Shang left the fourth floor and went to the second one. Soran had said that Shang would find his room near the beginning of the second floor.
When Shang arrived on the second floor, he saw a long hallway with a lot of doors. Shang guessed that the rooms weren't very big based on how close the doors were to each other.
Shang wasn't quite sure which room was supposed to be his, but he knew that he only needed to test his Emblem on the different rooms. The one that reacted to it would be his.
Shang went to the first door on the right and held his Emblem to it.
Click.
And it unlocked.
Shang was surprised when the very first door unlocked, and he looked at his card. 'Did I just get lucky, or is my card defect?'
Shang went to the room beside it and tried his Emblem.
The door didn't react.
Shang tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.
Shang nodded. His Emblem wasn't defective, and the very first room was his. He walked back to his room and opened his door.
"What?" someone said with annoyance as they opened the door where Shang had just been at.
Shang looked over and saw a gruff and muscular boy, probably around his age. At least, that was what Shang was assuming. Those muscles made it hard for Shang to associate this boy with a teenager.
"Sorry, I wasn't sure which my room was, so I tested my card on your door," Shang said with as friendly of a tone as he could. For some reason, trying to be friendly felt very tiring to him.
The boy looked over at Shang with an evaluating expression. "I don't know you. Are you new here?" he asked.
Shang nodded. "Special exam. Joined just today," he answered.
"Oh?" the boy commented with surprise. "What class have you been assigned to?"
"The Caterpillar Class."
When the boy heard that, he frowned. "Welcome to hell, freshwater guppy," the boy said with a snort.
Shang lifted an eyebrow, but the boy went back into his room and closed his door.
For a while, Shang only looked at the closed door. 'Judging by his derisive snort, he probably didn't refer to my class. Is this some kind of stupid bullying?'
'Also, freshwater guppy? Did the guy come from the 50s? Who talks like that?'
'Well, it doesn't really matter. I've been in the wilderness for long enough, and life in the academy should be a joke in comparison.'
With that thought, Shang entered his room and closed the door.
When Shang saw his room, he saw exactly what he had expected.
Small.
There was a narrow bed with some stuff on it, and the remainder of the room was empty.
Literally.
No table, no chairs, no drawers, no wardrobe, nothing.
'They really don't want us to have any distractions. If I were to live here, I would practically be forced into training just due to boredom. Is this solitary confinement?'
First, Shang put everything he was carrying down in his room. Finally, he no longer needed to carry his heavy bag, his gold, and all of these books.
Even better, he didn't even need to carry all of this stuff with him. He could just leave everything in this room from now on.
Ever since Shang had gotten here, his home had been a budget version of a cardboard box that a homeless person would use to live in.
At least a homeless person had a roof over their head with their cardboard box. Shang hadn't even had that.
After Shang stretched, he looked at all the different stuff near his bed.
He saw eight uniforms, all of them green. 'Really, green? Do you have to go that far with the caterpillar thing?'
Beside the eight green uniforms, Shang saw eight bronze uniforms, and beside those were two azure uniforms.
When Shang saw these uniforms, he thought back to this morning. He had seen many students approach the academy with different uniforms. What kind of uniforms had they worn?
A lot of them had worn bronze uniforms.
A couple of the others had been green, blue, red…
There had been a couple of different colors, and Shang wasn't even sure if he had remembered all of them.
Shang only knew two things for sure.
One, bronze was the most common color.
Two, the teachers wore silver.
Shang inspected his uniforms and realized that they were far heavier than he had anticipated. They probably weighed nearly 20 kilograms all on their own!
That was the equivalent of weight a soldier would wear when going to war on Earth!
But this was only a uniform. It didn't even have any special plating or armor on it.
Shang remembered that the silver uniform of the teachers had looked a bit like a fusion between armor and normal clothing while the students had worn these.
Shang looked closer at the green uniform and noticed the shoes.
'Am I a fucking leprechaun?' he thought with a frown when he saw the shoes. 'Wait, are leprechauns even wearing green shoes? Their entire attire is green, so their shoes should also be green, right?'
'Never mind, what are these ridiculous shoes?!' he thought.
The shoes were green and very… naturey? That word worked.
'Well, it doesn't really matter. I won't be the only one walking around in this ridiculous getup,' he thought.
But then, Shang saw the bronze uniform.
It looked good.
On top of that, it had black boots.
Shang looked back at the green uniform.
'Let's read the rulebook first before I decide on what to wear. Maybe these uniforms have a certain purpose,' Shang thought as his eyes went to the next object. 'Anyway, why are there two buckets here?'
Beside the bed, Shang saw two buckets. One was filled with water. One was empty.
Shang looked around the room.
Then, at the empty bucket.
'Am I supposed to shit in that?'
Shang didn't see a toilet, and he didn't see any kind of draining mechanism in the room.
Ever since Shang's body had reached the higher levels of the Soldier Stage, his need to drop a deuce had decreased significantly, but once a week, even he had to press out a stinky one.
For now, Shang decided to wait until he read the rulebook, and his focus went to the waterfilled bucket. 'Is this for washing or drinking? Probably for drinking. After all, how am I supposed to get the water out of the room when there's no drain?'
And that was it. That was everything inside Shang's room.
There wasn't even a big window. The window could barely be called a slit.
pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ It was just an absolutely empty room, even more barren than a prisoner's cell. No wonder most students decided to live in the Farm Line. In the Farm Line, they had nature, bigger rooms, more freedom, and more stuff to do.
After having seen his room, Shang grabbed the rulebook and began to read.
He sat down on his bed, which was way harder than a bed should be. However, Shang didn't really care about the hardness of his bed. He had slept on trees for far too long to care.
Then, Shang opened the rulebook.