78: Chapter 78 A Rare Experience!! Real Driving

The students of North Star Central Military Academy soon realized that this diplomatic trip was far more than just sitting by a panoramic window and admiring the sea of stars.

As potential officer candidates for the future Federal Army, the Academy had clear “internship” requirements for this trip—the journey was the classroom, and the fleet was the campus.

Thus, in the first two days after arriving at the purple subtlety and settling in, the senior students, led by Chu Xinghe, mercilessly dragged the freshmen, who had just recovered from the shock of the spaceport, into a “hellish training” of warship operations.

"Wake up! Do you think coming to the flagship is for sightseeing?"

Chu Xinghe's usually mild face now wore the expression of a standard “demon instructor.” He stood in a multi-functional tactical simulation room, behind him holographic projections continuously switched between warship structural diagrams, firepower distribution maps, and dense data streams.

"Move! Fire! Command! Damage Control! Escape!—These are the five basic skills you must master on board in the future. Miss one, and when the Zerg arrive, you won't even know how to die meaningfully!"

Over the next forty-eight hours, the freshmen experienced what it meant to be “bombarded with information saturation.”

From the working principles of the warp drive and emergency shutdown procedures, to how to avoid energy backflow zones during main cannon charging;

From the basic composition of the command chain and battlefield information filtering, to how to use emergency gel to temporarily seal a ruptured pipe within thirty seconds;

There were even drills that made one's scalp tingle just by listening, such as “how to use personal armor thrusters to find the nearest escape pod in intricate passages when the hull is breached, gravity fails, and oxygen leaks.”

"Boring! Tedious! Anti-human!"

On the third morning, Chen Yao, with two obvious dark circles under her eyes, viciously jabbed a fork into a tender, juicy steak in the dining hall (there was all kinds of food on the warship, both synthesized and farmed), as if it were Chu Xinghe’s face.

"We're here for an exchange visit, not a recruit training camp!"

Chen Jingyi, sitting opposite her, quietly cut her own meal without looking up: "The process is quite reasonable. If the basics aren't solid, subsequent combat drills are prone to accidents."

"That's the thought of a mech-head like you!" Chen Yao wailed and collapsed onto the table. "I want to fly a fighter jet! I want to speed through real space! Not just press buttons on a simulator screen!"

This sentence struck Chen Yao herself like a bolt of lightning.

She suddenly sat up straight, her eyes frighteningly bright.

"That's right... why not?"

Five minutes later, Chen Yao's figure had disappeared from the dining hall entrance. Her terminal's communication interface was displaying a contact labeled “Uncle Zhao (Fleet Commander).”

Another half hour later, Chu Xinghe's personal terminal played a special notification sound. He looked down, and the “demon instructor” expression on his face instantly disintegrated, replaced by one of resignation.

He looked up at the freshmen in the dining hall, whose eyes were dull and whose souls seemed to have been drained, and cleared his throat.

"Attention, everyone."

All eyes focused on him, most with weary vigilance—what were they going to learn now?

"Given the excellent progress in the preliminary theoretical training," Chu Xinghe said, without changing his expression, an obvious lie, "to enhance practical combat perception, with special approval from Fleet Command, this morning's training subject has been adjusted to: Linx A-type multi-functional fighter, actual machine formation adaptive piloting."

Dead silence.

Then—

"Ooooh—!!!"

"Hooray!!"

"Flying a real fighter jet?! Am I dreaming?!"

The dining hall was instantly overturned by cheers; the freshmen, who had been half-dead moments ago, now looked like they had been injected with stimulants, their eyes shining.

Li Yuan almost had his drink knocked over by an excited classmate next to him. He held his cup and exchanged glances with Laya and Elia beside him.

Laya had already excitedly grabbed his arm: "Brother Li Yuan! Can we really fly? Real piloting must be different from the simulator!"

Although Elia still maintained a cool expression, her ice-blue eyes also sparkled with clear anticipation.

Chu Xinghe gestured for everyone to be quiet, but a smile played at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't get too excited too soon. Actual flight and the simulator have similarities, but the differences are quite significant—especially given our current location."

He pointed to the panoramic window on the side of the dining hall. Outside the window was an endless torrent of escort fleets, and further in the distance, the two Sovereign-class warships, like metal planets.

---

Half an hour later, the fighter hangar.

Linx A-type multi-functional fighter jets were neatly arranged on magnetic berths. Their streamlined silver-gray fuselage had iconic twin-barreled plasma cannon pods suspended under both wings, and a rotatable light rapid-fire particle cannon below the nose.

"Two people per group, free pairing. Piloting permissions have been sent to your terminals; after boarding, follow the instructions to complete the startup self-check."

Chu Xinghe stood at the front of the line, wearing a standard pilot's pressure suit, his tone returning to calm professionalism.

"Remember, this is adaptive piloting, not for you to perform stunts! There are two main objectives: first, to experience the difference between a real space environment and a simulator; second, to learn basic formation keeping in a complex warp field. Understood?"

"Understood!!"

The response was exceptionally loud.

Li Yuan naturally partnered with Laya. Elia originally wanted to join them, but seeing Laya already naturally linking arms with Li Yuan and saying, "Let's choose that one with the red stripes!"

in a tone that gave no opportunity for outsiders, she slightly pouted and turned to Senior Student Chen Yao.

Luo Lan walked straight to Chu Xinghe, his eyes gleaming with eagerness: "Senior Brother, after you lead the flight, how about you give me a few pointers?"

Chu Xinghe glanced at him, a half-smile on his face: "Confident?"

"I don't believe anyone's piloting skills are better than mine." Luo Lan's confidence was as dazzling as ever.

"Alright," Chu Xinghe nodded readily, "Once everyone has adapted enough."

Soon, one after another, Lin Xiao Fighter Jet jets, guided by tractor beams, slid out from the purple subtlety's ventral launch channels, like fledglings leaving their nest, plunging into the vast and strange starry canvas.

"Whoa—!!!"

An unknown cry of surprise instantly came through Li Yuan's headphones.

Almost the instant the fighter detached from the mother ship's internal stable force field, an indescribable sense of imbalance gripped his senses.

Outside the window, the stars were no longer clear points of light, but blurred streaks of light, stretched, twisted, and shaking. On the fighter's instrument panel, the space curvature readings jumped frantically. Although the auxiliary AI continuously fine-tuned the attitude engines for compensation, the sensation of the entire space subtly “swaying” and “wrinkling” was still clearly transmitted.

"Master! This... this is so strange!" Laya's voice came from the co-pilot's seat, with a slightly dizzy nasal tone.

Li Yuan himself felt a bit nauseous, but he forced himself to endure it, gripping the control stick: "Steady, don't stare at nearby objects, look at a distant reference point... like that xihe-class over there!"

“Oh oh...”

The public communication channel was already in chaos.