Lan Grace had confidence in her physical fitness. Even if she did not have a hundred per cent certainty of passing the entrance exam, now was not the time to shrink back.
Faced with a nit‑picker, she had to push back—without hesitation!
At the very least, she was sure of one thing: she could hold out longer than this jealous loudmouth.
"Hmph. Anyone can spout big talk. However pretty your words, you can't pass on lip‑service alone!"
The Waste Star native seemed determined to lock horns with Lan Grace; every sentence tried to stamp on her.
The long‑braided girl who had first spoken to Lan Grace piped right up. "I believe you."
Then she turned and glared at the heckler not far away. "Zhu You, just you wait—we'll see!"
"Hmph! We'll see then. If she passes the entrance exam, I'll take my head off and kick it around like a ball!" Zhu You snorted, leaving himself no way out.
"You said it!" The long‑braided girl, now angry, dug her heels in to see it through.
Lan Grace watched the two of them instantly set a bet—and did not say a word to dissuade them.
If others despised and insulted her, she was no saint. Who didn't have a temper?
All she needed to do was pass the entrance exam and "slap faces" with action.
This little fracas barely made a ripple among the thousands waiting in the heat.
In the desert, under a merciless sun, the candidates for the Alliance Second Military Academy waited a full day before ships once more sheared the atmosphere and settled on the sand in the distance.
A small craft—entirely gold—perhaps fifty metres across.
Small it might be, but anyone with an eye would not look down on it.
From the few ships she knew, Lan Grace happened to recognise the model!
It was like a supercar in her old world—compact, but exorbitant.
As with a city bus that might be big and only cost tens of thousands—yet could not compare to a Maserati in the millions.
The hatch opened; anti‑gravity steps floated down. Out walked a long‑haired youth of seventeen or eighteen—over one‑eighty tall, reed‑slender—wearing a white tailcoat.
His skin was snowy; gold hair and blue eyes; a cool, handsome face blank with indifference.
Standing on the golden sands, he swept his gaze across the Waste Star natives—did not pause—almost as if the thousands below did not exist.
As one of those ignored, Lan Grace understood. However many Waste Star natives there were, in truth not one might pass in the end.
So, to the truly qualified candidates, the number of natives did not matter—they were all the same.
After the first private ship landed, more soon appeared, each with a distinctive design.
Not a single interstellar public transport liner in sight.
Which spoke volumes about the candidates: every one was loaded.
Those colourful private ships screamed status.
Lan Grace noticed that, aside from the Waste Star natives, the twenty‑odd youths who arrived on private craft all, more or less, darted glances at the long‑haired blond youth. Yet with some scruple, none went up to speak.
It seemed that even among candidates of unusual background, this long‑haired youth was special.
After dozens of small private ships, two "big fellows" finally arrived.
Plain silver‑grey behemoths—each dozens of times the size of the small craft.
Hatches opened. Down streamed groups of young men and women—one to two hundred in all.
They clustered together once they disembarked, yet still kept some distance from the twenty‑odd who had arrived by private ship.
Natives from Waste Stars, nobles in their private ships, and ordinary examinees taken by mass transport—
Three camps formed of their own accord—watching one another, without interference.
Of course, perhaps the latter two camps simply did not deign to look at Lan Grace and the natives at all.
Even if the Waste Star natives numbered five or six thousand and the other two camps together were fewer than three hundred.
…
Tens of thousands of light‑years away, on the Alliance Star.
In the Alliance Second Military Academy's remote exam‑monitoring control room, a voluptuous woman in a tight, floor‑length, red fishtail dress, brown hair in big waves over her shoulders, sat on a white armchair, frowning at the hundreds of holographic feeds arrayed before her.
"Isn't this year's cohort a bit worse than usual?"
The Waste Star natives could be discounted. Of the remaining 264 candidates, fewer than ten boys and girls had either mental power or physique at S‑grade.
The rest were basically there to "make up the numbers."
Even if they passed and entered the Academy, they wouldn't be groomed as seed students.
Their future achievements were predictable—and would bring little honour to the Academy.
"Don't rush it. A few mass‑transport ships haven't arrived yet. We've three times last year's numbers overall—there'll be some good seedlings."
On her right, a male mentor in a black suit with gold embroidery, Cheng Gong, spoke from an identical white armchair.
At that, another mentor—He Bi, a burly man with a gleaming slick‑back and a full beard—said, "What I care about are the elites the great houses are sending—and I've heard someone from a battle regiment is coming this year too."
Only then did the woman—Mentor Jin Ling—nod, satisfied.
"By that measure, the cohort shouldn't be bad. I only hope more pass than last year."
Last year, excluding the Waste Star natives who were only there to make up numbers, barely twenty‑eight of more than a thousand examinees ultimately entered the Academy.
She hoped there wouldn't be so much dead weight this year.
…
Under the blazing desert sun, with the last large ship's landing, all candidates for the Alliance Second Military Academy's entrance exam had arrived.