58: The clone team attacks and enters the starry sky for the first time

“Congratulations, Lin Chen, on passing the assessment! You have provisionally qualified to travel the stars. May your martial path be prosperous!”

Lin Chen’s assessment was complete once he formed his Heart of Fire and condensed his first strand of Human Fire.

Upon leaving the independent assessment space, Lin Chen was not returned to his class but was directly teleported to the Martial Arts Plaza.

The time each student took to pass the assessment varied, and Lin Chen was among the earlier group, with fewer than a hundred students passing before him.

As soon as he landed in the Martial Arts Plaza, he received a message from his instructor, Yu Ziqi. The message was simple, stating only two things and including a piece of intelligence.

First, a half-month holiday, after which he would automatically gain sophomore status and be free to arrange his sophomore goals; the academy would not enforce requirements, as long as he didn't die.

Second, whether to participate in the welcoming activities; those interested could sign up, while those not interested could ignore it.

The final piece of intelligence was detailed information about the academy’s legacy squads. Those interested could refer to it and proceed to interview with their preferred squad.

Lin Chen decided to look into these squads.

Huddling for warmth is human nature. He would first understand the situation before deciding whether to join a squad.

Regardless, his main body would not leave the academy before graduation. All external matters would be handled by his clones; even visiting home would be done by a clone.

Sixth Academy is one of the safest places for the entire human race. Even Blue Star's ancestral land is frequently affected by the descent of dimensional fragments, leading to city-destroying events.

The birthplace of a race is destined to face many calamities; this is a rule of the universe.

Dimensional fragments descend upon Blue Star because humanity bears the task of developing and expanding the universe. The descent of dimensional fragments is beyond human control, so in terms of safety, Sixth Academy is even better than Blue Star.

At this stage, Sixth Academy has over four thousand recorded squads. This number is not large; on the contrary, it is very small.

The other nine academies have squad numbers ranging from tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand, which clearly shows that Sixth Academy students truly embody the lone wolf, old fox mentality, preferring to handle everything themselves.

Though called squads, they eventually evolve into loose, club-like organizations.

The academy is merely a starting point. Most students who leave the academy do not forget their roots, and if they encounter juniors from the same academy or squad, they will offer some assistance.

Every long-standing legacy squad has a network of connections spanning across the Federation, and even when traveling through the stars, they possess immense prestige.

The over four thousand squads do not have precise hierarchical divisions, but it is an undeniable fact that the older a squad's legacy, the greater its backing, with only a few squads managing to defy this rule.

Lin Chen recalled Senior Wang Teng, who guided him upon his enrollment a year ago, mentioning the Ziyang Squad. At the time, he had intended to research the Ziyang Squad through the academy's internal network.

Later, due to matters concerning his clones, he forgot about it, but now he could catch up.

Opening the information file sent by his instructor, he searched for Ziyang Squad, and soon, the detailed information about Ziyang Squad appeared before him.

Ziyang Squad, a legacy of 4536 years, currently has 880,000 registered members. Its founder, True God Ziyang, is still alive and active in the Void World, dedicated to fighting Void Creatures.

Currently, the squad has 32 active students: 15 sophomores and 17 juniors, forming five fixed teams. (It is assumed the protagonist is already in the sophomore stage.)

“A senior who became a god over four thousand years ago, that’s something.”

Among the over four thousand squads in the academy, only about three hundred have a living deity as their backer; the rest have a maximum cultivation level of Ninth Order Gods.

Lin Chen was not in a hurry and continued to examine information on other squads, mainly to understand what joining a squad entailed, whether it would conflict with his habits, and if there would be any internal strife.

Those who huddle for warmth are all allies, and those who form factions will inevitably side with their own and oppose others. This is an unchangeable social rule.

A martial artist's speed in reviewing information is very fast. In just half an hour, he had reviewed the information of over four thousand squads.

After reviewing the information, he abandoned the idea of joining a squad for warmth. Being a lone wolf was quite good too.

Joining a squad and enjoying its benefits naturally required some sacrifice, such as completing a fixed number of missions.

These missions originated from graduated seniors.

Half were welfare missions, purely for sending academic credits, used to cultivate juniors.

Half were high-risk, high-reward adventure missions, with a minimum of over ten thousand academic credits.

For example, the Ziyang Squad had a mission where a senior who graduated two thousand years ago posted an item retrieval mission.

The mission required exploring an ancient ruin restricted to Tier Seven entry, and bringing out a fragment-type treasure from within. This was just the explicit requirement.

The implicit requirement was that only creatures with complete souls could enter, which limited it to the student's main body entering.

The mission reward was very high, a full fifty thousand academic credits. If a five-person squad divided it, each person would get ten thousand academic credits, and the mission could be completed in just a few days.

This type of mission clearly went against Lin Chen's original intention, but these types of missions were precisely the most numerous.

Because the soul holds a significant proportion in the extraordinary system, many areas require creatures with souls to enter. Such ruins often carry great risks, but also immense rewards.

If Lin Chen joined a squad, he naturally couldn't act independently. He would need to consider the thoughts of the other squad members. When people huddle together for warmth and progress together, they become one. He couldn't retreat every time he encountered a mission requiring his main body.

Enjoying benefits comes at a cost; equal exchange is fair.

Rather than becoming estranged from other squad members later due to such issues, it was better to choose to be a lone wolf from the start and not join a squad.

Thus, Lin Chen sent a message to Senior Wang Teng, subtly indicating that he had chosen the lone wolf path and would not join a squad, expressing gratitude for the invitation but also regret.

Wang Teng had already anticipated this and replied that they would have opportunities to cooperate in the future.

No expectations, no disappointments.

Every year, the academy has over a hundred thousand new students, and squads of Ziyang Squad's caliber only gain a dozen new members, which shows how high the proportion of lone wolves is in the academy.

Students who apply to Sixth Academy naturally aren't too keen on forming teams.

Back in his dorm, Lin Chen prepared to sleep.

He wanted to rest well during his half-month vacation.

The vacation quickly ended, and Lin Chen was fully recharged, bursting with a fervent passion for cultivation.

His four clones also recovered their energy; as long as he didn't make them study intensely again, they were willing to do anything.

So, Lin Chen was going to start making money.

He only had a few dozen academic credits left, and less than ten billion federal currency. Resources for normal cultivation were almost depleted, so he urgently needed to make money.

With less than half a year left until his talent took effect, his resource consumption rate would only accelerate, so making money was currently the top priority.

On the academy's internal network, Lin Chen entered the Mission Hall.

In the Mission Hall, countless mission light clusters floated in the air. The light clusters appeared and disappeared periodically; appearing meant new missions, disappearing meant missions were accepted.

Of the missions provided by the academy, a quarter required the main body to go, while the remaining three-quarters did not require the main body to accompany; clones could also complete these missions.

The academy understood the students' tendencies very well.

Therefore, when designing missions, they were mostly designed so that clones could complete them. Missions requiring the main body generally did not involve the main body directly joining the mission, but rather staying hidden nearby to control the clones.

Given the characteristics of Sixth Academy students, students from Sixth Academy are the main force for exploring the stars, venturing deep into foreign lands to gather intelligence or cause destruction. Even if they die, it is only a clone that dies, with little impact on the main body.

Lin Chen reviewed a large number of missions and finally cautiously selected a small mission to let his clones practice and get a preliminary understanding of the level of the outside stars.

Mission Name: Eliminate the Rogue Star Pirate Group entrenched on the planet at coordinates ****

Mission Requirement: Kill on sight

Mission Items: None

Mission Reward: 1000 academic credits

Mission Description: A star pirate group that harassed the border legion three years ago, then barely escaped from a mid-Tier Eight martial artist. Their numbers are estimated to be between thirty thousand and eighty thousand, with the strongest expected to be Tier Eight, not ruling out the possibility of them summoning “evil god” projections.

A 1000 academic credit mission was indeed a small mission, perfectly suited for the clones to go out and test the waters of the stars.

Four clones with the same combat strength as the main body dealing with a star pirate group that barely escaped from a mid-Tier Eight martial artist was not overestimating themselves; rather, it left a large margin for error.

Given the vastness of space, the academy provided each student with a small battleship whose only advantage was speed.

The small battleship was twenty meters long, five meters wide, and five meters high. Its internal space had been expanded to about three hundred square meters, and it could enter subspace navigation within three seconds.

Relying on the small battleship, traversing a star system only took about a month, with a speed comparable to a Demigod Peak martial artist.

Lin Chen watched his clones depart, completely unconcerned about their safety. If they encountered an irresistible danger, they would die themselves and absolutely would not implicate his main body.

If clones were not meant to die, then their existence would be meaningless.