Enrollment

The trip to Moye Military Academy was still by orbital train, but at least this time it was shorter.

Moye Military Academy was built on a mid-sized planet between Star Systems 3 and 2. Its location was unique—it didn't fall under the jurisdiction of any star system, a decision made by the Galaxy Admiral back in the day.

He'd also given the planet a name: Yuheng.

Xu Lingqu recognized the name at once—it was another name for the fifth star of the Big Dipper. And when she noticed that both Moye and Longyuan were names drawn from the Ten Famous Swords of ancient China, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd found a fellow "Earthling." But a quick search on her personal AI showed that the names Longyuan, Moye, and Yuheng carried no special meaning in the interstellar language system.

Was this a coincidence, or...?

Xu Youwen had decided to escort them only as far as the gates of Moye Military Academy. In the VIP compartment of the orbital train, the three of them sat in three separate corners, staring at one another in awkward silence.

Xu Xiqin, inhibited by her brother's presence, didn't dare speak to Xu Lingqu and could only watch her with longing eyes. Xu Youwen, meanwhile, was still simmering from yesterday's verbal defeat at Xu Lingqu's hands, trying to burn holes in her with his glare.

Both gazes converged on her, but Xu Lingqu remained utterly unaffected. Her long black hair had been cut short, and the clean, neat bob lent her a livelier air.

This was her second time aboard an orbital train, and this time she could finally sit still and watch the space outside the window.

Stars glimmered across the boundless universe. Humanity had long since developed space in this era, and orbital trains shuttled between star systems, tracing silver arcs through the cosmos.

This interstellar age had plenty of planets capable of sustaining life, and through human effort, even more worlds that were originally inhospitable had been terraformed.

It was far livelier than the lone, solitary Earth of the Milky Way.

The three-hour ride came to an end, and a friend of Xu Youwen's from the Military Department stationed at the Yuheng base flew a shuttle to pick them up.

They arrived at the gates of Moye Military Academy without a hitch.

Legend had it that the academy's architectural design was inspired by the Galaxy Admiral's mech, Liuming. The primary color scheme was silver and white, with reliefs carved in the shapes of clouds and winds.

The main gate itself was a masterpiece of flowing elegance—new construction materials had transformed it into a celestial portal woven from a bridge of clouds, with clouds and stars flowing and shimmering on either side.

Two colossal sword sculptures stood at the very center of the entrance. Xu Lingqu glanced up—these must be the statues of Ganjiang and Moye, the twin swords. They crossed as they pierced the ground, blades overlapping, one a deep verdant green and the other an icy blue, radiating overwhelming grandeur that made every passerby crane their neck in awe.

She was starting to believe Liuming's boasts about being the coolest mech around.

Xu Youwen pulled Xu Xiqin aside once more for a long round of instructions. When he finally finished, he walked over to Xu Lingqu.

"You'd better not let me hear that you're crying and begging to quit during the trial training," he said, trying to reclaim the ground he'd lost in yesterday's argument with a sneer.

Xu Lingqu replied flatly, "I'd have thought the last thing you'd want to hear was that I teamed up with Xu Xiqin and dragged her out of the top twenty."

"You—" Xu Youwen was caught off guard again, scrambling for a comeback, but she had already stepped gracefully through the gates of Moye Military Academy.

His dear little sister was trailing behind her, beaming.

All that talking he'd done might as well have gone to the dogs.

Before arriving at Moye, the two of them had already installed the academy's dedicated subsystem on their personal AIs, and had preselected their dorm—a double room, the two of them sharing.

The latest message instructed them to stow their luggage. Xu Lingqu didn't have much, so she finished unpacking in twenty minutes. Her suitcase was mostly stuffed with Liuming's life-form core.

She took out the lifeless Samoyed, and a flash of light ran through the serpentine ring on her hand—the little dog sprang back to life.

"I'm exhausted."

"You're exhausted?" Xu Lingqu had ultimately brought him along, but since no one would be watching him during the trial, he'd have to stay cooped up in her room.

"This place has changed so much—it's nothing like when Galaxy brought me here back then." Liuming made himself at home on her bed. "I'll wait for you right here. You'd better come back alive, got it?"

Anyone listening would think she was off on some space counter-terrorism mission.

The ring couldn't be worn during the trial period, of course. Xu Lingqu took it off, and the next second, a message popped up on her AI.

[All new students report immediately to the central plaza on campus.]

Xu Lingqu called out to Xu Xiqin, who was still tidying the room, and they left at once. They followed the AI's guidance from the dormitory building to the central plaza, where a man in a deep purple military uniform stood on a high platform, tapping a baton in his palm as he surveyed the assembled newcomers.

Behind him loomed a colossal spaceship, shaped like a warship and as massive as an aircraft carrier—it took up nearly half a building's worth of space at the center of the plaza.

"Looks like the trial training isn't on Yuheng Star—we're taking a spaceship," Xu Xiqin said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect. They had just gotten off the orbital train, and now they were boarding a spaceship.

This batch of new students totaled three hundred, roughly divided into combat and non-combat tracks. The non-combat track was further subdivided into mech pilots, commanders, analysts, and so on. The combat track, however, would only be formally assigned after the trial period ended.

Once the students had all gathered, the instructor adjusted the brim of his cap and spoke. "Hello, new students. I'm your head instructor for the trial period. My name is Kai Ang Chris."

He had blond hair and blue eyes—a classic Euro-American look from Earth. Beside him stood an Eastern face, who took the microphone next and introduced himself.

"My surname is Chen. I'll be your deputy instructor for this trial period."

Kai Ang swung his baton with a smile. "It's our first meeting, so I'll be nice to you all. With that said—the last two students to arrive, please step forward."

The instructor was calling people out by name with his baton. No one in the crowd was a fool; they all knew this was about discipline and making an example. Refusing to obey now would only make it worse.

Before long, the two latecomers stood up on their own, thinking that being a little slow wouldn't warrant a severe punishment.

But Kai Ang showed no mercy. He walked over and struck each of them twice with the baton, without a single unnecessary word. Their faces instantly turned pale as they cried out in pain.

This was his way of cowing them all.

"At your first assembly, all of you took six whole minutes. Is that the standard of military cadets? Appalling." Kai Ang had already returned to the platform after meting out punishment. "From now on, any emergency assembly during training that takes more than two minutes will earn you a beating with this baton. That's your first lesson today."

The crowd, which had been murmuring about the instructor's methods, fell into dead silence. They'd braced themselves, but the strictness of Moye Military Academy still exceeded their expectations.

They'd assumed that a school ranked dead last would have a looser training regimen.

Kai Ang was pleased with their quail-like silence. He smiled and said, "See this Stalker-R3 behind me? We'll be boarding it to head to the site of our trial training."

Attention shifted back to the spaceship, and the previously quiet crowd stirred with excitement again.

"This is the Stalker-R3, the latest military warship-class spaceship! I have a model of it at home!"

"So cool—seeing it up close like this is absolutely awesome."

"Are we really allowed to board? I want to take more photos. Can we go back to the dorms first? I should've worn my laser suit."

Excitement rippled through the students as they chattered about grabbing gear from their rooms before boarding the spaceship.

Kai Ang gave a cold smile. The spaceship's hatch opened.

He said simply, "Come on."

No one had expected the instructor to pull this. The emergency assembly had caught them in whatever they were wearing, and now they were just supposed to board like this?

"I haven't prepared anything—we're going up now?"

"My luggage is still in the dorm... What am I supposed to do over there?"

"I haven't even washed my face!"

A dozen instructors in the same deep purple uniforms ignored the students' complaints and herded them onto the spaceship like sheep.

This was exactly the surprise attack they wanted—catching the students completely off guard.

The students, flustered but thrilled, flooded into the spaceship's passenger bay. Xu Lingqu and Xu Xiqin had been walking together, but in the press of the crowd, Xu Xiqin vanished from Xu Lingqu's side.

When everyone had finally boarded and stood looking around in bewilderment, Deputy Instructor Chen's gentler voice came through.

"New students, now we begin our second lesson for enrollment—"

"Please experience one interstellar jump."