Shao Xuan could never have imagined that a recruit would have the guts to swindle him out of an energy core on their very first meeting. 

“It’s alright,” he said, taking Han Qingyu’s words at face value. “Don’t be nervous. When we get up there, I’ll only defend; there’ll be no attacking. I’ll take three strikes from you. Just give it everything you’ve got.”

The warmly smiling Gold Erasers captain had no idea that one of his own men, Captain Qin, was about to be stuck, unable to claim a full blue crystal energy core as an official expense. His choice not to speak up in the moment meant that bringing it up later would only make things awkward. It would be far too easy for the platoon leader and the rest of the platoon to realize that he had actually chickened out, so Captain Qin had no choice but to swallow the loss.

With that, on the day before the Class of 1990 recruits graduated, at eight twenty on the morning of the recruitment...