The airship began to lose altitude significantly at dawn. The destination is coming.
A ray of morning light came in and shone on Qianye's face. In fact, he woke up a long time ago, jumped out of the cab lightly, walked to the porthole and looked out.
In front of him was the sloping land, and the steel city that submerged the horizon seemed to turn upside down at any moment.
The most eye-catching thing in the field of vision is a tall tower located in the center of the city. The whole body is silvery white and dazzling. The base of the tower was enormous, covering three or four city blocks.
That was the first time Qianye saw the heart of the human city, the Perpetual Tower. The cheapest black stone, the cheapest steel, built a miraculous perpetual tower, running day and night, supplying the energy for the entire city to run.
The cargo airship slowly passed by the southwest of the city, and the number of airships in the airspace in front gradually increased, with different styles. Among them, several were in the style of light boats, with exquisite and complicated bow reliefs.
Sure enough, there were too many airships applying to enter the port, and they had to line up, and the cargo ships began to circle in the sky. From the driver's swearing and complaints, Qianye learned that in addition to public passenger postboats and cargo boats, there are a lot of private airships today, and the family emblems embossed on the bows are all symbols of monstrous power and massive wealth .
Xiangyang is one of the permanent places where the imperial army recruits troops, and it attracts thousands of young people from all directions at this time of year. There are a lot of people this year, and there are many nobles among them, because there are two behemoths added to the list of recruits: Broken Wing Angel and Red Scorpion.
The Great Qin Empire attached great importance to military exploits, even if it was a powerful family, it was a shortcut for the children of the clan to serve in the army. Being able to enter the special legion is almost synonymous with soaring into the sky.
The Broken Wing Angel and the Red Scorpion have always been among the top five among the hundreds of special legions in the empire. It was their recruitment that shocked many powerful families, and they did not hesitate to send the best children of the family to participate in the assessment.
The floating airship carried by Qianye has obtained a relatively forward entry position because it belongs to the military. He didn't feel the grand occasion of conscription day until he landed.
The airship base should be just one of the traffic distribution centers, but it was already crowded with people of all kinds in the morning, most of them were young people in their twenties, all of them were confident, energetic, and full of hope. Outside the base, there were already long queues of various land vehicles.
Shi Yan started the heavy-duty truck, even among the many vehicles, it was still a big guy, roaring out from the military passage. Xiangyang is the third largest military city in the entire empire. Except for half of the city's blocks being military-controlled areas, military-only passages have been set up for both ground roads and airways.
Qianye kept staring out the window. The route they were driving was a military zone. Compared with the simplicity of the Huangquan training camp, which only focused on practicality and not aesthetics, the architectural style on both sides increased a lot of decorative sense, but it still did not lose its toughness and majesty.
The new barracks is at the end of the road, and you can see from a distance that the long registration queue has already passed through the arch.
Among the noisy crowd, Shi Yan said loudly to the officer in charge of the registration: "I want to go directly to the review area!"
He showed his identity certificate, took Qianye directly into the camp, went through the registration procedures for him, and then handed Qianye a copper nameplate representing his identity. The words Lin Qianye were mechanically stamped on the nameplate.
Looking at the word Lin on the nameplate, Qianye felt an indescribable feeling in his heart. For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged. The word Lin was not only imprinted on the nameplate, but also imprinted in his heart.
Next, Qianye was brought into the inner camp by a soldier. The inner camp was the assessment area, and Shi Yan couldn't enter it either.
It wasn't until he entered the inner camp that Qianye realized that the military camp was much bigger than it looked from the outside.
Thousands of young people who have passed the basic quality screening were arranged into various barracks according to the numbers on the nameplates. Tomorrow is the day for the formal assessment, and today they will rest for a day in order to perform at their best.
Many young people come here by car or even passenger boat. These public transportation tools used by most civilians are all driven by Blackstone steam power, and the common characteristics are noise and bumps. Such long-distance travel is very strenuous and has a great impact on their physical fitness, which will naturally affect their test performance.
In terms of assessments involving the army, the empire has always been very fair, and rarely gives special consideration to the children of powerful families.
This is also the foundation of the empire. Otherwise, it would be a disaster for an incompetent dude to lead troops into the battlefield. The dark race kills people, but it will never care about your status.
There are three items in the imperial recruitment exam, namely the original force, fighting skills and the use of firearms.
Candidates had dinner and were driven back to the dormitory to go to bed. Qianye was already used to obeying orders, went to bed as soon as the light was turned off, and soon fell into a deep sleep. But the other candidates in the dormitory were excited and nervous, unable to fall asleep. Two young people from the same remote city chatted quietly.
After an unknown amount of time, Qianye, who was already sound asleep, suddenly felt palpitations, and immediately opened his eyes. There was no movement on the surface of his body, but in fact all the muscles were tense, ready to violently kill people at any time, and his eyes just opened a slit, quietly observing the surroundings.
At this moment, Qianye was shocked to find a middle-aged man's face appeared in the small window of the door at some point, looking at everyone in the room expressionlessly!
But apart from Qianye, no one else noticed this middle-aged man! One examinee obviously glanced over the window, but he didn't seem to see it at all.
The middle-aged man suddenly glanced at Qianye, then turned and left.
It wasn't until after he disappeared that Qianye recovered from the shock. But this time, he couldn't fall asleep anyway.
After a while, an unattractive middle-aged man left this dormitory building, and then entered another one. When he walked through all the dormitory buildings, on the thick list in his hand, most of the names were marked with an X, and only a few names were marked with numbers, ranging from 1 to 9.
Next to Qianye's name was an asterisk. In the thick list, only fourteen names have this mark next to their names.
Qianye didn't know that he passed the first level unintentionally.
In the early morning of the next day, the shrill bell woke all the candidates from their sleep. Qianye rushed out of the barracks with the flow of people and stood in line on the playground. Candidates here are divided into three groups, and then take different exams.
Qianye's group will first take the shooting test of the original force guns.
The test-takers were allotted special force guns for the exam, the power of which was greatly reduced, and the consumption of force was also reduced accordingly. Even a first-level soldier can shoot six or seven shots in a row. Only then can they complete the full range of exam subjects. If it is replaced with a regular force gun, even the most basic first-class firearm, I am afraid that even Qianye's thick and condensed force far surpassing his peers will not be able to complete all the shooting subjects.
After inspecting the Force gun, Qianye stood in front of the firing line together with nine other candidates. Ten fixed targets rose a hundred meters away, all in the image of a Nerubian with a human face.
While familiarizing himself with the weapon and waiting for the firing order, a young man on Qianye's left glanced at him, suddenly grabbed his crotch, whistled again, and said, "Boy, have you ever played with a gun?"
Coupled with his winking expression, this is a pun and an extremely obscene provocation.
Qianye glanced at him, and said lightly, "I haven't played it before, but I've cracked a few, do you want to try it?"
The young man suddenly laughed exaggeratedly, and said, "I'm really scared! Boy, do you know who I am, and dare to talk to me like this?"
"No matter who you are, it won't increase your score by one point, will it?" Qianye asked calmly.
The young man's face was flushed immediately, and he said angrily: "Arrogant, boy! But don't talk nonsense, the imperial family, they are so shameless before they reach this level, they will tamper with this kind of exam! Since I don't like you, Of course you have to win clean and beautiful!"
"Win me? You have no game." Qianye was still that indifferent that could drive people mad with anger.
The young man's face immediately sank, "Then come to gamble?"
Qianye raised his eyebrows and said, "What are you betting on? I'm too young to be interested!"
The young man reached out and tore off the necklace around his neck, and handed it to Qianye. The necklace was silver, and at the end hung a thumb-sized square with an eagle's head engraved on it.
The young man said: "Just use the result of this exam to bet! If I lose, this thing is yours!"
Qianye stretched out his hand, twisted the small sign curiously, and asked, "How do I use this thing?" From his tone, it was obvious that he had already regarded the necklace as something in his pocket.
The young man was very angry at the moment, and said with a sneer, "Do you really think that you have won?"
Qianye nodded seriously: "Of course." Then he asked again, "How do you use this thing?"
The young man was so angry that his teeth were itchy, and he said angrily: "This is my token! You can make a request to my family with this thing. As long as it is within the scope of my authority, no matter what the request is, it can be fulfilled." you!"
At this time, other candidates also noticed the dispute between the two, and they all looked over. They all noticed the eagle's head on the square card, and someone's face changed immediately, obviously recognizing the emblem.
"It turned out to be from the Wei family!" Someone whispered.
Hearing the whispers from the people around him, the young man immediately cheered up, raised his chin, and looked like a little cock.
But Qianye didn't have the reaction he expected, he just let out an oh, and then looked suspiciously at the young man. The meaning couldn't be more obvious: just like you, how big is the so-called authority
The young man got angry again and shouted: "Is it a bet or not?"
Qianye finally nodded: "It's a bet."
The young man stopped talking too much, but picked up the force gun and waited quietly for the exam to start.
It's exam time. After a whistle sounded, all ten candidates raised their force guns and began to aim carefully.
The shooting accuracy of most force guns is not very good. It is easy to hit a target 100 meters away, but it is very difficult to hit the bullseye. You can get 100 rings in the bullseye area, but only the size of a fingernail. If it falls outside the bullseye, there will be 80 rings at most. All types of shooting targets are scored in this way.
Not long after, gunshots rang out. A thin red light hit the target, the metal target wobbled, and a small hole was opened in the upper part of the target that was one person tall. This gun is powerful, but its accuracy is not very good, it can barely hit the target.
"20 rings!" The examiner reported the target loudly, and another examiner wrote down the score.
The gunshots rang out in order, and all eight people hit the target, but the highest one only had 50 rings. In the blink of an eye, the only ones who didn't shoot were the young man and Qianye.
The young man has been staring at him for a long time, while Qianye has been watching him from the side. Under Qianye's gaze, the young man always felt a little restless. The moment he pulled the trigger, he immediately screamed in his heart!