But they are not the children of the miners in the mountains, because they do not have a normal life.

They practice martial arts, rock climb, and fight every day. They sleep when it's time to sleep, and then continue when they wake up.

day to day.

And every day, children die.

They were either killed by their companions, died of exhaustion, or fell off a cliff and died.

No child would want to live like this, but strangely, no child rebels either.

Because when these children first arrived at the grottoes, they saw two blood-stained wooden plaques, just like the ones they wore around their necks, only with different inscriptions.

The two wooden plaques are engraved with the characters '肆' and '拾叁' respectively.

Then the mountain lord told them that 'Si' tried to escape in the middle of the night and wanted to take 'Shisan' with him, but 'Shisan' refused.

The mountain lord also said that the children who ran away were naughty and should not live.

And so 'Si' died.

Children who know the truth but don't report it are also disobedient and don't deserve to live.

So 'Thirteen' also died.

They were all under ten years old.

A month later, 'Lu' also died.

The mountain lord said that Lu's martial arts skills were too poor, he failed the test, and deserved to die.

Then, the children's training turned into battles and fights, and some tests required killing the opponent to survive.

So the children finally understood the rules of the grotto: they would die if they were disobedient, they would die if they were not loyal to the mountain lord, they would die if they were not diligent enough, and they would die if they were not ruthless enough.

To survive, you have to become the strongest and most ruthless.

Seeing that the number of children was decreasing but they were becoming more and more sensible, the mountain lord was very satisfied, because the children finally understood his heart.

This is the way he raises crickets: he only ever keeps the strongest one, while the weaker ones are all killed by the strongest one!

Over the course of those three years, the mountain lord brought over a hundred children, both boys and girls, into the grotto.

After three years of training, fighting, and assessment, only one boy and one girl remained.

Both children were geniuses, the cream of the crop, and had the blood of their peers on their hands.

They will grow up to be terrifying killing machines!

But the mountain lord was not satisfied; he insisted that they fight again, with only one person allowed to survive.

He will teach the survivor a sword technique, the most domineering sword technique in the world.

The fight between the two children was exceptionally fierce.

But it wasn't for any particular swordsmanship; I just wanted to live.

The girl stabbed a sharpened wooden splinter into the boy's abdomen and bit his neck with her teeth.

The boy reacted quickly, leaning back slightly so that the girl could only bite his shoulder.

Actually, the boy was a bit merciful during the fight; otherwise, the girl wouldn't have even had the chance to bite his shoulder.

Then the boy grabbed the girl's head with his elbow and twisted her neck.

The boy won, becoming the only one to survive the three years.

The mountain lord was very pleased with the boy. He vaguely remembered that the boy was only five years old when he came to the grotto.

He's only eight years old now.

The boy's neck had a wooden plaque engraved with the number 'One'.