The Focal Battle

Xu Lingqu glanced at his profile on the smart device—Sun Liao, from Star System No. 2, Psychic Power Level A. His build did look professionally trained, but beyond that, there was nothing particularly special about him.

His words made the rest of the non-combat group members even more awkward.

A female analyst student gathered her courage and spoke up. "Is there anything we can do to help? Actually, I learned some basic combat techniques before enrolling." Her name was Lin Xiao. With her gentle, obedient appearance, she spoke softly and politely.

Unfortunately, Sun Liao wasn't appreciative. "Give it a rest. What could you possibly help with? Aren't you all just here to watch me take on seven opponents by myself?"

"Are you sure you can take on seven?" Xu Lingqu spoke up. Sun Liao's grievance wasn't so much about the unbalanced group distribution as it was about leveraging his position as the only combat-track member to boss everyone else around.

Whether they won or lost didn't matter to him—what mattered was seizing this moment to brag and throw his weight around, making the others feel guilty.

His fragile ego was like a soap bubble floating in the air. No need for a physical strike; the air current from a single light remark was enough to shatter it completely.

Sure enough, Sun Liao flew into a rage. His face flushed red as he charged over to grab Xu Lingqu by the collar—only for her to sidestep smoothly, dodging his outstretched hand.

She moved far too fast. Sun Liao, arm still extended, froze in place, which gave the other team members the chance to step in and pull the two apart.

"Everyone, stop arguing. The priority now is to decide the order of engagement," Lin Xiao, the one who had initially tried to mediate, stepped up to take control of the situation again. She hesitated for a moment as she glanced at Sun Liao, then finally said, "Sun, if you feel wronged, you can choose which position you'd like to go up in."

That was exactly what Sun Liao wanted. He let out a cold snort. "I'll go sixth." Let the first five useless ones go up and wear down the opponents' vanguard; then he'd step in at the optimal moment. The last position carried the most pressure, so he wasn't about to take that either. He raised a finger toward Xu Lingqu. "I have one condition—she goes last."

The last position carried the most pressure and the highest chance of embarrassing oneself, and if things went wrong, the blame would fall on her. Meanwhile, taking the sixth spot let him easily finish off whoever the first five had already worn down. Sun Liao was playing his own arithmetic just fine.

Lin Xiao frowned. "You..." She had given him the freedom to choose his position only as a surface-level gesture to soothe him, not to actually indulge his unreasonable demands.

"Fine. I'll go last." Xu Lingqu nodded at Lin Xiao. It didn't matter to her what position she took.

She was going to win this sparring session.

Before enrolling, she had kept up basic physical training on her own, so she was no longer as pathetically weak as she'd been at the start.

Moreover, she felt increasingly in control of this body. Sometimes when she practiced combat moves in private, she'd find herself executing them with surprising ease, as if driven by muscle memory.

The problem was that before she could even exchange thirty moves, she'd start feeling dizzy and short of breath, on the verge of collapsing and unable to move...

But against these students, facing the entire opposing group, even thirty moves would be more than enough.

The 280 students were divided into forty groups, and the matches took place on two temporary arenas, A and B, where the groups faced off in pairs.

Xu Lingqu's group was assigned to the tenth match in Arena B, the last one. As the first assessment officially began, the crowd surged and suddenly all flocked toward Arena A. In an instant, Arena B was left with only the first two groups about to face off, the supervising Instructor Chen, and Xu Lingqu, who couldn't be bothered to squeeze through the crowd.

The opening match in Arena A was the focal battle. As luck would have it, the two highly anticipated S-level psychic students were pitted against each other—Shen Shouli and Liu Zheng. The new students unanimously believed that the future leaders of Moye Military Academy, or even the entire Military Department, were likely to emerge from these two.

The two stood on opposite sides, not yet on stage, their order of appearance not yet announced, but the air was already thick with tension.

Instructor Kai Ang, supervising Arena A, looked at the two groups with evident satisfaction and began announcing the order of engagement for both sides.

Shen Shouli was fifth in his group, while Liu Zheng would step onto the stage third. If the two were to meet, it meant that Liu Zheng would need to overcome two opponents in a row, assuming the earlier one-on-one matches stayed even.

Perhaps influenced by the two standouts, or perhaps simply because both groups were strong, the first contestants from each group delivered an impressive opening match. In the end, the first contestant from Liu Zheng's group used greater raw strength to fling her opponent off the stage, then immediately faced the second one.

Xu Lingqu studied the height and size of the stage, mentally calculating the most efficient and energy-saving moves she could use to eliminate opponents quickly, gradually losing herself in thought.

Until a voice suddenly sounded beside her.

"I heard Liu Zheng's specialty isn't hand-to-hand combat, but sniping." A figure had appeared at her side. Xu Lingqu turned her head to look—it was a boy, tall and lean, with jet-black hair and fair skin, his dark almond-shaped eyes clear and bright like autumn water, giving him a very harmless appearance.

Meeting Xu Lingqu's slightly puzzled gaze, the boy immediately apologized. "Sorry, I'm Tang Muwen. I might have been a bit abrupt. I'm from the first match in Arena B—I just got off the stage a moment ago. The crowd over there is too thick for me to squeeze through, and I thought you were also watching from a distance over here, so I wanted to exchange a few words."

Aside from the groups about to face off, Xu Lingqu was the only one left in the B arena's vicinity. But with her gazing blankly toward Arena A, it was easy to mistake her for someone who simply didn't want to push through the crowd and instead watched from afar.

At that moment, Liu Zheng was in the middle of a match against Shen Shouli's fourth contestant. Her first teammate had performed admirably, taking down two opponents in a row, which eased some of the pressure on Liu Zheng before she'd face Shen Shouli.

But right now, Liu Zheng's moves on stage weren't gaining her much ground. The "great expectations" placed on her for this assessment stemmed entirely from her S-level psychic power. Because psychic power was tied to mech piloting, many people had come to mythologize it, as if a high psychic level meant omniscience and omnipotence. In reality, aside from enhancing mech piloting, it only provided sharper senses and increased sensitivity to changes in one's surroundings.

At least that was all the double-S-level Xu Lingqu had felt since awakening her psychic power during this period.

That said, these benefits weren't negligible when applied to physical combat. Sure enough, Liu Zheng suddenly caught an opening in her opponent's defense and delivered a single decisive blow that sent him tumbling off the stage. Cheers and applause erupted, and the surrounding crowd buzzed with discussion—the next to step up was Shen Shouli.

Combat uniforms hadn't been issued yet; everyone was wearing clothes they'd brought themselves, which varied wildly, but most had chosen practical attire knowing they were heading out for trial training. Only Shen Shouli wore a light brown suit, as if he were about to attend some banquet rather than come to the makeshift arena on this primitive, out-of-the-way planet.

Before stepping on stage, he even wiped his hands—completely the manner of an aristocrat, perfectly matching the face he'd been blessed with.

Tang Muwen was a bit taken aback. "... So this is Shen Shouli's personality?"

Xu Lingqu fell into thought. "Probably." She found it kind of amusing.

From what she could tell, the slightly shocked look Shen Shouli had given her on the spaceship was probably because she'd kept her composure while being hugged by a girl who was retching beside her, then, without the slightest hesitation, found a spot and "passed out."

Shen Shouli's fighting style was as "elegant" as his demeanor. The barbaric game of hand-to-hand combat was turned into a series of meticulously precise moves by him—looking effortless, yet his technique was refined and airtight. When Liu Zheng faced him, it was like running straight into a wall she couldn't break through no matter what.

Watching her space get squeezed inch by inch, on the verge of being forced off the stage, Liu Zheng decided to take a gamble, attempting to slip past him to gain more room. It was in that window of opportunity that Shen Shouli sent her off the stage with a single palm strike.

The focal battle had ended just like that. The crowd stared in disbelief—it hadn't even been as intense as the opening match. Yet the two protagonists seemed perfectly satisfied with the outcome, even nodding to each other in mutual recognition.

Meanwhile, the first match in Arena B had already concluded, with Tang Muwen's group taking the win. His teammates went to call over the next group from Arena B, but he remained standing beside Xu Lingqu.

"Is Shen Shouli's style always like this?"

Xu Lingqu said nothing. Now Shen Shouli was facing a power-type opponent, and his approach was even more pronounced—like a gentle breeze brushing against a mountain, using minimal force to deflect maximum force. He was practically toying with the other man. In the end, he didn't even touch him; the opponent lost his balance and tumbled off the stage on his own.

"Disgusting," Xu Lingqu remarked flatly.

Tang Muwen let out a light laugh. "You seem to have quite an opinion of him?" His voice and looks were the kind that instantly put people at ease.

It was clear he knew his strengths too, which was why he kept casually probing Xu Lingqu for information about Shen Shouli.

He probably had a vague notion of the background shared between Xu Lingqu and Shen Shouli—that the Shen and Xu families had connections—and had mistakenly assumed she'd know a thing or two about Shen Shouli.

Xu Lingqu cut straight to the point. "If you're hoping to get any information about Shen Shouli from me, you've come to the wrong person. I'm not close to him."

She didn't appreciate being tested like this.

A flicker of surprise crossed Tang Muwen's eyes, as if he hadn't expected Xu Lingqu to say something like that. He hesitated, about to explain himself, when a commotion erupted from Arena A, cutting him off.

Shen Shouli had single-handedly taken out four opponents in a row, and the remaining members of Liu Zheng's group had all but lost heart, expecting the match to end with Shen Shouli sweeping all five and sealing their defeat. But when the last contestant stepped onto the stage, the tide began to turn.

The boy who stepped up had striking red hair, and when he smiled, he revealed a pair of fangs, radiating a rebellious air. His fighting style matched his appearance—sharp moves, lightning-fast speed, with enough power but none of the clumsiness, and he certainly didn't fall for any tricks.

Liu Zheng's loss against Shen Shouli came down to her inability to break through his defense. But this red-haired boy's movements were faster and sharper than hers, like an incredibly sharp spear colliding with an impenetrable wall—the result was completely different from before.

Back and forth they went, trading blows and counters, some moves so fast they left only afterimages in the air. The entire crowd fell silent, holding their breath as they savored this peak duel.

After roughly a hundred exchanges, the red-haired boy seized a gap in the defense, locking one hand onto Shen Shouli's shoulder. The crowd waited in anticipation for Shen Shouli to counterattack, but instead, he paused, then slapped the red-haired boy's hand away before jumping off the stage himself.

The stunned crowd: ...

Shen Shouli brushed the dust off his shoulder with a look of disgust. Only then did everyone notice that the red-haired boy had somehow gotten a handful of black ash on his hand, leaving a conspicuous gray handprint on Shen Shouli's pristine outfit.

"Heh, thanks for the win," the red-haired boy said, unashamed of his underhanded victory and even flaunting his black-stained palm at Shen Shouli with a grin.

It was pure provocation.

Xu Lingqu watched as Shen Shouli, disgusted, stripped off his soiled jacket and tossed it aside, and she made a mental note: if she ever ran into that guy, she knew exactly how to deal with him.

The red-haired boy's appearance had shattered what had seemed like an imminent victory for Shen Shouli's group. The remaining two contestants were no match for him at all.

Instructor Kai Ang, who had watched the entire thing, was also taken aback by how the focal battle had ultimately played out. Shen Shouli and Liu Zheng had exceeded his expectations. And then there was the pleasant surprise of the red-haired boy.

He pulled up the red-haired boy's file. He was just an ordinary student, name Jin, psychic level A+. During the warp transition, Jin had been standing in a dark corner, so Kai Ang hadn't gotten a clear look at his condition, but an A+ rating meant he couldn't be too bad.

Kai Ang silently swept his gaze across the students. His instincts told him that this batch of new students still had plenty of surprises in store for him.