Seven in the morning. The family finished breakfast.
"Siyue, Xiao Long." Fang Yu looked at his brother and sister. "Three more days and the new-student intensive course at Star River High starts. Dad may not be home by then — remember to register on time."
"Mm." Fang Siyue and Fang Long nodded.
Wuling City No.1 Senior High, Star River High and several other top high schools had all sent them offers, every one on very good terms, with scholarships and rewards of all kinds of training resources.
However.
After the family talked it over, they had settled on Star River High, which belonged to the Star River Group and ranked second overall among Wuling City's high schools.
In martial development it ran neck and neck with Wuling City No.1 Senior High.
"This month I've taught you everything I can about basic stance work and the basic fist forms."
"A master leads you through the gate; the practice is your own." Fang Yu impressed it on them. "You've signed with the Star River Group early, and they'll put at least five hundred thousand Star Coins a year into developing you... You must not slacken."
"The contract you signed is the upgradeable kind."
"If you perform better, the Star River Group will raise the terms of its own accord. Those are conditions I couldn't have dreamed of at your age." Fang Yu looked at them. "You both have the potential to challenge for Wuling City's top ten in martial arts — even top scorer."
"But three years from now, how far you actually get is entirely down to you."
Every year the eight great warrior conglomerates went out across the New Moon and Blue Star to court young talent for early contracts, handing over resources in bulk.
Getting an early contract was hard, too. Either your Aspect had to be very high grade, an Upper Aspect.
Or your Aspect was a little weaker but your talent for martial skill was staggering, reaching Subtlety while still in high school, say... or both at once.
And!
Perform well, and the eight great groups did not begrudge you more resources. In return, of course, once you signed with a warrior conglomerate you were obliged to serve it in future and venture onto the Primordial Star; break the contract and the penalty was staggering... Across several decades this business model had matured thoroughly.
In high school, Fang Yu's talent for skill had been decent, but he never awakened an Aspect... so there had not been the faintest chance of a contract.
His brother and sister were starting from a far higher place, and that delighted him.
"The Star River Group's martial teachers are all High-Rank Warriors if they're permanent staff, and even the assistants are Mid-Rank. Learn properly," Fang Yu urged. "And if anything genuinely puzzles you, you can call me."
"Mm." Fang Siyue and Fang Long both nodded.
After a month of training under him, they understood exactly how formidable their eldest brother was; in skill and in teaching he was probably a match for a good many High-Rank Warriors.
And he had been coaching just the two of them.
You could say that if they had hired someone, this one month of instruction alone would have cost tens of thousands of Star Coins.
"I hope they can hold this momentum," Fang Yu thought.
Once he left for school.
As soon as the transfer list was confirmed he would be going straight on to the university... Both of the province's martial arts universities were in the provincial capital, several hundred kilometres from Wuling City, which made coming home a good deal more trouble.
"Big brother, don't worry. We'll train hard, and we'll fight to get into a key university on the New Moon." Fang Siyue seemed to have picked up on his concern.
Fang Yu smiled and rubbed his sister's head.
Without his noticing it, the little tail who used to follow him everywhere had passed one metre seventy, wore her hair in a ponytail, and in her martial uniform had turned into a young woman outright — only her face still had something childish in it.
"Xiao Long, look after your sister at school," Fang Yu told him.
"Don't worry, brother." Fang Long nodded hard. He was not good with words, but he was solidly built, and he had grown a good deal again this holiday; he was close to one metre eighty now.
Fang Yu reckoned his brother might pass one metre ninety eventually.
A large frame was an enormous advantage in the early stages of martial training.
"Grandad." Fang Yu looked over at his grandfather, who was doing his "keep-fit exercises" in the pavilion... Fang Zhiyuan had never trained the martial path in his younger days, and had become notably attentive to his health and fitness since retiring.
"Ha."
"I've been listening the whole time." Fang Zhiyuan took off his earphones and came over to Fang Yu, eyes crinkling. "My grandkiddo's this good — the transfer's a certainty."
"The Fang family is finally going to have a university student."
Something moved in Fang Yu.
As far as he knew, his great-grandfather had also come out of a martial junior college... In several decades, the Fang family had indeed never produced a martial arts university student.
In this age, any family that produced one had cause to celebrate.
"You've done everything well, and I've nothing to add." Fang Zhiyuan clapped Fang Yu on the shoulder. "Your dad's been busy these last few days. He didn't get the chance to see you off."
"Your mother went early. Make allowances for your dad."
"I did wrong by him. I wasn't fit to be a father."
"But he did right by you. He worked for thirty years, and that's why you could train the martial path when you wanted to." There was real feeling in Fang Zhiyuan's voice. "Don't waste those years of his."
"Off you go."
***
It was not far from Fang Yu's house to the school. He took a driverless taxi, and half an hour later he was standing at the school gates.
Today was the day third-year students returned.
There were plenty of students at the gates.
"A month and more." Fang Yu got out with his bag on his back and looked up at the school's main gate, tens of metres wide. Impressive, still.
Wuling Martial Arts Junior College also called itself the finest institution in Wuling City... and by administrative grade it genuinely was, half a rank above Wuling University.
In this age, the martial path was the main theme.
"Beep — beep —" A car horn sounded, and a large all-black SUV pulled up beside Fang Yu. The driver's window came down on a young man in casual clothes and sunglasses.
In the passenger seat sat a pretty girl in a white slip dress and light makeup, watching Fang Yu with open curiosity.
"Old Fang, you're only getting to school now?" The young man lounged in his seat, grinning at him. "You've actually got a shot at a university place. Not worried about being late?"
"Old Mo, long time." Fang Yu laughed. "You know me. My house is half an hour away."
"Changed cars again?" Fang Yu ran his eye over the body.
It looked like a model that had been all the rage recently.
Only the character of it was on the old-fashioned side, the sort of thing middle-aged men loved.
"I took mine out over the holiday, got hit, and it's in the shop. This is my dad's." The young man shook his head. "I've borrowed it for the moment. I'll have the driver swap it back in a few days."
Fang Yu could not help smiling.
The young man was Wang Mo, a classmate and roommate of his, and a good friend... a genuine second-generation rich kid, his family's assets running to nine figures at least.
His father was apparently the richest man in one of the counties under Wuling City.
"Here, call him Brother Yu." Wang Mo turned to the fresh-faced girl in the passenger seat and introduced him. "This brother of mine — his family's got money too, and he's a real martial arts expert. He's off to a martial arts university soon."
"Brother Yu." The girl said it sweetly, a thread of curiosity in her eyes as well.
She understood that anyone Wang Mo took this seriously was no ordinary junior-college student.
"Mm." Fang Yu nodded slightly, and did not ask her name... The odds were this girl would not be with Wang Mo long, and Fang Yu was used to it by now.
"Right, I'll go and park. See you at the apartments." Wang Mo waved.
"Mm." Fang Yu nodded. Their dormitory building stood on a hill of its own, and as a rule vehicles were not allowed up the hill road.
***
Before long he was at the foot of the dormitory building... Called a dormitory, it was in fact built like a luxury apartment block: everyone had a single room, and there were shared martial arts halls, a swimming pool, a weapons room and other facilities.
"Fang Yu."
"Old Fang."
"Fang Yu's back?" All along the way people greeted him, men and women alike.
Fang Yu was one of the strongest martial students in Class 5703, and he had taken first place in the second-year martial skill tournament.
The two hundred students living in this building were all from Class 5703 and Class 5704, and they mostly had lessons together, so of course they all knew him.
Fang Yu greeted each of them in turn.
Wuling Martial Arts Junior College took five thousand students a year, and each intake was split into fifty classes of a hundred.
Class 5703 meant the intake of year 57, class number 3.
He reached the third floor, where beyond the shared living room and bathroom there were three separate rooms... The door of one stood open, and the pretty girl in the white slip dress was diligently massaging Wang Mo, who lay on the bed.
"Old Fang, you made it?" Wang Mo waved from where he lay, grinning.
Fang Yu thought nothing of it. The residence buildings were not divided by sex, only by floor, and visiting was allowed... The Blue Moon Alliance was itself encouraging people to have children.
A first child carried a total reward of a million Star Coins.
A second, one and a half million... and so on. The rewards were not paid out in one lump, of course; the child had to meet the Alliance's requirements at various stages before the money could be claimed.
Martial junior-college students who registered a marriage were not few.
After all, a martial junior-college student reaching Level 10 and earning a Parenthood Certificate was easy enough.
"Where's Old He?" Fang Yu called.
"Old He went to the central hall to look at the recruitment notices," Wang Mo answered. "Seems he's planning to apply to graduate straight away... If my dad weren't forcing me back for the assessment, I'd want to graduate too."
"Apply to graduate straight away?" Fang Yu thought.
Academic junior college ran three years.
Martial junior college ran four... and for the first three, the state provided dedicated "development funding" to encourage martial junior-college students to train.
In the fourth year that funding doubled — but only students in the top twenty percent could receive it, which was another of the state's ways of encouraging people.
And it saved a great deal of money along the way.
Students further down the rankings could only use some of the school's basic training facilities free of charge. Extra training resources? Entirely at their own expense.
Which was exactly why so many martial junior-college students with no hope on the martial path applied to graduate early, and the school allowed it.
With term about to start, naturally a great many firms came to recruit on campus.
Most of them were small and mid-sized, though; a company like the Iron Mountain Martial Society, belonging to the Iron Mountain Group, already counted as a "large enterprise".
As for the tier of the eight great groups — there was no possibility of them coming to Wuling Martial Arts Junior College.
The eight great groups only recruited from martial arts universities, since the threshold for their permanent martial staff was Level 30.
Even outsourced posts, or warrior posts at subsidiaries, required Level 20.
A martial junior college? Very few here reached Level 20; they were not worth the time it took to run a campus recruitment... Of the three of them in the dorm, He Jiyu's martial talent was ordinary and his family circumstances the worst.
Choosing to graduate straight out was normal enough.
"Every man has his fate," Fang Yu thought, and let it go. He turned. "Old Mo, you registered for the transfer recommendation assessment too?"
At the end of the third-year finals, he remembered, Wang Mo had said he would not be going for the transfer.
"Yep!"
"This holiday my dad spent a fortune, bought a great pile of treasures, and forced my Life Tier up to Level 20." Wang Mo lay sprawled on the bed and sighed. "He also told me what happens if I fail the transfer assessment."
"He'll freeze every card I've got and I can go home and level an alt."
"And you agreed?" Fang Yu laughed. Wang Mo hardly seemed the type to want children early.
"Obviously not. I plan on kids at forty." Wang Mo shook his head. "But my dad says if I don't agree, he'll go and level a few alts himself... For the inheritance, I've got to make a push."
"Old Fang, you can't hold it against me for taking a place."