23 Days Later

Sparta's eyelid twitched. He frowned even deeper, a faint trace of anger surfacing on his face.

From beginning to end, he had never wanted to fight with anyone, but this guy was just infuriating to look at!

After brewing for a long time, Sparta thought over and over again, yet he still relaxed his clenched fists.

He could not be blinded by anger; on the first day of arriving at the Recruit Company, it was best not to attract the attention of the rest.

His idea was to play it safe and develop steadily, rather than becoming the eye-catching bird in the spotlight.

Sparta looked away from Brighton and walked over to the only vacant bed.

The road was long, and there would be plenty of opportunities in the future; although he said nothing on the surface, he had already mentally marked down Clayton.

He hoped the fellow could remain as tough as he was today.

Seeing this, several recruits looked at each other.

"You guy, do you really like fighting?"

"We're all comrades from now on, is bullying a comrade very interesting?"

The one speaking was Luke, who stood one meter ninety tall with a robust build.

Luke crossed his arms, sizing Clayton up and down with an unkind gaze. The thick flesh on his face made him look extremely fierce, enough to scare a small child to tears.

"What does it have to do with you? Is being tall such a big deal?"

Facing Luke, who was a head taller than him, Clayton not only did not back down, but instead raised his chin, stuck out his neck, and provoked him once more.

This time, the atmosphere in the dormitory dropped to freezing point.

Veins bulged on Luke's temples, his pupils widened larger than bells, and he clenched fists larger than a human face, making a cracking sound.

Seeing that both sides were about to throw down, Sparta prepared to step forward to stop them, and right at that moment, Jayce re-entered the dormitory.

It took him a mere 0.01 seconds to keenly spot the smell of gunpowder inside the room.

He narrowed his eyes, swept his gaze across Clayton and Luke, and bellowed:

"Do you all have nothing better to do?! Can't you behave yourselves on the very first day?!"

Sparta walked up to Jayce and recounted the entire origin of the matter from start to finish.

Upon hearing it, Jayce wore a bantering expression, the corners of his mouth hooking into a cruel smile.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, he walked up to Clayton, raised a hand to grab the other's collar, and with formidable strength directly lifted Clayton into mid-air.

Promoted on the spot.

"Although the Military Department has no explicit rule stating you can't fight on the first day of entering the Recruit Company, I, your squad leader, do not wish to see such things happen in the Third Squad."

"Did you hear me?!"

"I heard you, sir." Clayton kicked his legs in mid-air, the words squeezed out through his teeth.

Jayce put Clayton back down on the floor, but his gaze fixed on him remained cold.

For a split second, Sparta felt as though this wasn't the Military Department of the Viltrumite Empire, but just an ordinary military camp like any other.

Given the cold personalities of Viltrumites, how could they possibly care about such petty trifles like a fight?

They would even encourage such brawls to happen, yet when it came to Jayce, he did the exact opposite.

Bizarre, simply too bizarre.

Scratching his head in confusion and failing to understand, Sparta looked up and gave a slight nod to Luke, who had stood up for him.

The other nodded back in response, everything understood without a word.

This time Jayce didn't leave the dormitory, instead lying down on his own bed, closing his eyes to rest and ignoring the outside world.

Sparta tidied up his bed a little, then walked out of the dormitory, intending to familiarize himself with the Recruit Company where he would spend the next ten years.

Walking along the paths, he occasionally saw new recruits from other squads doing the same thing to get used to the environment.

Walking and stopping, Sparta strolled alone until he arrived in front of a door bearing the sign 'Training Room'.

The automatic induction doors sensed his approach and slid to the left, and the lights on the upper interior of the training room automatically switched on.

harbouring a sense of curiosity, Sparta stepped into the training room.

The training room was huge, large enough to accommodate three squads training simultaneously, yet it was completely empty here, with only rows of equipment sitting quietly and unattended.

"Holy shit."

Looking at that never-before-seen equipment, Sparta widened his eyes, and at that moment there seemed to be light in his vision.

For a training addict, a place like this was quite simply heaven.

In Sparta's eyes, this training equipment consisted of gorgeous beauties wearing no clothes at all, waiting for his favor and development.

"Now I can get a fantastic workout."

A surge of joy bubbled up in Sparta's heart as he stroked and fiddled with each piece of equipment using his fingers.

Figuring out how to use each apparatus, he immediately buried himself in intense training.

Outside the training room, Jayce stood by the window, quietly observing Sparta's every move.

He rubbed his chin and cast a glance elsewhere.

Just like Jason, they both really love training.

Thinking this to himself, Jayce left the window and continued pacing back and forth along the corridor.

On the other side, Sparta gripped the bench press handles tightly, sweat soaking the tight combat suit on his body.

"Grow stronger, grow stronger, grow stronger..."

Every time he pushed up, he muttered a phrase under his breath.

A long time passed. Sparta sat up from the equipment, drenched in sweat, and tiredly returned to the dormitory.

His return attracted the attention of everyone present.

"Been training?"

Jayce sat on the edge of his bed, asking a question to which he already knew the answer.

"Yes, sir."

"Go wash up, you stink too much."

"Understood, sir."

Sparta walked into the small room Jayce pointed to; this was the washroom.

After washing up and finishing lunch and dinner, night fell.

Sparta lay on the somewhat firm bed, placing his hands behind his head and looking through the window at the night sky.

Unlike the Military Department life he had imagined, there were no varied rules, no brainwashing rhetoric, and certainly no cold, merciless administrative regulations.

Everything felt so natural.

23 days after entering the Recruit Company.

The Recruit Company was dull and uninteresting, and during this period no particularly fun events had occurred.

Even though someone would occasionally get into an argument with Clayton, Jayce would quickly suppress it.

Over these 23 days, Sparta's daily routine was no different from his ordinary days before enlistment.

He ate three meals a day, watched some news, and finally trained for four hours.

And his strength had also increased over these 23 days.

The only difference was the presence of a few more noisy voices around him.

Sparta draped a towel over his shoulder, emerging from the washroom with wet, short hair.

"You really are diligent."

Kaden shifted his attention from the book named 'Viltrumite Honor' over to Sparta.

"Right now in the entire Recruit Company, who doesn't know Sparta's big name? Everyone's given you a nickname now—they call you Diligent Sparta."

Digger chimed in from the side.

"I'm just used to training every day." Sparta hung the towel back on the wall and asked with a puzzled expression, "Wait, what's this about a nickname?"

Every day his life followed a strict three-point line, and he had almost zero communication with anyone outside the dormitory.

This was the first time he had heard of such a title.

"Because you train every day—you're the most diligent one in the entire Recruit Company... no, in the entire division—so everyone calls you that."

"I see."

Sparta nodded, indicating he understood.

Without further ado, he took a copy of the Viltrumite Codex from the bookshelf, preparing to read it.

Just as he thought today would pass by like any other...

Jayce walked heavily into the dormitory holding a document in his hand.

"Recruits, your first mission in life has arrived."