Chapter 238: AF1’s Preparatory Campus
AF1 wasn’t difficult to find, but it was very difficult to enter.
The part Cillin went into was the preparatory campus. Right now, they weren’t qualified to enter to official campus at all.
The preparatory campus wasn’t located in the same place as the official campus. In fact, the two campuses weren’t on the same planet. That being said, they weren’t far from each other. Cillin could see the official campus’ planet from where he was.
The planet where AF1’s official campus was located was very big. There were three schools on the planet: AF1, AF2 and AF3. Several moons orbited the planet, and the preparatory campus of AF1 was one of them, so of course the planet was visible to the naked eye.
AF3’s entry test were few and less complicated, but the same couldn’t be said for AF1 and AF2. The tests were normally directed by AF1. AF1’s preparatory campus was the test location, and both AF1 and AF2’s teachers would conduct the tryouts together. When the tryouts were over, the results decided which participants would be segregated into AF1, AF2, AF3 or be eliminated.
The tryouts at AF1’s preparatory campus were formulated by stage; it all depended on the total number of sent recommendation cards and timing. Cillin was lucky because the next stage of the tryouts was starting pretty soon.
The imperial capital had specialized navigation robots. All Cillin did was to find a random navigation robot on the streets and entered his destination and ID information, and he was taken to a place with special cars immediately. After Cillin had shown his recommendation card, he was brought to this moon.
The watermelon-sized navigation robot who was flying everywhere explained many things to Cillin while leading him to the preparatory campus’ entrance. It was also here Cillin ran into Libero.
Libero hadn’t come alone. He was accompanied by a brawny guy he called “Ironhead”.
Ironhead was a humanoid too. Strictly speaking, both Libero and Ironhead were half-humanoids or mixed-bloods. Of course, this was just the polite way to describe them. Some nobles called them bastards outright; especially the self entitled ones. To them, a mixed-blood was the shame of humanity and the kind of people they disdained the most.
Libero was surprised to see Cillin too; he didn’t think that they shared the same destination. However, his surprise was quickly dyed by cheer. Libero was very happy to make the acquaintance of any people who didn’t discriminate against mixed-blood. Before this meeting, he thought that he and Cillin were just passing strangers. But now, they were comrades in the same trench.
Libero introduced Ironhead to Cillin. When Ironhead saw that Cillin didn’t show him any disdain, he too returned a friendly smile.
“Have you reported yourself in yet, Cillin?” Libeo asked.
“No.” Cillin shook his head. He had stayed a little longer than expected at the station and spent a lot of time eating with the gray cat. There were always problems when the gray cat didn’t get its fill.
“We already did. Let me guide you there!” Libero was very passionate. They hadn’t arrived for long themselves, and they were soon to be arranged into temporary hostels after reporting in. It would be nice if they could apply for the same hostel and avoid sharing the same living space with strangers or people who discriminated against them.
The report process was very simple; all he needed to do was show his recommendation card. Every recommendation card contained the recommender’s information, so the one Cillin was holding contained Griffin’s information.
Every AF1 and AF2 teacher faced a certain amount of pressure after they sent out a recommendation card because the person they recommended might not necessarily be accepted by the school in the end. The ratio of the number of recommendation cards sent out and the people who were accepted by the school were strongly tied to these teachers. Naturally, those teachers whose recommendation applied more often than not enjoyed greater fame.
When Cillin passed his recommendation card to the person in charge, the latter didn’t pay him much attention at first. After all, there were plenty of teachers in the affiliated schools and plenty of recommendation cards being sent out. His attitude changed a little and a bit of curiosity entered his eyes when he read the information on the card though. He didn’t imagine that Griffin would be the one to recommend such an average looking person.
After he obtained his hostel card, Cillin, Libero and Ironhead headed towards their temporary hostel.
The gray cat accompanied the trio as Cillin’s pet. It wouldn’t be participating in the beast-type tests because it didn’t receive a recommendation. But even if it did, the gray cat wouldn’t have bothered with such nuisance.
The arrangement of the hostel was almost the same as Chang Four’s at Baelenbaatar. The difference was that it was a five-man hostel instead of four. Everyone had an individual bedroom, but they would be sharing a training room, living room and so on.
When the trio arrived at their hostel, they discovered that someone was already living in it. Judging from his appearance, he had been staying in this place for quite a while. The man was just waking up and looking a bit drowsy when the trio entered the hostel. When he saw them, he stretched and asked, “Yo, are you guys my housemates? All three of you?”
Libero introduced himself first before making a round of introduction for Cillin and Ironhead as well. The guy scratched his messy head before chuckling. “My name is Walley. I come from a small, out-of-the-way planet in the seventh star region.” Walley’s nose twitched as he said this, “Did you guys buy breakfast?”
“It’s lunchtime already, isn’t it?” Libero said exasperatedly.
Walley rubbed his hands together. “Never mind that. Can I join you?”
“Sure. We bought a lot of food anyway.”
Cillin put the items of the large table at the living room while the gray cat crouched in front of its plate and chowed down in no time. When Walley stretched a fork towards its plate, it instantly cut the utensil into three pieces. As it happened, the young man liked toying with the gray cat a lot, so he switched to a new fork and tried again and again. Finally, he managed to grab a small fish from the gray cat’s plate, and the gray cat was so mad that it scratched Walley’s face a couple of times.
Walley was a pretty easygoing person though. When he spoke of the reason he came to AF1’s preparatory campus, he summed it all in two words: debt collection.
Technically speaking, the place Walley lived in had absolutely nothing to do with the affiliated schools. It was a planet that was even more remote than Old Chang’s. However, one day Walley ran into a person who forcefully landed his faulty spaceplane near his house. Because he was feeling good, he offered the person a meal, and then they fought a brawl that ended with Walley being crushed so badly that no one in the entire district could recognize him. In the end, the man kicked Walley twice, ate everything that could be eaten in Walley’s house and took a French leave. Before he left, he tossed down a card and a small sum of money before telling Walley to find him in AF1, promising to free him from all basic necessities of life if he did. That was how Walley came to AF1 to collect the debt he was due.
After listening to Walley’s story, Cillin thought that the teachers of the affiliated schools were pretty eccentric. Everyone had an elusive personality. Walley wasn’t a mixed blood like Libero or Ironhead; he was an average human just like Cillin was. However, he must have some outstanding talents considering that his teacher had him a recommendation card, even if the way he was recruited was a little unusual.
Ironhead’s parents were the servants of a noble family. Because Ironhead proved himself to be a man of some abilities, the noble family had used their connection to acquire a recommendation card for Ironhead. However, if Ironhead was eliminated during the tryouts, it was clear that his whole family would be forced to go through a very difficult time. That was why Ironhead felt considerable pressure on his shoulders.
Libero was apparently the same. He claimed that his teacher had spent much effort to collect a recommendation card for him, but didn’t go deep into the details. It was obvious to everyone that things weren’t as simple as Libero claimed, but since he wasn’t willing to tell they didn’t prod further into the subject.
The final person to show up was also the most special. He was an eight years old child of a noble family. However, he was a livelier boy than your average noble boy, and he didn’t pretend to be proud, standoffish or eccentric like some nobles. Although he kept calling himself “the young master”, they could see from his eyes that he didn’t mean to demean anyone. It was just a pet phrase he was used to.
The person who sent in the boy was an old manservant. The old manservant reminded Cillin of the small old man, Berzett beside Lung. Although the polite smile on his face never wore off, he was absolutely not to be underestimated.
AF1’s rules forbad any people in the preparatory campus to bring their servants, so all the old man did was to escort the boy to the hostel. After that, he carried so many things into the hostel that the storage cabinets in the living room and the kitchen were completely filled with stuff. The old manservant claimed that it was his gift to everyone in hopes that they would more or less help out his young master in times of need. This was the first time he left home after all.
Cillin and the others promised that they would. They were now housemates after all.
Cillin believed that the old manservant must’ve investigated into their backgrounds before he came. There was no way he would leave his young master here so easily otherwise.
The boy’s name was Teita, but his surname wasn’t revealed.
The old manservant finally left after the boy chased him out impatiently. Teita then out a loud cheer while jumping around in the bedroom the old manservant tidied for him as if he was released from prison.
The quartet exchanged a look with each other. He was just a kid after all.
Teita really wasn’t a kid who put on airs much even though he couldn’t avoid a noble’s way of speech due to his age. His actions were truly shocking, however.
For example, Teita would say: “Hey, the young master requests you to speak with him!”
But in reality, Teita was obediently making his way towards Cillin’s group and joining in their conversation. He knew a surprising amount of things for his age.
“Hey, young master Teita, do you happen to know how this tryouts will be conducted?” Walley asked while leaning on his chair and biting on a walnut.
Cillin didn’t like to eat this type of walnut much, but the gray cat did, so he peeled the shells for the gray cat and gave Teita some too.
While eating the walnuts Cillin peeled for him, Teita stretched out five fingers and said, “There are normally five rounds in AF1’s tryouts. It is called the Five Tests of AF1.”
“The Five Tests of AF1? Is it difficult?” Libero asked.
Teita frowned as he chewed on the walnut. “I heard it’s pretty hard. You even have to write on a paper during the written test of the first round.”
Did he say writing?
“You mean, we actually have to write down words on a piece of paper?” Ironhead looked a little troubled. Even thought he was a manservant, he had almost never written anything with a pen and paper his whole life. He had always used electronic tablets instead. He doubted that he could stomach his own words he had to physically write them out on a paper.
Libero had the same problem as Ironhead, but Cillin and Walley was a lot calmer than the two humanoids. The task wasn’t unfamiliar to them.
Cillin passed another peeled walnut to the boy. “Continue.”
Teita accepted the walnut and tossed it into his mouth. It was crunchy and pretty good. Then, he stretched his fingers again and began explaining, “There is also a stress test, three mini tests, a cooperative test and a final interview. But you guys don’t need to worry about anything. The tests don’t have a so-called passing standard, so no one actually knows what they’re based on. Some people obviously did horribly during the written test, but they were recruited into the school in the end. But some people who did well were rejected instead.”
Teita told them everything he knew, but the more they learned the stranger they felt: why are AF1’s tests so unique?