It was quiet at 11 p.m. From a small rented room, a boy's unresigned growl was heard.
Xiao Lin slammed the mouse under his hand on the table, and his frustration was reflected on the monitor. This was his fifth loss of the game tonight.
Xiao Lin realized that he had been down on his luck recently; he was working for a property developer as a fresh graduate, but he was fired under two months. What followed was a long period of job-seeking. He had his eighth interview since his termination today. Judging from how uninterested the interviewer looked, Xiao Lin was not counting on getting the job offer.
He was planning to play a few rounds of his game tonight, but he ended up being stuck with horrible teammates and a losing streak. As he grew exhausted, he turned off his computer altogether and laid down on his bed to sleep.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A string of knocks came on his door all of a sudden. A husky male voice boomed, "Delivery!"
Xiao Lin opened his eyes, grabbed his phone, and looked at the time before rolling his eyes. He believed that no courier service would deliver anything past 11. Hence, he did not plan on entertaining whoever was outside his door.
However, the knocks continued persistently. They sounded louder than ever amidst the silent night. The mysterious male voice continued slowly, but firmly, "Xiao Lin! Get your delivery!"
Xiao Lin finally got up. The man outside his door actually knew his name! Could someone he knew be pulling a prank on him?
After hesitating for a moment, he headed toward the door before the knocking stopped. He looked through the peephole; there had to be someone outside since there was light in the corridor, but there was no one outside at the moment.
Nothing happened even after a few minutes. The night was silent again. Xiao Lin opened a slit in the door quietly and looked around.
There was still no one outside, but something fell through the crack in the door, landing on the ground with a sound. Xiao Lin picked it up; it was an envelope from SF Express. He mumbled in frustration under his breath, closed his door, and returned to his room.
Interestingly, there were only his name and address on the recipient's column of the envelope, while the sender's column was empty. After tearing the envelope open, a thin, yellow postcard fell out.
Words in a blood-red color on the card read: 'Admission Letter to the Dawn Academy'.
Meanwhile, there were words in black on the back of the card that read: 'Xiao Lin, congratulations. You have been accepted as a freshman at the Dawn Academy. This card will be the proof for your registration. Please store it safely.'
Xiao Lin laughed; it seemed like someone's prank. He had never heard of the Dawn Academy in his life. Moreover, he just graduated from university. How was it possible that he was accepted into school again?
"Ouch!" Just as Xiao Lin was about to throw the card away, he yelped in pain. His fingers that were holding the card were caught by something sharp, and blood flowed down the card. However, it did not drip onto the ground; it peculiarly disappeared into the card itself.
At this moment, the card became extremely hot in Xiao Lin's hand as a robotic voice was heard in his head: "Freshman's identity verification complete. Initiating delivery…" After that, Xiao Lin passed out.
…
Xiao Lin gradually woke up dizzy after what felt like forever, and his blurry gaze became clearer by the second. He was lying on a cold, metallic floor in a huge, closed hall. There were metallic walls and a group of oddly-dressed but confused people around him.
Xiao Lin tried his best to gather his memory and began making assumptions in shock. Was he being kidnapped? But that could not be right; he was too poor to be worth kidnapping!
The room was noisy. Everyone there seemed either agitated or in extreme fear. Xiao Lin planned to ask around about what was going on, but judging from everyone's faces, no one seemed to know what happened.
Creak!
The only metallic door in the hall was pushed open, and the noisy crowd went quiet. Dozens of eyes turned in the direction of the sound.
A tall and skinny man in his thirties, dressed in a white t-shirt with a crew cut, walked into the metallic hall. He glared at the few people he pushed into the hall with disdain and scoffed, "Did you all think this was a place where you could come and go as you wished? How naive!"
The quip ignited everyone's rage instantaneously. Countless angry voices raised questions, one after another.
"Who are you?"
"Where is this?"
"Let us out!"
"This is kidnapping!"
…
The tall, skinny man sneered at the face of the crowd approaching him. All of a sudden, he pulled out a machete over a meter long and yelled, "Stop your noise! Shut the hell up right now!"
The man spit on the floor and said with a disapproving look, "Why are there idiots like this in every batch of freshmen? The bastards in the Admissions Department obviously slack off more often than doing work!"
The man looked around before setting his gaze on Xiao Lin. He asked with a frown, "Are you awake?"
Xiao Lin shivered. He realized that the man's gaze was not friendly at all. However, he was also confused; he did not offend the man. He had no choice but to nod in response.
The man did not push him further, but mumbled in anger, "How annoying! The last student took over three hours to wake up. How horrible is his basic physique! What kind of people are the bastards in the Admissions Department recruiting for the Academy!"
The man cursed the so-called Admissions Department again while everyone else remained silent, not daring to ask further questions. However, Xiao Lin was clear that the man was talking about him.
Xiao Lin did not find any other person as dazed as he was upon waking up, so it was obvious that the person with the 'horrible basic physique' the man was talking about referred to himself. This annoyed him; his physique was indeed not that great since he barely exercised.
"Since somebody was late to wake up, too much of our class' time has been wasted. I'll keep this short! This is Dawn Academy's Freshmen Class Seven, and I'm your instructor, Qin Chuan. I know you have a lot of questions. Tear open your admission letter; you'll get your answers. I'll give you five minutes to process it."
Like everyone else, Xiao Lin went through his pockets and found the damned admission letter. He tore it open in disdain, and the letter immediately lit up before burning into ashes in the air. Soon after that, a newsfeed with a message appeared in Xiao Lin's mind.
This was the Dawn Academy, and they were all selected to be freshmen here. They would have to go through a vast amount of training to increase and hone their capabilities before being eligible to enter the New World.
They would be able to attain unimaginable strength, money, and power here!
The message was short. It only told everyone why they were here and what they had to do, but people still had questions. However, they were too afraid to ask.
"We'll move onto the health screening." Qin Chuan clapped, and the metallic floor of the hall's front portion cracked open. Two black frames, similar to security gates, rose from the ground. "Stand between the frames and wait for the system's scan. You can only walk out after the red light dims. Queue up. Don't cause chaos!"
Qin Chuan's machete was terrifying. No one dared cut the queue, and everyone took their turn to stand in between the frames. A ray of red light swept across their bodies before dimming itself after a few seconds.
Meanwhile, a virtual display popped up in front of Qin Chuan. Xiao Lin squinted; he could vaguely see rows of data appearing on the display.
As more and more people completed their health screening, Xiao Lin realized the look of disappointment on Qin Chuan's face becoming gradually prominent. It was Xiao Lin's turn before he knew it. As the last person to be awake in the hall, Qin Chuan glared at Xiao Lin in a rare moment. His gaze was filled with disdain.
Xiao Lin stood between the frames silently. The ray of red light appeared from the edges; Xiao Lin did not feel anything as it scanned his body. However, soon after that, he realized that something was wrong. Qin Chuan, who was nearby, mumbled a "hmm" under his breath at this moment. His lazy eyes widened as he glared at Xiao Lin.
Other people who were done with the health screening gathered in scattered groups and whispered to each other. Only a handful of people realized something was going on with Xiao Lin. All of them could not help but look over in surprise.
Qin Chuan's burning gaze scared Xiao Lin. His forehead was sweating a little as he prayed for the red light screening to end soon.
Other people only spent about six or seven seconds for the health screening, but it was nearly 20 seconds for Xiao Lin; the red light did not seem like it was dimming anytime soon. As Qin Chuan had said that no one was allowed to walk out of the frames before the red light dimmed, Xiao Lin did not move an inch.
The light finally dimmed after over 30 seconds.