The Decision of Hudson

– This step, sooner or later, all would have to go through. (Hudson)

***

Being beaten so badly, the Hudson trio could not participate in the two categories climbing and swimming in the afternoon. The doctors told them that they had to take at least a day and a half to two days in order to returning to the training as usual.

Not only they lost the emulation points of these two days of hospitalization, but were also punished by the teachers for their absence. The penalty was to be joining the bottom group of three categories to the kitchen assisting the cooks preparing meals for the whole base, and to wash dishes after meals on the first day returning to the training.

In fact, the injury that Angus caused to Hudson and his pals was not very serious. It was just... very painful at the beaten positions when moving, making them unable to immediately restore and running jumping as usual.

Therefore, that's why now there was the scene where Colley was lying flat on his sickbed but still had energy for screaming.

"Damn it! We must report it for intentionally causing injury, Hudson! Hudson? Do you hear me?"

In contrast to Colley causing fuss, Hudson was relatively quiet. He had contemplated for a while before he answered.

"Never mind! No one cares."

Colley continued to yell: "Why not! Ouch... my stomach! Shit! It hit us like this... It must be disciplined!"

"If they did care, the disciplined person should have been us! You forgot how many people we mess up before? You think they don't know?" Hudson said in a loud voice.

"They" in Hudson's mouth was the group of teachers.

Right from the first day of school, the teacher named Fred clearly said: Apart from the training time, students could do whatever they want to do. The teachers would not interfere anything unless the students caused serious injury to the classmates or serious harm to facilities of the base.

That was what made he and his pals dare to bully other students.

After every bullying case, no one came to question them. The attitude of teacher group from the beginning till now was always consistent.

If the first time they didn't know, what about the second and the third?

It was not that they didn't know, but they didn't care!

Suddenly Hudson felt that, in the past, when he and his pals were mess with people all over the base, not many dared to have an reaction.

He used to think he was very strong, he was very arrogant about it.

But today he finally knew, what true strength really was.

Angus' movement, reactions and the combination between his arms and legs when fighting, all said that, he was truly a strong one.

That person and they themselves were not the same level.

The First rank never fell from the heaven.

In contrast, the act of ganging up and bullying others every day was just to hide the fact that he could never rise to the top rank.

Instead of doing such nonsense things, just like Angus said, he should have spent more time to practice on his own, increasing his strength.

Hudson changed his mind, leading to some changes in his small group.

Possessing a large body but a simple mind, Gilmar did not think too much. He just followed Hudson decision.

But Colley was different.

From a very young age, he was clearly taught by his family that background was very important. The honored families of the nation now all came from renowned races.

And race determined strength, while representing power and prestige.

So, after the first day returning to training, Colley decided to leave the group.

"Sorry Hudson, but I don't want to follow the one with an unclear background."

Hudson replied peacefully: "No problem. All wil have to go through this step... Just do what you want."

Yes. This step, sooner or later, all will have to go through.

The step of choosing to be led by someone, or to become the leader.

During the coming months, the training base would nominate someone with the ability to lead and guide the freshmen of two classes. That was why they had ignored the fights or conflicts among freshmen, just to test individual's ability and see how individual would behave in those situations.

Due to not being able to get onto the top, Hudson chose to use his "real strength" to impress the others.

Obviously he chose the wrong way.

"If you can't become the leader, vote for someone more deserved. The one that you respect." His father words before Hudson entered the course sounded in his mind again.

He remembered very well, at that time he did laugh at his father. How could he not be at the top?

But now everything had been different.

Dragon races worshiped strength and power.

So Hudson decided to follow his father's words, voting for the one stronger than him. That was Angus.

He also knew the one that Colley wanted to follow.

Hawley Quincey of Class I. His father currently held the position as a Colonel in the Army, the same position as Hudson's father.

Hawley himself had his own excellence: It was said that the first time Hawley successfully transformed was at the age of fifteen and he had been able to use power before coming here.

Beside that, the regular presence in the second rank of three categories also brought him a certain number of followers.

Perhaps in the eyes of other freshmen, the Second-ranked Hawley was more affable, generous and therefore more prominent than the First-ranked Angus who always talked less laughed less.

But in the eyes of Hudson, Hawley's rank was the result of struggling crazily with another schoolgirl named Edelina and Hudson himself. Meanwhile, the First-ranked of this base Five was always staying calm, never paid any attention to the ranking war.

As if that rank inherently belonged to his. He had nothing to worry about.

Perhaps because of his pride, perhaps for some other reasons, Hudson did not want to follow to someone who had the same starting point in terms of family, background, and even race, like Hawley.

Moreover... whenever recalling Angus expression at that time...

" If I were you, instead of doing these nonsense things every day, I would spend more time practicing..."

Hudson took a deep breath. Angus Farley, hope that you would not disappoint me.

From that day on, every morning Hudson got up earlier, ran a few more kilometers, and in the afternoon when everyone was resting or playing games, he spent more time climbing or swimming. Sometimes Gilmar also tried to join him for a few sessions.

More efforts, better results.

Obviously, Hudson's training results was gradually better and he got higher rank in training categories.

Seeing Hudson changed positively, Angus silently nodded.

As expected, Grandma Sienna was right again!

Wisdom was a good thing, but sometimes, fist was the thing making the reality.

***

Someone once said, if we wanted to create a new habit, we should maintaining it for at least twenty one days. It was truly right for all Pacific freshmen.

After four weeks of intense training, not only the physical strength and stature of all freshmen was improved but also their mindset also changed positively. Repeatedly repeating the same three training categories with an increasingly shortened goal of time every day, plus a series of strict regulations at the base, all of those made the undiscipline belonging to freshmen gradually disappeared.

This made all the teachers quite satisfied.

It was the twenty-eighth day at Base. A Sunday, when the Base Individual Ranking would be released as usual. Twenty-eight days, three categories, formed a total of eighty-four races, each counted for ten points. Thus, the total score after four weeks was eight hundred forty points.

At the time the ranking was released, all the freshmen had been gathering around the electronic screen. A series of noisy sounds spread out.

"Move! Move!"

"Don't pushing, please!"

"Eh? Angus ranks third?"

"What's wrong?"

"Who's the first?"

"It's... Drake and Cheryl."

"Oh? Isn't Hawley?"

"It's nonsense! He's always the first to finish!"

The freshmen began to quarrel, until some one catched the point.

"Wait!... Who is Drake?"

The whole crowd looked like fools. Since when that appearded a new talent named Drake in this base? And also, who was Cheryl? Why these names sounded so strange?

Suddenly someone exclaimed: "National! Oh god, it's the National third rank you fools!"

So the crowd hurriedly widened their eyes as much as possible looking at the screen.

National Individual Ranking.

Three big words clearly-shown on the screen made all freshmen so terrified that they could doing nothing but standing there dumbfounded.

It's until that time they remembered, at the beginning of the course, some teachers did say that the National Individual Ranking would be updated once every last Sunday of each month.

So, the First-ranked of their base this year... ranked third nationwide?

Oh my god!!!

Ranking third nationwide! It's the Third nationwide!!! How phenomenal was this number???

Immediately there was a student from Class I asking: "Where's Hawley? What rank is he?"

They tried their best to find out, finally seeing the name Hawley Quincey lying in the Forty First position.

At the same time, some other freshmen paid attention to another thing:

"The Base Rankings are on the right! Hurry up!"

No. One - Angus 817 points.

No. Two - Hawley 662 points.

No. Three - Edelina 660 points.

No. Four - Hudson 650 points.

No. Five - Colley 640 points.

No. Six - Iris 635 points.

No. Seven - Neil 631 points.

No. Eight - Layla 628 points.

No. Nine - Gilmar 602 points.

No. Ten Derwin 559 points...

Being the most faraway base from the capital, gathering the most number of freshmen from remote areas, it was no doubt that the majority students of Base Five often fell to the bottom group of the national rankings every year. Even the most outstanding freshmen of the previous courses only reached to the Top Forty, Fifty.

Hawley this year was a good example. He ranked second in the base, but only ranked forty-one nationwide!

However, the First-ranked of the base this year...

Seeing Angus' name imposingly lay in third row of the national rankings, in a moment, the attitude of many freshmen towards Angus quietly changed.

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