The things in his mind seemed to start churning again. Strangely, Henry Brooks found that whenever he went running, he would recall all sorts of strange things. These things seemed to seep out from Henry Brooks’s mind bit by bit, always lacking continuous memory, yet always bringing Henry Brooks some terrifying thoughts.

Entwining vines, upright tree trunks, fragile grass, ferocious predators, gentle lambs, cunning foxes, swarming mosquitoes and flies—various memories rushed into his mind. Henry Brooks could no longer believe whether he had been hypnotized or had truly experienced these things.

However, some of them were quite interesting, things that a modern person like him, who had lived in a closed-off city since childhood, could never understand or witness. The novelty and excitement also opened the eyes of this guy who had never really “seen the world.”

Just as he was immersed in a world he had never seen or imagined, a commotion broke out in the team. Making noise was forbidden while running, but now it was a complete mess.

“Finally finished running, I’m exhausted!”

“I can’t take it anymore, punished like this on the second day!”

“If I’d known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have signed up!”

...

“That guy yesterday ran ten laps and came down as if nothing happened—what a monster!”

Henry Brooks heard this last sentence. Although everyone had only been together for a day and probably couldn’t remember all the names yet, being called a monster was still quite unpleasant. He shot a cold glance in the direction of the speaker; it seemed to be just two other yellow-skinned guys, already panting heavily from exhaustion.

As he looked over, the chatter on that side quieted down. Strange, how could these people be so weak? They’d only run three laps and were already in such a state. But then again, he’d never run like this before either—could he be a natural-born running talent?

Breakfast lasted only thirty seconds, with everyone utterly exhausted. Or rather, Instructor Hack only gave them thirty seconds to stuff breakfast into their stomachs. Then, with a single command, he put an end to the slow chewing of most of these modern city kids.

The team that gathered again was clearly less energetic than in the morning. The new recruits, dragged out on empty stomachs once already, all looked listless. This time, Instructor Hack told them to return to the dormitory, tidy up their clothes, and assemble again.

It seemed the morning’s punishment was very effective—a real lesson learned. This time, in the team of over forty people, not a single one wore the wrong clothes or left anything behind that shouldn’t be lost.

The orderly team appeared on the field again, and the cold Instructor Hack stood opposite them, beginning his lecture.

“I know you’re thinking, we’re here to be warship landing infantry, to be space soldiers—why do we have to do all this unnecessary training? Let me tell you, don’t think that just because we’re in the interstellar era, everything can be solved by warships and small fire-support ships.”

This was exactly what most people were confused about. Before anyone dared to ask, Instructor Hack had already brought it up, clearly for a reason. However, for Henry Brooks, this wasn’t a problem. Yesterday’s lesson had taught him that the army really was as the legends said—new recruits had to shed a layer of skin.

It was said that infantry was the toughest branch, so the training was also the strictest. This was what Henry Brooks had heard from the uncle next door, who had once served in the army, before he enlisted. The most comfortable job was intelligence analysis. But even they had a period of intense physical training to adapt to the frequent acceleration of interstellar warship takeoffs and landings.

Of course, compared to regular army training, that was nothing. Although the air force and space force both had even stricter physical requirements, real planetary landings still depended on these warship landing infantry. On strange and desolate planets, a few warships alone weren’t enough to fully occupy them—unless you didn’t want the planet and used the ultimate weapons on the warships instead.

Most of the time, it was the infantry who completed these planetary occupations. Henry Brooks had already known this before enlisting. But first, he didn’t have strong connections or a background to get into the most comfortable intelligence unit in the whole army; second, the space force and air force both selected only those with outstanding physical conditions from among the infantry. Even to become a pilot of those advanced warships, you had to first pass basic infantry training.

As for the navy, it had now merged with the space force. Unless there was a specific mission to be carried out in the ocean, conventional ships would be dispatched; most of the time, even the navy traveled in small transport ships flying around. Usually, in these cases, the air force was responsible for escort.

The difference between the air force and the space force was that one usually operated within a planet’s atmosphere, while the other was active in space. From a safety perspective, the space force was more dangerous. Moreover, every time they went on duty, it would be at least half a year before they could set foot on real ground. The rest of the time was spent in the artificial gravity environment of a space warship.

Relatively speaking, although infantry had it tough, at least most of the time they were still “down to earth.” Compared to those space force members who were often floating, they were much more fortunate.