James Davidson

"So, why are you still following me." Arnold said, sounding irritated while furrowing his brows. He was walking across the courtyard from the dormitory building back towards the student center where he was supposed to get his timetable.

"Oh. Today is also my first day, so I also need to go to the student center." James explained, grinning with an oblivious smile. Arnold siomply raised his eyebrows and didn't say anything.

*

Apparently the reason why James had approached Arnold and sat next to him on the table was because most of the other people that were eating within the canteen already seemed to have their own friends to talk to. James did not really want to barge in on them, so at first he simply decided he would find an empty table and eat there. However, to his surprise, he found another student that was about his own age that sat alone on a table at the corner of the canteen. If he had not passed by, James would have definitely glossed over Arnold, who seemed to have an atmosphere that forced people to stay away.

James, however, was not one to stay back simply because a person looked like he wanted to be alone. As it was his first day of school, he wanted to make friends as soon as possible so he directly approached Arnold enthusiastically, much to Arnold's dismay.

Since it was still early in the morning, that lights that were operated by electricity was not allowed to be turned on yet until 7am. This was to limit the energy usage within the whole level and prevent a waste of resources. Therefore, most of the campus was still dark except for some areas where the lights were already on due to certain exemptions from the 7am rule.

The street lights were operated at a minimal level, cauisng the entire place to look quite dim. One must be careful when walking forwards to prevent themselves from tripping.

James apparently came prepared and took out a flashlight from his backpack. Therefore, Arnold simply had no choice but to follow along with James, since he had no excuse to keep him at a distance. Obviously, Arnold could not reveal to James the fact that one of his eyes were operated by an AI and therefore had night vision. Besides, since it was also Arnold's first day, he decided that he might as well gain a friend. No harm would come from this anyways, except for being constantly badgered by his conversations.

James, who thought that the journey was quite quiet, starting speaking, "So, which Level are you from?" He asked with bluntness.

"Level 1." Arnold replied curtly. It seemed that both of them had not noticed that James' question could be construed as quite inappropriate in etiquette.

James pointed at himself and grinned, "I came from Level 3."

Arnold reacted contrary to what James thought. He thought that Arnold would suddenly feel deterred or ambivalent from speaking to a person that was in a lower level from him. However, Arnold completely did not put it to mind and treated James the same way as he did before -- cold and slightly distant.

James secretly gave a sigh of relief. His roomate coincidentally was also a scholarship student. However, as he was from Level 2, he seemed to be quite prejudiced against people from the lower levels. He simply snorted and ignored him when James announced that he was from a level lower than him, giving James quite an unpleasant feeling. In fact, he thought that he might need to apply for a change in roommate if their relationship continued to be this sour.

James put aside his difficulties with his roomates and simply continued with some small talk. Most of the time it was James speaking while Arnold was nodding along, acting as though he was listening.

*

It did not take long for the two teenagers to arrive at the student center. As Arnold was scouted and interviewed by Captain King, who was part of the Special Forces, it seemed that the faculty had chosen a whole lot of combat-oriented classes for him. Meaning he would need to spend most of his time in and around the B Building. Meanwhile, James, who came here on an academic scholarship, was given mostly academic courses within the natural sciences, with some training on the side.

As their faculties were in completely different buildings, James was forced to say farawell to Arnold and head to class. Of course, before leaving, James insisted on adding Arnold as a friend by swiping his wrist against Arnold's. Arnold tapped on his wrist to accept his friend request and simply left without saying anything more.

*

The first class that Arnold had was in the B Building. To be precise, it was actually not within the building itself but on the large field that was behind the building.

The course was target training. As Arnold had just transferred, he had to stand in front of the whole class beside the teacher to introduce himself. "Troy Anderson. Pleased to meet you."

The greeting that came from Arnold's mouth was curt. It was slightly polite while distant at the same time, as if saying that people should not come near him. The teacher asked Arnold to sit down on the ground at the back row behind the other students and started his lecture.

As the lecture was outdoors, everyone had to sit on the artificial flooring while listening to the teacher. After the teacher finished speaking, everyone went over to a basket that was located on the two sides next to the students and grabbed a handgun.

The bullet rounds within the handguns were fake. However, once a student pulled a trigger, the computer will analyze the trajectory of the completely imagined bullet to calculate where the bullet will land within the target. Then, the coumputer will automatically display the section where the bullet would've landed and the score that the student got.

As Arnold could use his artificial eye as a scope for his weapon, while Andy could basically guide Arnold as to where to shoot, Arnold had to purposely ask Andy to adjust the scope so that he would purposely not get perfect at every single shot. Of course, he had still gotten quite a high mark.

The teacher, seeing that the new student was a high achiever, immediately smiled. Some of the students started giving friendly faces to Arnold as well. It seemed that merit counts as everything within this military academy.

After target practice was the military strategy course. Since this was a course that did not require any physical activity, the course was held as a lesson in one of the classrooms within the lower floors of the B Building. Due to the fact that Arnold had never touched anything close to military strategy before, he had no idea what was happening as the teacher started his lecure.

When Arnold was in the wilderness acting as a gofer for a mercenary group, most of the planning and the killings were done by the others. Later, when he got his new body and came back with a rich second-generation kid in tow, he simply played it by ear and took everything as they come. After all, he completely did not plan for a mutated bird to almost destroy his kidney and intestines, nor did he plan for the zombie wave that happened when he was returning back to the base.

While the teacher was lecturing, everyone was surprisingly quite disciplined and never got distracted, staring towards the blackboard at the front while jotting down notes at the same time within their holographic computers.

As Arnold obviously did not have money to buy such technology, he had to rely on the chat function of his wrist-chip and basically write down everything his teacher said as a text message. Afterwards, Arnold would need to memorize all the information before deleting the message. Luckily, with the help of Andy, he could simply get Andy to remember all the information for him, making this one of the rare times where Andy had actually been useful.

There were only 2 morning classes per day. Therefore, after the strategy course ended, everyone headed off for lunch. It seemed that since everyone was still unfamiliar with Arnold, nobody took the initiative to invite him to eat with them. Arnold actually thought this would be better since he did not like interacting with other people at all.

However, his dreams of being alone were shattered when he saw James came into his class to find him.

"How did you know that I was here?" Arnold asked with a slightly hostile voice.

James thought that Arnold was suspecting that he was stalking him and hurriedly explained, "I accidentally sneaked a peak at your timetable at the student center." He raised his hands up, acting innocent. Arnold raised an eyebrow and said, "And you could remember what was written on the timetable after one look?"

James puffed up his chest and gave a proud smile, "I have eidectic memory!"