Over the past week, Acheron has been busy taking several high school graduation exams, the percentages scored on these exams deciding a big part of his future. This was because the top military academy, Crimson Dragon Academy, only accepted youths that were disciplined enough to do the work, ambitious enough to aim for the top, and talented enough to back up that ambition.
These end of high school exams helped filter an untold amount of unworthy candidates for these academies. Especially for the Crimson Dragon Academy, which was almost completely reserved for those youths with considerable background or immense talent, whether it be in combat or other subjects, such as science.
Despite all of these large family scions with usually considerable genetic talent, in the Human Coalition, many cultivation talents were still buried under the oligarchic regime. In fact, the only reason they allowed 'commoners' into their best academy was to maintain a modicum of 'good relations' with what was considered the majority of the population.
For all they knew, allowing mere commoners to rise up in society would spell the top oligarchs' doom. While Acheron wasn't planning on changing the status quo, he wasn't planning on submitting to it either. As long as they don't mess with his family or path to strength too much, he won't take drastic actions.
It is important to say, that, surprisingly, those that run the Crimson Dragon Academy and most of the professors were battle-hardened veterans, rather than simply getting to their position because of connections. Acheron figured that he shouldn't hide his talent merely because of this reason. Otherwise, he'd be forced to do the bare minimum and get his study years over quickly.
What he wanted most was to get familiar with spacefaring, the galactic map, and swiftly get into contact with a cultivator force as soon as possible. There's even rumors saying that the most talented students of the top three academies are able to join certain cultivator sects and clans present in the Arantara Alliance.
The process of applying for the academy was pretty simple, as long as you have satisfactory results in high school. What follows the application is a written test before gaining the qualifications to be transported to the academy, where more in-depth tests are taken. The written test could be described as ridiculously difficult, even if one was prepared for it.
Thankfully, while the Human Coalition is pretty backward when it comes to the openness of cultivation, its technological advancements aren't lagging behind, considering that it has a behemoth force called the Arantara Alliance sponsoring it, though merely by a little. But even this aid that's classified as 'little' is more than enough for the Human Coalition to spend decades introducing to the various planets.
This means that interplanetary transport is normal in the coalition. Sending a few candidates back and forth between their home planet and the academy grounds was an easy matter that didn't consume too many resources.
The conditions for the Arantara Alliance to genuinely begin sponsoring the Human Coalition, is to allow cultivation methods to be spread to people from all walks of life. They would even allow the Human Coalition's interstellar network to connect with theirs. Unfortunately, the oligharchic council and aristocrats are very hesitant about this.
Unless something major happens, it would most likely take decades or even a century before they agree to this change. No wonder, after all, this is equivalent to allowing the Arantara Alliance to take over completely, turning the coalition into a mere vassal.
Most youths that are sent to the Arantara Alliance never come back. This is because they can't imagine returning to live in this backward place void of cultivation resources, unless they're forced to by other circumstances. This is one of the things that might change the status quo. Having all their best talents stolen away by the alliance wasn't exactly a good thing either.
The Crimson Dragon Academy written test that was recently finished by Acheron was a test one required special preparation for. Most of the questions were related to theories that weren't directly taught in school. Thankfully, it didn't require much knowledge that could only be gained through practice, and Acheron, knowing his goals from a long time ago, didn't have to cram anything last minute, easily achieving a perfect score.
The test consisted of a lot of tricky questions which required either deep insight or abnormal levels of intelligence, nothing hard for Acheron since he had both of those.
Just like that, Acheron was ready to give goodbyes to his parents. Both of them smiled at him and told him to visit on vacations if he had the chance. Too bad Acheron had other plans. He would only keep in touch through the internet.
As for the safe house he previously had and used quite frequently over the last years, he's already stopped paying rent, vacating it completely. All of his contraband items were already buried somewhere far in the mountains, in a place nobody could think of searching.
Acheron planned to keep his law-abiding citizen act to the end. There was no reason to ever reveal his true nature to anybody. After all, he didn't want to get killed off as a danger to the coalition.
After five hours of travel, he was able to reach the main spaceport of Red Gaia, where a government spaceship was waiting for his and other candidates' arrival. The spaceship was simply gigantic, painted in white and red.
Two soldiers were waiting at the entrance of the spaceship, regarding him neither too coldly nor too warmly, keeping indifferent expressions on their faces. They were dressed in gray military uniforms, with tall black boots and medium-sized plasma rifles.
"Please show us your identification and boarding pass." one of them said with fake politeness.
Acheron calmly shows them the required details on his phone, not saying a word.
After one of them takes a good look, he quickly motions Acheron to board swiftly. After boarding and being assigned an empty room by someone, he calmly sits down and begins meditation. There were still three hours left till takeoff.
Acheron didn't plan to meet or chat with the other candidates from Red Gaia, yet. This was his first time traveling through space, but he has already researched spacefaring as much as he could over the internet.
Apparently, there were two technologies currently used for space travel in the empire, the hyperdrive and the warpdrive. Hyperdrive was commonly used for internal travel, as it was faster but required greater preparation such as the routes being mapped out. As for warpdrive, it was used when traveling out of the coalition's space, as it did not required routes, merely destinations.
For this certain model of spaceship, a hyperdrive was used, as it was merely meant for internal travel. It was even colored in catchy colors so that it could be easily identified. On the other hand, warships were usually painted black in their entirety.
Three hours of meditation later, the journey in space began.