Chapter 8-The Silver Spear Pierced the Sky

In the morning, the weather was still sunny in Huating, but in the afternoon, it underwent a sudden change. Above the Sky Academy, the clear sky darkened with great speed. As the clouds got lower and lower, the air became more and more depressing. The Sky Academy, which was originally very quiet because the term had not yet officially began, became even quieter.

The heavy rain poured down at nightfall.

Li Tianlan, who had eaten dinner outside, was loitering when the sudden heavy rain almost immediately drenched him. By the time he hurried back to the dormitory, his clothes were completely wet.

This made him both distressed and annoyed. Although his clothes looked ordinary, they were quite expensive. His shirt, suit pants, leather shoes, and underwear cost nearly 5,000 yuan in total. Although he did not know these brands, he had seen their exact prices when Qin Weibai bought them for him. 5,000 yuan was a fortune that enabled him to travel back and forth between Huating and the border countless times. Wearing these clothes made him feel like he was wearing banknotes all over his body, so he had to care about them. But now they were completely wet. This feeling was truly complicated beyond description.

So when he got back to his dormitory, Li Tianlan immediately took off his clothes and washed them. After that, he changed into the school uniform of the Sky Academy.

The school uniform, in fact, was very common camouflage clothing, but compared to the military camouflage clothing, it was lighter in color. Someone else specially delivered three sets of camouflage clothing and two pairs of military boots to him in the afternoon. After changing into the camouflage clothing, Li Tianlan stretched his body casually. It fit him well and his feeling of oppression gradually dissipated.

The rain outside the window was getting heavier and heavier.

Li Tianlan's dormitory was on the top floor. Heavy raindrops were beating on the roof, making a burst of cracking sound. Li Tianlan, a hillbilly who was even unable to plug in and turn on the TV, currently had nothing to do at all. He finally remembered the student code of conduct of the Sky Academy that was placed on the table.

The student code of conduct didn't look very thick compared to the notebook that was used to keep weekly diaries on the desk. In fact, the code was at least as thick as hundreds of pages, which meant there must be a lot of things that students should look out at the Sky Academy. Anyway, Li Tianlan was free and at leisure presently. Therefore, he simply sat at the desk and open the first page of the code.

Twelve large and scarlet characters caught his eye.

They were printed in two lines in an orderly way and were the only content on this page.

Go to the hell first if you want to go to heaven!

"What the hell is this sentence?"

Li Tianlan thought. He was a little bit confused. "Is it a counsel, an encouragement, or a school motto?"

Whatever it was, from the literal meaning of this sentence, he knew that his time at the Sky Academy might be even tougher than he had imagined.

His mind settled as still water as he flipped this page over quietly. The contents of the student code of conduct appeared on page two.

The chapter one of the code was about the omnipotence of credits.

Nothing except credits were omnipotent, be it power, wealth, or God.

At the Sky Academy, credits meant everything.

In terms of confidentiality, the Sky Academy was definitely one of the military bases of the highest level in Zhongzhou State. Although it named itself academy, the defensive system would firstly consider to equip it with numerous latest equipment and weapons in Zhongzhou State. But in addition to its myriad sophisticated weapons and training bases, there were also many recreational areas for the students on this island. All recreational venues were available, including shopping malls, karaoke bars, and pubs. To all the students' surprise, there was even a small amusement park in the academy.

They needed to pay for all these with credits rather than RMB.

RMB was of no use here and credit was the only currency in circulation.

The only way to obtain the basic necessities of life was through credits.

Similarly, the number of credits was the only criterion to judge a student's performance.

In the first month when the classes began, any freshman would have 50 credits. But none of them could be used at their disposal.

Because they could not even live in the dormitory for free.

They had to pay a credit per day if they lived in the dormitory, so they would have to pay 30 credits a month. Besides, taking the school bus to and fro between different training grounds would cost them 10 credits a month. They had to use the remaining 10 credits to purchase a series of daily necessities, especially food. That was because there was no canteen but only restaurants inside the Sky Academy. And having a meal in restaurants would also consume their credits. How many credits one had to pay was directly related to what he ate.

In other words, a student had to obtain at least 50 credits a month in order to survive at the Sky Academy, in the absence of any recreation or other activities.

Whoever could not fill up the hole within the required time after the credits he possessed became a negative number would be disqualified as a student. This meant he would have been expelled from the school.

A student who was rejected by the Sky Academy basically lost his future.

Credit was as much about the future as it was about survival.

The Sky Academy adopted the credit system and three-year curriculum. In three years, any student, no matter how short he had stayed in the academy, could graduate from the Sky Academy in advance as long as he possessed enough credits.

8,000 credits.

This was the minimum number of credits that they were required if they would like to graduate from the Sky Academy.

The graduation of the Sky Academy was divided into three grades: barely graduated, normally graduated, and perfectly graduated.

8,000 credits enabled a student to graduate barely.

If a student wanted to graduate normally, he had to possess 12,000 credits.

And perfect graduation would cost a student 20,000 credits!

Within three years, the students who had accumulated the most credits among the perfect graduates were qualified to create their own forces. The Sky Academy would report all this to the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of State Security directly. The forces created by the students were nominally led by the Ministry of State Security or the Ministry of National Defense, but they were actually free to grow and expand.

To create one's own force!

This was the most attractive part of the Sky Academy and the Deep-sea Academy.

Li Tianlan came to the Sky Academy for the precious opportunity that generated every three years. However, only after reading the student code of conduct did he realize how difficult it was to achieve this goal.

It was not easy to obtain 20,000 credits to become a perfect graduate, not to mention that the accumulated credits should rank first among all perfect graduates.

There were many ways to earn credits in the Sky Academy. The most common way was to complete the academy's daily curriculum and training tasks. So long as students achieved the cut-off score, they could obtain one credit as a reward. Nonetheless, if they failed, their credits would be deducted doubly. Their performances in the training tasks would be ranked as well, and the top three students would receive one extra credit.

There were tasks of this sort almost every day, but not too many. If students passed all of them, they would be able to survive here and could even have fun and relax once in a while. However, if they wanted to accumulate at least 8,000 credits in three years, it was obviously not feasible to just rely on these tasks. Therefore, in addition to the daily training tasks, the Sky Academy also had a large number of internal tasks and fieldwork.

The so-called internal tasks were nothing more than doing odd jobs inside the academy. This type of work included mopping the floor, cleaning the toilet, putting books in the library in order and so on. In addition, the jobs of the senior female schoolmate who was responsible for the reception of freshman and the senior male schoolmate who delivered clothes to him today could also be classified as internal tasks. They could earn one or two credits a day by doing these jobs. Obviously, the really powerful ones would not like this kind of tasks. They would only have their eyes fixed on fieldwork.

However, even the easiest fieldwork was risky. Corresponding credits would be awarded given the difficulty of these tasks in the Sky Academy. Missions such as hunting down traitors, assassinating important enemy figures, and fighting deep in enemy's rear area clearly could enable students to earn more credits than ordinary field assignments did. Missions of this kind usually awarded students more than 100 credits and there were even missions that valued hundreds of credits. They were arguably the most rewarding tasks, but also the most dangerous ones.

The danger came not only from enemies but also colleagues.

Although the Deep-sea Academy and the Sky Academy were two Special Warfare Academies, they shared the same field assignment system. As a result, students from the two academies often performed the same fieldwork. Since there was only one task, the two sides had to compete and even fight for it. The students from the two academies would fight more fiercely for credits than they were fighting enemies.

There were a lot of introductions about credits in the student code of conduct that it took up almost one-third of the contents.

Li Tianlan always looked calm as he turned the pages.

Of the countless introductions to the tasks, three had the highest credit rewards. The first task was the Sky Academy's annual internal maneuver. It started in the first phase and ended with a different credit award for each phase throughout the year. If one got the first place, he would receive 600 credits as a reward.

The second was the annual maneuver between the Sky Academy and the Deep-sea Academy. The one who got the first place would gain 1,000 credits as a reward. However, this sum of credits might be awarded to their own students by either the Sky Academy or the Deep-sea Academy.

The third task had 600 credits as a reward as well, but its content surprised Li Tianlan a lot.

It was about the weekly diary!

Students had to keep a diary every week and turned them over to their teachers every month. The credits would be issued once a year and 200 credits at a time. With such a large sum of credits, it was no wonder that Qin Weibai would say that keeping weekly diaries was one of the most important tasks of the Sky Academy.

Li Tianlan shook his head. As he put down the student code of conduct in his hand, he caught a glimpse of the blue notebook at hand. He opened it and picked up the pen on the table after hesitating for a while.

He wanted to write his first weekly diary after he came to the Sky Academy at this point. But outside the window, the rain poured down, making some loud noises. Thus, he did not know what to write for the time being.

At this moment, he thought of the thick primeval forest and the desolate campsite at the border, the tall buildings in Huating's downtown, the beautiful things in Huating's shopping malls, and also the long list of tasks in the student code.

His eyes looked calm and deep. He sat in the chair motionlessly as he listened to the rain falling pitter-patter outside the window.

Time elapsed slowly.

8:00 pm, 9:00 pm...

It was raining harder and harder outside the window. The pouring rain hit the ground hysterically as if there was no other sound in the entire world.

Poker-faced, Li Tianlan took a deep breath and started to write.

At the same time.

In the violent rain, a figure carrying a suitcase appeared at the door of unit 1 of the first building in block A.

It was a big and tall young man with short hair and rugged looks in his thirties. Without wearing a raincoat or holding an umbrella, he just stood silently at the door of unit 1. He considered the rain all over the sky nothing and just looked up at the top floor with his bulging eyes.

The glare of lightning flashed across the sky, and instantly, his face became dreadfully pale under the light. He still stood where he was in silence and looked thoughtfully at the only lighted room on the sixth floor.

"What a surprise! Damn it! I am the teacher of the Sky Academy, but unexpectedly, I have to run over secretly to test a freshman's strength at night. What is going on in Sister Qin's mind? Once this matter is known by others, it will be a disgrace to me. Zhou Mo, you must keep it a secret for me, or my reputation will be ruined on one day."

The burly young man adjusted the earphone on his ear and said in a husky voice. He was at least two metres tall. With this height, he brought others a strong visual impact while he was standing in the doorway. However, his tone of voice was full of reluctance.

"What reputation do you have? Hurry up, get to work. An Jia, I personally advise you to be more careful this time. We don't know the origin of this freshman, but Sister Qin pays special attention to him, so I'm afraid that he is by no means simple. If you should lose to this freshman, well, that will really be something laughable."

Inside the earphone, a peal of joking laughter filled with schadenfreude sounded.

"Do not talk nonsense. How powerful can a freshman be? He is just a rookie. Zhou Mo, do you want to make a bet?"

An Jia sneered with a disdainful look.

"I don't want to make a f*cking bet! Well, I'm glad you still know that our goal is a rookie. Do you feel embarrassed about betting on him? Hurry up to get to work. You know Sister Qin is impatient... If you cannot handle this matter expeditiously, hehe..."

Inside the earphone, the man called Zhou Mo grinned.

An Jia shook his head helplessly and sighed. Carrying a suitcase, he walked into the door of this unit reluctantly and murmured, "This job is boring. It's so boring."

His body was large, but he appeared to be quite light and made no noises as he walked. Quick as a flash, he moved along the corridor. In a few seconds, he had climbed straight from the first floor to the roof of the building.

The rain fell heavier and the wind blew stronger on the roof.

The raindrops all over the sky hit An Jia's face, but he just casually wiped them. He squatted down and opened the suitcase in his hand directly.

Inside the suitcase was a glass screen about 30 to 40 centimeters in size, with a red button at the bottom.

An Jia pressed the button without hesitation.

The screen inside the suitcase lighted up without being affected by the raindrops. A red image of a human figure was clearly reflected on the screen. The man seemed to be writing something on the desk.

"Good boy! You've started to keep a weekly diary so early? What a diligent student!"

An Jia grinned. He opened a secret compartment in the suitcase and drew a golden metal stick which was about the same length and thickness as a chopstick out of it. He then pulled the metal stick with both hands, and it suddenly extended to tens of centimeters in length.

Without hesitation, he came to somewhere right above the red image and directly inserted the metal stick into the ground.

The solid concrete roof was like tofu at this moment. The metal stick pierced the concrete roof of the building unimpededly from above until no other parts of the stick were exposed to the air.

The screen in the suitcase flickered, and in an instant, everything in Li Tianlan's bedroom appeared on the screen.

A smile crept over the corners of An Jia's mouth, but it suddenly froze the next second.

Down in the bedroom, the freshman who should have never discovered anything that An Jia had done, raised his head abruptly and looked straight up at the roof, almost as soon as he inserted the stick into the roof.

In a split second, An Jia felt a tingling sensation on his scalp, and a chill spread directly from his head to toe.

On the screen, the comely and weak freshman had already stood up. The eyes that had been calm and gentle a moment ago, had a distinct change in the twinkling of an eye.

It should be a pair of clear and gentle eyes, but at this moment, they carried a touch of incomparable devilishness and chill.

Never have An Jia seen such a devilish look, but subconsciously, he perceived a great danger.

It was the instinctive fear of death to any living creatures. There was no way for An Jia to escape. He had no alternative but despair.

On the screen, a piece of silver metal pipe no longer than a dozen centimeters fell from the freshman's cuff into his hand.

The metal pipe was of uniform thickness and was just enough to be held firmly by hand.

While An Jia's pupils were contracting, the freshman under the roof shook his hand with great force. The metal pipe he was holding suddenly extended, and a spear more than two meters long appeared directly in his hand.

In the bedroom, Li Tianlan's eyes became more and more devilish. With a spear in one hand, he stuck it into the roof without the slightest hesitation!

Outside the window, it was raining buckets and it suddenly thundered.

Inside the room, the spear pierced the sky!

The silver spear pierced the roof. With a loud bang, a hole with a diameter of nearly three meters suddenly appeared in the thick roof!

Rain fell through the hole. The roof, which was made of steel and concrete, had almost been smashed into pieces that shot into the sky.

Li Tianlan had rushed straight out of the hole in the roof. He directly fixed his eyes on An Jia, who was taking cover in a panic on the rooftop. Without further ado, he minced the raindrops all over the sky with his silver spear and directly hit downward!

Almost at the same second.

Inside Li Tianlan's bedroom, flashes of tiny but extremely dazzling electric arcs began to blink ceaselessly at where the wardrobe was located.

The air in the bedroom began to distort slightly in the form that was visible to the naked eye. A mature, plump, and beautiful figure directly appeared out of the flashing electric arcs. After taking a small step, she arrived at the desk.

She had been standing beside the wardrobe, but Li Tianlan failed to notice her.

The woman's fair and pretty face was void of any expression, which made her look like an iceberg. There was no temperature or softness that could be seen from other humans in her eyes. From the inside out, she was exuding an uninviting chill.

She stretched out two fingers and pulled Li Tianlan's notebook, which was wide open on the desk, toward her. Then, she browsed it quietly.

Only a few hundred words had been written on the open notebook.

Li Tianlan's handwriting was not beautiful, but every stroke of the words he wrote was full of a kind of extreme sharpness. Overall, his words actually had a kind of mysterious artistic conception.

The woman had her eyes focused on Li Tianlan's weekly diary and seriously browsed it from beginning to end. There was no change in her look, however, her eyes, which would chill anyone who looked at them, slightly narrowed.

"You really have the nerve."

The woman muttered to herself coldly. Then she put on a cold smile and said, "I'd like to see what you are capable of."

Her body flashed into the flickering electric arcs before she disappeared directly into the bedroom.

The notebook remained open on the desk and it was pushed to the original position by an invisible force.

On the white paper, the ink on Li Tianlan's last few lines of words was still wet. The sharpness could be seen more easily between the lines.

"What rises will fall finally."

"What is good will be destroyed at last."

"Everything under the sun is fantastic and absurd. I come from the darkness with eternal majesty."