Daily Evolution from Mastering Tai Chi-Chapter 219 - 206: The Perils of the Kumbu Glacier

Just as the leaders in the tents were chatting with each other,

Wang Ye, who ran 20 kilometers on the glacier at a fractionated pace, finally felt a little fatigued.

Although the altitude sickness and thin oxygen had negligible effects on him,

maintaining a high-intensity activity for a long time made him feel slightly oxygen-deprived.

This is because, during intense exercise, the muscles and organs consume oxygen at a very fast pace. Simply relying on the body's reserves and the amount of oxygen absorbed at the moment is not enough to replenish the consumption.

So, in such harsh terrain conditions, supporting a nearly 300-pound physique to sprint 20 kilometers is already nearing his limit. If he continues to run, it's very likely he will experience the same altitude sickness as others.

After completing the workout, it was already eleven o'clock at night.

Wang Ye returned to the tent and took out a pot to cook some instant noodles.

Even though during the day, he absorbed sufficient Fixed Star radiation and did not need to supplement food.

But to avoid being too conspicuous, he occasionally symbolically ate a few bites.

The food rations at Mount Everest basically had no taste.

They were mostly food cooked until mushy with a pressure cooker.

The taste is hard to describe.

Only the instant noodles brought from China could barely count as a delicacy.

Wang Ye sat in the tent, slurping noodles with added sausages and braised beef.

With his hearing ten times sharper than ordinary people, he could clearly hear the conversation of several leaders in the neighboring tent.

But he was not familiar with the Sherpas' language,

and could only vaguely discern from their tone that they were talking about some astonishingly shocking topic.

Yet, these Sherpa leaders actually all knew Chinese,

and spoke it very fluently.

So they basically did not need a translator to communicate normally with the Sherpa leaders.

According to what the leader of this team said, as per the original plan, they were supposed to train for ten days at the 5200-meter-altitude base camp. Once everyone adapted to the high-altitude environment, they would then depart to the 6000-meter altitude CAMP1 camp.

However, in recent days, Li Weimin had succumbed to serious altitude sickness and pulmonary edema and needed to take a helicopter back to a hospital at a lower altitude for emergency treatment; otherwise, he would be in life-threatening danger.

Therefore, now only Wang Ye with excellent physical condition and the rest of the former professional athlete photographers remained in the team. Their recent adaptation training performances have been very good, even easily completing the training of climbing the Kumbu Glacier.

So, the leader had changed the plan temporarily and decided to set off earlier.

The Kumbu Glacier spans about 2000 meters and is composed of moving ice layers, filled with giant glacier crevices. Climbers need to wear climbing boots with Ice Claw to walk over the ladders and cross the cracks. It's also known as the Terror Glacier because its ice collapses very frequently, and the ice layers move often; if you accidentally fall into a crevice, the mortality rate is almost one hundred percent, and even the body cannot be retrieved.

On the Kumbu Glacier, there are many narrow passages that only allow single-person passage. For example, crossing the ladders over the glacier, walking through the cracks on a single log, needing to grab ropes while wearing Ice Claw climbing boots to barely ascend the vertical slope; a team of nearly 10 climbers passing through such narrow passages typically wastes a lot of time, because many people can only exert one-tenth of their athletic ability due to the thin oxygen, proving their physical quality has reached an outstanding level by barely moving slowly up this nearly vertical slope, let alone moving quickly.

Yet, Wang Ye was completely different from the others.

Faced with a 2-meter high glacier, he just lightly used a run-up to jump onto it, exhibiting agility not inferior to that of an ape. It seemed like he was doing a parkour over the steep glacier.

Although this run-up wall climbing action is not very difficult in the parkour field, it's essential to know that this is at an altitude of 6000 meters, in a low-oxygen area.

Ordinary people would pant heavily and have chest pain just after walking a few slow paces on such a steep slope. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

A brief intense activity might make them cough up blood and faint.

Let alone running.

After seeing the remarkable performance of Wang Ye and his group, the leader started to modify the plan on his own.

The plan to reach CAMP1 on the tenth day was moved ahead to the fifth day.

Meaning, tomorrow morning.

Departure would be at dawn to cross the Kumbu Glacier heading for CAMP1.

To minimize the danger brought about by the ice layer movement due to increased temperature from solar radiation.

After finishing slurping a tub of instant noodles, Wang Ye burrowed into his sleeping bag, preparing to sleep.

Nowadays, his sleep duration had reduced from 100 minutes to 60 minutes.

About an hour.

Therefore, he sleeps at 11 o'clock at night and can wake up by 12 o'clock.

In the latter half of the night, Wang Ye can only train alone.

For example, training Light Body Technique and Rushing on the glacier,

or training Innate Skill under the sunrise in the morning.

Such days of nothing but ascetic practice still become somewhat tedious over time.

Therefore, Wang Ye was very much looking forward to the day of the climb.

Only by gaining certain challenges during the climb, can he muster some excitement.

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The next day.

Five o'clock in the morning.

Wang Ye slowly opened his eyes, coming out of the state of practicing Innate Skill.

During these days of arduous practice, his Innate Qi Amount had reached 13,000 units.