree, the matriculation camp does not forbid fighting. Even if I kill you, the matriculation camp will not interfere.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Bai Ya frowned.

  “This is not a threat but advice.” Euphemia still wore a smile on her face. “For the sake of your safety, please stay away from Arthur. Even if he’s interested in you, it is only temporary.”

  “I have only two words for you: mind yourself.” Euphemia left and disappeared after she spoke.

  “She’s threatening you,” Ling Jiu said slowly, but Bai Ya did not respond.

  He could not help but look at her in puzzlement, only to find that this woman was picking up her shovel and starting to plant trees again.

  “You’re being threatened. Aren’t you angry?” Ling Jiu asked in confusion.

  “Why should I be angry?” Bai Ya did not even bother to look up.

  “Just pretend that I have said nothing.”

  Subsequently, the two continued to plant trees.

  \r \r \r

  Ling Jiu continued his work of planting Arcana trees with super-high efficiency. In just one afternoon, he had planted more than a thousand Arcana trees.

  A large forest then took shape.

  Looking back at Bai Ya, he found that she barely planted over 40 trees. The surface of Mars looked like yellow sand, but beneath the sand was a hard layer of rocks.

  Digging was very difficult.

  An Arcanist like Bai Ya could still use her Arcana to keep digging. Ordinary people would find it hard to plant even ten trees in one afternoon, though.

  Although Ling Jiu crushed Bai Ya in terms of efficiency, Bai Ya did not seem to show any anxiety or discouragement. She had been steady since the beginning.

  Ling Jiu started to admire her for this reason. This woman was exceptionally steady; she was different from all the women he had met before in terms of temperament. He even wondered if there was anything in this world that moved her.

  “Take a break, Bai Ya.”

  Ling Jiu released the airship.

  “All right.”

  Bai Ya did not refuse this time as she entered Ling Jiu’s airship.

  Ling Jiu followed from behind. As the hatch closed, the ventilation system began to produce oxygen. Air filled the cabin after a while.

  Ling Jiu took off his Venom Suit and exhaled. “What do you want—instant noodles, rice, noodles, or something else?”

  “Do you have rice rolls?” Bai Ya asked softly.

  After toiling the soil for an afternoon, she started to sweat a little, and her hair stuck to her forehead. She looked like someone after a workout.

  “Rice rolls?” Ling Jiu shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t like that thing, so I didn’t prepare it.”

  “Never mind.” Bai Ya shook her head.

  “Drink some of this!”

  Ling Jiu took out a cup of milk tea from the refrigerator and boiled a pot of water. “I’ll send you back to the camp in a while, and I’ll keep watch here at night!”

  “How long will it take to send me back?” Bai Ya asked unhurriedly.

  “A few seconds,” Ling Jiu said. “I left a dimensional marker in the matriculation camp. Through the dimensional marker, I can open a dimensional passage and send you back to the camp anytime. I have also left a dimensional marker here. Coming here next time is just a matter of a thought.”

  “Having Dimensional Arcana is really convenient.” Bai Ya sighed.

  “So, for me, the distance of the forest is not a concern. I can come here as I wish, and it’s enough to handle any unforeseen circumstances.”

  When Ling Jiu was talking, the water boiled. He removed the lid of a bucket of instant noodles, poured in the boiling water, and made a cup of milk tea for Bai Ya.

  Not long after, the instant noodles were cooked. Ling Jiu took it over and ate. Bai Ya frowned when she saw that. “Doesn’t it burn?”

  “I’m afraid, I have thick skin.”

  Ling Jiu smiled and slurped loudly.

  “Let me tell you, I like instant noodles that have just been soaked in boiling water. They are crunchy. If they are soaked for too long, they become mushy and no good.”

  Bai Ya had no words for it.

  A bucket of instant noodles was finished in just a moment.

  “So satisfying!”

  Ling Jiu wiped the broth off his mouth and hiccupped. Bai Ya glared at him in disgust and kept a distance from him.

  “I am done. It’s time to practice.”

  Ling Jiu threw the napkin that he had used to wipe his mouth into the trash can and looked at Bai Ya. “By the way, when are you going back?”

  “After drinking the milk tea!”

  Bai Ya was upset upon hearing that. Ling Jiu was showing her the door, was he not? Why could he not be more gentlemanly?

  There was a moment of silence. Just then, there was the sound of wind and sand movement outside. Looking through the airship’s floor-to-ceiling windows, they could clearly see that the sky was getting dark.

  An enormous amount of sand and dust rose into the sky, forming a desert storm, blocking the sky and the sunlight.

  “A sandstorm is coming.”

  Bai Ya got to her feet as she was anxious. “Will our trees be all right?”

  “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.” Ling Jiu waved his hand with a calm-looking face. “Sandstorm on Mars is massive—so much so that it could sweep over the entire planet, but massive does not mean that it is also powerful. The atmospheric density on the surface of Mars is only one percent of that of Earth, so the intensity of sandstorms is much weaker. Don’t be fooled by the movies and novels. This tiny sandstorm simply can’t do any damage to our trees.”

  “Really?”

  Bai Ya was doubtful. “But I heard that ten years ago, people from Earth detonated thousands of nuclear bombs at the two poles of Mars, releasing an enormous amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide frozen in the north and south poles of Mars. Now the Martian atmosphere is not so thin.”

  “Sh*t! Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

  Ling Jiu jumped to his feet and lunged out of the airship. Sure enough, the sandstorm was much stronger than he had expected.

  An enormous amount of sand and rocks were blown up, hitting him. It was damn painful. He looked at the saplings planted in the ground; there was a mess.

  “Holy moly!” Ling Jiu was furious and immediately released his Arcana Field to cover an area of one-kilometer radius. “Dimensional Shackle!”

  The dimension within a kilometer of a radius was instantly secured, stopping the sandstorm.

  “Vanish!”

  Ling Jiu said another word, and the raging wind, as well as sand, suddenly disappeared; the blocked sky was clear again as sunlight shone through the atmosphere.

  He repeated it several times, and the sandstorms that raged across the plain vanished. Everything was back to normal.

  “Finally, done.” Ling Jiu sighed. “Thanks heaven I’m a Level 7 Arcanist now. My Arcana Field has been expanded to a radius of one kilometer. Otherwise, we would have a problem.”

  Ling Jiu looked at the saplings that he had planted in the afternoon. With his timely intervention, most of the saplings were intact, only a few uprooted. But it was harmless.

  “Thanks.”

  Bai Ya had also come outside and expressed her gratitude to Ling Jiu, who had protected the saplings she had worked so hard to plant this afternoon.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ling Jiu held up his hand. He looked at the vast Ares Plain.

  “The sandstorm on Mars is stronger than I thought. If it comes a few more times, it will really pose a problem to us.”

  “What are you going to do?” Bai Ya frowned.

  “Build a wind-sand isolation belt around the forest.” A sharp glow flashed in Ling Jiu’s eyes. “Envelop the forest so that even if a sandstorm comes again, it will not affect the planted saplings.”

  “The idea of a sandstorm isolation zone is good. But have you ever thought about it it will also restrict us from planting trees?” Bai Ya had a different take on this.

  “Then we will cover a large enough area.”

  That night, Bai Ya returned to the camp while Ling Jiu worked through the night.

  When dawn came again, a towering wall about a hundred meters high and covering a radius of a hundred miles, formed on the Ares Plain.