An uninhabited island less than 10 kilometers in area and fully covered by forested hills was seen in the vast sea. The highest peak was nearly 100 meters high and was full of lush vegetation all year round due to the tropical climate.

"Land on the island!"

After the pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed on the sh.o.r.e, Tang Xiu floated to walk in the air as he took the lead to land on the island under the watchful, yet shocked and enthusiastic, eyes of the prisoners who observed him. Mo Awu and the rest then closely followed and stood in a row on the sh.o.r.e. As for the purchased prisoners, they were like a scattered swarm of bees rus.h.i.+ng towards the sh.o.r.eline.

With hands folded behind his back, Tang Xiu stood in the air and said in a deep voice, "Awu, I'll give you two days to organize your team of eleven. I want to see them orderly with strict discipline implemented. Of course, you don't need to pay any attention to someone if they dare to disobey your orders. Just tell me directly who they are and I'll make them die here."

Mo Awu knew that Tang Xiu wanted to eliminate a group of people here, so he deliberately asked loudly, "Boss, do you want to drill them like the elite special forces, or do you want them to train as they wish once in a while?"

Tang Xiu instantly caught the gist of Mo Awu and shouted in a deep voice, "All of Tang Xiu's men have been, and will always be, strong elite warriors. You all know the rules of the jungle—the weak are nothing but prey for the strong. It's survival of the fittest. And now, I won't hide anything from you all. Except for those three dead men, there are still 197 people left. But the number I can bring with me from this island will not exceed 150, for there would be too many people. In other words, if too many people can't adapt to my drills, no more than 100 of you will be able to leave this uninhabited island alive."

A burly black man hurriedly asked, "We wanna know the elimination criteria, Boss."

"You just asked a good question," said Tang Xiu happily. "The elimination criteria is, in fact, very simple. Those who don't obey orders, slack in training, kill each other, and attempt to escape will all be eliminated!"

"What about the final elimination criteria, Boss?" quickly asked that burly black man again. "Will we not be a.s.sessed according to our individual combat force?"

"a.s.sessing individual combat force is too shallow an a.s.sessment, as there are some stronger and weaker individuals among you all," said Tang Xiu scornfully. "If my memory serves me correctly, some of you are just average people but quite competent in some aspects outside individual combat prowess. It's simply unrespectful to these talented people if you just eliminate them based on this criterion."

At this time, nearly everyone understood Tang Xiu and firmly memorized the four elimination criteria mentioned by Tang Xiu in their minds and complied loudly.

Tang Xiu then looked at Spectre and lightly said, "You don't have to take part in the training. Follow me to walk around the island. I need to use an array formation to hide our traces."

Array formation?

Spectre trembled inside. He had heard about this array term from legends and had also witnessed its might. Back when he was still in prison, Tang Xiu eventually used an array to trap him inside.

Two days later.

Tang Xiu had covered the entire island with an array formation. The island would appear uninhabited should outsiders look at it from the outside; they wouldn't be able to discern anything inside it. Spectre was left with nothing but shock after seeing the Illusion Array. Tang Xiu's knowledge and expertise in array formation made him admire Tang Xiu more. He couldn't wait to obtain the said cultivation technique and possess these mysterious abilities as well.

"Not bad."

When Tang Xiu returned to the front of the crowd with Spectre, he looked satisfied after seeing five orderly lines of people. These wild and unruly convicts turned out to be able to cooperate with each other. They were working hard and training conscientiously, albeit under the threat of death. Even Mo Awu and the others had already accomplished Tang Xiu's goal of teaching these people knowledge about acupoints and meridians.

Imparting and transmitting the cultivation technique itself was an easy and simple issue, but due to the high number of people, Tang Xiu still had to spend several days imparting the cultivation technique to everyone.

On the coast.

Tang Xiu floated in the air and shouted in a deep voice, "I've already imparted you with what I should teach you. I don't care what special abilities you've ever had, but know that I'll give this medicinal pill to the first 10 people who reach the early stage of Qi Refining. Remember, only 10 people! So work hard!"

10 people?

Everyone's spirit soared immediately and a firm look could be seen in their eyes. To become stronger and be able to fly in the sky like Tang Xiu was something they longed for. They secretly made up their minds to go all out in cultivation and strove to compete for the top ten places.

In the days that followed, the training sessions were extremely arduous. Even though Tang Xiu gave everyone a few hours to perceive the flow of energy every day, most of the time was still spent on physical drills.

After 10 days pa.s.sed by, the enormous amount of physical fitness training made these people suffer terribly, both physically and mentally. Even some of them couldn't persist and tried to escape, causing Tang Xiu to obliterate them without emotion.

20 days later, the surviving ones had gradually adapted to the inhuman training. Even though the amount of training kept increasing every 2 days, they had been able to persevere.

On the 30th day, only 182 people were still alive apart from Spectre, yet nearly all of them had been thoroughly remoulded in just a month of inhuman drills. They even had a completely new mental outlook from before.

Unfortunately, there were only five people who could sense the flow of energy in their body and control the flow of qi in accordance to the circulation route of the cultivation technique, setting foot into the early stage of Qi Refining. These five people were Spectre, Ammos, Ammosai, Zhang Xiaohua, and the last that was quite a great surprise to Tang Xiu, Chen Yan.

"Are you sure you can control the flow of qi in the meridians according to the cultivation technique I taught you?" asked Tang Xiu in a deep voice while looking at Chen Yan's much thinner face.

"I'm certain," answered Chen Yan.

For a while, Tang Xiu was silent and then asked again, "Have you tried your hands with other techniques similar to the cultivation technique?"

"Does Qigong practice count?" asked Chen Yan.

Tang Xiu instantly understood why Chen Yan could break through to the early stage of Qi Refining. The practice of Qigong was also a method of cultivation, only that the quality and grade of the energy produced was very low. Despite that, it gave Chen Yan a foundation to cultivate with. When she had transformed the qi she had cultivated into True Essence and became familiar with how to control it, she eventually became a cultivator at the early stage of Qi Refining.

Whoos.h.!.+

A silhouette rushed from the distance lightning fast and then stood before Tang Xiu in just a few breaths. It was Shui Gui and he reported with a reverent look, "Report about this month's surveillance, Boss. There was a total of 66 recon planes pa.s.sing by in the sky above us, as well as 122 military helicopters, 52 cruisers, and 23 wars.h.i.+ps in the nearby channels with 14 trips back and forth. But last week, we only got 2 wars.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing by and no recon planes, nor a military helicopter."

"Continue the surveillance." Tang Xiu nodded in satisfaction and said, "We'll leave this place after another week. Also, tell Awu to see me. I want to ask him about something else."

"Roger that, Boss." Shui Gui accepted the order and disappeared before Tang Xiu.

A few minutes later, Mo Awu quickly appeared in front of Tang Xiu in a black uniform. He didn't wait for Tang Xiu's inquiry and respectfully said, "Boss, we've figured out the various countries' scouting force through the intel from our outside contact. We also learned the news about the prison's situation in Israel."

"Tell me," said Tang Xiu.

"After a month and a few days of searching, the temporary scouting team mobilized by the various countries have been recalled one after another, leaving only Israel and the surrounding countries who are still searching for us. It will still be a bit troublesome for us to leave now since there's a chance that we may encounter one of them," said Mo Awu. "Also, our plan kind of fell apart. Not only was the prison's Vice Warden not promoted to a warden there, but he was also transferred from labour camp 1319 and is still being interrogated by interrogation experts from various countries. There's also news from Gus Gilles saying that his men suffered a great loss due to the big crackdown operation carried out by the government to clean up underground forces. I'm afraid that the plan to help him become the kingpin of Tel Aviv's underground forces will have to be put on hold for a while until we get out of the limelight, so to say. Also, he wants our contact details as well."

Tang Xiu shook his head apathetically and said, "Tell him to stay under the radar for half a year and we'll send our people to help him in six months. Also, there's no need to give him our contact details."

"Understood!" said Mo Awu.

"Pa.s.s my order on. We'll stay for another week here and then evacuate immediately by then," said Tang Xiu once again.

Mo Awu looked hesitant but still spoke, "There's also a message from our liner, Boss. It said that we're running out of food and the s.h.i.+p needs to resupply."

"How so?" Tang Xiu frowned and said, "Ever since we landed on this island, we have never eaten the reserved food on the liner. How can it be consumed so fast? There are only 20 plus crew and attendants on board. The reserve food on the s.h.i.+p should be enough for them for a few months."

"I also asked about that, Boss," said Mo Awu with a forced a smile. "Most of the food was spoiled because the weather has been too hot and had to be dumped."

The weather?

Tang Xiu's expression moved and he immediately let out a wry secret smile. Little did he expect that he would overlook this reason. After mulling over the issue for a short while, he directly said, "You go and tell the captain that we'll do some hunting on the island. Tell them to also do some fis.h.i.+ng and get some fish for themselves for a week. We'll definitely get enough food for everyone for half a month."

"Understood!" replied Mo Awu.

The last seven days marked the end of everyone's drills. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mo Awu's team, members of the five squads were divided into five-man teams and began to hunt on the island. There were many wild animals on the island even though it was small in size. Though nearly all the food they had been eating these days were prey they had hunted, the number of wild animals here somehow was still a lot.

Finally, a message pa.s.sed over from the liner on the seventh day, saying that they had enough of a meat reserve. If they were able to preserve it for a long time, they would have enough for the next half month.

The moment Tang Xiu received the news, he immediately ordered to stop hunting and return to the liner. He also had hunted a lot of wild animals secretly in these seven days, all of which were stowed away inside his interspatial ring. Even if the wild animals' carca.s.ses stored on the liner were to be spoiled many days later, the carca.s.ses stored in the interspatial ring would still be enough for everyone to eat for a while.