“What on earth is going on? Where’s the original model?”

“I don’t know either, it was supposed to be in this truck.”

“Damn it, why did you use this method to transport the original model out?”

“If we didn’t mix it in with the free distribution of Type A armors, how could we have gotten it past the institute’s layers of security checks?”

……

September 1st was the start of the school year for the Federation’s secondary schools on the colony planet Giant 6. Before this date, every new student received a free evolutionary armor seed distributed by the federal government. The tragedy that occurred under the cover of night existed only in the Federal Investigation Bureau’s confidential files.

Two days later, the Thunderfire Research Institute discovered that the priceless original model armor seed was missing, and Dean Rex, who personally oversaw its safekeeping, had been killed. The entire upper echelon of the Federation was shaken.

As humanity explored the universe, they encountered all kinds of challenges: mysterious extraterrestrial species, particle turbulence in interstellar routes, and the harsh survival conditions on alien planets—any one of these could easily destroy the fragile human body. Although manned spacecraft had been launched long ago, the academic community agreed that the true interstellar era began with the advent of evolutionary battle armors.

Almost all types of evolutionary battle armors in the Federation were developed from the original model, whose importance was self-evident.

To recover the precious original model armor seed, seven out of ten A-class agents from the Federal Investigation Bureau, responsible for internal confidential affairs, were dispatched to Giant 6. Yet after three months of secret investigation, they still found nothing.

Chapter 001: Armor Fusion

In a small room of Apartment 63, Government Relief Community No. 41, after the electronic clock chimed eight times, Henry Bennett suddenly leapt up from the narrow bed and hurriedly began to get dressed and put on his shoes. “Oh no, oh no, today is the first day of middle school—I absolutely can’t be late…”

Working too late last night had caused him to oversleep today. Glancing at the clock, there was no time for breakfast. Henry Bennett quickly washed up, grabbed his already-packed schoolbag, and dashed out the door to school.

Henry Bennett was slightly better off than the other residents here—he was a “quasi-citizen,” while most people living here were just commoners.

With the explosion of biochemical technology in the era of interstellar exploration, humanity faced too many threats from both within and without. The more advanced technology became, the more dangerous humans realized their situation was.

Since the birth of the “perfect race,” which fused white and black genes, power in the Human Federation had gradually concentrated in the hands of the privileged class represented by this “perfect race.” The vast number of “natives” who had never undergone genetic modification became the ordinary lower class of society.

The basic value of today’s society is: only by making corresponding contributions can one enjoy corresponding rights. When humanity faced the various threats of mysterious extraterrestrial species, the weak bodies of the ordinary class could not adapt to the high-intensity interstellar wars. While the privileged class protected the natives, they also stripped them of their rights, demoting them from citizens to commoners.

To regain their rights, one had to rely on their own efforts and make contributions to the Federation—rising from commoner to quasi-citizen, and then from quasi-citizen to citizen—in order to obtain the basic rights that everyone enjoyed thousands of years ago.

The reason Henry Bennett was able to become a quasi-citizen was a painful story he was unwilling to mention in front of others.

On the colony planet Giant 6, there were four secondary schools: Provence Federal Secondary School, Amisius Federal Secondary School, Aquilia Federal Secondary School, and St. George Federal Secondary School.

According to the Federal Commoner Household Registration Law, Henry Bennett was assigned to Amisius Federal Secondary School, the one closest to his relief community. Taking the public rail car from the relief community and then transferring to a large mid-range aircraft, it took forty minutes to reach the school.

Amisius Federal Secondary School ranked in the middle among the Federation’s 160 secondary schools—a rather unremarkable school.

By the school gate stood a statue of the school’s founder, the Honorable Second-Class Citizen Amisius. For Henry Bennett, who was currently only a quasi-citizen and aspired to become a full citizen, the privileged class of citizens seemed utterly out of reach.

Youth is the age of dreams. Even though he had gone to bed late last night, the thought of receiving an armor seed today and fusing to become an evolutionary warrior made Henry Bennett so excited he couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning in bed, his mind was filled with fantasies about the future. The interstellar network was full of countless fantasy novels of this kind: an unremarkable boy, through his own efforts, evolves his battle armor to a high level and ultimately becomes a powerful interstellar warrior. In key battles between the Federation army and alien creatures, he saves the entire army single-handedly and is finally awarded the Federation’s highest honor, the “Human Hero Medal,” returning home in glory…

The more Henry Bennett thought about it, the more excited he became. Unconsciously, he imagined himself as the protagonist of such a novel. Though his body was exhausted, he felt no sleepiness at all, and only dozed off in the early hours of the morning.

He barely made it to school on time.