Eighteen years after transmigrating into this world, she had finally become an Awakener capable of wielding extraordinary power, despite her disastrous start.
Her current weakness was beyond question, but her future, with the species level cap removed...
Seemed to hold infinite possibilities.
Chapter 4
Although Wen Jing wanted to immediately pour all 346 skill points she had saved into her Wilderness Body for a round of super-evolution, the newly added Wilderness Body panel's values were currently grayed out in [Read-only] mode. She could not allocate any points.
Drawing on her textbook knowledge of Awakeners, she quickly figured out why: apparently, she needed to be in the Ancient Wilderness to allocate points to her Wilderness Body.
The relationship between an Awakener's human body and Wilderness Body was not as simple as having an extra body.
While they were in the material universe, their Wilderness Body in the Ancient Wilderness was in a state of "nonexistence," and vice versa.
But there was no way Wen Jing could go to the Ancient Wilderness right now.
Exploring the Ancient Wilderness, Genetic Collapse, and combat were the top three causes of death among Awakeners, respectively. Combat came last.
New students needed to attend their academies and learn the "algorithms" every Awakener had to master before beginning their first exploration. Even then, the death rate was not zero.
This was explicitly stated on the first page of every textbook from elementary through high school. Even while they had been lining up for the awakening ceremony, warnings had been repeated constantly to prevent excited candidates from immediately entering the Ancient Wilderness.
Once the awakening ceremony was over, the rest of the process went quickly.
There was little to say about the students who had not awakened. Like those who had failed the exam, they were sent off the School District Planet, while those who had successfully awakened boarded the enormous warship.
"Yes! I got an acceptance letter from Qinglang Academy too!"
"Wow, your potential is grade C, right? Did Xuanhuang Academy accept you?"
On the gangway, the new students could not contain their excitement. They no longer had the robotic numbness they had shown at school.
In truth, relationships among students on the School District Planet were generally nothing special.
In that high-pressure environment where scores reigned supreme, there were meal buddies, study buddies, and plenty of superficial friends who probed each other for their scores, but close friendships were practically unheard of.
Combined with the extremely high elimination rate, a single final exam could leave friends in different classes, different schools, or even on different planets.
As for romance? That was even less possible.
At the beginning of every semester on the School District Planet, adolescent students were injected with suppressants.
When Wen Jing first learned about this, she had belatedly questioned this world. Could this be some variant of an interstellar ABO setting?
Then she discovered that the suppressants here effectively amounted to chemical castration...
Without affecting the students' normal development, they eliminated hormone-driven adolescent restlessness, allowing everyone to devote themselves entirely to studying, free of those worldly desires.
Now that they had awakened, they finally showed some youthful vitality. Not only were familiar acquaintances talking, but many strangers were striking up conversations too.
Only Wen Jing had a strange ring of empty space around her, with quite a few subtle, complicated looks directed her way.
As the top student on the School District Planet, with a distinctive hairstyle to boot, she was recognizable even to people who had never seen her before.
Awakeners' scores and potential would ultimately be posted publicly together. There was no way the top scorer in the unified exam could escape attention.
Thus, everyone knew that the genius they had once only been able to look up to would fade into mediocrity in the future.
Wen Jing herself felt no discomfort. In the past, she had been busy working part-time to earn skill points, and with people viewing her through the filter of her grades, she had come across as aloof, proud, and solitary, even though she considered herself sunny and outgoing.
Although people now avoided her for a different reason, the result was the same.
She looked at her old-fashioned, watch-like communicator. Sure enough, she had received only one acceptance letter.
"You have been accepted into our small Wilderness Body program-Ochre Soil Academy."
Besides the School District Planet, the Federation had three habitable planets: Xuanhuang, Qinglang, and Ocher Soil. Each housed an Awakener Academy named after its planet.
The three planets also formed a hierarchy in their overall standing within the Federation. Xuanhuang was the political and economic center, followed by Qinglang, with Ocher Soil last. Their academies ranked the same way.
The academies admitted students according to their potential grades. Students with high potential would receive acceptance letters from more than one academy, while those with low potential would only be accepted by Ochre Soil Academy, the lowest-ranked of the three Awakener Academies.
Their potential grade determined which academy accepted them, and which academy accepted them determined their future lives.
A small number of students with grade C potential, along with those above grade C, could enter Xuanhuang Academy and stand at the top of society's pyramid in the future; a small number of grade E students and most grade C students went to Qinglang Academy and would also become pillars of society; most grade E and grade F students attended Ochre Soil Academy, forming the bottom rung of Awakeners, closest to ordinary people.
Besides the acceptance letter, there was also a message from a sender named "Gaia":
"Dear Wen Jing, congratulations on becoming an Awakener. I'm so proud of you..."
Wen Jing smiled, then casually closed the message.
Children born in population factories naturally had no legally recognized family ties. Information about their biological parents was erased before genetic matching even began, and the artificial intelligence "Gaia" filled their need for emotional attachment as they grew up.
Gaia had a female appearance, incorporating the user's own facial features to foster a sense of closeness.
The service was free until the elementary school entry age of five. After that... it required a monthly subscription.
Many people born in population factories essentially regarded Gaia as family and subscribed to the interaction service for life. But Wen Jing, who had memories of her previous life and was absorbed in studying and training, had understood things clearly since childhood and had little need for that kind of emotional attachment.
Of course, the main thing was that free was fine, but if it cost money, forget it.
Now that she had become an Awakener, Gaia's interaction service had become free outright.
Even grade F Awakeners at the very bottom belonged to a special class in this world.
The warship had individual dorm rooms specifically for the new students, but they were soon told that rooms were not assigned in advance. They had to claim one themselves.
Students from the School District Planet were more than accustomed to competitive systems.
No one objected. The crowd immediately scattered in tacit understanding, putting their eyes and speed to work as they rushed toward the rooms.
Bang!
"I was here first!"
"Are you kidding? Whoever gets inside first gets it."
Unsurprisingly, the scramble for rooms turned into an all-out brawl.
The newly awakened students were a notch stronger than before, brimming with excitement and energy they had nowhere to spend.
Of all the rooms, the best situated were naturally the rows closest to the communal activity area. Most had been claimed by the plutocrat scions who had boarded earlier, leaving only a handful available.
Even among those from plutocrat families, only the group with the highest potential had been able to follow Tainuo off the ship. More than a hundred others had remained aboard.
Now they emerged from their rooms to watch the new students fight over rooms as though watching animals at a zoo.
Unfortunately, the room Wen Jing had chosen was in this popular area.
Most of those who knew they were not strong enough did not even bother wasting time coming near it.
By the time she rushed over, three people were already blocking the doorway in a stalemate. None had claimed the room.
Two of the three were from First High School and one from Second High School. All were top-ranked academic stars among this year's graduating students, prominent figures at their schools.
Noticing another person approaching, they were annoyed that someone else dared join the fray. Without any unnecessary movements, they reached a lightning-fast understanding to face the outsider together and turned in unison toward their new competitor.
"..."
The moment they saw her, the looks of absolute confidence froze on all three faces.
Wen Jing smiled.
As though some mechanism had been triggered, all three turned around in perfect unison and rushed toward other nearby rooms.
Unsurprised, she reached out and registered her fingerprint on the door handle.
Click. The door opened, then closed.
This unusual scene immediately drew the attention of the nearby plutocrat scions. Opponents would only all retreat without a fight when one side was far stronger than the others. This had to be a genius among the new students from the School District Planet!
Yet their companions who had just returned to the ship wore very strange expressions.
"Guess what her potential is?"
"Grade B?" Someone beside them drew an uncertain breath. "Don't tell me it's grade A?"
"...Hahahaha! It's F! F!"
"What?" The plutocrat scions erupted in an uproar, all staring at Wen Jing's door in shock. "Then why did the others give way to her?"
"Because she ranked first in the unified exam, so they're used to it? My fifty-first brother at Xuanhuang Academy said people fresh off the School District Planet are used to dropping to their knees before anyone with higher scores."
"Wait... the top scorer in the unified exam is only grade F?!"
Soon, the joke about the "slum genius" spread once again.
Wen Jing took a shower in her room, read through the ship's activity guidelines, then lay on the bed with her eyes closed to rest. Involuntarily, she began planning her future.
Her early point allocation would definitely focus on staying alive. Improving her odds of survival while operating in the Ancient Wilderness took priority over everything else.
Next came acquiring resources. She wondered whether Ochre Soil Academy had many suitable part-time jobs. Making money was secondary; the main thing was earning skill points...
When the wall clock ticked over to 17:25 and mealtime approached, she kipped up off the bed, opened the door, and left her room.
Her gaze swept around before settling on the rows of food carts moving automatically toward the dining area.
Yay, a buffet!
The new student activity area included dining and entertainment facilities and was bustling with people.
The young people spontaneously formed circles according to their future academies and potential grades. The plutocrat scions were likewise taking the initiative to approach their future classmates.
This was something of a tradition after every unified exam.