Daily life

The chaotic night passed in a flash.

In the morning, Lu Zhan opened his eyes in a daze, staring blankly at the "new world" before him.

"Ah, I really can't go back."

"My villa, my luxurious bed, my tens of millions in savings-all gone!"

People never knew how to be satisfied.

Last night, Lu Zhan had thought having a room all to himself was pretty nice.

When he woke up this morning, he started complaining that the wooden bed was too hard and there was no one to warm it for him.

Lu Zhan wasn't sure whether he had imagined it, but last night, he had kept feeling as though someone was singing to him.

It had been a gentle female voice, one that had given his imagination endless room to wander.

Unfortunately, reality was cruel. When he opened his eyes, there was nothing in the room.

"Lu Zhan, pull yourself together!"

"Only by enduring the bitterest hardships can you rise above others."

"Now go get something to eat!"

Perhaps because the wooden bed was digging into his backside, Lu Zhan managed to get up without much mental preparation.

He put on the training uniform issued to him yesterday and took a good look at himself in the mirror.

Whether in his previous life or this one, he was still just as handsome.

Even though his hair hadn't grown back yet, he was still a good-looking young man.

Bang!

The door swung open, and Lu Zhan surveyed the corridor.

The entire dormitory building was quiet. It seemed his "upperclassmen" were still sleeping in.

Lu Zhan was no stranger to this. He even found a long-lost sense of familiarity in it.

When he had first started college in his previous life, the freshmen had been the earliest risers, too.

Being the upstanding fellow he was, Lu Zhan washed up and headed straight for the cafeteria.

He had eaten in such a hurry last night that he hadn't had a chance to properly savor this world's food.

Now his stomach was growling in protest, making this the perfect time for a feast.

The Training Center had three cafeterias, serving nutritional meal plans A, B, and C respectively.

Having just joined the Basic Class, Lu Zhan could only go to Cafeteria Three for the type C meals.

Naturally, he had been unhappy when he learned about this unequal treatment yesterday.

He had sold himself off, and he still couldn't get something better to eat?

In response to Lu Zhan's "protest," the staff member who had processed his identity card yesterday had offered an explanation.

As a soldier, Lu Zhan was indeed entitled to eat whatever he liked.

But with his current physical condition, he simply couldn't digest the type A and B meals.

It wasn't just Lu Zhan. Everyone in the Basic Class could only eat type C meals.

Take good advice, and you won't go hungry.

Lu Zhan still didn't know enough about the Training Center, so he could only follow the rules for now.

There weren't many people around the Training Center early in the morning. Even after arriving at Cafeteria Three, Lu Zhan had only seen a handful of figures in training uniforms.

He didn't know anyone, so naturally, he wouldn't approach them rashly.

Right now, his eyes were fixed solely on the food filling the serving counters.

For some reason, Lu Zhan felt especially hungry today.

Bread, bread, and more bread-every shape and color, some soft, some hard.

Fried meat, roasted meat, boiled meat-all sorts of meat from different beasts, their rich aromas filling the air.

Boiled eggs, large and small, with more than a dozen varieties.

Lu Zhan made a circuit of all the serving counters and found that these three categories accounted for eighty percent of the food.

He wasn't sure whether he was imagining it, but today's breakfast didn't seem much different from last night's dinner in either variety or quantity.

"These type C meals really do put nutrition first."

Lu Zhan picked out seven boiled eggs of different sizes, took a few pieces of roasted meat, and settled down to breakfast.

As for all those varieties of bread?

Right now, he only wanted meat.

"Huh, did our Basic Class get another newcomer? That guy's hairstyle is really cool!"

"Tsk, tsk. Definitely a newcomer. He's enjoying his food so much that watching him makes me hungry!"

"Eat up. Eat as much as you can."

"Unless we get our bodies into shape, we won't even qualify for [Life Essence] injections!"

A little over ten meters from Lu Zhan, five young men in training uniforms sat together, eating bread at a leisurely pace.

Their plates held only bread and vegetables, without a scrap of meat.

"Don't talk to me about eating. We're not here for training-they're raising us like pigs."

"There are plenty of ways to improve our physical condition."

"Even if we can't use injections, we could at least eat some [synthetic meat]!"

"How much nutrition can these all-natural foods possibly provide?"

The chubby Graham viciously bit into a bright green leaf. These days, just smelling the meat in the cafeteria made him nauseous.

As for boiled eggs, he steered clear the moment he saw them.

If the cafeteria hadn't offered some greens, he probably would have been reduced to grazing on the lawn.

The type C meals looked pretty good.

But not when every meal was identical, without even a change in flavor.

Two or three months would have been fine, but after half a year of this, he was truly sick of it.

Sure, this newcomer was stuffing his face with meat now.

Give him three or four months, and he would be happier to see vegetables than his own father.

"Graham, stop bringing up banned drugs!"

"We all know how hard it was to get this far."

"The Training Center must have its reasons for doing this."

"If others can get through it, there's no reason we can't."

"To become true Armored Warriors, never mind boiled eggs-even if they served bird droppings, we'd have to eat a few extra spoonfuls."

Their leader, Liu Shuang, shot the chubby young man a displeased glare. Drug injections were something they couldn't even mention at the Training Center.

Getting the drugs inside would be difficult enough.

If they actually managed it, they would only be courting death.

At the Training Center, they underwent a physical examination every two weeks.

Once their physical condition met the requirements, they could start receiving [Life Essence] injections.

If they were discovered

to have used banned drugs, they would immediately be expelled from the Training Center, cutting off their path to becoming Armored Warriors.

To come here, they had signed training contracts with the major factions.

If they were thrown out, their fate was easy enough to imagine. Death would be the best possible outcome.

Liu Shuang had heard that eliminated talent holders like them sold quite well on the Black Market.

Looks like those five guys over there will be my classmates.

From what they're saying, I'll probably be eating this stuff for every meal!

In a corner of the cafeteria, Lu Zhan, who had been thoroughly enjoying his meal, suddenly found the peppery roasted meat in his mouth rather less delicious.

Liu Shuang and the others thought they were whispering, but to Lu Zhan, it sounded like someone was banging gongs and drums right beside him.

He heard every word of their conversation.

At first, Lu Zhan had thought the five guys across from him were doing it on purpose.

But he soon realized that something had happened to his hearing.

His hearing had actually become several times sharper than before.

Especially when he focused on listening, he could even clearly pick up the heartbeats of Graham and the others.