Level

"Only the fifth day and already a few have died?" Kalan stared at the graying screens on the light panel, his brows knitting slightly. "Early Apprentice Rank... these people lack both strength and luck."

His tone carried a hint of casual lament: "An E-rank civilization is just an E-rank civilization. Even if they are at the level required to be sent to the Academy, when they are desperate, they should at least pick a few ferocious ones. They really just scrape together whatever trash they can find to make up the numbers."

What he was actually lamenting was his own reward.

For every candidate who died, the reward he could claim diminished by a fraction.

Kalan shook his head, shifting his gaze from the gray screens to the remaining images that were still lit.

No civilization in the universe was ever truly at peace.

The members of the Empire were in a constant state of flux; today you are E-rank, but tomorrow you might lose your value and be dropped from the Empire's administrative sequence.

Today you are D-rank, but tomorrow you might strike it rich simply by discovering a rare mineral vein.

As long as one was under the administration of the Empire, no one wanted to fall.

Even an E-rank civilization did not want to remain E-rank forever, let alone regress.

Kalan leaned back in his chair, his gaze resting on the screens of the candidates from Blue Star, and a thought suddenly occurred to him.

Perhaps the Blue Star civilization hadn't sent so many people over out of confidence, but rather with a gambling mentality.

They scattered their best batch of seeds, sowing widely to reap little, thinking that if even one could rise to the top, they would have hit the jackpot.

Chen Yan opened his