Chaos

Max found that the days were slow to pass by, especially because of the difficult process of cultivating the Hermes tactic. Every long cultivation session slowly seemed to consume his strength while at the same time he had a paradoxical sense that his body was becoming firmer and tougher. Every morning Max would gloomily gaze at the reducing numbers, gritting his teeth to continue on. At this point, he was all in and he had to practice this tactic no matter what. At the same time, the looming tensions all over the outer planets in the Federation seemed to have increased the temperature in society.

More and more protests were suddenly having outbreaks of violence and people were beginning to disappear. Rumors began to flow that protestors were being secretively abducted and the continued silence of the Federation in response to the protests was even more baffling. Max was unable to understand how the stability of the federation had been shattered with such a swift change. More and more news articles began to pour out about the border planets becoming more violent and anarchic while the core sectors of the Federation still seemed to be rather peaceful and unfazed by the change.

The incident that really put things into perspective for Max was when returning home from school on one of these days, he saw a group of protesters stabbing a police officer and leaving him bleeding to die on the street. He desperately ran towards the cop to help him stop his bleeding while he requested for an ambulance, only for the service to arrive too late.

Max couldn't understand why the Federation was acting in the manner that it did. Moreover, it did almost nothing to stop the rising unrest. The unilateral admissions decisions was only a tipping point of frustrations that overflowed and all manners of grievances that the common people were holding onto for a long time exploded outwards into dramatic violence.

In the matter of a few days violent protests on the planet marched towards the administrative center on the capital in order to vandalize it. This scene was repeatedly playing out in all other boundary planets across the Federation. At the same time, a big news popped out that humanity's neighbors were displaying aggressive fleet movements, as if they were baring their fangs.

The winds of unpredictability made Max feel the need to grow stronger even faster. He continued practicing the Hermes tactic and undergoing rigorous combat training against the school's robotic instructor. Even though his strength gradient was consistently falling, Max could feel an unconditional improvement in hi combat ability. His eyesight and predictive ability of opponent's moves improved dramatically and the defensive strength of his body was dramatically higher that before. He was able to sustain longer battles for much more prolonged periods.

When it came to the broader political situation, there wasn't much that Max could do. So he buckled down and practiced while most others were busy being glued to the television screens or joining the protests. Almost no student on the planet had any hope of reaching a score of ten before the supposed application date which made most of them lose all hope and give up on that avenue.

A month slowly passed by since Max began practicing the Hermes tactic. Every day, a tired Max returning from a heavy practice period at school would walk over to that innocuous looking pawn shop in the hope of seeing the old man. The way things had deteriorated over the past week made Max doubt he would even be able to sit for the exams. The protestors had stormed the administrative headquarters on all border planets only to discover that the administrators had all unilaterally abandoned the planets. Not long after, the galactic internet began to suffer from serious outages. A lot of people realized that the Federation had simply decided to abandon the non-core systems.

During this period Max's own strength finally began to increase in coefficient terms. His grade dropped all the way until it reached 0.9 points. At that moment, Max felt his body was condensed like a neutron star, leaving no room for gaps in his foundation, perfecting every cell membrane and activating every cellular organelle. He stayed at that grade for a good two days before he felt a small spark bloom inside his chest and inside his heart.

A few cells in the heart began to condense under intense pressure and formed a tougher and more hyperactive sub-organ within it. This was the Hermes seed, the special organ that was formed as a result of practicing the Hermes tactic. Currently this seed was like a small glass shard, colorless and unpolished. Under the warrior grade, the goal of the Hermes tactic was to polish the seed until it sparkled like a diamond.

As Max slowly saw his physical score rise in a steady manner, he felt relief that he wasn't tricked by the old man into ruining his cultivation. Although he found that notion inconceivable, the fear still remained at the back of his mind and that knot only just left him now that he was certain that the Hermes tactic did in fact work as intended. It was a few days into the final month before the supposed admissions process would begin, when the school shut down.

The Federation had absolutely shut contact with all peripheral planetary systems and entered a a bizarre hibernation state. The Core systems had set up a blockade and even the galactic internet had now become intermittent and often unavailable. Funds to run these peripheral planets which ran on trade and were not self sustaining quickly dried up and the school which Max went to became a casualty as a result. The violence only grew more intense and lawlessness had taken over the streets.

The people who eschewed the violence tried staying indoors as businesses collapsed overnight and gangs began to take over the society on the planet. Max couldn't believe what he was seeing through the confines of his window and he was too powerless to even protect himself from the crazy hordes out on the streets tearing up Federal property. Gaining admissions was now a distant fantasy no longer achievable.