VAP - Chapter 108
Chapter 108: The Federal Marshal's Journey is the Sea of Stars (4)
Before the welcoming ceremony, a final screening was to be held at a pre-announced assembly point.
Several professors from the Sentinel program were waiting at the assembly point.
When Yue Du arrived, only a few students were there. They were all boys, and they seemed to know each other, gathered to one side talking about something.
Seeing a newcomer arrive, they looked up. Two of them turned their gazes away uninterestedly, while the others continued to watch her with keen interest.
Yue Du walked straight toward the professors without a sideways glance, stopped, and nodded. “Hello, instructors.”
One of them, a woman with a stern demeanor, asked, “Sentinel program?”
Her tone carried a hint of doubt.
Yue Du knew why. Although she was disguised as a Sentinel, she still lacked the aggression and volatility that many Sentinels possessed.
This wasn’t a problem. Sentinels with gentle temperaments were rare, but they existed. After all, temperament wasn’t the key to distinguishing Sentinels and Guides from ordinary people—abilities were.
“Yes, my name is Yue Yao,” she replied.
As soon as she said this, thanks to her hearing, which was even more acute than a typical Sentinel’s, Yue Du could hear the students beside her sighing softly. It sounded as if they were disappointed that she wasn’t a Guide asking for directions.
The female instructor found the name “Yue Yao” on the list. After confirming it, she pointed toward the group of boys behind her and said, “It’s still early. You can wait over there for a bit.”
“Alright, thank you, instructor.”
By the scheduled assembly time, almost all the new Sentinel students had gathered there, about a thousand of them.
The instructors stood up.
Yue Du activated the Silent Watcher and saw gray smoke rise around them. The smoke condensed into several gray shadows, some large and some small, just like the ones she had seen before.
These were the Sentinels’ Quantum Beasts.
“We’re about to conduct the final round of screening,” a man who stood a good one-point-nine meters tall said with a reassuring smile. “Don’t be nervous. It’ll be quick, and hardly anyone gets cut.”
However, because this instructor was tall and burly with a fierce-looking face, his smile was downright menacing. No one had been nervous at first, but seeing his smile made them tense up.
The screening was a rather brief process.
This stage was just to confirm the Sentinels’ mental state in person. Every year, there were new students who were fine in every other way but whose mental condition didn’t meet the standard. If they were allowed to enroll and the school couldn’t guarantee it could suppress a Sentinel’s rampage at any time, the potential losses would be incalculable.
During this time, the instructors glanced at Yue Du several times.
“Yue Yao, do you already have a bonded Guide?” the stern female instructor couldn’t help but ask.
Yue Du: “Unfortunately, no.”
“Ah… I thought you would have a Guide. Your mental state is too stable. If I didn’t know you were a Sentinel, I might have mistaken you for a Guide.”
“A lot of people say that,” Yue Du said naturally.
Although she could simulate a Sentinel’s most prominent characteristics, she was still essentially an “ordinary person,” so of course her mental state was stable.
The screening ended quickly. The results were sent to everyone’s terminal. Yue Du checked hers; her result was a pass, with a note of “excellent mental state.”
But there were also a couple of people who silently walked up to the instructors, bowed deeply, and then left.
Yue Du knew they would be sent to a mental sanatorium. There were many older Guides there with rich experience in mental soothing, and they had the most complete set of procedures for dealing with frenzied Sentinels. Once these Sentinels’ mental states stabilized, they could be readmitted to the academy without needing to re-test.
Therefore, the few who were eliminated didn’t express any dissatisfaction.
With the final round of screening complete, the next step was class assignment. The new students in the Sentinel program came from various planets across the Federation, totaling 1,723 people, who were to be divided into twenty classes.
Yue Du was assigned to Class One. Her homeroom instructor was the stern female Sentinel.
The new students lined up by class. The male-to-female ratio for Sentinels was about six to one. Looking around, she saw far more men than women, and the girls were all tall and straight-backed, with a valiant and dashing air.
As a “soft girl”—at least in appearance—Yue Du seemed out of place among them.
Yue Du maintained her smile and heard more voices lamenting why she wasn’t a Guide.
After the classes were assigned, the homeroom instructors gave a brief address and then led their students to the grand auditorium.
The opening ceremony, also known as the new student welcoming ceremony, was about to be held here.
—Sheng Xuejiu would be coming.
Yue Du sat down in the area for Class One, and the boys nearby began to discuss this topic.
As Sentinels, they naturally felt a certain fear and competitiveness towards a more powerful Sentinel. But as men, they also naturally felt an attraction to a beautiful woman. This was undoubtedly a contradiction.
This manifested in these young men, who had only recently awakened, as a particular awkwardness and unwillingness to submit. “I’ll definitely surpass her in the future,” one of them muttered under his breath.
Yue Du: “…”
Give it up, kid. You’re destined to never have that chance.
She looked towards the head of the auditorium. On a raised platform was a long table, obviously the seating for the academy’s upper echelons and the important figures attending the ceremony, but Sheng Xuejiu was not there at the moment.
There were still about ten minutes before the welcoming ceremony began. Everyone else had already arrived, and the auditorium was buzzing with voices.
Yue Du tried to think from her host’s perspective—that as long as she was happy, anything goes—and suddenly began to worry deeply.
Her host… she wasn’t going to just not show up, was she?
Thinking about it, it was very possible!
While Yue Du was lost in thought, Sheng Xuejiu was sitting on the roof of the auditorium, spacing out.
Yes, on the roof of the auditorium.
For a Sentinel like her, scaling a thirty-meter-high building with her bare hands was not difficult. The light here was especially good, the sunlight brilliant and warm, perfect for hiding away and spacing out when bored.
Suddenly, her terminal wristband emitted a notification sound.
Sheng Xuejiu lazily raised her hand and looked at the holographic screen that popped up.
“Marshal, the welcoming ceremony will begin in fifteen minutes.” —It was a message from her adjutant, He Yin.
Sheng Xuejiu pursed her lips. “Tsk.”
The military academy’s opening ceremony was undoubtedly a boring affair. She’d have to sit on the high platform, endure the gazes of a group of immature students, and even give them a speech.
There was a speech draft saved on her terminal, sent over by He Yin ten minutes ago.
Sheng Xuejiu stood up and casually tossed the velvet blanket she had been sitting on into her spatial button.
As she did this, her Quantum Beast walked over with elegant yet languid steps and let out a dissatisfied cry.
“I want to stay here and sunbathe too,” Sheng Xuejiu said coolly. “But we can’t. Let’s go, time to see those uninteresting new students.”
The Quantum Beast stared at her for a long moment, then relented, dissolving into a faint white mist and retracting into the Sentinel’s body.
Sheng Xuejiu lightly vaulted off the roof and entered through the auditorium’s back door.
“It’s the Marshal!”
A low cry of surprise drew everyone’s attention.
On the high platform at the very front, Federal Marshal Sheng Xuejiu walked past a row of black-backed chairs, her leather boots making soft tapping sounds on the floor.
She finally stopped at the head seat, which was also the only empty one at the moment.
The seat next to her belonged to the headmaster, an amiable-looking old man with deep, emerald-green eyes.
“Marshal Sheng, welcome,” he said.
Sheng Xuejiu glanced at him, gave a lukewarm nod, then sat down in her seat, crossing her arms and surveying the tightly packed military academy students below.
Bright light streamed through the auditorium’s huge rectangular glass windows, falling directly onto her brilliant golden hair, coating the tips in a nearly transparent halo.
Many people present were seeing Sheng Xuejiu in person for the first time.
Perhaps the top Sentinel just had that kind of oppressive presence. The students, who had been whispering just a moment ago, immediately fell silent. Not a soul made a sound.
But this strange, dead silence soon dissipated, because the source of the intimidation retracted her gaze, lowered her head, and expressionlessly opened her terminal.
Yue Du blinked.
She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she felt that those unusually dark eyes had paused for a moment as they swept past her.
The ceremony began. The host introduced the leaders in attendance, starting with Sheng Xuejiu, followed by the headmaster of the First Military Academy, Andrea, and so on down the line.
“First, let’s welcome the Marshal to give a speech,” the host said enthusiastically.
Each seat on the high platform was equipped with a microphone. Sheng Xuejiu raised her head, scanned the crowd, and began to speak without emotion.
“Everyone, please wipe those overly excited expressions off your faces.”
Yue Du: “…”
Just that one sentence, and it already didn’t sound like a serious, proper ceremonial address.
Sheng Xuejiu continued, “You are attending the Federation’s number one military academy. Whether you’re in the command, mecha, or logistics department, you will all go to the battlefield in the future.”
“The new students I can forgive, but the older ones? Getting all excited and losing your composure. Are you all a bunch of frenzied Sentinels?”
“—I advise you to train harder, or you’ll just be a laughingstock on the battlefield.”
As soon as these words were spoken, there was dead silence.
None of the students dared to retort. They all lowered their heads, pretending to be quails.
Yue Du discreetly looked around and noticed that the Sentinels around her had bowed their heads low, their hands placed flat on their knees with palms facing up. This was a subtle posture of submission.
The faint, confrontational atmosphere she had sensed earlier was now completely gone.
Yue Du couldn’t help but seriously wonder if this world’s host also had the ability of verbal takedowns, able to make others submit with just a few words.
A disguised Sentinel was, after all, not a real Sentinel.
Yue Du couldn’t perceive the heavy sense of threat that Sheng Xuejiu was releasing. It was like a cold, heavy fog that menacingly enveloped the entire auditorium.
Forget the students; even the instructors were holding their breath, their heads bowed in silence.
Sheng Xuejiu had completely ignored the speech draft He Yin had sent. After saying what she wanted, she concluded with, “If you’re not convinced, come intern with the Silver Lion Legion. If you can’t even snatch an internship spot, then you’d better just suck it up,” and then calmly sat back down in her seat.
Sheng Xuejiu was only twenty-nine this year. In an age where the average human lifespan had reached two hundred years, this was considered quite young.
The top Sentinel of an entire generation, with the Silver Lion Legion under her command, Sheng Xuejiu stood at the pinnacle of the Federation’s power at a young age.
So, she had the right to be arrogant.
The person who spoke after Sheng Xuejiu was Headmaster Andrea, but Yue Du’s attention was still on the Marshal. From across half the auditorium, she focused on the exquisitely beautiful profile of her face.
As she watched, Yue Du’s eyes suddenly widened slightly.
In her field of vision, a feline creature emerged from behind Sheng Xuejiu.
It was small, with a black and silver tabby pattern. Its whole body was covered in magnificent, smooth long fur, and its ears were very pointed.
What was most eye-catching was its tail. It was soft and fluffy, bushy like a squirrel’s or a fox’s. The tail seemed to be as long as its body, and perhaps was actually even longer.
To Yue Du, it looked a lot like a cat breed from her original world—a Maine Coon. But compared to those cats, this one’s body seemed a bit too small, though its cuteness level was more than a little higher.
A second later, Yue Du realized.
This was Sheng Xuejiu’s Quantum Beast, a lazy, beautiful black and silver tabby cat.
Yue Du didn’t know why she could see its specific form, but right now, this cat that looked extremely pettable was walking towards her, swaying its very alluring long-furred tail.
Finally, it stopped beside Yue Du’s seat.
The cat, which was less than an arm’s length long including its tail, sat down obediently to one side. Its long tail swung over and gently brushed against her knee.
Before Yue Du could react, the cat tilted its fluffy head, leaned against her calf, closed its eyes contentedly, twitched its pointed ears, and then became still.
Yue Du: “…”
The nearby Sentinels and Guides: “…”
What kind of bizarre situation was this?
The Marshal’s Quantum Beast was actually getting close to a Sentinel! A Sentinel!!
Those who had seen Sheng Xuejiu before found it even more unbelievable. Was this still that same ill-tempered cat that ignored everyone?
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