With a sour face, Luther exited the cafeteria along with Lucian, clutching his swollen stomach.
"How evil are you? You fed me this much knowing we had field training," Luther grumbled, groaning with every heavy step.
Recalling the exorbitant bill and the stack of empty plates left on the table, Lucian just smiled slightly.
"Whatever, just don’t puke."
At the junction of the central quad, they parted ways to report to their respective transport bays.
Lucian hurried back to his dorm room to gear up.
He changed into the Academy-issued combat suit—a tight-fitting, shock-absorbent composite weave of matte-black Kevlar and synthetic polymer.
He latched the scabbard of his sword across his back, testing the draw with a quick, practiced flick of his shoulder.
Fully equipped, he headed toward the academy’s western transport sector.
The area was massive, and lined along the designated launch pads were specialized hybrid aircraft and heavy-lift transports.
These 8th-generation crafts were compact, engineered to ferry ten fully geared combatants at a time.
Designed with VTOL thrusters, they could take off vertically from stationary pads without needing much space.
Lucian arrived at Gate 173, looking at the small strike team already gathered.
Standing at the front of the squad was a tall, athletic boy with sharp features and neatly styled blonde hair: Alexander Sterling.
Mari’s older brother—and, for plenty of irritating reasons, a man who always seemed intent on making life difficult for Lucian.
’Once I get strong, I should really beat the shit out of him,’ Lucian thought, keeping his expression neutral.
Alexander’s eyes snapped toward him the moment his boots crossed the yellow staging line.
"You are late," Alexander said, looking sharply at Lucian.
"I’m not late. You just arrived early. Look, Instructor Dimitri isn’t around either," Lucian replied casually.
Alexander answered with a stern, unblinking glare, his arms remaining crossed over his armored chest.
’Can’t you just go easy on me, man?’ Lucian sighed inwardly.
In truth, Alexander wasn’t a terrible person; he was disciplined, skilled, and took his duties seriously.
He simply despised the fact that his sister showed genuine interest in an unawakened person.
"Alright, kids! Are you all ready?"
A broad-shouldered mountain of a man strode onto the pad, his deep voice carrying a thick, unmistakable Russian accent.
It was Instructor Dimitri, a battle-hardened veteran with scarred knuckles and the demeanor of a grizzly bear.
’Politics still continue even with the world on the verge of destruction...’ Lucian mused as Dimitri inspected the cadets’ gear.
Because the First and greatest Great Rift had torn open right across the heart of the Asian continent—devastating former Mongolia, nearly half of Kazakhstan, and adjacent borders of China and Russia—most of the ongoing logistical support for the Academy originated from neighboring nations.
In an effort to preserve fragile global equilibrium, the United Nations heavily subsidized and garrisoned every zone bordering the initial fracture.
The Mongolian Rift held immense symbolic weight as humanity’s original scar. That historic prominence was precisely why the World Explorer’s Academy had been built directly upon its fortified perimeter.
Dimitri finished his inspection and clapped his heavy palms together.
"Alright, pilot, let us move!"
Dimitri gestured toward the sleek, angular hull of the tactical transport, and Lucian stepped forward to take the controls.
’I used to think about making a career in the private aviation sector,’ Lucian thought with nostalgia.
Living at the World Explorer’s Academy had plenty of drawbacks, but it granted access to training regular civilians could only dream of.
Among those specialized skill sets was full certification to pilot an 8th-gen tactical combat aircraft.
Lucian climbed into the cockpit, sliding into the pilot’s bucket seat as the harness locked automatically across his torso. Instructor Dimitri dropped heavily into the co-pilot’s seat beside him.
The rest of the squad filed into the passenger bay behind them, strapping into the drop seats.
Lucian ran his fingers across the console, flicking the initialization sequence.
VROOOM!
The twin hybrid turbines roared to life with a deep, vibrating resonance that rattled the deckplates. After receiving green launch clearance, the heavy blast doors directly above the pad slid apart, exposing a square of pale daylight.
The thrusters engaged, pulling the craft straight up in a smooth, vertical ascent until they cleared seventy meters above ground level.
SWISH!
In one seamless, aerodynamic transition, the combat craft surged forward, breaking over the academy’s outer defensive walls at blistering speed.
Lucian adjusted the flight yoke, his eyes tracking the digital terrain map glowing across his heads-up display.
A blinking red perimeter marked their drop zone; the outer boundary of the monster-infested wilderness, roughly fifty kilometers beyond the Academy’s defensive shield.
***
Lucian set the tactical aircraft down in a shadowed clearing between towering, overgrown pines.
They landed with a soft hiss, and with a tap on the console, he activated camouflage. Light rippled once, rendering the entire craft invisible.
The side hatch hissed open, and the squad stepped out into the chilly wilderness air.
"For today’s task, you will hunt long-tailed foxes, and you need to kill at least fifty of them," Dimitri instructed, before vanishing into the dense canopy of the forest in a single breath.
’No matter how many times I see it, his agility is incredible,’ Lucian thought, watching the empty tree branches where the instructor had stood just a second ago.
"Form Formation Six!" Alexander took the lead immediately.
Lucian and the others fell into their predetermined positions, shifting into an upward double-arrow formation.
Alexander stood at the forefront, while Lucian took his place near the protected rear. Out of the ten cadets in the squad, most had already completed their awakenings.
Only three remained unawakened probationers; Lucian, Abel, and Nora.
"Ugh, I hate blood," Nora muttered, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
As they pushed deeper through the undergrowth, the metallic tang of fresh blood thickened in the breeze, until everyone could perceive it.
Alexander paused, looking back at her with a questioning gaze.
"Nora?"
"Yes, yes, I awakened a sensory ability," Nora replied, lifting her chin with a proud grin and shooting Lucian and Abel a look of unmistakable triumph.
"So you became a dog, huh? As expected of the person I chose!" Abel replied smugly, puffing out his chest as if he had orchestrated the whole thing, though Nora immediately shot him a threatening, venomous glare.
’This bastard is probably hinting at a double-meaning joke,’ Lucian thought, narrowing his eyes at them with a look that screamed complete betrayal.
Until this morning, the three of them had bonded as the squad’s only unawakened underdogs.
"Well... she just awakened yesterday," Abel said, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. As her boyfriend, he had naturally been the first to hear the news.
"Yeah, I guess so, boyfriend privileges," Lucian snorted.
He offered genuine congratulations to Nora, momentarily forgetting that he, too, had technically awakened the previous night.
Alexander’s stern voice cut in, his eyes settling heavily on Lucian and Abel.
"Then only the two of you are left."
Alexander tightened his grip on his combat gloves and faced forward.
"Alright, focus now!"
The idle chatter died instantly.
A few dozen paces ahead through the brush, three strange predators were crouched around a half-eaten deer carcass.
They had coarse brown fur, six clawed legs, two menacing yellow eyes, and three thick, barbed tails that whipped restlessly through the air.
GRRAAA!
Catching the scent of humans, the three beasts sprang forward with unnatural velocity.
Alexander intercepted the lead predator, unleashing a fist shrouded in volatile energy directly into its chest that sent the creature hurtling with bone-shattering force into a nearby trunk.
Before the other two could scatter, Jun Wenbo and Raj—the two other vanguard powerhouses—stepped in, cleaving and pinning another beast in a display of brute force.
"Alright, you two, come and fight!" Alexander commanded.
In past drills, the order had always been given to ’three’; now, it had dropped to ’two’.
Lucian felt a sudden urge to shout that he had awakened as well, but he bit his tongue and kept it to himself.
’I hate his style so much,’ Lucian grimaced.
Alexander was a firm believer in the old theory that unawakened humans could force an awakening if they were subjected to repeated, life-threatening pressure.
Lucian drew his sword and advanced alongside Abel.
Lucian had fought these six-legged foxes three times in previous drills, and he knew from experience how tricky their attack patterns were.
Abel led the charge with his spear leveled, Lucian trailing half a pace behind him.
The remaining fox bristled, its back arching as it let out a low, menacing growl.
The three barbed tails on its rump suddenly detached from its flesh, hovering like three venomous iron whips before lashing out independently through the air.
SKKTTT!
Abel swept his spear shaft in a tight arc, deflecting two of the tails with a metallic screech. Lucian stepped into the opening, angling his blade to parry the third tail off-course.
Seizing the gap, Abel lunged and drove his spear clean through the creature’s stomach, pinning it to the soil.
Lucian sprinted ahead without pausing, thrusting his sword straight through the exposed throat of the thrashing fox.
The creature shuddered and went still.
’Huh?’
The instant the blade extinguished the beast’s life, a strange, intangible sensation flickered within Lucian’s chest—like a tiny phantom spark reacting to the kill.
Before he could think more about that sensation, the air shook.
BOOM!
A shockwave rattled his teeth as glowing spheres of condensed energy, hurled from Alexander’s palms, obliterated several more foxes that were leaping in from the high branches.
Abel removed his spear free from the dead body, wiping the blade on the grass.
"Get up; otherwise, the instructor will deduct points," he urged, breathing hard.
Lucian pulled his sword from the beast’s neck and pushed himself upright.
Looking past the clearing, his heart sank at the rustling canopy. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes were multiplying in the shadows between the trees.
’This will be tiresome. I just hope I don’t get seriously injured.’
"Come on! Move fast!" Alexander yelled from the vanguard.
Lucian and Abel sprinted back, falling neatly into their designated rear slots of Formation Six.
Alexander, Jun Wenbo, and Raj stood side-by-side at the front.
Alexander cupped his hands together, manifesting a basketball-sized sphere of pure, crackling energy before launching it upward above the tree line.
BOOM!
The mid-air blast echoed like thunder through the valley, blinding and scattering the encroaching pack as the squad advanced with practiced military precision.
A long, grueling battle ensued.