Chapter 4: 4. First year begins

   After finishing the three page long list of the various rules, I summarized them into a small list of guidelines. 

   First, don't get in fights with upper and under classmates, since that is punishable. It is recommended to avoid any kinds of interaction with other years, unless it is family, or close friends. 

   Second, if the fight starts, or I am the one starting it, we all are avoiding punishment, as long as everyone is able to make it into the class. That means I, nor anybody else can cripple somebody temporarily, knock down unconscious, or kill. The severity of the punishment depends on the time the wounded are unable to continue attending lessons and it is shared across all the students that were physically involved. In case of death, students are being expelled and conscripted into the army for the time of one hundred years without the possibility of leaving the army, or advancing in the rank higher than warrior rank. If the wounded student is late on the first lesson after a fight, only he is punished for being late.

   Third, depending on how I act within my peers can affect me in the Academy standing alongside my classmates. 

   Four, any intimate relationship is forbidden on the Academy grounds. 

   Five, I can skip the grade, as long as I properly graduate the first one and qualify to take the in half the year graduation test. In that case, if I manage to qualify, I will be notified by the staff member and if I accept, I will be given the material from the upper grade and a month to prepare myself for both the mental and physical test. 

   Six, I can skip grades, as long as I don't graduate under eighteen, and if I skip the grade in one year, then I am not allowed to skip it again, until the next year. Like if I skip the second to third year, then I have to wait until the halfway of the fourth year to be allowed to skip to the halfway of the fifth year. 

   Seven, any injury caused during the spar lessons is treated as the accident, unless it was done on a downed combatant, or results in death of the student. In these cases instructors' words are the law. In short breaking hands, legs and spines is okay if done during fight, but necks and heads are off limits. 

   Thinking for a little more on the seventh guideline, I massaged the hidden scar on my arm and wondered at how much of my bone would be able to heal on itself and how much of the assistance from medbay I would need. At least for convenience's sake there was one on the side of the sparring rings and one on the entrance of each zone. 

   Eight, depending on how well I graduate all of my classes, the higher the end result will be, the better rank I might be given after graduation. Graduation ranks warried from lowest to middle rank in order of warrior, under captain, captain, upper captain. Each of them is in charge of eight people. Higher ranks were only given by the military later. 

   Nine, each grade skip inside Academy will take off two years of the required military attendance, alongside additional points for graduation and give you a special apartment inside the next year barrack, while repeating the grade will add additional five years to military, with subtracted points as well as force that person to live in barracks shared attic room, alongside other failures.

   Ten, the whole compound is monitored, with no blank spot. The workers have easy access to the camera recordings in any of the staff rooms. There is no such thing as privacy, even in your room, or inside shower. It was done, when one student attempted to murder his fellow classmate, over the bullying, inside his victim room, or in another case, inside a shower, so that she could wash off the blood later from herself. 

   After compiling these guidelines, I took a look around the room in search of the camera and soon found two hidden inside of the wall lamps that had the view of the whole room with yellow diodes highlighted as they weren't actively being monitored, just recording into the couple of mainframes. 

   Since my lessons will start tomorrow, I decided it would be a good time to unpack. Placing my things on the desk and a couple of drawers, I took my clothes and towels to place them inside of the wardrobe. Opening it I saw that there were a couple of white towels and spare bed cloth with additional quilt and pillow. 

   Ignoring them for now, I set up my spare clothes and towels in a wardrobe and decided to leave the room for now in order to explore the part of the academy designed for the first years. 

   Since all the students in the same year have to attend the same classes, there were only a couple of massive classes with sits in the back, designed the way that each row was higher than the frontal one, in order to have a better view on massive projected board, that was a direct copy of the electrical one that instructors used. 

   Moving further I passed by the medical office and entered one of the massive halls filled with mattresses, sparing rings, blunted weapons on racks with accompanying protective equipment for heads and necks, and a couple of smaller arenas with small boards set up in order to help instructors in teaching. Higher up, mounted on the ceiling was an obstacle course with wall mounted targets, for either bow shooting, or melee fights.

   The rings and area near them was filled with mattresses in order to soften eventual crash landings and reduce the possibility of injury. 

   Leaving the hall, I checked the doors on the other site where I saw that it was all the same and continued further into another pair of the doors. Taking a peek on the right side, I saw that inside was a digital library, filled with many separated card locked stations, that you could use to read, study, or relax. I wondered for a moment, as I decided to come in and take a look into one of the booths, about what types of relaxing was done there in the past, inside closed, muffled small rooms, with touch screens inside. 

   For future I am for sure taking one of the further ones, but not the end ones, as they would be the safest, for my sanity, before leaving the digital library and checking the sign on the other room that was card locked. 

   It was written off as a staff room, so I continued into the last door at the end of the corridor and wandered into a massive hall with a theme of a ruined city inside and a glass walled room on top for instructors and a couple of speakers mounted near it. 

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   Most likely a combat room to simulate a real combat scenario, homever the scale of this caused me to realize how much it could happen there and all different scenarios that could be done here, by the instructors. 

   After looking at is in complete amazement, I decided to turn around and leave, however I stopped as I saw one of the instructors behind me smirking. 

   "First day and already taking a look? There is a saying that curiosity leads to either victory, or death. It is important to know when the risk is worth it and when not. Knowledge is important, but not as important as a proper leadership. Your name student?"

   I momentarily took a proper pose, as if talking to a senior officer and started "my name is Komand'r sir. Id 375-0107-C-TMA." 

   I watched as his smirk turned into a small smile and watched as he responded "Already read the rules? Good, I see a bright future ahead of you student Komand'r. You definitely scored some positive points from me. Work hard and you will thrive. Now dismissed." 

    I loosened up and made my way back to the room, to get an empty notebook and then to head into the library, to search for things I didn't find in the royal palace before. 

   On the way back from my room, a couple of students blocked my way in front of me and started saying "Oh if it isn't a princess Komand'r. Not hiding behind your father's back freak? I don't know why they left you alive, when it would have brought our families…" 

    He stopped as I slammed my fist hard onto his nose, while dropping the notebook, breaking it and spitting blood onto my first, as he fell down on the floor unconscious.

   I looked at others with a bored expression and asked "anything else? I am busy now." 

   "You bitch! We will teach you the lesson as they will throw you out for starting a fight." The other four boys smiled, before attacking me. 

   I evaded the fist of the first one, by leaning hard to my left, while simultaneously throwing a kick at the head of the attacker on my right side. Not bothering to check on attack I immediately straightened myself up and caught the fist of a late attacker from my left side and pulled him hard towards me, while rotating him frontally to his friends to act as a shield against the angered fourth boy. 

   It worked as he received a hard punch into the stomach from his friend, who got confused for a second, that I used to slam my hostage head hard into the boy's head, by using my left hand. As the both fell down I looked at the one that threw the first punch, as he took a right leg step back with a fear on his face, but I blocked him from escaping by kicking him hard on a knee, breaking it and watched as he fell down, while clutching his left knee. 

   I lowered myself lower and said "I won't get expelled. Trust me. I will make your lives a living hell if you keep trying to bother me. I don't like wasting time on trash."

    After finishing four students knocked down and one clutching his knee in pain, I ripped up piece of shirt from one of them and wiped the blood from my fist into it and threw it back, then picked up my untouched notebook and made my way towards the library, this time uninterrupted, only watched by the watchful eye of the first year students, that either saw, or heard the commotion. 

   Inside I locked one of the booths behind me and started browsing the digital library about the capital, but quickly found out that everything that I learned from the palace library was up to date, so I started browsing about the galaxy and the biggest players. First one to catch my eyes was the galactic police with unified law enforcement across multiple planets with membership. If you were to break a law on their territory, or cause a major crime outside of it. Major as in not to steal, or kill one innocent person, as for that there should be civilized police force to do that, or other planet law force, but kill at least hundred of innocent people and evade capture. 

   Inside the entries on them I found the drones blueprints, species that were part of it, their robots and suits, alongside ships and tactics. I started writing all of this in my notebook, while filling it with my own analysis. 

   After filling, analyzing, writing up theories and possible countermeasures, alongside confirmed and possible weak points I closed my notebook and looked at the time on the monitor and saw it was nearing academy dinner time and I made my way back towards the barrack, as I managed to recollect that there was a dining area on third floor. 

   Inside I saw that there were tables with benches already half filled with students and a staff member filling up plates with traditional easy to make dishes. Also there was a sign with four today's choices, indicating that every day might be served something different, or be switched with something, as long as the listed item disappears from the list. 

   Taking my plate I chose number two and went to sit at one of the empty tables at the further side of the room and smirked towards the boys, who tried to pick on me earlier that I saw on the way there. They visibly shortened themselves and didn't dare to look at me, with one of them keeping his leg spread out. 

   I ate it alone and made my way to my own room, where I started compiling what I learned today inside the library, inside my combat guide.