Chapter 1 Compulsory Conscription

"That is how things are."

"Go back and prepare yourself."

The head teacher, dressed in a black uniform, crossed his hands and glanced at the frail young man in front of him, a trace of sympathy flashing in his eyes.

"I have been… included in the conscription quota?"

Lin Yuan was stunned for a moment.

Having just undergone Transmigration not long ago, he hadn't had time to adapt yet,

he learned of this bolt from the blue news.

In fact, for an ordinary student like Lin Yuan,

conscription was not necessarily a bad thing.

The government had always been generous with its military expenditures.

Even as a conscript, the treatment was quite good.

But that was in times of peace.

Now, news of an alien invasion had arrived from the border star Systems.

Many guessed that the purpose of this conscription was to serve as frontline reserves.

In the year 2,600,000 of the Star Sea Calendar, the Cosmic Human Alliance carried out a fanatical interstellar expansion, occupying galaxy after galaxy, inevitably making contact with other racial civilizations.

Resources were limited; in order to contend for various starry sky resources,

Human Civilization actively initiated a series of conflicts and wars.

Those driven-away alien civilizations

were all watching Human Civilization from the shadows, launching counterattacks at the first opportunity.

"This is troublesome now."

Lin Yuan's mood sank.

He knew very well that although Human Civilization overall

held an absolute upper hand in wars against most alien civilizations,

on local battlefields, things were not always smooth sailing.

The alien civilizations deep within the starry sky were ferocious and violent,

with individuals powerful to an unimaginable degree.

Tearing apart warships with bare hands was definitely no exaggeration.

Battling these aliens, even fully armed human soldiers,

faced an average mortality rate reaching twenty to thirty percent.

Furthermore,

out of confidentiality for the war,

all soldiers participating in the war to exterminate aliens were forbidden to communicate with the outside world.

Local starry sky wars generally took a long time, and lasting a hundred or several hundred years was completely normal.

In other words, Lin Yuan being selected for this conscription quota

meant that even if he survived the confrontation against the aliens,

he would probably spend the rest of his life on a cold outer space warship.

Never able to touch the ground and oceans of a living planet for the rest of his life.

Lin Yuan took a deep breath. "Director, can we discuss this matter? My parents will depend on me to support them in the future, and I also have a younger sister."

The head teacher tapped the table and said solemnly, "Rest assured, by actively responding to the government's conscription policy, your family will be properly settled."

"Your father's current position will rise by one Rank, and your mother will get a decent job in the district."

"As for your sister, all her tuition fees will be waived from now on, and after turning eighteen, she will have a qualification quota for further studies at a Higher Academy."

"…So you've even considered everything after I'm gone?"

Lin Yuan pursed his lips, feeling an indescribable complexity in his heart.

Fairly speaking, these conditions were acceptable.

His father was currently at a job Bottleneck, one that most people couldn't cross over for decades.

His mother was currently unemployed; if she could get a decent job,

it could greatly improve the family's living conditions.

As for his sister's qualification quota for further studies at a Higher Academy, that was something money couldn't buy.

If his sister could go to a Higher Academy for advanced studies, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say her future would be boundless.

But…

But…

But…

Why should all of this be built upon my sacrifice???

Lin Yuan had just transmigrated into this body a few days ago, and although he had fully accepted all the memories,

facing this scene of 'sacrificing one person for the happiness of a family', an indescribable rejection still welled up in his heart.

"I still like life on the planet."

Lin Yuan was silent for a moment and couldn't help speaking up.

After becoming a soldier, everything would be incorporated into militarized management.

By the time he wanted to refuse then, it would be too late.

Although refusing now probably wouldn't be of much use either.

"Student Lin Yuan, serving the government is an obligation we citizens ought to fulfill."

"Besides, this conscription belongs to a mandatory policy. Since it fell on your head, it's useless no matter how much you don't want to go."

"Besides, young man, what's wrong with going out to explore and make a name for yourself? Being able to witness alien races that only appear in textbooks is something ordinary citizens can never do in a lifetime."

"If you can make contributions, you might even be transferred back to serve in the military region in the future."

"This is a rare opportunity that is hard to come by normally."

The head teacher patiently comforted Lin Yuan with a few words.

"However…"

Lin Yuan opened his mouth, wanting to say a few more words.

But the head teacher waved his hand largely. "Alright, you go out first. Spend more time with your family these past few days."

Under the head teacher's gaze, Lin Yuan stood up and left.

Outside the door,

there were more than a dozen students around Lin Yuan's age waiting in line.

After Lin Yuan came out, a student walked in.

"Classmate, the head teacher asked us to come over, what is it about?"

A dark-skinned student hurriedly grabbed Lin Yuan's arm and asked in a low voice.

"You'll know once you go in."

Lin Yuan sighed, ignored him, and walked straight away.

Before seeing the head teacher, Lin Yuan hadn't expected that he would be included in the compulsory conscription quota.

Last week,

Lin Yuan learned about the compulsory conscription news from an authoritative media broadcast on this planet.

It's just that Lin Yuan didn't pay too much attention to it at the time.

The scope of compulsory conscription included the entire Canglan Star and dozens of surrounding living planets.

Canglan Star had a resident population of fifty billion,

while the conscription quota allocated to Canglan Star was no more than several hundred thousand.

From the perspective of probability, the citizen selected by the compulsory conscription was about one in a hundred thousand.

Such a tiny possibility was something Lin Yuan didn't take to heart at all.

Yet reality was full of various surprises,

the original owner had bought all kinds of lotteries for more than ten years and never won once,

but the compulsory conscription quota with a probability of only one in a hundred thousand was hit just like that!

Returning home,

Lin Yuan found that both parents were present, and even his young sister was unusually sitting in her seat.

Drooling at the cake in front of her, yet not daring to reach out her hand.

"Xiaoyuan."

His mother, Lu Qiong, stood up, her gaze looking at Lin Yuan as if she wanted to say something but stopped.

His father, Lin Shoucheng, sat there with a furrowed brow, not knowing what he was thinking.

Clearly, the matter of Lin Yuan being included in the compulsory conscription quota had already reached the home.

In fact, compared to Lin Yuan, his parents knew about this matter even earlier.

"There is still room for maneuver regarding the conscription matter."

"Tomorrow I will go find your cousin, and have him step in to pull some strings."

His father, Lin Shoucheng, spoke.

The cousin he mentioned was a distant relative.

Currently working in a certain research institute, with quite a few connections.

"There is no need."

Lin Yuan shook his head.

The compulsory conscription policy was issued by the government.

Let alone an employee of some obscure research institute.

Even if the Governor of Canglan Star wanted to change it, they would have to pay a huge price.

Of course,

if Lin Yuan really had ties with the Governor,

his name wouldn't even appear on the conscription list in the first place.

Before the conscription list came out, spending money and connections

could hopefully keep one off the list.

But once the list was finalized, getting off it would be difficult.

"I am a bit tired."

"I'll go back to my room first."

Lin Yuan ate a little casually, then stood up and returned to his room.

"How to get out of the compulsory conscription quota."

Lin Yuan lay flat on the soft bed, still holding onto a sliver of hope in his heart.

"Connect to the Goddess of Wisdom."

Pondering for a moment, Lin Yuan sat up.

The Goddess of Wisdom was one of the Three Goddesses of the Cosmic Human Alliance.

It was the core intelligent processing System of the entire civilization, commanding the overall operation of the civilization, responsible for all affairs of every citizen of Human Civilization, strictly monitoring any abnormal behavior to ensure all operations were executed according to the civilization charter.

Over the time span of more than two million years of the Star Sea Calendar, the reason Human Civilization was able to sweep across numerous alien races was inseparable from the contributions of the Three Goddesses.

Without the absolutely selfless handling methods of the Three Goddesses, Cosmic Human Civilization would probably have perished in internal strife long ago; how could it have developed into such a massive, glorious, and brilliant civilization now?

Humans had emotions, could experience cognitive biases towards things, and could be influenced by emotions to make wrong decisions, but the Three Goddesses would not.

The stance of the Three Goddesses was always the entire Human Civilization; there was no selfish motive whatsoever, and they could achieve everlasting fairness.

The Goddess of Wisdom connected by Lin Yuan was naturally not the primary consciousness of the true Goddess of Wisdom.

but a trace of an insignificant sub-consciousness differentiated from it, which was a welfare owned by every citizen.

"Universe First-Class Citizen Lin Yuan, please state your question."

A synthesized electronic voice rang in Lin Yuan's ears along the ubiquitous network.

"I want to know, what are the conditions to be exempted from compulsory conscription?"

Lin Yuan organized his words and asked.

"Compulsory conscription originates from Article 156 of the Charter, used to maintain the stability of Human Civilization and external conquests. Every human citizen has the obligation to cooperate with conscription."

"The following three circumstances can exempt one from compulsory conscription."

"One: Evolvers. Humans walking on the path of evolution are the hope of Human Civilization and possess the privilege to refuse the compulsory conscription policy."

Evolver. Lin Yuan's expression was complex.

In the long Star Sea Calendar, Evolvers were no secret.

There were many ways to become an Evolver,

mainly divided into unique-type Evolvers and universal-type Evolvers.

Unique-type Evolvers were easy to understand—they were Evolvers that could not be popularized or replicated.

For example, certain evolutionary families passed down through Bloodline belonged to this category.

There were also some individuals who underwent a non-replicable special process, mutated, and possessed extraordinary power.

They also belonged to unique-type Evolvers.

As for universal-type Evolvers, they were humans who stepped onto a stable evolutionary path.

For instance, Gene Warriors who consumed expensive Gene Potion and stepped into the evolutionary path.

As well as Great Masters of the mind, through cruel training and torture,

cooperating with specific Cultivate methods, created into killing machines and so on.

Any stable evolutionary pathway was extremely precious,

being precious knowledge explored with their lives by countless predecessors and Seniors.

"I should just be an ordinary person."

Lin Yuan sighed.

Ordinary people meant having no affinity with unique-type Evolvers.

If Lin Yuan wanted to become an Evolver, he could only consider stable evolutionary pathways.

It's just that the latter was not a matter of overnight; a few evolutionary pathways like Gene Warriors could indeed be achieved quickly.

But that was built on the foundation of expensive Gene Potion and other treasures,

in the Cosmic Human Alliance, Gene Potion belonged to strictly controlled products.

ordinary people simply lacked the channels and qualifications to purchase them.

To take ten thousand steps back, even if the Gene Potion was placed in front of Lin Yuan, he couldn't afford it.

Just as Lin Yuan was pondering,

the cold, indifferent synthesized electronic voice sounded again.

"Two: Universe Fourth-Class Citizens will possess an exemption privilege every ten years, which can offset compulsory conscription."

"Fourth-Class Citizen."

Lin Yuan's mouth twitched slightly.

In the first year of the Star Sea Calendar, Human Civilization established the citizen Rank System.

Citizens were divided into twelve Ranks; the higher the citizen Rank, the greater the privileges they possessed.

And the method to elevate citizen Rank was contributions to Human Civilization.

This point was supervised and implemented by the Three Goddesses with absolute fairness.

Therefore,

elevating citizen Rank was exceptionally difficult.

Almost ninety-nine percent of citizens were merely First-Class Citizens from birth to death.

Of course, accompanying that were the numerous welfares of high-Rank citizens.

Starting from Fourth-Class Citizens, every ten years they would possess an exemption privilege.

They could pardon penalties of citizens below serious criminals.

Compulsory conscription was also among them.

However,

relying on the Lin family's current connections, where could they find a Fourth-Class Citizen to know?

You must know that currently throughout the entire Canglan Star, with a resident population of fifty billion,

there was only one whose citizen Rank reached the fourth class.

That was the Governor of Canglan Star.

A big figure who held the life and death of tens of billions of citizens in his hands.

"What about the third circumstance?"

Lin Yuan couldn't help asking.

"Three: Make contributions to Human Civilization and elevate to a Second-Class Citizen, and you can be exempted from compulsory conscription."

The synthesized electronic voice came again.

Which made Lin Yuan fall into silence once more.

A Second-Class Citizen, even if not an Evolver, had a status no lower than most Evolvers.

The privileges possessed by Evolvers naturally belonged to Second-Class Citizens as well.

However,

this was even harder than becoming an Evolver.

At least Lin Yuan knew how to become an Evolver, even if he couldn't do it himself.

But elevating to a Second-Class Citizen required contributions that could be recognized by the Goddess of Wisdom, and he had completely no clue at all.

"Specifically, what actions can be considered as contributions?"

Lin Yuan tentatively asked.

"Providing a brand-new evolutionary pathway will grant a massive amount of contributions."

The synthesized electronic voice sounded.

Vaguely, Lin Yuan realized

that the Goddess of Wisdom attached great importance to brand-new evolutionary pathways.

Otherwise, it wouldn't use massive contributions as a reward.

"Let's think of other ways."

Lin Yuan rubbed his brow; the three circumstances provided by the Goddess of Wisdom

not a single one was something Lin Yuan could accomplish currently.

Especially the last one, providing a brand-new evolutionary pathway?

If Lin Yuan had this, he would have long since promoted to a Second-Class Citizen; would he still be waiting to be forcibly conscripted?

Unconsciously, it was already midnight.

Lin Yuan also gradually fell into a deep sleep.

Suddenly,

just at this moment,

a strange suction force pulled Lin Yuan's mind towards his mind.

Deep within his mind, a magnificent and towering light door appeared.

Inside the door was filled with a light blue light screen.

Rippling continuously like water waves.

"What is this?"

Lin Yuan was abruptly startled.

Then he startled awake from his dream.

"It's not a dream."

The awakened Lin Yuan could still perceive the light door deep within his mind.

At the same time,

streams of illusory text flashed beneath Lin Yuan's field of vision.

[Name: Lin Yuan]

[Identity: Master of the Gate of Myriad Realms]

[Realm: None]

[Talent: None]

[Divine Ability: None]