The post-interstellar sky was a haze-gray tinged with white.
Purified exhaust streamed from the mobile factories of varying heights, forming enormous vortices above the city.
Ling Zhao was looking up at a live broadcast on the giant screen.
“It’s time once again for the annual Talent Awakening ceremony. This station will continue bringing you live coverage from the Imperial Capital venue.”
The children in the carriage looked tense.
Ever since humanity had ventured beyond the Milky Way, the entire structure of society had been overturned.
Traditional means of proving one’s identity and status had suffered an unprecedented shock. At the same time, genetic talents born from genetic modification had become the new hard currency.
With only a one-percent chance of awakening, anyone who hit the jackpot could embark on the path of a Star Adept, receive preferential access to the Empire’s resources, and leap across the social divide.
Ling Zhao squeezed the identification tag in her pocket.
If she could awaken a talent, she would receive a generous subsidy. Then Director Mom would no longer have to work so hard soliciting investments for the orphanage.
The carriage doors slowly began to close. Just before departure, the last few children squeezed aboard with their parents.
Sui Sui turned her head and spotted Ling Zhao in the back of the carriage. The other girl was wearing a slightly ill-fitting white T-shirt and quietly reading the Awakening Guide.
Slipping away from her parents, Sui Sui made her way over. Her eyes curved into a smile as she looked at Ling Zhao.
“Are your headaches any better?”
The fact that something was wrong with Ling Zhao’s head was no secret. After all, Director Mom had taken her to more than ten hospitals. Many of the neighbors had warned their own children not to play with Ling Zhao, afraid that they might end up being accused of injuring her.
But Sui Sui liked Ling Zhao very much. She was the acknowledged kids’ ringleader in the neighborhood.
Ling Zhao put away the Awakening Guide.
“I’m much better now.”
Outside the window, hovercars and small aircraft were everywhere on the clean roads. Ling Zhao closed her eyes, and she could see the chip the doctors had diagnosed as a symptom of hysteria floating quietly in her mind.
The symptom had persisted for as long as she could remember.
Although many people in the post-interstellar era implanted database chips directly into their brains for convenience, Ling Zhao was certain that this was not any kind of chip available on the market. It was an extremely crude game chip, so primitive that it looked like a relic from the pre-New Interstellar Age.
A pixel-art interface displayed the words The Ten Thousand Nations Hunting Ground. Aside from that, there were no clues at all.
Director Mom had taken her to the hospital several times, but every examination showed that there was nothing abnormal about Ling Zhao’s brain.
Gradually, the doctors decided that she was merely making up nonsense to attract attention. They classified it as developmental neurological pain.
Last month, Ling Zhao had gone to a major hospital at the provincial center in Linhai Province for a full-body scan. The results were the same: no suspicious substance had been detected. The doctors merely prescribed her some psychiatric medication.
Even Ling Zhao had begun to wonder whether it was all just her imagination.
Yet every night before falling asleep, she could clearly sense the chip’s existence, like an irresistibly tempting invitation.
Ling Zhao had studied it for years, but she had never discovered a way to open that invitation.
Soon, the broadcast cut to a group of people dressed in military uniforms.
The host, holding a piece of professional equipment, spoke with measured enthusiasm.
“Her Highness Pei Han is now stepping up for testing.”
The children in the carriage immediately perked up.
Most people were familiar with Pei Han. Her mother was the most talented Guardian Princess the Empire had seen in a century.
Seven years earlier, the Guardian Princess had sacrificed herself for the nation. Her only child had been elevated to the status of a living legend by a wave of public opinion, drawing the attention of countless members of the younger generation.
Ling Zhao watched the live footage just as intently. As the data on the testing instrument continued to fluctuate, it eventually displayed an astonishing SSS-grade talent.
The livestream chat erupted. SSS-grade talent was the instrument’s upper limit. The Guardian Princess’s genes were still protecting her people.
In front of the cameras, Pei Han put on an official expression.
“I will certainly inherit my mother’s will and fight the alien beasts to the very end!”
The moment she finished speaking, the livestream chat, manipulated by the royal family, filled with identical messages of praise.
Ling Zhao lowered her gaze slightly.
She did not know why, but she had felt uncomfortable the very first time she saw Pei Han.
However, saying so in front of everyone else would certainly get her criticized for showing disrespect toward the Guardian Princess’s sacrifice.
“As expected of the royal family. Every generation of the Pei family produces a powerhouse with top-tier talent. It looks like Pei Han will be the next one the royal family pours all its resources into cultivating.”
“With talent of the highest level and the entire nation’s resources behind her, it would be difficult for Pei Han not to succeed.”
“I’d be satisfied if I could serve in the same army as Her Highness Pei Han.”
“Give me a break. Even if both parents possess top-tier talents, the chance of their child awakening a talent is still no more than thirty percent, let alone people like us.”
As soon as those words were spoken, the atmosphere throughout the carriage fell silent.
The children on board were all from families without influence. Of the more than thirty people in the carriage, there was probably not a single one who would awaken a talent.
They all knew that fading into the crowd was the most likely reality. Yet every year, people still dreamed that they might become the special one who leaped over the dragon gate.
Ling Zhao pressed her lips together and silently watched the scenery outside.
The magnetic levitation vehicle stopped in the center of White Tower City. This was where the city’s only Talent Awakening Hall stood.
More than thirty stories tall, the Awakening Hall was entirely milky white. Four identity scanners stood at the entrance.
The staff member placed their eyes before the scanning ports, and the transparent glass doors slowly opened.
The moment Ling Zhao stepped into the Awakening Hall, she felt that the temperature was perfectly comfortable.
The clear, concise signs provided visitors with a brief history of Talent Awakening.
A thousand years ago, the first human being ventured beyond the Milky Way. Everyone had thought this would mark a milestone in the history of space exploration.
No one had expected the world beyond the Milky Way to be so brutal.
Humanity was not alone. Countless alien life-forms inhabited the universe.
And all these alien creatures were competing for the same resource needed to survive: star tears.
In human terms, star tears were the most essential substance contained in water resources.
Blue Star, a vast repository of stellar-core resources, was soon targeted by alien life-forms, triggering a biological invasion.
The advanced weapons humanity took pride in were utterly ineffective against these alien creatures.
Beyond the Milky Way, the laws governing reality bore no resemblance to the scientific principles humans had known in the pre-interstellar era. Gravity failed, numbers became disordered, and all kinds of other anomalies caused humanity to suffer setback after setback in its exploration of the stars.
With nowhere else to turn, humanity was forced to urgently initiate the Seed Project.
The most promising members of the younger generation were relocated en masse to other habitable planets to avoid the danger.
At the same time, humanity pushed forward with genetic modification experiments at full speed, paying the price of countless lives.
It was only through this all-or-nothing genetic modification project that human genes were greatly enhanced. Humanity gained the possibility of awakening talents—and the power to fight back against the alien creatures.
Now, humanity had retreated to nine planets, collectively referring to the alien creatures as beasts.
The most revered ideal of the age was to become a soldier and drive back the alien beasts.
A woman dressed in a sacred, snow-white military uniform walked to the front and stood at attention. She raised her head toward the Imperial Capital and saluted, then suddenly waved her hand.
The Awakening Machine gave a cold electronic chime.
“Please have the first candidate step forward for testing.”
