The students began summoning their own evolution armors according to the method taught by the teacher. The mantras they set for themselves were truly all sorts of strange things, summoning their armors under all kinds of names. Some even thought of their great-grandfather’s left foot, because back in the day, the old man had been a volunteer explorer—and a lucky one at that—who discovered a resource planet. His left foot was the first human foot to step onto that planet. To reward his achievements, the federal government granted citizenship to his entire family.

“In the name of peace, burst forth!” Sitting in front of Henry Bennett, Sophia was a clever girl. After trying three times, she successfully summoned her own armor. A pure white light wrapped around her palm, spiraling upward. The moment the light solidified, a silvery, translucent crystal armor glove appeared on her hand, still connected to half an arm guard, protecting her forearm.

“Ah!” Sophia cried out in delight, hugging her armor and examining it over and over. She was the first student in the class to successfully summon her own armor. Ms. McLean was overjoyed: summoning her armor in just three tries—he had indeed not misjudged her; this student truly had great potential. Ms. McLean walked over quickly, placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder, and asked her all sorts of questions, appearing extremely kind.

Henry Bennett stretched his right hand diagonally upward to his side, and began the summoning according to the method the teacher had just explained. But the armor energy that should have arisen did not appear.

“What’s going on?” he muttered to himself and tried again. But the armor energy that others could summon with ease simply would not respond to Henry Bennett.

While Ms. McLean was patiently guiding Sophia, he glanced absentmindedly at Henry Bennett, seeing this student—who had no cultivation value—blushing furiously, yet still unable to summon his evolution armor. He was not surprised, and turned back to continue explaining to Sophia some things to pay attention to during the growth phase of the evolution armor.

On the first day of the new semester, Henry Bennett was the only one in the class who failed to summon his armor. The first day’s lesson was only about fusing with the armor; there were no other classes scheduled. Seeing that all the students except Henry Bennett had summoned their armors, Ms. McLean said, “Alright, this student can try a few more times at home. Don’t worry, you’ll summon it one day. Class dismissed.”

That’s right, you’ll summon it one day. Henry Bennett was really discouraged by this sentence. He left the classroom in low spirits, but was stopped by Sophia: “Hey.” Henry Bennett turned his head and saw her bright, sparkling eyes again. When she smiled, her eyes curved into two beautiful crescent moons: “Don’t lose heart. My dad says it’s normal not to be able to summon your armor the first time. Hmm, I think the federal store sells armor growth boosters. Why don’t you buy a few bottles and give it a try…”

Henry Bennett smiled bitterly in his heart. He worked part-time at a private pharmacy to earn a living—how could he not know the price of those armor growth boosters? The savings his parents left were limited and had to be kept for future university tuition. Every day after school, he worked three hours at the pharmacy, earning just enough to scrape by. How could he afford to buy any armor growth boosters?

“Thank you!” No matter what, the little girl’s intentions were kind, and Henry Bennett, being awkward, seemed only able to express his gratitude with these words. Sophia gave him an encouraging smile, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and left.

Perhaps it was the effect of the bright, pure smile from the girl in the front row, but Henry Bennett’s mood improved a lot, and the frustration from failing to summon his evolution armor dissipated considerably.

When he got home, Henry Bennett took a ready-to-eat energy meal from the fridge, heated it in the microwave, added some seasoning, and mixed it into a bowl of paste-like stuff to fill his stomach.

After eating, Henry Bennett sat at the table, stretched out his right hand, raised it diagonally forward, recalled the key points Ms. McLean had taught, relaxed his body, focused his mind, and imagined his own evolution armor.

But the energy surge described by Ms. McLean was still nowhere to be found. Henry Bennett grew anxious: What was going on? His goal was to become a citizen. His parents had paved the first step toward citizenship for him with their lives. If he just worked a little harder, he would surely become a citizen. But was he really going to stumble at the very first step of fusing with the armor?

Henry Bennett was unwilling to give up. He kept experimenting over and over, following Ms. McLean’s method. After dozens of tries, he finally gave up in despair. There wasn’t the slightest fluctuation of energy in his body. No matter how hard he concentrated, there was no response at all from the area around his heart.

Henry Bennett turned on the family’s old bio-supercomputer, connected to the interstellar network, and tried to look up the secret to summoning an evolution armor for the first time.

There were many posts discussing this online, but the content was all much the same. After searching for two hours, he still couldn’t find anything similar to his own situation. Generally speaking, within an hour of fusion, one should definitely be able to summon the armor. If it took longer than an hour, it meant you would never be able to summon the armor in this lifetime—you had fused with a dead armor seed.