Fifty years ago the sky over Great Xia split open.
Monsters came out of the rifts. They devoured cities, drowned communications and within a few months had pushed humanity back behind the walls of the last fortified districts. Ordinary weapons did them almost no harm. It looked as though the war would be over before people understood who they were fighting.
And then the first awakened appeared.
Women gained the ability to transform into living war machines. Their bodies grew armour; reactors and weapon modules formed inside them. Men awakened the psychic power of commanders. It linked a man's mind to a mecha-maiden, quickened her reactions and let her use force she could not have withstood alone.
So a new order came into being.
Mecha-maidens and commanders were graded by rank, from F to SSS. The strongest were given housing, medicine and an education in the Upper City. The weak stayed below, under the permanent smog of the factories. Officially this was called natural selection. In the Lower City they used a different word: a sentence.
On the day of his awakening Fan Yuan stood in front of the whole school and looked at the grey letter above the measuring crystal.
The ceremony was broadcast to a large screen in the yard. Parents from the Lower City were not let inside: the guards cited a shortage of seats, though half the row of honour stood empty for guests from above. Chi Yuyan's mother waited beyond the railing, holding a paper bag of pastries. She had made them for two families, certain that a new life began today.
Every high awakening was met with music. Corporate invitations, scholarships and housing options appeared above the stage. After a D rank there was a short round of applause. After an E the screen simply switched to the next pupil.
Fan Yuan watched children being priced in a matter of seconds. One boy got an A, and a representative of the Upper City led him away from his parents at once to sign a contract. A girl with an E came down from the stage alone: the teachers were already preparing the equipment for the next test.
When Fan Yuan's name was called, even the headmaster rose. The best pupil of the Lower City was supposed to be the proof that the system was fair.
That was exactly why the grey letter frightened them more than an ordinary failure would have.
F.
The hall went so quiet that he could hear the hum of the old ventilation.
His teacher looked away first. That very morning he had been saying that the best pupil in the school would certainly get a place at the First Academy. Now what stood in front of him was not a future hero but a useless commander, on whom the state would not spend even a basic nutrient solution.
Somebody in the back rows snorted with laughter.
"So much for the top pupil."
"All those years playing the genius, and he awakens an F-rank."
"With a talent like that he can go and count porters at the front."
Fan Yuan did not turn round. In eighteen years he had grown used to hungry winters, to water on a timetable and to the fact that children from the Lower City were tested twice before their result was accepted. But even so, something inside him went empty.
He had promised his mother he would get out and up.
Before she died she had held his hand and told him that poverty was no disgrace. The disgrace was letting other people decide what you were allowed to become. Fan Yuan remembered those words better than he remembered her face. Now it turned out that a promise was not enough. The system had already put its seal on him.
Until his awakening he had believed the system could be beaten by hard work. He got up before dawn, ran along the treatment canals, then worked in the school workshop before lessons began. For the right to use the training simulator he repaired other people's practice modules. While the children of the Upper City bought memory enhancers, he copied out old manuals by hand, because the screen of the terminal at home had cracked.
He sat every examination first.
Every instructor repeated the same thing: talent knows no origin. If Fan Yuan were good enough, Great Xia would be certain to open its doors to him.
Now the door had slammed shut over a single letter.
He remembered a pupil from the previous year's intake. That boy had awakened an E rank, but he came from an official's family. The school found him a rare stabiliser, reviewed the result and raised the grade to C. Fan Yuan's mother had died because the Lower City clinic never received a consignment of that same drug.
So it had not been a shortage of resources. They were simply distributed so that nobody at the top would ever feel a shortage at all.
"Don't block the aisle," a school attendant threw at him. "Next."
Fan Yuan stepped down from the platform. On the next crystal a D flared up, and the pupil's family wept with joy. A D meant a modest scholarship, a place in a dormitory and a chance of living to old age. An F did not give even that.
And still Fan Yuan made himself congratulate the boy. He refused to become the kind of man who hates people as poor as himself for a stroke of luck.
Liu Ruyan stopped beside him. Only a week ago she had called him the most dependable person in the school and insisted they would face any rank together. The letter B shone above her wrist. That was enough to earn an invitation from the Han Corporation.
"Fan Yuan, let us end this here," she said, trying not to meet his eyes. "We belong to different worlds now."
"Different worlds?"
"Do not make me repeat myself. I cannot tie my future to an F-rank commander."
Han Qingting, heir to one of the Upper City families, immediately came over to her. There was not a speck on his uniform, as though smog and dust parted before his family crest.
"Ruyan made herself perfectly clear," he remarked. "An intelligent man should know his place."
Fan Yuan looked at their clasped hands and suddenly felt not pain, but relief.
"Thank you," he said.
Liu Ruyan faltered.
"For what?"
"For not pretending any longer."
He left the grounds to the laughter of the pupils. The headmaster caught up with him at the exit and informed him curtly that he would have to vacate his place in the dormitory by evening. By law, a pupil with F-rank talent had no claim on school resources. If Fan Yuan failed to find a commander willing to mentor him by the end of the week, he would be assigned to compulsory labour.
Labour assignments in the Lower City rarely lasted longer than three years. After that, the lungs gave out from the metal dust.
Fan Yuan stepped into the yard, where cold rain struck the concrete. He clenched his fists and, for the first time in years, admitted to himself that he feared not death, but a meaningless life.
At that moment, golden lines flared before his eyes.
"Will incompatible with assigned fate detected."
"Psychic source assessment complete."
"SSS inheritance: the Eternal War God."
Fan Yuan blinked. The words remained.
The system reported that the letter F was not a measure of power, but a sign of a sealed channel. His source lay beyond the scale of the school's crystal. An ordinary commander could form only one permanent contract. The Eternal War God had no such limitation. He could discover hidden mecha-maiden bloodlines, restore damaged sources and create the Eternal Legion.
"Initial ability: True Sight."
"Initial task: prove your right to command."
At the same time, the lights went out at Great Xia's central military headquarters. On commanding general Huangfu's wall, an ancient emblem that had lain dormant for almost a hundred years came to life.
A dragon encircled by a golden ring opened its eyes.
"The inheritance has chosen its bearer," the old commanding general whispered.
The officers thought they had misheard him.
Huangfu was already issuing orders: pull the files of everyone who had awakened that day, find the person with an anomalous result and initiate Operation Dragon Shield. No one outside the room was to learn that a commander bearing the highest title had appeared in Great Xia.
Meanwhile, the school had begun the open trial for mecha-maidens. Nalan Qingxin, heiress to the largest industrial conglomerate, was demonstrating her Nine-Tailed Fox. Nine tails of energy slashed through the air, leaving white trails behind them. The training drones did not even have time to bring their weapons to bear.
The headmaster noticed that Fan Yuan had returned and frowned.
"You should be packing your things."
"First I will take the practical trial."
"With whom? No mecha-maiden will form a contract with an F-rank commander."
Fan Yuan turned his gaze to Nalan Qingxin. True Sight revealed her rank, her concealed modules and a weak point in her defensive circuit. The Nine-Tailed Fox possessed great speed and illusory decoys. Its only liabilities were its mistress's overconfidence and her unstable deep synchronisation.
Nalan Qingxin felt his gaze.
"What are you staring at?"
"I want to take the trial with your mecha-form."
The laughter around the grounds grew louder.
"You cannot even form a contract," she said. "Or has that F-rank damaged your mind?"
"Afraid?"
That was enough.
Nalan Qingxin jumped down from the platform and stopped inches from him.
"Fine. If you manage to enter my psychic circuit, I will admit defeat and grant you one demand. If you fail, you will kneel and declare aloud that the people of the Lower City were born to serve us."
"No."
"Changed your mind already?"
"The loser acknowledges the winner as master of the trial. No humiliating the whole Lower City. Each of us answers for our own words."
Nalan Qingxin smirked and held out her hand.
"Agreed."
Her mecha-form closed around Fan Yuan's consciousness. The defences of her psychic circuit immediately tried to expel another's psychic power. For an ordinary novice, the trial would have ended there. But the golden current passed through the barrier as though it were made of mist.
Fan Yuan saw the world through her eyes.
He felt the nine tails as extensions of his own arms. Heard Nalan Qingxin's breathing falter.
"Impossible," she whispered. "You are not registered in my source."
"Then your source can do more than you were told."
He raised the power by a single increment.
The Nine-Tailed Fox vanished and reappeared behind the last training drone. Nine targets fell to a single sweeping turn. White light flooded the testing ground.
Nalan Qingxin tried to regain control, but her command dissolved in Fan Yuan's psychic field. He caused her no pain. He was simply showing her the difference between the power she had considered her limit and what her mecha-form was truly capable of.
After thirty seconds, he broke the connection.
Nalan Qingxin dropped to one knee. Not because he ordered her to. Her legs had given way after the overload.
"Say it," Fan Yuan reminded her.
She raised her head. Anger and confusion filled her eyes.
"You won… master of the trial."
Emergency lights came on in the upper gallery. Technicians called a medical team, while the headmaster demanded that the results be sealed at once. In his view, the school crystal could not be wrong. Therefore Fan Yuan must somehow have tampered with Nalan Qingxin's equipment.
"Test me again," Fan Yuan demanded.
They returned him to the platform. The new crystal displayed the same grey F. The headmaster was already looking triumphant when cracks spread across the device and its light went out.
The third crystal met the same fate.
"Enough," Nalan Qingxin said, rising without the medics' help. "He did not tamper with my mecha-form."
"Miss Nalan, the overload may have affected your memory."
"I remember every second perfectly. He entered through my psychic circuit and commanded the Nine-Tailed Fox better than I did. If your instruments cannot measure that, the fault lies with your instruments."
Admitting it was harder for her than losing. The Upper City pupils might still have called Fan Yuan a fraud, but they did not dare argue with the heiress to a conglomerate.
Han Qingting approached the shattered platform.
"One lucky trick changes nothing. Without a permanent contract, you are nobody."
Fan Yuan activated True Sight. Parameters appeared above Han Qingting: C-rank commander, source enhanced by two prohibited implants, compatibility with his own mecha-maiden below forty per cent.
"Would you like to test that?"
Han Qingting took an involuntary step back, then caught himself.
"I do not fight rubbish."
"A convenient rule. Especially when the rubbish challenges you in front of witnesses."
Liu Ruyan caught her new companion by the sleeve and led him away. At the exit, she looked back at Fan Yuan. For the first time, doubt flickered in her eyes, but he had already turned away.
The system displayed a report on his first victory. For revealing the potential of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Fan Yuan received an expanded psychic field and an emergency repair module. The next line made him frown.
"Degree of subjugation of Nalan Qingxin: twelve per cent."
"Delete that metric."
"Command not recognised."
"She is not a trophy."
"Recommendation: incorporate compatible participant into legion."
Fan Yuan closed the interface by force of will. However ancient and powerful the inheritance might be, that did not make it infallible.
In later years, Fan Yuan would remember that first dispute with the system more than once. Even then, amid the shattered crystals and exultant cries, he understood the price absolute power might demand.
The laughter on the grounds had vanished.
The headmaster had already received a secure call from military headquarters. A minute later, his expression changed. Fan Yuan's place in the dormitory, access to the examinations and full monthly ration were restored. No one explained why the law that had seemed unassailable had suddenly ceased to apply.
Ten minutes later, commanding general Huangfu entered the yard.
He dispensed with ceremony. He surveyed the shattered targets, let his gaze rest on Fan Yuan and suggested they take a walk.
"The military is prepared to provide you with an S-rank mecha-maiden, an officer's commission and a home in the Upper City," he said without preamble. "In return, you will serve under my command."
"Why such generosity for an F-rank?"
"We both know the crystal was wrong."
Fan Yuan did not reply.
"The country is at war," Huangfu continued. "The people need a symbol."
"The Lower City does not need another symbol living above. It needs medicine, clean water and the right to learn."
"That requires power."
"Which is why I will not surrender mine to you."
Huangfu studied him for a long moment, then unexpectedly laughed.
"Very well. Refuse. But remember: power without allies turns a man into a convenient target."
Before leaving, the commanding general handed him a thin metal card.
"This is neither an order nor a bribe. It contains the coordinates of a restricted military archive. If you want to learn why your inheritance is called a title, come alone."
"And if I do not?"
"Then at least do not reveal the full extent of your power to people you do not trust."
Fan Yuan turned the card between his fingers.
"You did not see anything close to all of it either."
Huangfu's smile broadened.
"Good answer."
That night, Fan Yuan went to the archive after all. Not for the military. He could not put the name of the inheritance that had flared before his eyes out of his mind. The archive lay beneath an old memorial to the defenders of Great Xia. The terminal recognised the metal card and opened a single declassified record.
In the recording, dozens of mecha-maidens stood around an unknown commander. Golden threads stretched between them. Not one bore a family crest, but each had the emblem of a dragon within a ring on her armour.
"Final formation of the Eternal Legion. Twelfth year after the Rift," read the caption.
The next file had been erased. Only a warning remained in the access log: project terminated by order of the Council of Founders; all information concerning multiple synchronisation deemed a threat to the order of the state.
Fan Yuan read the wording twice.
Not a threat to security. A threat to the order.
He removed the card and heard the system's voice.
"Archive data incomplete. Expand legion to restore inheritance."
"Who erased the rest?"
No answer came.
"And why do you call people members of the legion before they have agreed?"
Again, the system was silent.
That silence troubled Fan Yuan more than any warning could have.
The next day, Fan Yuan discovered whom the system considered his first ally.
Chi Yuyan stood at the school gates with a cardboard box in her arms. Inside were two changes of clothes, a textbook and a photograph of her mother. She too had been given an F-rank at her awakening. The headmaster had already signed her expulsion order.
Chi Yuyan smiled when she saw Fan Yuan, but her eyes were red.
"It is all right. I will find work."
"At the recycling plant?"
"They take people without a rank."
"And in two years you will not be able to breathe."
"At least my mother will receive my compensation."
Her mother had once shared food with Fan Yuan even when there was nothing to spare in their own home. That alone was enough to keep him from abandoning Chi Yuyan in trouble. But True Sight showed him far more.
Beneath the grey shell of Chi Yuyan's source, a golden dragon slept. Its body was bound by nine seals, and beside it glimmered the mark of SSS-rank.
"Dragon Emperor bloodline detected."
"Immediate contract recommended."
Fan Yuan took the box from her and set it on the ground.
"You are not going anywhere."
"But the order has already…"
"Form a contract with me."
Chi Yuyan froze.
"They are offering you the best mecha-maidens in the country. Why would you want an F-rank?"
"Because I see you. Not the letter above your head."
She neither bargained nor set conditions. When their palms touched, the first seal shattered.
The yard shook.
Armoured wings spread behind Chi Yuyan. White and gold plates enclosed her arms and shoulders, while dark energy spiralled around her legs. A spectral dragon appeared above the school, so vast that it was visible even from the Upper City.
The system designated the mecha-form Dragon Abyss.
Fan Yuan named Chi Yuyan the first warrior of the Eternal Legion.
That same evening, they went out onto a restricted training ground. Chi Yuyan feared every movement, as though her new power might vanish if she believed in it too much. Fan Yuan did not rush her. First he taught her to feel the weight of her armour, then opened one per cent of his psychic current.
The draconic figure crossed the training ground in a single heartbeat.
Chi Yuyan stopped before the wall and saw a dozen destroyed targets behind her.
"Did I do that?"
"We did."
"Does that mean I am not useless any more?"
"You were never useless."
The system unlocked their shared ability, Shimmering Dragon Shadow. Their compatibility rose faster than in any case the military had ever recorded. But Fan Yuan sensed the danger as well: the more power he poured into her, the easier it became to forget where an order ended and another person's will began.
Nalan Qingxin appeared at the edge of the training ground. She had brought restricted data from her conglomerate on rare mecha-sources and proposed an exchange: information in return for joining the training.
"I want to understand how you bypassed my defences," she said.
"And your family wants to know whether I can be turned into a technology."
Nalan Qingxin did not deny it.
"Perhaps. But the data is genuine."
Fan Yuan accepted the offer. He needed knowledge, and she needed a chance to see her own limit.
The three-way synchronisation lasted less than a minute. Chi Yuyan held the current through their contract. Nalan Qingxin endured twelve seconds, then demanded that they stop. When the connection opened, she was breathing hard, but for the first time there was no contempt in her eyes.
"Now I understand," she said. "You do not strengthen a mecha-maiden. You make her source remember what it was meant to become."
"Then remember something else. I do not intend to force anyone."
Nalan Qingxin sat on the edge of the platform and looked at her palms. Fine golden lines remained on her skin after the connection. They slowly faded.
"My family says that nothing but workers and cheap soldiers ever comes out of the Lower City," she said. "I have never once checked whether it was true."
"Because you never had to."
"Are your answers always this unpleasant?"
"Only when someone asks a question they have long known the answer to."
Chi Yuyan stepped in before they could quarrel again. She opened Nalan Qingxin's archive. It held the results of thousands of awakenings over the past ten years. Almost every Lower City resident had a recalibration code beside their name, but not one official assessment mentioned it.
"What does this mark mean?" Chi Yuyan asked.
Nalan Qingxin went pale.
"A restricted protocol. If a source displays atypical growth, it is tested using the conglomerate's equipment."
"Was I tested?"
She found Chi Yuyan's name. Beside it were the words: "Anomaly suppressed. Reassessment not required."
A laboratory number appeared beneath the entry, but access to it was restricted.
Fan Yuan felt Chi Yuyan tense.
"Then my F-rank was not a mistake," she said. "They saw something and deliberately hid it."
Nalan Qingxin closed the file.
"I did not know."
"I believe you," Fan Yuan replied. "But now you do."
He copied the data. One file was not enough to support an accusation. But now Fan Yuan knew that the school tests, military archives and old families were connected somehow.
They continued training without a deep connection. Fan Yuan made Chi Yuyan repeat the basic movements until she could perform them herself, without his prompting. Nalan Qingxin watched until she could stand it no longer:
"With your power, you could simply take control."
"I could."
"Then why waste time?"
"Because one day I will not be there."
Chi Yuyan missed the target, returned to her starting position and repeated the strike. On the seventh attempt, her armoured spike struck dead centre.
Fan Yuan smiled.
Nalan Qingxin said nothing, but disabled the automatic targeting on her Fox for the next exercise.
At dawn, an invitation arrived for the interschool examination. The winner would receive a place at the First Academy, access to military resources and the right to enter the Starfield.
Vierlia, the renowned Empress of Wind, had been appointed chief examiner. She met the candidates at the entrance to the monster zone and checked their papers in person. Whenever she saw a Lower City mark, she advised its bearer to turn back.
"Even children from good families die here," she said. "You would be better off not risking your life for an impossible dream."
"You call that concern?" Fan Yuan asked.
"I call it experience."
"Then let us see what your experience is worth."
In front of all the candidates, he promised to break Vierlia's three-year record for monsters destroyed. If he lost, he would give up his place at the academy and never command a mecha-maiden again. If he won, Vierlia would grant any demand he made.
Vierlia accepted the wager.
She was certain she was saving an overconfident boy from an even greater mistake.
Fan Yuan's tally rose faster than the examiners could update their projections.
Chi Yuyan flashed between the monsters like white lightning. Every surge of Shimmering Dragon Shadow left severed carapaces on the ground. Her level rose, and the spectral golden dragon grew steadily more distinct. For the first time, Fan Yuan saw before him not one warrior but a future army, one in which no girl from the Lower City would be discarded because of a falsified test.
The first hundred targets were horned scavengers. They attacked as a pack, trying to surround the mecha-maiden and reach the joints in her armour. At first, Chi Yuyan retreated after every strike. Fan Yuan felt her fear, but did not suppress it with his psychic power.
"Do not look at all of them at once," he said. "Choose the first target."
She chose the pack leader.
"Now the second."
The dragon blades sliced through its carapace.
"The third."
A minute later, nothing remained of the pack.
Next came flying rays that cast electrical nets. Chi Yuyan herself suggested using the canyon walls. She forced the rays lower, slipped into Shimmering Shadow and brought a shelf of rock down on them. Fan Yuan merely sustained her reactor through the overload.
"One hundred and seventy-eight," the system reported.
"Vierlia's record is three hundred and twenty," Chi Yuyan reminded him.
"Then we are not finished yet."
The observers above had stopped laughing. Some demanded that the counters be checked; others claimed the F-rank commander was using a prohibited enhancer. Vierlia connected to the telemetry herself. Not a single violation. Only an impossibly precise distribution of energy and a mecha-maiden who grew more confident after every battle.
When the tally reached three hundred, Chi Yuyan attained level ten. The second seal on her source trembled, but did not open. The system warned that forcing it open would be dangerous.
"Can you open it?" Chi Yuyan asked.
"I can try."
"Then why do you not?"
"Because your source is not a training-room door. We will wait until you are ready."
Chi Yuyan smiled.
"Very well, Commander."
They broke the record after forty-seven minutes. Fan Yuan could have stopped, but he noticed that the monsters were not running towards them. They were fleeing the northern boundary of the testing ground. The earth beneath his feet was vibrating almost imperceptibly. True Sight detected particles of an industrial suppressant in the air, something that had no place in a training examination.
"Fall back," he ordered.
Chi Yuyan did not argue. They changed course seconds before the northern observation post exploded.
Then communications went dead.
A red dome of interference rose over the testing ground. Scorpion emblems appeared on the screen. Unmarked war machines surrounded the candidates.
The Red Scorpions had not come for the examination results. Their target was Vierlia, who had destroyed their network of underground laboratories several years earlier.
Fan Yuan found her beside the shattered observation tower. The Empress of Wind's armour had been breached in three places, and her primary module was barely functioning. She ordered him to leave and take Chi Yuyan back towards the city.
"Communications are down," he objected. "The outer perimeter is sealed."
"Then hide until I have held them off."
"In that condition, you will not hold anyone off."
The wreckage of four enemy machines lay around the tower. Vierlia had destroyed them alone, but the attackers had known the frequency of her defensive field in advance. They fired in the precise fractions of a second when her shield was recharging. A fifth enemy was already taking position on the slope.
Fan Yuan shoved Chi Yuyan behind a concrete block. The beam passed over their heads and melted the edge of the wall.
"Take the candidates to the southern trench," he said. "Do not let anyone activate a transmitter. The interference dome homes in on the signal."
"What about you?"
"I will get the examiner."
Chi Yuyan wanted to object. Then she remembered their training, nodded and ran towards the others. This was the first order she would have to carry out without him.
Vierlia fired at the machine on the slope and missed. Her aim was drifting because of a damaged stabiliser.
"I will cover the retreat," she repeated. "This is my responsibility."
"Responsibility does not require you to die after your first mistake."
"You know nothing about war."
"But I can see a ruptured coolant unit, a jammed actuator and a sniper who will finish reloading in eight seconds."
For the first time, Vierlia looked at him as something other than a child.
Fan Yuan picked up a piece of mirrored armour and raised it above their cover. The sniper fired. The reflected flash exposed his position for an instant. Vierlia aimed her cannon manually and destroyed the slope along with the machine.
"Seven seconds," Fan Yuan observed.
"What?"
"He was faster than I thought."
Two more signals were approaching from the east. There was no time left to argue.
Vierlia raised her weapon.
"I will not allow someone from the Lower City into my psychic circuit."
A new task flared before Fan Yuan's eyes.
"Subjugate the Empress of Wind."
He grimaced at the system's choice of word.
"I do not need to subjugate you," Fan Yuan said. "I need you to stop getting in the way of your own rescue."
He placed his palm against her damaged armour. Golden light spread through the cracks. Bent plates straightened, severed channels reconnected and the depleted reactor filled with energy.
Vierlia only had time to breathe:
"What did you do?"
Fan Yuan was already entering her restored psychic circuit.
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