Chapter 630 - 605: School Begins
Chapter 630: Chapter 605: School Begins
Spring, Year Sixteen of Truth.
In the eastern suburbs of Mage City, the once desolate wilderness had undergone a massive transformation. Under the grayish-blue morning light, a colossal building complex arranged in a triangular formation was rising from the ground. Hundreds of Engineering Golems worked like tireless giant ants, waving their massive arms to precisely install prefabricated steel beams weighing over a hundred tons. Under the baking heat of high-temperature Skills, the Alchemy Cement rapidly solidified, sending up billowing waves of thick white steam.
Although the overall completion rate of the three academy campuses was less than forty percent, it didn’t prevent today from becoming a monumental day recorded in the history of the entire Plane. The three major academies—the Ten Thousand Machines Basic Extraordinary Academy, the Wesren High Alchemy Academy, and the Supreme Wizard Academy of the Divine Land of Ten Thousand Machines—were officially opening their doors to recruit students from across the entire domain today.
Before dawn broke, the light rail trains heading toward the three academies were already heavily overloaded across all lines. A densely packed sea of people stretched as far as the eye could see. The clamor of the crowd soared into the clouds, almost entirely drowning out the roaring engines of the Freedom Gundams patrolling overhead.
"Step back! Everyone stay behind the warning line!"
"Line up! Show your personal terminals and preliminary screening reports! Anyone caught pushing or shoving will immediately be deducted five social credit points and disqualified from this year’s admission!"
Several PX-3 units and security patrol Golems maintained order. However, such warnings could not suppress the deep-seated yearning in the eyes of the crowd.
Hans, a blacksmith’s apprentice from Falling Leaves Town, clutched his personal terminal in a death grip. Seven months ago, when the cold "Truth Type I" testing pod flashed a green light before his eyes, this young man who had spent his years sweating over an anvil nearly fainted from crying. He had passed the preliminary screening, and his comprehensive extraordinary aptitude was rated as Grade C.
In the past, as the son of a farmer and a blacksmith, his inherent destiny was to rot away among ores and coal cinders until the day boiling molten iron claimed his limbs. A Wizard? That was a deity residing high in the clouds, existing only in the tales of Minstrels—a transcendent being whom mortals would be deemed blasphemous for merely looking up at. Yet now, he was actually standing at the threshold of divinity.
"Hans, stop shaking!" The young workers from his hometown patted him on the back, though their voices trembled just as violently. "You scored a sixty-eight in your comprehensive cultural exam, and you have a junior Forging certificate. The Divine Kingdom Grand Governor has rated you as a Level 2 citizen! You’ll definitely get into the Basic Academy!"
"I hope so..." Hans gulped and looked toward the towering gates ahead. Beside the gates, a massive light screen was refreshing numbers in real-time.
Even though the mandatory general testing seven months ago had acted like a merciless sieve, filtering out the vast majority of mediocrity from the 120 million age-appropriate population, and even though the lucky ones possessing casting aptitude made up less than a few thousandths of the entire population, the final number of qualified candidates still exceeded a staggering 600,000!
Six hundred thousand people!
Meanwhile, the total admission quota for the first batch across the three major academies was merely 35,500 at the absolute maximum! This brutal secondary elimination rate of nearly twenty to one stretched the atmosphere at the scene to its absolute breaking point.
High above at an altitude of ten thousand meters, by the porthole of the Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine.
Allen held a cup of expensive Magic Drink, quietly looking down at the earth below, which swarmed like an ant colony. Morning light filtered through the clouds, casting a deep shadow over his sharply chiseled profile. His dark blue eyes reflected the fanaticism and restlessness of the mortal world, as if he were observing a petri dish under a microscope.
"Commander, as of seven o’clock this morning, the crowd gathered at the admission points of the three academies has reached 1.12 million," Jarvis’s voice echoed across the bridge as complex bar charts and probability curves were projected into mid-air. "For the Basic Academy’s thirty thousand spots, the number of applications submitted for preliminary review is five hundred and eighty-two thousand. For the High-level Alchemy Academy’s five thousand spots, the number of applicants is thirty-four thousand. As for the Supreme Wizard Academy’s five hundred core spots... there are only seven hundred and twenty-one people who meet the strict threshold of Grade A and above."
Invited to stand behind Allen, Colin looked at those statistics with a sense of trepidation.
"Boss, this scene reminds me of when we first went to school, but this scale is vastly larger," Colin said, his tone tinged with pity. "The competition is too fierce. The bottom-tier workers and farmers have practically gone mad. But... if we select people purely based on Magic Power aptitude, many illiterate natives will also rush in. Won’t that dilute our teaching resources?"
"That is why I established the rules from the very beginning." Allen raised his cup and took a sip of the Magic Drink. The stimulation of the Magic Potion no longer benefited him in the slightest, but the bitterness delivered to his taste buds helped sharpen his mind.
"Extraordinary aptitude is merely the first threshold; it only determines whether they can get a ticket. But their citizen class, educational background, ideological performance, and accumulated credit points are the crucial factors that decide whether they get to sit down and listen to the lectures.
"Jarvis, order the Divine Kingdom Grand Governor to strictly execute the weighted algorithm.
"Aptitude only accounts for forty percent of the admission weight, logical and cultural assessments take up thirty percent, citizen class evaluation takes up twenty percent, and labor contribution points under the Divine Kingdom’s system over the past three years account for ten percent.
"This massive recruitment for the Basic Extraordinary Academy is meant to acquire modern technical workers who observe discipline, excel in arithmetic, understand standard blueprints, and strictly follow operational specifications. We are not looking for those self-important ascetics who spend all day dreaming about moving mountains and parting seas.
"As for those geniuses unearthed from the countryside, if they can’t even do basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, throw them into the literacy prep class first—even if their aptitude is rated S-grade. Let them tighten screws for a year to grind down their temperaments before we talk."
"Understood. The screening model has been recalibrated for a second time, and redundant applications are being processed at an accelerated rate," Jarvis replied.
Colin steadied his nerves and took the opportunity to submit another report. "Boss, you could say that the local selection process is booming like a raging fire. But, Boss... our recruitment across the thirteen colonized Planes surrounding the Gray Channel has yielded results far below expectations."
Allen took the data pad and glanced over it. The pad clearly recorded the feedback brought back by the merchant fleets from the thirteen primary colonized Planes surrounding the Gray Channel. Although the merchant fleets of Wesren Heavy Industry had scattered flyers and admission brochures across every accessible port and settlement—even causing a massive stir—the total number of foreign seekers of knowledge who actually crossed the Star Gate or arrived at the G-771 Plane on merchant ships was a mere three hundred or so.
"Three hundred and twenty-seven people," Colin sighed. "Of these, one hundred and forty are the descendants of impoverished wandering Wizards from the surrounding areas, and the rest are basically the offspring of small smuggling rings or mining families. As for the ordinary mortals of those Planes... there isn’t a single one."
"That’s very normal." Having reviewed the data, Allen wasn’t surprised in the slightest.
"Don’t project the current reality of mortals in G-771 onto those primitive worlds rotting in the mud.
"Cross-Plane travel is a routine voyage for a Wizard, but for the mortals in those surrounding areas who are squeezed by major factions until they barely have clothes on their backs, even the cheapest stowaway ticket in the bottom hold of a merchant ship is enough to bankrupt them and force them to sell their children.
"From birth to death, ninety-nine point nine percent of mortals can’t even walk out of the continent they were born on. How could they possibly cross a Plane Crystal Wall?"
Hearing this, Colin’s merchant instincts were instantly triggered, and his eyes lit up slightly. "Boss, do you mean... our reputation hasn’t fully taken off yet?"
"Reputation is one aspect, but what’s more important is the channels." Allen turned around, his deep blue gaze falling upon the thirteen dim, shining spots on the Star Map that represented those Planes.
"Once the results of our first batch of students are out, and the surrounding Star Domains see that the ’Casting Tool Persons’ who graduate from here can churn out Rune Equipment and Alchemy Potions like an assembly line, they will naturally swarm over.
"I believe the merchant fleets can now pioneer an entirely new business—the ’Cross-Plane Study and Labor Line’."
With a light swipe of his slender finger across the Star Map, Allen established a route connecting the surrounding Planes.
"We will provide cheap floating passenger transport, waiving their upfront ticket costs and even offering full room and board. The price is nothing more than rolling the debt of that ticket into their future student loans.
"We will use their future to pay for their present travel expenses. As long as we transport people into this crucible, they will have no choice but to serve as firewood for the Divine Kingdom of Ten Thousand Machines for the rest of their lives."
Colin drew in a sharp breath of cold air, feeling a bone-deep reverence for the endless array of financial nooses his boss could deploy.
Boarding without a ticket, full-package loans, targeted training, and working the assembly lines to pay off debts. This was welding population migration, technological monopoly, and financial lending completely together. While classical Wizards still focused on inheritance and servitude when taking in apprentices, this combo from his boss stripped them down to the bone, turning everything into mere numbers on a balance sheet.
"However... Boss," Colin said, pointing at several registration windows in the distance where a commotion was gradually starting to brew. "It seems the tuition fee list we published has already scared quite a few people."