New Recruit Training

Although his attitude was merely passable, he did not make things difficult for Evan. Taking the letter, the major officer glanced at the wax seal and signature on it. Without even opening it, he wrote a few words on it and filed it in the drawer to his right.

With his sharp eyesight, Evan caught sight of several similarly styled, unopened letters inside. He immediately understood that there were apparently quite a few recruits in circumstances similar to his own.

He took out a seal and stamped Evan's form, then placed it atop the thinner of the two stacks of forms on the desk, which contained only a few pages. Evan noticed that every form in that stack bore the same mark as his.

That was probably the purpose of the Letter of Introduction.

"All right, I'll be your instructor for the next three months of recruit training. You may call me Instructor or Major Eugene.

Remember to come here tomorrow for a physical fitness test. Even if it may seem like a waste of time to people like you, the basic procedure still has to be followed. Go call in the next person!"

"Yes, Major Eugene!" Evan adapted quickly. Rising to his feet, he gave a military salute and turned to leave the room.

Standing in the covered passageway in the courtyard as he waited for Gary to come out, Evan sighed. Sure enough, connections were unavoidable no matter where one went, even in another world.

From the moment they stepped out of the recruitment office, the newly enlisted Navy Soldiers had already been divided into ranks.

Major Eugene had clearly misunderstood Evan's identity because of that letter. But with the benefit already delivered to his doorstep, Evan was not foolish enough to correct him.

Besides, he had turned the tide and saved the Yellow Swan this time, preventing the old man from suffering enormous losses in property and personnel. He could accept this Letter of Introduction with a clear conscience.

Because the Navy was currently short on manpower, it used Open-ended Recruitment year-round. As long as a batch of applicants reached a certain number, the training process would begin.

Evan and Gary were fortunate enough to catch the very end of this batch.

The next day, the physical fitness test was naturally no challenge for Evan. He and Gary both passed with high scores, officially becoming proud members of the Navy's Third Fleet.

What awaited these recruits was a three-month training period before boarding a ship.

They at least had to give rookies like them a basic foundation so that they would not cause trouble—or even get themselves killed—once aboard. After undergoing a trial by fire, anyone who survived would essentially become a qualified navy soldier.

Evan had no idea how the Navy's upper ranks made their arrangements. However, through the complaints of the test staff, he heard an interesting bit of gossip and finally learned why the recruitment office was so shabby.

"It's all thanks to Vice Admiral Snyder, the chief of the Base Logistics Department," the staff member said.

Vice Admiral Snyder, who came from a merchant family, was not only a qualified quartermaster but also a successful merchant.

He habitually put a clear price on everything in his hands, then leveraged the Navy's special status to turn it into profits several times the original value. That naturally included the recruitment office, which had once been grand and spacious enough to give the Navy great prestige.

His philosophy was: "When we make money, buyers are our gods. When we spend money, we are everyone else's gods."

The recruitment office, which could only spend money and could not make any, had thus become what it was now. Its original premises had been turned into the headquarters of a Major Trading Company, bringing in extremely generous annual rental income.

This simple, practical philosophy had driven Gabreid's rapid development and brought abundant military funds to the Third Fleet, making Snyder the true God of Wealth in everyone's heart.

The recruitment office staff could only grumble a little. No matter how poor their working environment was, they dared not speak out in anger.

Evan felt that this base quartermaster was truly an interesting man. He saw things clearly: what attracted young people to eagerly enlist was never a luxurious Naval Base, but the bright future that awaited them as Navy Soldiers or even officers.

Instead, they could make use of the security the naval port offered merchants and fully exploit land in prosperous areas to generate profits for the Navy. Then they could use that income to improve the benefits and welfare of servicemen, truly spending money where it mattered most.

Sooner or later, I'll have dealings with this quartermaster. This premonition rose in Evan's heart.

At the Training Ground, the Navy recruits of this class sat cross-legged in a circle.

Smack!

The training Wooden Swords collided. The two combatants used the force to leap backward, then sprang up the instant they landed and clashed again.

The two fighters clearly possessed physical fitness far beyond that of ordinary people. As they twisted and turned, their Wooden Swords collided repeatedly, their movements too fast for ordinary people's reactions to follow.

Moreover, although they only held training Wooden Swords, their swings produced piercing shrieks through the air. One could imagine that being struck by them would hurt no less than being cut by real blades.

Yet neither of them cared in the slightest, clearly confident in their swordsmanship.

"All right, stop!"

The battle halted, and the dust hanging in the air slowly settled, revealing two figures wearing Naval Training Uniforms.

One was Major Eugene, the instructor for this batch of trainees. The other was Evan Garratt, who had been honorably selected as a sparring partner.

Ignoring Evan's panting, exhausted appearance as though he would collapse the next moment, Major Eugene had long since figured out the boy's character after a month.

Serious, hardworking, persistent, determined—he possessed all sorts of virtues unlike many of the children of the elite Eugene knew. Only in one respect was he exactly like them: he never rose early without profit.

When Eugene had first said he would teach him the Navy's unique Military Swordsmanship ahead of schedule, Evan had been exceptionally diligent and obedient, constantly hovering around him without needing to be called.

Then, after displaying genius by fully getting started in just one week, whenever Eugene wanted him to serve as a sparring partner for demonstrations to the other trainees, he would put on this half-dead, salted-fish act.

And he even had the nerve to complain that sparring delayed his own training and the time he spent learning navigation skills!

But it doesn't matter! I'm a Formal Knight, after all. He can't beat his instructor, so he has to obey.

After forcibly suppressing him, the training continued as usual.

In less than a month, the other well-born "Insignia Trainees" had gradually left the training camp. Eugene knew their fathers had already arranged positions for them, and he never stopped them.

Only Evan Garratt remained, soaking in the training camp every day like a sponge, frantically cramming all sorts of knowledge that others disdained.

If I didn't press you into service, who else could I press?

Even though the Navy was now a place where talent gathered, for most recruits of commoner birth, literacy alone was a major hurdle.

After years of promotion, Faletis's literacy rate had at least reached twenty percent—one literate person out of every five. But countless other countries restricted the spread of knowledge among commoners, and nations with literacy rates in the single digits were the norm.

Even simple writing was like that, let alone Extraordinary swordsmanship, which was practically a broad road to success.

So if Evan had arrived in this era as an ordinary commoner, it truly would have been a hellish start. Even if someone handed you a divine manual, without systematic knowledge as a foundation, you still would not be able to learn it!

The enormous class divide manifested itself everywhere, only becoming even more obvious in a world possessing Extraordinary Power than it had been in his previous life.

Eugene's choice was also born of helplessness.

"Soldiers! I hereby announce that, starting tomorrow, Assistant Instructor Evan will replace me in teaching you the Military Swordsmanship we just demonstrated..."

Before he could finish, thunderous cheers erupted from below. Why had these people enlisted? Was it really to fight pirates and defend their homes, as the propaganda claimed? Was it not to rise through the ranks, gain promotion, and make their fortunes?

That's right! The original aspirations of ordinary people were that simple—real, straightforward, and honest!

Any knowledge or skill passed down from the upper classes concerned whether they could turn their lives around and escape the lower levels of society. It gave their descendants a chance to escape the predetermined fate of being born farmers, herdsmen, or fishermen!

Although Evan was somewhat annoyed at Instructor Eugene for making the decision on his own, faced with so many pairs of eager eyes, he simply could not bring himself to refuse.