– Pacific's Education Law stated: All young dragons came to their twenties must be enrolled.
***
"Brian, your sister entered school this year, didn't she?"
"Uh."
"Base One?"
"Yup." The yellow orange haired man answered, in a voice filled with a smile: "Well, close to home!"
"I remember you've been assigned to Base Three! Why didn't you ask for approval to be in Base One? You could train her by yourself!"
The orange-yellow haired man shook his head and replied: "She didn't like me that much... Instead of making her uncomfortable, I'd prefer to let some other one train her."
"That wasn't a bad choice." Another guy interrupted, "Tell you guys, this year there is such a rare talent in Base Three! Perhaps Brian will get a good seed!"
"Oh I don't know that yet!" Surprised Brian, "How rare is the talent?"
"The third generation heir of the Atticus! Hot enough?"
The Atticus was a special clan. The era was growing, whether you liked it or not, getting married to another race was unavoidable. But Atticus was one of the very few clans that insist on maintaining the pure blood. It was believed that all the generations of Atticus were one hundred percent pure-blood Blaze, and all were serving in the army.
"Only blood couldn't say anything..." Brian smiled, then turned to his best friend: "And you? How are your students this year?"
Under the afternoon sunlight, the man's long hair shone with a golden glow. He looked out the window, nonchalantly replied, "Haven't seen the list yet."
Everybody: "..."
Well, we all knew he would said that! We got used to that!
A female said, "Stop talking about the new students. Let's find a place and party. After today is another six months to meet again!"
"Right! Let's go get a drink!"
***
Every individual of the Dragon race from birth was defaulted to be a soldier. With outstanding physical characteristics and great power control ability, the Dragon race gradually grew up, learned and matured through the smoke of continuous wars, eventually climbing to glory, becoming the most powerful race.
Since Emperor Arthur Nolan completed the unification of the all Dragon clans and established the Pacific nation, the internal relationship among Dragon clans had gradually stabilized and gone into order. The work of constructing the country and fostering the young generation had been carried out to ensure that every young dragon maintained the best fighting and defense ability.
Pacific's Education Law stated: All young dragons born in Pacific land coming to their twenties must be enrolled.
In the first year, the number of twenty-year-old dragons to be enrolled was only thirty. By the third year, the number of new students reached thirty three. By the fifth year, the number of new students reached forty eight. Peace and a stable living made the number of newborns gradually increase. Just like that, the number of newborns continued to increase year by year until the twentieth year when it reached two hundred, almost stopped increasing.
The dragon races had a mighty power but its breeding ability was low. It was the typical example of the saying: God does not give anyone everything!
Being the race worshiping power, it was not inscrutable that Pacific's Education Law offered a Compulsory Military Training course for all young dragons before they entered any academy.
As the name suggested, Compulsory Military Training was a half-year compulsory military training course, conducted at five training bases nationwide. After this half-year training, plus half a year of study in the capital, based on the during-course performance and end-of-course results, combined with individual wish, each student would choose for him/herself an appropriate academy.
However... Ha ha, said "choose", but in fact, only a few students really had the right to choose!
And the rest "were chosen"!
Pacific had a total of five academies.
The two most prominent were the Military Academy and the Political Academy, representing the two Army and Political Ministries. These were the two "leading" institutes which had been training hundreds of talents to serve the Army and the Government for more than 40 years since Pacific's founding.
Next, the Military Technical Academy and the Medical Academy in turn were the "juniors" of the two academies mentioned above, also under the two Army and Political Ministries.
Called "juniors" was just because of the later establishment and belonging to the same ministry. In fact, the conditions for admission of these two academies were much tougher.
Why? Because weapon creation and the healing, surgery practice required a specialized internal power controlling ability which could only be found in a few dragon creatures. Unlike fighting skills which could be learned and trained, this ability belonged to gifted.
So, what happened every year was – These two academies would go hunting and rob excellent students from others. There was no such thing as freely register!
Finally –
the nicest and most tolerant – not involving in the fierce competition with the other big four but accepting all kinds of students,
having the biggest number of careers – including four faculties with dozens of majors and minors,
as well as the one had produced a series of shining stars – currently serving and improving the spiritual life of the people nationwide
– General Academy. With four faculties: Business, Cuisine, Fine Arts, Music.
After the military course, only ten percent of the highest performing students had the right to freely choose one of the five academies mentioned above. Also, this was the group being offered the most attractive benefits by all academies (except for General Academy).
Next, the Military Technical Academy and the Medical Academy would hunt for students with the most outstanding internal power control, sometimes in the above ten percent group, sometimes in the rest ninety percent. The number of new students selected annually ranged from ten to thirty.
Sixty percent of the next ranked students will be certainly enrolled in Military Academy or Political Academy. Again, choosing which of the two academies and which major to learn was based not only on individual wish but also on the first-year study results.
The rest were students who have the lowest scores, or who were not qualified for physical strength, mental strength, and power strength needed for serving in military or government, often accounting for about thirty percent of the original total, would enter the General Academy.
Students attending the General Academy had to pay annual tuition fees ~~~
But... they would be free to choose their majors, as well as free to plan how to start career path after graduation, in short, they were completely comfortable in their choice.
Meanwhile, students attending the other four academies not only paid no tuition fee, but also provided by the nation with all expenses incurred during their studies. But then after graduation, they had to serve in Army and Government for at least one hundred years and maximum two hundred years, then took pensions and enjoyed old age.
They could also register for a second degree at the General Academy, after that, establish a big business or open a small shop, or build a farm, or even get involved in showbiz and become an idol – It was lucky that Pacific people love idols based on their talents, not discriminate their age.
Using a sentence to summarize, it is: They (students attending those four academies) could only do what they like after getting old!
***
Neil Jethro was sitting on a military bus. He turned twenty this year, reached the age of schooling under the law prescribed.
Neil's father was a soldier serving in the Army Logistics Department, Colonel position. As a long-time logistics worker, it was no doubt that Neil's father possessed a calm, serious and careful attitude in every situation. He always taught Neil to put himself in the back so as to carefully observe and grasp the general situation of the whole team.
Inheriting the rigidly rule-following personality from his father, Neil chose to sit in the last row right after getting on the bus. The bus would pick up all new students in one area, then take them to the provincial military train station, follow the specialized route straight to the training base.
Neil sitting alone on the bus. Although he had a few friends in downtown, there was no one of his age. So he went to school alone.
The bus left the center, followed a strange road, finally stopped in front of a village gate.
The Hills village.
Neil knew this was the top fresh food supply in the Talus province, but he had never set foot here. Instead, he used to go camping or picnic with his family to the hills nearby a few times, once caused trouble with a mixed blood dragon in this village.
Memory flashed back. The image of a mixed-blood boy with light blue hair and light blue eyes furiously looking at Neil suddenly appeared.
At the same time, the sound of the bus door opening made Neil startled. He turned his eyes, seeing a tall, thin boy with light blue hair in his memory slowly entering.
Neil widened his eyes.
Angus stepped on the bus. He glanced around the bus once and went straight to the window seat, sitting down. Through it all, his gaze stopped on Neil for no more than a second, as it was simply observing the general situation on the bus.
The bus picked up two more freshmen in the western suburbs of Talus and then travelled to the military train station. The station had more than ten students, some standing alone, the others seemed to had known each other before, were chatting with each other.
Angus dropped his luggage bag to the ground, standing alone.
Neil followed Angus. When there were only a few steps away, he stopped. He considered something in mind, his face was slightly worried, his hand closed and opened a few times, finally he did not come closer, just stood five steps away and kept silent.
At the same time, one of the other two freshmen in the bus headed for Neil to say hi. The other person approached Angus. They only had time to say some simple greetings before the person in charge came to muster and took all of them to the military train.
The freshman group was divided into two wagons, each wagon was observed by four people in soldier uniform. Well, perhaps this was the first time being in such a serious atmosphere, the children stayed in absolute silence.
Along the way the train stopped in some more stations to pick up other freshmen, but the atmosphere inside maintained as silent as before. Except for glancing everywhere in the wagon, no one dared to make any big move.
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