chapter 18 Festival Preliminary Competition

The airship began to lose altitude significantly at dawn. The destination is coming.

A ray of morning light came in and shone on Carwyn face. In fact, he woke up early, jumped out of the cab lightly, walked to the porthole and looked out.

In front of us is the sloping land, and the steel city that submerges the horizon seems to be turning upside down at any time.

The most eye-catching thing in the field of vision is a tall tower, located in the center of the city. It is silver-white and dazzling, like a thousand-foot peak, with cloud-like white steam spewing out from the top. The base of the tower was extremely wide, covering three or four city blocks.

That was the first time Carwyn saw the heart of the human city, the Everlasting Tower. The cheapest black stone and the cheapest steel are used to build a miraculous perpetual motion tower, which operates day and night to provide energy for the operation of the entire city.

The cargo airship slowly passed by the southwest of the city. There were more and more airships in the airspace in front of them, with different styles. Several of them were light boats with exquisite and complicated reliefs on their bows.

Sure enough, there were so many airships applying to enter the port that they had to queue up, and the cargo ships began to hover in the sky. From the driver's foul language and complaints, Carwyn learned that in addition to public passenger boats and cargo boats, there were many private airships today. The family emblems embossed on the bows were symbols of immense power and wealth. .

Xiangyang is one of the permanent recruiting locations for the Imperial Army, and it attracts thousands of young people from all directions at this time of year. There are particularly many people coming this year, including children of nobles, because there are two behemoths on the list of new recruits: Broken Wing Angel and Red Scorpion.

The Great Qin Empire placed great emphasis on military merit. Even for a powerful clan, it was a shortcut for the children of the clan to join the army and make meritorious service. Being able to join the special corps is almost synonymous with soaring into the sky.

The Broken Wing Angels and Red Scorpions have always been among the top five among the hundreds of special legions in the empire. It was their recruitment that alerted many powerful families, and they did not hesitate to send the best members of the clan over thousands of miles to participate in the assessment.

Because the aerostat carried by Carwyn belonged to the military, it had a relatively advanced entry position into the port. It was only after he landed that he felt the grandeur of recruitment day.

The airship base should be just one of the transportation hubs, but it was already crowded with people of all colors in the morning. Most of them were young people in their twenties, all of them confident, energetic, and full of hope. Outside the base, all kinds of land transportation vehicles have been lined up.

Gregory started the heavy-duty truck. Even among the many vehicles, it was still a big one and roared out of the military passage. Xiangyang is the third-largest military-industrial city in the entire empire. In addition to half of the city's blocks being military-controlled areas, both ground roads and airways have dedicated military passages.

Carwyn had been looking out the window intently. The route they were traveling on was a military zone. Compared with the simplicity of the Huangquan training camp, which only focused on practicality but not beauty, the architectural style on both sides added a lot of decoration, but still maintained its toughness and majesty.

The recruit camp is at the end of the road, and you can see the long registration queue forming through the arch from a distance.

In the noisy crowd, Gregory loudly said to the officer in charge of registration: "I want to go directly to the review area!"

He showed his identity certificate, took Carwyn directly into the camp, went through the registration procedures for him, and then handed Carwyn a copper nameplate representing his identity. The nameplate was mechanically stamped with the words Carwyn Cole.

Looking at the Cole" on the nameplate, Carwyn felt an indescribable feeling in his heart. For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged. The Cole" is not only imprinted on the nameplate, but also imprinted on his heart.

Next, Carwyn was taken into the inner camp by a soldier. The inner camp is the assessment area, and Gregory cannot enter.

It wasn't until he entered the inner camp that Carwyn realized that the military camp was much larger than it looked outside the door.

Thousands of young people who have passed the preliminary screening of basic qualities are arranged into various barracks according to the numbers on the nameplates. Tomorrow is the day of the official assessment. Today they will take a day off in order to perform at their best.

Many young people come by car or even passenger boat. These public transportations used by most civilians are all driven by Blackstone steam power. The common characteristics are noise and bumps. Such long-distance travel is very strenuous and has a great impact on their physical fitness, which will naturally affect their test performance.

When it comes to military assessments, the empire has always been very fair and rarely gives special care to the children of powerful families.

This is also the foundation of the empire. Otherwise, it would be a disaster if an incompetent playboy led troops to the battlefield. The dark race kills people, but they never care about your status.

There are three examination contents for the empire's recruitment, namely force strength, fighting skills and firearms use.

After dinner, the candidates were driven back to their dormitories and went to bed. Carwyn was used to obeying orders. He went to bed as soon as the lights were turned off and fell asleep quickly. However, some of the other candidates in the dormitory were excited and some were nervous, and they couldn't sleep no matter what. Two young people from the same remote city simply chatted quietly.

I don't know how long it took, Carwyn, who was already sleeping soundly, suddenly felt a heart palpitation and immediately opened his eyes. His body didn't move on the surface, but in fact all the muscles were tense, ready to kill at any time, and his eyes only opened a slit, quietly observing the surroundings.

At this moment, Carwyn was shocked to find that the face of a middle-aged man had appeared in the small window of the door, looking at everyone in the room expressionlessly!

But except for Carwyn, no one else noticed this middle-aged man! One candidate clearly glanced at the window, but he seemed not to see it at all.

The middle-aged man suddenly glanced at Carwyn, turned around and left.

It wasn't until he disappeared that Carwyn recovered from his shock. But this time, he couldn't sleep.

After a while, a middle-aged man with an unremarkable appearance left this dormitory building and then entered another one. When he walked through all the dormitories, on the thick stack of lists in his hand, most names had an x ​​next to them, and only a few names had numbers next to them, ranging from 1 to 9.

There is an asterisk next to Carwyn's name. In the thick list, only fourteen names have this mark next to them.

Carwyn didn't know that he had passed the first level unintentionally.

Early the next morning, the harsh ringing of the bell awoke all the candidates from their sleep. Carwyn rushed out of the barracks with the crowd and stood in line on the playground. Here the candidates are divided into three groups and then take different exams.

Carwyn's group will first take the shooting test of Force firearms.

The candidates were all issued special force guns specifically for the examination, the power of which was greatly reduced, and the force consumption was also reduced accordingly. Even a first-level soldier can fire six or seven shots in a row. Only in this way can they complete all examination subjects. If replaced with a regular force gun, even the most basic first-level firearm, I am afraid that even Carwyn's thick and condensed force power, which is far superior to his peers, would be difficult to complete all shooting subjects.

After checking the force gun, Carwyn stood in front of the firing line with nine other candidates. Ten fixed targets rose up a hundred meters away, all of them images of human-faced spider demons.

While he was getting familiar with the weapon and waiting for the firing order, a young man on Carwyn left glanced at him, suddenly grabbed his crotch, whistled again, and said, "Boy, have you ever played with a gun?"

Paired with his winking expression, this was a double-entendre and extremely obscene provocation.

Carwyn glanced at him and said calmly: "I haven't played it before, but I have squeezed it into pieces a few times. Do you want to try it?"

The young man suddenly laughed exaggeratedly and said, "I'm really scared! Boy, do you know who I am? How dare you talk to me like this?"

"No matter who you are, it won't increase your score by one point, right?"Carwyn asked calmly.

The young man's face suddenly turned red and he said angrily: "You are so arrogant, boy! But don't talk nonsense. The imperial family is not so shameless as to tamper with such an exam! Since I don't like you, Of course you have to win clean and beautiful!”

"Beat me? You have no chance."Carwyn still had the kind of indifference that could drive people crazy.

The young man's face immediately darkened, "Then let's have a bet?"

Carwyn raised his eyebrows and said, "What are you betting on? I'm too young to be interested!"

The young man reached out and pulled off the necklace from his neck, then handed it to Carwyn. The necklace is silver, with a thumb-sized square plate hanging at the end, with an eagle head engraved on it.

The young man said: "Just bet on the results of this exam! If I lose, this thing will be yours!"

Carwyn stretched out his hand, twirled the small sign curiously, and asked, "How do you use this thing?" From his tone, it was obvious that he had already regarded the necklace as a treasure.

The young man was so angry that he sneered, "Do you really think you've won?"

Carwyn nodded seriously: "Of course." Then he asked, "How to use this thing?"

The young man's teeth were itching with hatred, and he said angrily: "This is my token! With this thing, you can make a request to my family. As long as it is within my scope of authority, no matter what the request is, I can satisfy it." you!"

At this time, other candidates also noticed the dispute between the two and looked over. They all noticed the eagle head on the square card, and some of them immediately changed their faces, obviously recognizing the emblem.

"It turns out to be a member of the Harper family!" Someone whispered.

Hearing the whispers from the people around him, the young man immediately perked up and raised his chin, looking as arrogant as a little cock.

But Carwyn didn't have the reaction he expected. He just said "oh" and then looked at the young man with more suspicion in his eyes. The meaning is too obvious: With a bear like you, how big can your so-called authority be?

The young man was angered again and shouted: "Is it a gamble or not?"

Carwyn finally nodded: "It's a gamble."

The young man stopped talking. Instead, he picked up the force gun and waited quietly for the exam to begin.

It's exam time. After a whistle, all ten candidates picked up their Force guns and began to take aim seriously.

The shooting accuracy of most force guns is not very good. It is easy to hit a target a hundred meters away, but it is very difficult to hit the bullseye. You can get 100 rings in the bullseye area, but it's only about the size of a fingernail. If it falls outside the bull's-eye, the maximum number is 80 rings. All types of shooting targets are scored in this way.

Not long after, gunfire rang out. A thin red light hit the target, the metal target shook, and a small hole was opened in the upper part of the target that was as tall as a person. This shot was quite powerful, but its accuracy was not very good. It just barely hit the target.

"20 rings!" The examiner announced the target loudly, and another examiner wrote down the score.

The gunfire sounded in order, and all eight people hit the target, but the highest one only had 50 rings. In the blink of an eye, the only ones who didn't shoot were the young man and Carwyn.

The young man has been taking aim for a long time, and Carwyn has been watching him from the side. Under Carwyn gaze, the young man always felt a little impatient. The moment he pulled the trigger, he immediately screamed in his heart: Oh no!

----------