Luoying City. First High School.
Inside the Class 7 classroom of the eleventh grade,
"Li Qingshan, you want to join the Martial Dao Class too?"
A startled voice rang out. Several nearby students looked up at the sound, their eyes gathering on a figure by the window.
Brilliant sunlight spilled in from outside, falling on the young man bent over his writing. Against the golden light, the line of his profile seemed to glow.
Li Qingshan set down his pen, turned toward the student who'd spoken, and said with a faint laugh:
"The Martial Dao Class has no entry requirements. Why shouldn't I go?"
The one who'd spoken faltered. The other students, though they shot him odd looks, turned their attention back to the application forms in their hands, wavering.
BOOM!
A sonic boom cracked across the sky outside,
yet not a soul in the classroom stirred, as though it were nothing out of the ordinary.
Only Li Qingshan lifted his head to look out the window.
A ring of white shockwave lingered in midair as a black humanoid mecha, its whole frame glinting with metallic light, shot off into the distance.
A Sky Patroller, attached to the Wuyi Province Inspection Bureau, cruising the skies above the cities each day.
"Nothing out of the ordinary? This is a mecha we're talking about!"
Li Qingshan rubbed the application form between his fingers, an unreadable look on his face.
Two years since he'd transmigrated, and his grasp of this world was still full of contradictions.
The interstellar age... the Chihong Star Region... Planet Ziying...
Starships... mecha... martial artists...
Astral-Realm mutant beasts... evil-god cultists... contamination...
All of it was just so many lines of pale text in a textbook.
That's right — even in the interstellar age, schooling on Planet Ziying still used paper textbooks.
In two years of living here, he hadn't seen so much as a single hovercar.
The most sci-fi object Li Qingshan had ever laid hands on was the projector-capable comm-band on his wrist.
Only the mecha that streaked across the sky now and then, and the Martial Dao he trained in every day, reminded him this was the interstellar age.
Mecha!
Martial artists!
The only two things from those pale textbook lines made real!
"Such a dazzling interstellar age — how could I let it pass me by?"
Li Qingshan smiled faintly and went on filling out the form.
At the podium, the homeroom teacher pushed up the frame of his glasses, a complicated look on his face.
Every three years the same scene played out, but the path of the Martial Dao was never an easy road to walk.
"Students, the Martial Dao Class may have no entry requirements, but I still have to remind you of something."
"Even of those who truly make it in, only a rare few ever reach the New Continent."
"Setting talent aside entirely, the cost of nutrient fluid alone is far from cheap. I hope you'll all think it over carefully."
The low words came down like a bucket of cold water. Most of them sighed in resignation and set their forms down.
Even a few students still in the middle of filling theirs out gripped their pens tighter, faces working with struggle, until at last they stopped writing, unwilling but cowed.
The homeroom teacher's words were cruel, but they weren't wrong.
Planet Ziying was split into two landmasses, the New Continent and the Old, and the one they lived on was the Old Continent.
The New Continent was the true heart of the planet; only by setting foot there did one have any chance of touching this vast, boundless interstellar age.
A great ocean separated the New Continent from the Old, but it wasn't impassable.
Talent was the ticket to the New Continent!
And the screening for talent had begun long ago.
For every student sitting here, all through primary and middle school, one or two classmates had been sent off to the New Continent nearly every year.
And those still left here were, without a doubt, the vast denominator left behind by that filtering.
Entering the senior-year Martial Dao Class and testing into a Martial Dao University on the New Continent was, you could say, their last chance to get there.
Though "chance" was perhaps too kind a word for what was really an out-of-reach daydream.
In Wuyi Province, where Luoying City sat, only a scant handful of students tested into a New Continent Martial Dao University each year.
As the students' spirits sank, the classroom grew quieter and quieter, until only a few scratching sounds remained, jarring against the hush.
The students turned without thinking, their gazes converging on the three who hadn't yet stopped writing.
"Jia Jiang, Zhao Hongzhou... huh? Li Qingshan's going for the Martial Dao Class too?"
In that instant, nearly every eye fixed on Li Qingshan.
"Hold on — what gives Li Qingshan the right to sign up for the Martial Dao Class?"
"Right? Jia Jiang's family runs a logistics company, he can blow money however he likes. And Zhao Hongzhou's family's average, sure, but he's gotten brawnier these past two years, so it's normal for him to take a shot. But Li Qingshan..."
The boy speaking hesitated and trailed off; at once someone beside him picked up the thread:
"What's so hard to say? He's just a Public Rearing Center kid, isn't he? It's not discrimination to bring up 'Public Rearing' these days."
Public Rearing — a product of the ever-declining birth rate of the interstellar age.
At a Public Rearing Center, every child came from the Federation's embryo bank, with no father and no mother.
Until the age of fifteen, they all received standardized education at the Center.
After fifteen, everyone faced a choice.
Stay under the Center's arrangement until they were placed in a job, and sign a work contract of at least ten years.
Or leave the Public Rearing Center and fend for themselves.
Nearly every class in the school had two or three students who'd come out of a Public Rearing Center; it wasn't rare.
Once the words were out, the surrounding students loosened up and went on:
"Public Rearing background — even if the school waives all his room, board, and tuition, it won't cover the nutrient fluid for cultivation. With no parents to help him, how does he even dare?"
"Maybe not. I heard that after he left the Center, he started working part-time before he'd even begun his first year, and he doesn't live at the school either."
"Pfft. How much can part-time work pay? A whole month's wages probably isn't even enough for one bottle of nutrient fluid."
"Exactly. If Li Qingshan had talent, he'd have been sent to the New Continent back at the Center. Why would he have ended up at our school?"
"No talent, no family backing — what's the point?"
More than a few students began shaking their heads and sighing, wearing the air of sages passing judgment on the world.
When the overwhelming majority had given up, giving up the Martial Dao Class became the "wise" choice.
And Li Qingshan, whose circumstances were worse than any of theirs, was nonetheless "stubbornly going his own way" — the height of folly, naturally.
"Li Qingshan..."
At the podium, the homeroom teacher frowned, but said nothing more.
He'd thrown cold water on them earlier only because he didn't want to watch too many students drain their families' savings and end up with nothing to show for it.
In the end, the senior-year Martial Dao Class was a policy laid down by the Federation, a ticket to the New Continent.
Slim as the odds were, he couldn't forcibly stand in their way.
"It's no more than a bit of wasted time either way. He walked out of the Public Rearing Center — probably just to sign up for the Martial Dao Class, I'd wager."
The thought flickered past, and the homeroom teacher shook his head, abandoning any notion of talking him out of it.
No family support, not enough resources to sustain him — even if Li Qingshan got into the Martial Dao Class, he wouldn't last long.
The clamor swelled in his ears. Li Qingshan frowned slightly, and the pen in his hand paused.
"Hm? He's come to his senses? He's giving up?"
"Has to be. After hearing us lay it all out, even someone as stubborn as him should give up."
Quite a few students looked smug and pleased, smiling, having at last talked a stubborn classmate out of his "unwise" behavior.
Several who'd filled out half a form and then quit even walked over to Li Qingshan together.
They looked at the form in his hand, the corners of their mouths curving up despite themselves.
Good — everything that needed filling in was filled in, but it wasn't signed yet.
Right. They'd all given up — what right did Li Qingshan have to keep holding out?
"Li Qingshan, choosing to give up is the right call. There's nothing to regret."
Someone reached out, patted him lightly on the shoulder, and said with earnest gravity:
"We're all in the same boat. We get you."
"Bro Shan, don't listen to them. Let's go for the Martial Dao Class together and give it a real shot."
A booming voice rang out as Zhao Hongzhou, having handed in his own form, walked over.
"Zhao Hongzhou, if you don't get it, don't go shooting your mouth off!"
"Yeah. You've at least got family money to fall back on, you can take a gamble. Li Qingshan doesn't even have parents — what's he supposed to gamble with?"
"What, are you going to put up the money to buy his nutrient fluid for him?"
For a moment the crowd was worked up, as if Zhao Hongzhou's single remark had stirred a "public outrage."
"You people..."
Big as he was, Zhao Hongzhou still had a childish streak, and faced with everyone's accusations, he didn't know what to do.
"Funny, I never noticed before just how much you all care about me."
Li Qingshan let out a scoffing laugh and turned to look around, finding plenty of people staring at him.
More precisely, staring at the application form in his hand.
As if waiting for him to crumple the paper and "blend back in with the rest."
It was almost funny.
Busy with his part-time jobs, he'd been all but invisible in class, never really close with any of his classmates.
Zhao Hongzhou was the one exception; since the two of them occasionally worked the same jobs, they got along well enough.
Who'd have thought that today, because of one sheet of paper, he'd suddenly become the whole class's center of attention.
"You don't know shit!"
Li Qingshan gave a light laugh and lifted his pen to sign his name.
A phantom light-screen only he could see unfolded before his eyes.
[Li Qingshan]
[Realm: Body Forging 9/100]
...
...
Beyond the light-screen were face after face.
Shock, frowns, pity...
What a fine parade of human nature!