Chapter 690 - 21: Spoils of War (Part 2)
The raging torrents would soon carry the bodies away, and the active fish and shrimp in the water would quickly devour them, leaving only a few bones buried under the silt or drifting to faraway places.
...
After dealing with the two, Chen Zhou spent half a day searching along the riverbank and finally found the two metal shurikens thrown from the mouth by the Japanese Ninja.
Only then did the wound on his foot, pierced by the shuriken, start to act up, with the toxins causing a numbness to spread across his sole.
After sniffing the scent on the shurikens, Chen Zhou roughly determined the poison was derived from the giant lizard, which put his mind at ease.
The poison from these lizards is only deadly when it tears open large areas of flesh and injects a significant amount of toxin; insufficient doses merely cause wound necrosis and minor paralysis.
Furthermore, the tip of the shuriken only grazed the surface of his foot, and given Chen Zhou’s understanding of his physical resilience, he knew that even if ten milliliters were directly injected into his blood, it wouldn’t kill him, merely cause some discomfort.
He was most worried that this ninja would use poisons concocted from wild plants belonging to the Thistle, Oleander, or Gelsemium family.
The unique species within these plant groups are said to be deadly upon contact with blood, comparable to some of the most venomous snakes, causing even the incredibly resilient to fear them like a snake or scorpion.
Fortunately, the challenge was set in a prehistoric era, in a high latitude region where the cold climate left little chance of encountering such poisonous plants.
Moreover, the training program of this Japanese Ninja mostly involved making poisons from Japanese native plants. They didn’t have comprehensive knowledge of herbs worldwide, making it impossible to create highly toxic and potent poisons on site.
Besides, the time from when these challengers were discovered until they attacked was less than 24 hours, leaving no time for adequate preparation, thus granting him an opportunity to survive.
...
Holding two exquisite shurikens and having found the shuriken secretly spilled in the mud by the Japanese Ninja, Chen Zhou then returned to the campfire, removed his shoes and clothing, drying them by the fire and examining the wound on his foot.
As he expected, the injury caused by the shuriken hadn’t festered; instead, it showed signs of healing.
The slight numbness on the sole of his foot likely wouldn’t last long and would soon dissipate.
Stacking up the United States soldier’s boots to sit on as a stool, wearing only a pair of shorts, he watched the flames flicker across Paul’s face. Chen Zhou calmly inquired.
"How do you feel?"
Paul didn’t look directly at Chen Zhou; he simply stared at the burning campfire and the military pot just set up above it.
After a moment’s pause, he spoke.
"I didn’t expect it to be like this.
In the Army, I underwent a lot of training; instructors always told us to be ready for battle.
Going to war means killing or being killed.
Until tonight, I always thought I was ready. I believed I was just one or two battles away from being a seasoned soldier.
But now I realize, I may never truly be ready for it; I’m not an excellent warrior..."
"Being prepared doesn’t make you an excellent warrior.
Reality won’t give you much time to prepare; often, it’s forced upon you, just like it happened to me."
Noticing Paul’s conflicted and depressed mood, Chen Zhou stood up, patted Paul’s shoulder, then went aside to count the clothes left by the Japanese Ninja and the United States soldier.
Challenge rules mentioned "The Administration will randomly distribute practical survival tools to challengers, ensuring that tools obtained by team members won’t be duplicates," but didn’t specify the number of survival tools.
Using the survival tools Paul received as a standard, this pair of challengers should have gotten a total of 10 survival tools.
Currently, he’s seen the military hand axe, the military pot, and the shuriken as three tools clearly unfit for the challenge. He guessed these challengers might also have an igniting tool; otherwise, in such a damp environment after rain, they couldn’t have started a campfire so quickly with primitive tools.
Apart from these four tools, at least six others remained, potentially including medication, seasoning for cooking, lighting tools, etc.
He wanted to check first what spoils he received.
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The United States soldier’s clothing, damaged due to a scuffle with Paul and forcibly tearing hand and foot, bore some blood stains. Chen Zhou planned to check it later, so he first opened the ninja’s suit.
From the ninja costume’s inner pocket, he first discovered a windproof lighter and then pulled out a multifunctional Swiss Military Saber.
Following that, Chen Zhou retrieved a transparent plastic bottle around 50 milliliters in capacity from the Japanese Ninja’s belt, containing about 10 milliliters of murky yellow liquid.
Guessing this to be the poison storage bottle, Chen Zhou set it aside and continued his search—
The ninja’s belt functioned as a pouch, basically hollow inside, capable of storing quite a few items.
Arranging the windproof lighter, two shurikens, Swiss Military Saber, and plastic bottle neatly aside, Chen Zhou then found a small compass.
This compass differed significantly in design from Paul’s; besides the front needle, the back displayed a temperature and humidity interface, deeming it multifunctional.
Thinking the Japanese Ninja’s five survival tools were gathered, Chen Zhou surprisingly found two more items upon further probing the belt.
One was a small sewing kit, the other a bottle of water purifying tablets.
This ninja’s small sewing kit focused on needles, containing over twenty varying sizes, while only having a small spool of thread, contrary to Paul’s sewing kit.