Chapter 23.1 - Lonely Dragonrider
Seven days had already passed.
Su arrived at the training base punctually at eight in the morning each day and returned to his own apartment punctually at eight in the evening. Each day, there was a long lesson in the morning and a long lesson in the afternoon.
Su already knew who the man that stopped him the first day was. His name was Ricardo Fabregas. He also knew the the names and backgrounds of his eight other classmates. As for the Black Dragonriders’ introductory course, the others all had rather uninterested attitudes, because this was all the most basic content. They already learned everything before joining the Black Dragonriders, so coming here was just a formality. That Ricardo Fabregas was even more so an outstanding young character from the Fabregas family. The day he entered the Black Dragonriders, he was outside in the world making a name for himself. Two years later, he returned from the battlefield, but the private from back then had already become a lieutenant commander. However, even though he was now a lieutenant commander, he still couldn’t escape the introductory course, so he was forced here as soon as he returned to headquarters.
Apart from the day they met, Su had had never seen him attend another class.
Within Su’s classmates, Ricardo wasn’t the one with the greatest age, as there was a forty-one year old private first class. The youngest was a young lady named Sally who was not even of age, nor was she a formal member of the Black Dragonriders. It was unknown why she could participate in this introductory course.
Perhaps the contents that the introductory course professor taught was completely useless to the others, but to Su, these were all things that he dreamed of understanding, so he studied everything with great hunger, unwilling to miss a single word that the instructor said. Apart from his hunger for knowledge, there was another reason why Su carefully learned everything, and that was the 800 yuan fee for every lecture, the price that was equivalent to a Barrett.
The other one that was as earnest as Su was Sally. As for the other students, the eyes that looked at Su contained respect and also jealousy. Towards Sally who had just started growing, apart from lustful looks, there was also contempt. Due to both reasons they were both aware and unaware of, they distanced themselves from Su and Sally. Meanwhile, the two individuals who were immersed in their studies did not have any intention of closing the distance either.
Su, who had just finished studying the economics of the new era, finally understood that the introductory course’s fee wasn’t that expensive, because all of the personnel, consumption, and protection required money. This money was part of the cost, so it had to be shared between every single new dragonrider. Due to the fact that the number of new dragonriders was too few, the training base was actually suffering quite a loss.
Before, Su used his own eyes and senses to understand this world. Only places he travelled through were recorded in his memory and stored up. Right now, with this information that had been considered knowledge and discipline, Su could understand the unknown, worlds he had never seen before.Moreover, Su even had a vague sense of understanding towards the laws behind the numerous and disorderly ideas.
Su knew that politics, economics, laws, and philosophy were things that no matter how much he fought or how much abilities he obtained, he would never be able to comprehend by himself. This was all knowledge crystallized by predecessors, the result produced after many years of contemplation and practice. This knowledge came from the efforts of great people from the olden era who did not possess unusual abilities and relied on their own intellect to rise to the top.
During the age of turmoil, only an organization like the Black Dragonriders would be able to pass around the wisdom of predecessors.
As for trouble, Su knew that it would come sooner or later. Right now, he did not fear trouble. If he wanted to complete his purpose of entering the Black Dragonriders, then the amount of trouble he would face would only increase. Moreover, Persephone had already promised him that she would give him a relatively fair environment. For Su, this was already enough.
Only, Su didn’t know what price Persephone had to pay for the sake of this fairness.
During these peaceful days, ten days had passed.
Within the ten days, apart from digesting what he learned, Su was always thinking of ways to apply this world of new knowledge towards his own abilities. As his abilities continuously improved, Su had to become more and more careful, because after the fourth level, every ability required 16 or more evolutionary points. After almost paying the price of his life to complete the captain’s training camp, experiencing a struggle between life and death, as well as the great slaughter he unleashed only brought Su a total of 16 evolutionary points. However, he wasn’t in a rush to distribute them. Instead, he continuously thought about what he should do.
The experiences in the training camp validated what Su himself had faintly believed for a long time, and that was that an ability that could be put to use was more important than an ability with a great intrinsic value. An ability when put to suitable use could release extraordinary strength, but that didn’t mean that the greater the power, the more terrifying it would be. Within the wilderness, the most terrifying and fatal mutated creatures weren’t those with the greatest builds and greatest strength, but instead the small, fast, and vicious creatures.
However, Su didn’t dare to drag it on for too long, because there were already times previously where his body automatically distributed the evolutionary points. If all of the evolutionary points this time separately distributed a point into every ability domain, Su might truly go mad.
After the eleventh lesson, Su thought about the contents of the lecture on his own before walking out from the completely empty classroom.
Within the spacious corridor, apart from his own footsteps, there was also roaring laughter and the soft shouts of a girl. Su stopped his steps. He could tell that that was Sally’s voice, and the surrounding laughter all came from individuals in his class. Even though Su had not spoken a word with Sally, he already knew that Sally with two levels of ability was far from the Black Dragonriders’ standard. Moreover, she didn’t have any background or money. The reason she could train here was presumably due to another reason. Su had also smelled the scent of mutation from her body, something people from the wilderness would possess. Newly promoted dragonriders wouldn’t have this type of smell. With the Black Dragonriders’ medical technology, removing mutated tissue wasn’t a problem at all, as long as one had the money, of course.
Regardless of what the world thought of him or what the rank on his uniform said, Su always thought of himself as a member of the wilderness, a member of people whose bodies all carried some levels of mutation under the constant exposure to radiation.
Seemingly without taking a lot of time to think, Su kicked open the idle classroom’s thick doors. The explosive force suddenly caused the electronic lock to momentarily collapse and its components to fly everywhere. There were several shouts of pain and alarm. It was clear that there were people who weren’t able to dodge in time and were injured by the components.
However, the scene inside the classroom was different from what Su expected.
On top of the tall and narrow podium, Sally’s body only had a single strip of colored cloth around her body, currently dancing on top of the table. Her looks weren’t bad, and her chest that had just started developing slightly bulged, and at the tips they were a bright pink. Even though she wasn’t that old, she was a bit taller than others her age, and she had started developing a bit earlier as well. She was enthusiastically and skillfully dancing atop the podium’s surface, revealing her legs that were so white they were shining.
The indoor temperature was adjusted quite low, making her body that didn’t have much resistance to the cold to begin with to become cold. Moreover, because she was extremely cold, her nipples stuck out even more. The sound system played dark and intense music, with each drum beat seeming to strike at their hearts. Five or six men sat within the classroom, some of them Su knew and two he had never met. They comfortably sat on the couch with fat wads of money on the coffee table. Meanwhile, around the podium and in front of the table was already quite a bit of money. Just as Su was about to break through the door and enter, there was another person who was shouting passionately while grabbing paper money and throwing it onto the stage.
Su stood at the entrance in a stupefied manner. The men within the spacious classroom were also stunned, and they looked at Su with a bit of confusion. Meanwhile, when Sally saw the classroom door open, she also froze.
Only the intense rock music tirelessly sounded. The acoustics of every single Black Dragonrider classroom was not cheap.
This was clearly not the scene Su was expecting. It seemed like this should be a transaction, a fair transaction. Seeing how skillfully she danced on top of the tall podium, it was probably not her first time doing so.
Underneath that brightly colored towel, Sally didn’t wear anything, exposing her clearly somewhat underripe body in front of all the men here. Only, even though she was releasing an enchanting smile, there were clearly two streaks of tears running down her face.
After a moment of awkwardness, a young man finally stood up and enthusiastically called out, “Isn’t this Second Lieutenant Su? What, you are interested in joining in as well? We thought you didn’t have any interest before so we didn’t call out to you. This little girl is so young, yet she dances so fiercely. She really knows how to have a great time. Moreover, the more powerfully she dances, the greater she would cry, so we all feel that spending our money here is quite worth it!”
Su’s eyebrows frowned extremely slightly. He walked into the room and stood at the center of the classroom. He gave Sally’s tears a look before saying in a low voice, “She is staying behind. The rest of you, get lost!”
His words seemed to immediately infuriate all of the men here!
Everyone stood up, and a young sergeant first class directly walked towards Su. With a cold laugh, he said, “Mister Second Lieutenant, she did this willingly, you know? No one here forced her! Moreover, we have six people here, so isn’t your tone a bit over the top?”
Then, the muscles under his uniform had just begun to swell when Su’s fist covered his line of sight without any warning!
With a ka cha sound, the young man’s tall and straight nose sunk without any resistance, and his entire body flew out backwards, slamming heavily into the wall. Then, he wordlessly slumped forward and no longer moved.
Su slowly retracted his fist. In a low voice, he said, “Drag him away. All of you, get lost!”