Each person's workstation was really just an iron table a little over a meter long. A rotary vise was fixed to one end, and a row of tools sat in the slots along the front: hand saws, files, hammers, chisels, taps, dies, straightedges, compasses, scribers, vernier calipers, and more. At the other end of the table stood a foot-powered grinder, with an anvil beside it. This was the most ordinary apprentice-level workstation, and also the cheapest. He had heard that advanced workstations came with steam-powered modules and smelting furnaces. In the hands of a master, all it took was one of those workstations, and there was nothing in this world they couldn't make.
Now that he had a plan, there was no reason to hesitate. Zhang Tie put on his work clothes and safety goggles, then picked up the longest piece of wire. He got to work in no time. Since they didn't have a dedicated wire-forming jig, he had to make do with the tools at hand. First, he secured the wire and a wooden board in the vise, then set the mandrel in place and looped one end of the wire around it. After carefully winding it clockwise for a few turns, he checked that everything was in order and began winding in earnest. The work itself wasn't difficult. Before long, Zhang Tie had nearly finished his first spring. He counted its coils, cut off the excess on the anvil, then ground down the two sharp ends of the wire with the grinder. Just like that, he had made a simple cylindrical spring. He tested it, and sure enough, it was springy. Making the first one gave Zhang Tie a real boost. The next two didn't take much effort either, though shaping the circular hook on each spring took a little work. In the same classroom, while Zhang Tie was still wrestling with the spring hook and chisel, some students had already finished three different kinds of springs. At last, the bald instructor came in, answered questions from several students who raised their hands, and inspected everyone's three pieces. Then he went on to explain tempering springs, closing and rounding their ends, winding torsion springs, and making tools for their inner and outer torsion arms. After that, he had everyone test the springs they had made. Just like that, the three-hour morning session was over...
Lunch was served in the school cafeteria, one of the school's perks. The food there had never been much good, though. Sometimes they went several weeks without seeing a drop of oil; it was barely enough to fill your stomach. Even so, every mealtime, the flood of students rushing toward the various school cafeterias was enough to make anyone jump. Perhaps by design, each grade had a separate cafeteria, with a fixed number of diners. But every cafeteria had a few fewer trays than students, every single day, without exception. As a result, a few unlucky students who couldn't get a tray would go hungry, then faint on the military skills training field that afternoon. Zhang Tie had been caught in that situation twice himself. After that, he had learned the first rule of survival in the Black Iron Era: do everything you can to fill your stomach first.
The only rule in the school cafeteria was to stand in line. Beyond that, there were no rules at all. So if you didn't want to be one of the few who went hungry at school every day, you needed to get in line early—and be strong enough not to let anyone push you around. Of course, luck mattered too.
Just like now.
Zhang Tie stood in the middle of the line. After a whole morning of lessons, the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys were all ravenous. The line in the cafeteria was long, but students kept streaming in. Zhang Tie was glad he'd slipped out of class so quickly. Otherwise, he'd have been near the back today, and might not have gotten anything to eat. As the last few students arrived and joined the line with gloomy faces, those at the front were already collecting their lunches and getting ready to eat. Just then, the noisy cafeteria suddenly fell silent. Zhang Tie turned around and saw Gelis and his friends swaggering in. They were the last to arrive, but instead of joining the line, they went straight to the front. When the few students who had just received their trays saw them coming, their faces instantly turned pale.
Damn, weren't these punks sick of this? They pulled this crap every day at lunch! Zhang Tie cursed inwardly...
"Heh, we'll have to trouble you guys today!" Gelis and his friends swaggered up to the students about to collect their lunches. Their words were polite, but their manner was arrogantly insufferable. They held their heads high, noses in the air, arms folded, grinning with such taunting smugness that they looked ready to be punched. They stared at the pale-faced students at the front of the line like cats watching mice.
"Damn, they're so obnoxious," someone beside Zhang Tie muttered.
"If you could beat them, you could be just as obnoxious and take other people's things too!"
"I heard Gelis has been acting so cocky this past month because he passed the Level 2 Battle Soldier exam. He's already ignited two Bright Points in his body. Getting results like that while still in school—Seventh Middle School hasn't produced anyone like him in years!"
"He's just naturally big and has that one advantage. What's so impressive about that? They're a bunch of thickheaded brutes. Are they trying to get the school's attention before graduation with this childish behavior, so they can get a recommendation?"
"Hmph... Don't be jealous. It's called being exceptionally gifted. They're far stronger than us. We can't afford to mess with them..."
"Because their old man is a big shot in the Coal and Steel Union!"
"What big shot? Bah, he's just a squad leader among some big shot's guards!"
"If you serve a big shot, you're a big shot too!"
"If it were me, I wouldn't hand my tray over. Damn it, what gives them the right?"
"The fact that they can beat you so badly outside school that you won't get out of bed for a month. Isn't that enough?"
As the people around Zhang Tie whispered among themselves, the boys whose trays had been stolen came back one by one, looking utterly dejected. People watched them with either sympathy or indifference, but no one said a word to comfort them. This was something everyone had to learn about eating at school, and the reason the school deliberately put out a few fewer trays each day: everyone had to fight for their own survival. If you didn't fight for yourself, no one would fight for you. For those without strength, the choices this world offered were always simple: either swallow your anger and drag out a miserable existence, or end up bruised, battered, and with broken bones. There was no third path.
As the students passed Zhang Tie, he saw the defeated, embarrassed looks on their faces and thought of something. If this happened to me today, what would I do? What if one day they weren't trying to steal a tray, but my wife? What if my wife were Daina? What would I do? That last thought suddenly made Zhang Tie's heart clench. For an instant, he seemed to see Teacher Daina's face, weeping in despair. The young boy's heart gave a faint, sudden ache.
No...
A beast-like howl rose in the boy's heart.
The second floor of the cafeteria housed the teachers' dining room. Behind the thick glass partition, several pairs of eyes watched what was happening below.
"A Level 2 Battle Soldier... To the little kids down there, that's far too powerful. Gelis alone could easily take on more than ten of them. At this age, Gelis has a huge advantage in physique and strength!"
"There are only four in Gelis's little gang, but there are at least several hundred people in line below. The school has taught these kids with such care, but they've only learned half the lesson. They've learned to compete and fight for their own survival, but they still haven't learned the other half, the part that truly matters to their survival: unity and cooperation..."
"That's the difference between people and beasts. Even the weakest people can defeat powerful beasts if they unite..."
"Maybe they'll understand someday. But I doubt it'll happen anytime soon..."
"Just wait and see. Maybe someone down there will wake up first!"
The voices behind the glass partition gradually blurred amid the clatter of knives and forks and the sounds of people chewing, then faded away...
Zhang Tie ate his meager lunch without tasting it, then lined up to wash his tray and utensils carefully at the faucet before lining up again to return them to the cafeteria. He felt a little hollow inside. Teacher Daina's despairing, tearful face kept appearing in his mind as if it were real. With his head lowered, the boy walked along, lost in thought. When he happened to notice his old leather shoes, badly worn and patched in two places, his mood sank even further. By the time he had passed the Small Woods on the other side of the school, he suddenly realized that several people had surrounded him.
"Feeling pretty pleased with yourself when you messed with us this morning?" Before Zhang Tie could react, a fist slammed into his stomach, almost making him throw up the lunch he had just eaten. Zhang Tie doubled over in pain, and the thoughts weighing on the miserable boy vanished in an instant. Damn, this was bad. How had they surrounded him? He'd noticed during class that these guys had been looking at him with ill intent. How had he forgotten what he'd done to them that morning? The thoughts flashed through Zhang Tie's mind like lightning.
"Beat him up!" The voice beside him had barely reached his ears. Bent over, Zhang Tie saw only a pair of feet in front of him. Without stopping to think, he lunged, grabbed both feet, and heaved with all his strength. The owner of the feet toppled over with a startled cry. Zhang Tie pounced on him, and while the guy was still dazed, punched him in the nose. The man fell backward, and Zhang Tie threw himself on top of him...