Somewhere else, in another corner of the Spartan republic, a cadet ran as he tried his best to escape from his pursuers. As he ran, he sometimes retaliated, killing the ordinary soldiers going after him. Only 1 high-grade soldier pursued him with a bunch of ordinary soldiers, as they shot repeatedly at him. He put his maximum effort, running as fast as his legs could carry him. “I can’t die here, I must graduate. I need to be a soldier of the Sparta republic to make my parents proud,” his thought was completely focused on securing his life, as he ran. His armor’s durability was finally depleted, as he started receiving direct gunshots. The bullets started impacting his relentlessly running form, as he staggered, sometimes falling. But he still stood up to continue his escape. Despite being bloodied all over, he persevered as reinforcement finally came. His perseverance didn’t leave him disappointed, as the policemen from the nearby town arrived. They helped him to fight back, as he finally escaped. “I did it, I survived”. He thought in excitement, as he finally fainted from exhaustion.… A girl ran swiftly, as she maneuvered between the encirclement of the terrorist soldiers going after her. She conveniently killed some of them in the process, as she tried her best to escape. She was the cadet assigned to this terrorist base. After a lot of planning, she also decided to end her training today. She was completely focused, as she forced herself to break through the tight encirclement of terrorist soldiers. Fortunately, the high-grade terrorist soldiers in the base disdained the idea of pursuing her, giving her the perfect opportunity to escape. She heaved a sigh of relief, as she finally escaped after a 50 minutes battle of wits. … In a forest covered in trees and weed; a cadet ran with his full might as he tried using the trees as cover, to prevent the durability of his armor from dropping down further. The shade created from the tall trees, made the dimly lit forest darker, painting it in an ominous light. He was unlucky, as the female commander of this terrorist base was decisively launched from her car at him. He tried to dodge, but she was a high-grade soldier while he was not. Ptui!! The spear cut him in two, as his armor’s durability finally depleted completely from the blow. His body separated into 2 different parts, as his blood poured down, dying the green leaves on the forest floor with a tint of red. “Kid, the mistake you made was trying to use my soldiers as training material for your graduation,” the female commander said to the corpse beneath her feet. “You paid the price for it,” she snorted coldly, as she went back to the temporary terrorist camp in the forest. This sort of situation happened in different corners of the Sparta republic to a lot of cadets, as they desperately tried to finish their training, so that they could graduate. … Leo finally arrived at the military base, looking pale and exhausted. He scaled down from the warship, as his swaying figure walked directly to his room to rest. As soon as he entered his room, Clark heard the familiar sound made by his friend’s door, as he quickly sprang up. “Leo is back,” he blurted out in joy. He picked himself up, as he raced directly to the opposite room to meet his friend. On reaching there, he knocked loudly on the door. 10 seconds later, a pale-looking figure came to open the door. Whoa!! He was startled, as he jumped back in surprise. “What happened to you, bro?” He quickly entered the room, as his friend went back in tiredly. He closed the door, sat down and listened, as his friend narrated his experiences. His friend also demanded him to reciprocate by sharing his experiences, after he finished. But he declined, asking him to rest first. Leo obeyed, as he quickly slept. He was really exhausted this time. Clark quickly got dressed and went to the medical section of the military base to get some pain relievers and anti-bacterial drugs for his friend. “Though having a breakthrough provides stronger resistance to diseases and infections. In the end, we are still humans, not some superheroes from some wuxia novel,” he muttered. On his way back, he was surprised as he met Anderson. “Good afternoon Clark, you’re back. Did you just finish your training?” Anderson asked as he turned to face him. Clark fought back the urge to roll his eyes at him. He greeted back politely, as he quickly thought of ways to escape this guy’s grasp. “All the cadets who came back, is this how clean their uniform looked?” He could not help but ask himself sarcastically in his mind. He finally answered after the short mental tour. “No, I already completed mine for some time already”. “Oh, ok, I completed mine last week”. Anderson replied with a smile on his face. Clark replied to him also with a simple ok, as he told him that he had something to do before leaving. … Leo woke up in the evening, feeling countless times better than when he just came back. His friend already prepared food for him, so he ate to his fill before Clark forced him to take the drugs that he bought for him. After eating and everything, he finally couldn’t hold back his curiosity as he asked about his friend’s experience. Clark rubbed his hands with a gleeful expression on his face, as he propped himself up to tell his experiences throughout his training. He excitedly told his friend his story, while conveniently exaggerating some parts of his experience to make it more interesting. And of course, the exaggeration was to also make it seem more captivating. “Wow,” Leo exclaimed, as he ohhed and ahhed throughout the story session. When his friend finally told him about the exotic weapons and armor that he stole, he practically worshipped him. “For real, Clark?” He asked for the 10th time since his friend’s story started. Clark sighed in resignation, as he decided to show his friend their account details as evidence. Due to a couple of reasons, they both saved a lot of the money they got throughout their training, to be used after they graduated. Leo trusted his friend to the extent of allowing him to safeguard all their money in his bank account, and that’s what they did. After 3 years of training, they managed to save 15,000 Spartan credits. Added to the 10,000 credits Clark’s parents prepared for him for his training, they had a total of 25,000 credits. On showing Leo the account balance, this guy practically almost fainted, as he saw the amount showing on the screen. The balance showed that they had a total of 93,000 Spartan credits, as Clark already sold all his stuff online. That’s a humongous amount of money to any ordinary soldier, not including civilians, as with this amount of money they are practically billionaires to civilians. According to Clark’s childhood regional pastor, this amount of money can be better referred to as a palm-sweating amount of money to civilians. “Man, you’re really resourceful,” Leo exclaimed again sincerely. “Shit, man I don’t know what to say. That’s awesome Clark”. “Hahaha, that’s what I want to hear,” Clark said, as they both burst out laughing. “We are graduating rich bro,” he said again with a grin. “But Clark, you really have guts to be thinking of looting during such a situation, when others would probably be freaking out”. “I’m beginning to be more impressed and awed by you man”. Leo said, with the typical, I’m proud of you son tone. He suddenly decided to do something ridiculous. “Your majesty, thou art great oh, accept this humble offering”. He joked, as he suddenly stood up. He pulled his pants down, imitating the way it was done in the ancient Indian movie “The 3 idiots”. It was simply a gesture of respect sincerely from his heart; he felt this was the best way to express it, so he did it. It felt ridiculous, but ridiculous respect was the sincerest respect. Clark on the other hand, just rolled his eyes at his friend’s gestures, as he chuckled with delight.