Acceptance

It was almost inevitable that Daniel would be accepted to the EU Military Academy. Though, what surprised the person in question was the speed at which he received his final confirmation.

Early in the morning, just after he woke up from his slumber within the guest room of Jake's apartment, Daniel found an urgent notification flashing on the top right corner of his smart glasses, signalling that he should read the notification as soon as possible. The second he willed Minerva to open up the notification, a cheerful music started playing from the small electromagnetic mic on the earpiece at the very back of the glasses directly vibrating against Daniel's inner ear.

"Congratulations to Candidate Daniel 0777! After serious consideration by the Admissions Board of the EUMA, we are glad to inform you of your selection and admission towards the elite class within the military academy."

After the cheerful female voice resounded within Daniel's ears, a long list of terms and conditions directly scrolled through the glass frame. With permission, Daniel allowed Minerva to directly transfer the terms into his brain through the biochip by stimulation the neruons within his hippocampus, directly allowing him to receive everything instantly. After taking a good look at all the rules and procedures, Daniel finally clicked on the 'Accept' button at the very end of the invitation notification.

The invitation is then sent towards his guardian, Eric, for approval. Afterwards, both of them would need to go physically towards the academy and certify his acceptance again to prevent any mistakes and on the occassion that the acceptance came from a hacked computer. Though, with the firewall being controlled by an artificial intelligence whose processing speed is way faster than a normal human hacker, it is almost impossible for one to hack into the mainframe of GARVIN, the successor to the internet. Therefore, the physical confirmation is mostly a courtesy meeting where parents would meet up with the teachers and ask any questions bothering them while they have their DNA taken for re-confirmation.

Within a minute, Daniel received another notification stating that his guardian have also approved his acceptance. It was then that Minerva automatically arranged their appointment with the admissions office based on everyone's availability, placing the appointment directly on Daniel's virtual calendar.

"Would you like to update your profile and turn the status 'Prospective Student at EU Military Academy' to public?" A robotic voice then asked within Daniel's biochip.

"No, leave it to friends only like I did before with my previous school." Daniel replied promptly. "Oh and don't notify my friends either."

Since the EUMA is a prestigious school, Daniel thought it might cause a huge fuss if people in his school were to find out about his 'sudden transfer'. After all, he had only told Jake about this, so it would definitely come as quite a surprise to the rest of his classmates.

Strangely enough, before another minute has even passed by, a certain other teenager living in the same apartment barged in unannounced into Daniel's room, shouting in an excited tone, "Hey! You finally got accepted! Good for you, bud!"

"Can you at least knock the door before coming in?" Daniel rolled his eyes when he saw how excited the other was to the point where if someone were to see their situation, they would have thought that Jake were the one being accepted to the EUMA instead.

"Whatever, it's my house anyways, I can do whatever I want." Jake waved his hand dismissively before directly throwing himself onto the bed right next to Daniel, causing the whole bed to bounce. "So, are we going to celebrate or not?"

"So that was your intention all along." Daniel sneered within his mind while staying emotionless on the outside. He gave a rather nonchalant look and spoke naturally, "What's there to celebrate about? I'm just transferring schools that's all. Beisdes, celebrating should be the last thing on your mind when your best friend is about to leave you."

"You make it sound like we're breaking up or something." Jake rolled his eyes, patting lightly on Daniel's back. "Although my dating profile says I'm a 2 on the Kinsey scale, it doesn't mean I will just casually fall in love with every friend I make along the way."

"With your tendency to prefer 2D waifus and husbandos over the 3D, I wonder if you even have the ability to fall in love with anyone in real life." Daniel jokingly said with a disdainful look.

"What! How dare you!" Jake placed his palm on his chest and fell back in an exaggerated manner, as though he had just had a heart attack, "My waifu-tan is totally 3D within the VR world! Also, I'm definitely sure I can get attracted to real people! Just look at all my favorite p*rn actresses! See here--"

"Don't even try and show those R-18 stuff in front of me!" Daniel shouted in disgust, directly pushing Jake away as the latter was about to open a tab on his holographic watch and go onto a rather well-known website. "I thought your father banned you from using them using his parental controls!"

"He simply banned me from using appliances, not my computer! Besides, if he really forbids me from even watching p*rn, I'll straight up embezzle all his money and run over to the Moon to apply for political asylum!" Jake replied with a similarly loud voice.

"Do you think the Moon, a corporate paradise, would even accept you when your father is the CEO of one of the largest subsidiaries under the T7 Group?" Daniel retorted, completing crushing Jake's dream of running off on his own.

After realizing his blunder, he again made an exaggerated look of despair before he 'desperately' pulled against Daniel's arm and cried, "Daniel! You're going to lend me your computer if my dad really bans me from watching p*rn, right? You will, right?!"

"Don't you dare try and touch my computer!" Daniel sneered in reply, "Do you think I'll let you taint my search history with all your degeneracy?"

***

After bickering for quite a while, both teenagers have long since become famished. Since they did not want to spend time to cook physically, the both of them simply ate a few nutrition tablets and called it a day. Of course, Jake wanted to order takeout from a nearby restaurant only to be rejected by Daniel due to the latter's thrifty nature. Though, since Jake is also sick of eating all those high-class food his father would send him from time to time, he himself had no qualms swallowing those tasteless things instead.

"I heard that people from the previous centuries got to eat non-GMO foods that were naturall grown in the wild." Jake couldn't help but comment as he stared awkwardly at the several oval-shaped tablets in front of him on the dining table. "I wonder how that tastes like?"

"With all those artificial flavorings they put in their food, it's a wonder that humanity didn't straight up go extinct back then." Daniel, the pessimistic individual as usual, sneered in return. "If you really are curious for those things, why don't you ask your dad to get you some the next time he goes to the Moon for a work trip?"

"Peh!" Jake spat, looking quite disdainful. "Those corporate bastards up there are all stinking liars and will say whatever they want just to earn an extra quick buck! I'll not be surprised if those purported 'natural meat' they sell were actually made from human beings instead! After all, what's more natural than human meat in this day and age?"

"I think you've been watching that classic sci-fi movie a little too much, Jake." Daniel raised an eyebrow and said. "Compared to the Martians, at least these Lunarians have a sense of integrity."

Jake shrugged as he placed the last nutrition tablet in his mouth before chugging a glass of water in one go as though wanting to shove the table down to his stomach as fast as he could. Then, he lazily gave out a yawn before heading back to his room so that he could get himself 'acquainted' with his waifus again within his VR pod.

Observing his best friend's unhealthy addiction, Daniel could not help but shake his head in disappointment. However, since everyone had their own hobbies, he did not want to overstep his boundaries and interfere with the other's life too much. However, there are times where Daniel straight up had the urge to shove Jake onto a basketball court and force him to play basketball until the latter died of exhaustion. At least that would make him more productive and less addicted to games.

Meanwhile, Daniel returned to his guest room and continued to practice his psychokinetic skills while revising and doing his homework virtually on his holographic computer. Within seconds, the noisy apartment had turned completely silent and stayed like that for the entire morning and on to the afternoon.