1 The Beginning

On the planet Mars, near the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, there is a palace that stretches over nearly 50km. At the entrance, three gigantic words could be seen: "MILKY WAY SCHOOL."

Inside the school, in the largest amphitheater, there were 20,000 young people sitting around, boys and girls who seemed to be 18 years old.

They were wearing school uniforms. Boys with shirts, jackets and pants while girls instead of pants were wearing knee-length skirts. Their shirts were white while their skirts, trousers and jackets were in a navy blue color.

They were all listening carefully to an imposing middle-aged man in a military uniform with dark green color. His shoulder pads were metallic with a glowing dark color. He has dark spiky hair and a light of hope in his green eyes as he looks at the students before him.

He is the headmaster of the school, Lloyd Micht, a respected figure in the army who judges people solely by their actions.

Before being the headmaster of this school, he was a general of the military but since he has been injured, he had preferred to resign teach to the future of mankind. "It's been almost three years since you entered this school, and you will soon graduate," he says. "Let me summarize our current situation just in case."

"In 2028, the Third World War broke out between the USA, Russia, and China, followed by all the other countries in the world. The war lasted for five years and claimed the lives of nearly half the world's population at that time, more than 4 billion lives were lost."

" Since then, all the countries decided to unify as Earthlings with no separate countries, with a president elected every 10 years by the people. The president leads the Earthling council, where the most important people in the government participate to decide the future of the Earth."

"They also decided to change the calendar to the Earthling calendar, which began when Earthling was created. It's been nearly 500 years since then, and the number of spoken languages has greatly decreased. Everyone is now bilingual, but only in two languages: English and French. A lot has changed. Now, children can learn diverse competencies at home with a virtual headset before taking an exam at 15 years old. The exam is considered as difficult as doing a thesis at the beginning of the 21st century."

"After passing the exam, you can choose to work in different fields, but the two most important fields today are researching new technology for space exploration and weapons, and working in the space military to explore new areas for resources, and defend against enemy civilizations. You were admitted to the best school of Earthling, which only studies these two areas, the MILKY WAY SCHOOL."

The headmaster feels proud of this next batch of graduates, as their quality is much higher than before this time, especially the top three students. Among them, the first place holder is on another level. In his career, the headmaster has never seen a genius as frightening as this person. Even when he was working in the military he had see many people who were clearly above the rest but even them couldn't compare to this person.

He looks at a girl sleeping in the first row, Jeanne Leroy. By her appearance, she appeared to be a French descent. She is a rather tall girl, measuring 176cm, with warm beige skin that glows under the merciless sun shining through the window. From a distance, one could think that she is a pretty weak girl, but on closer inspection, her muscles are clearly visible.

She has long, dark brown hair that is smooth, straight, and fine down to her waist, a pronounced philtrum, long eyelashes, and pouty lips that shine in the room. She is an orphan, her parents died while serving in the space military, but orphaned children are given equal opportunities.

This is why she is here, where she has only scored perfect scores in all the tests from the school. She has impressed her teachers so much that, in the first year where courses cover both fields that she has been able to choose doing both at the same time in their second and third year since from the second year forward they had to choose a specialty amongst those two and abandoned the other one.

She is an energetic girl but also calm and composed during important events. She loves sleeping and eating.

To her right was a tall white man with a height of 187cm. He had short brown hair, thin lips, a muscular body, and shiny blue eyes that revealed his strict and decisive temperament, influenced by his military family since childhood.

He always had problems making friends but with Jeanne and another student he had managed to befriend them. He was Arthur Knight, a descendant of the English people and the son of the general in chief of the military. He had immense respect for his father and had been a rival with another student for the second place overall since the first year.

He finished third in the first year and second in the second year, but always second in the military field. He was strict with himself and others and could only relax with his friends. He loved training.

To Jeanne's left was another tall white man with a height of 186cm. He had dark brown wavy hair that fell down to his nape, big lips, and brown eyes that absorbed the light, revealing his calm and patient way of thinking due to his field of work.

He never really had any friend since with his status people always wanted to take advantage of him but with Jeanne and Arthur he has been able to really have a healthy friend relationship with them. He was Leonardo Moretti, but his friends called him Leo. He was a descendant of the Italian people and the son of the general director of scientists. He had immense respect for his father and was Arthur's rival for the second place.

He finished second in the first year and third in the second year, but first in the scientific domain. He was calm, intelligent, but could be hard to understand when he worked. He loved research.

Arthur nudged Jeanne to wake her up. She raised her head and opened her shining brown eyes, emitting an infinite ambitious emotion.

Jeanne had just woken up but was wondering, "I figured out how to solve my problem in my scientific research, but it seems odd that most of the time, when I come up with a solution, it's in my sleep. Well, it must mean my brain works better when I'm asleep."

The headmaster was looking at everyone with a smile on his face. "Now that you will soon graduate, you will go to work in one of our 5 armies, since we have 5 star systems under the Earthling. Each army is in one of them with the Solar System being the strongest. Each army has a science lab, and even if you were in different fields, you could work together," he said calmly.

"Normally, everyone will become a Senior Assistant Researcher or a Captain depending on their domain. But we have an exception this time, Jeanne Leroy!" he shouted.

Everyone was looking at her, and the headmaster continued.

"With your impressive strategies in the army and researches in the science area, with the agreement of a general and a director in the military and scientific fields, you are given a rank above the others. You will become a Major and an Associate Researcher," he said while smiling at her.

Jeanne was shocked but soon became happy because her dream since she was little was to become the best scientist of Earthling.

Suddenly, the headmaster's face changed and became serious.

"Now that all of this is said, and since you will become important people of the Earthling, you need to know something. But I will warn you, you are not allowed to speak of this to anyone other than your coworker, else you and the person you spoke to will be killed. Understand?" he shouted.

Everyone was shocked and scared while looking at him. They had never seen him like that, but they all nodded their heads.

"Good, you must know that we are at odds with the Falan civilization, right?" The students didn't understand.

They knew that the relationship between the Falan and the Earthling was not the best, but their levels of technology were equal, so why did he talk about that. Is there some information that is not known by the population?

"I know what you must be thinking, but this is not the truth at all. Their technology is more advanced, and the only thing preventing them from destroying us is the fact that they are currently at war with another civilization with a similar level of technology."

"However, we have discovered that this war will be finished within the next 50 years. If our scientific knowledge is not at the same level as theirs by that time, we will ultimately be destroyed!"