Discrimination

If Arnold had any experience living within the subterranean level, he would have known that it was completely unnatural and suspicious for a Level 3 student to walk up to him and tried to befriend him. For most dwellers of the lower levels, they never tries to interact with the upper level residents and even thought that they were inferior and a waste of space. This view was fully revealed when Arnold returned to the field behind the B Building for his next lesson.

His next lesson was a team-building lesson. Therefore, everyone was divided into small groups and had to face off against each other in a game of capture the flag. Arnold who had just arrived before the activity space where they would engage in this exercise, saw that people were segregated even before the teacher had asked them to form groups.

Arnold, who was completely oblivious to the etiquette of the people in the subterranean level, ignorantly sat towards the left side where more people sat. However, just as he was about to sit down on the ground, one of the students asked with a suspicious gaze, "Hey, what level are you from?"

"Level 1. Why?" Arnold asked in an unfazed tone, he completely did not know why the person that sat before him was asking such a question.

The person and the people sat beside him instantly became hostile. They said in an angry voice, "What is an upper level scum like you doing over here? You guys are supposed to sit over there! Don't come over here again or else you will regret it."

Arnold, who was completely confused about the people's sudden hostile attitude, did not want to engage in violence at the first day of school, so he simply walked over to the other side of the field and sat down next to a small number of people. It seemed that as Arnold walked over, they were staring at him with a look of disbelief.

When Arnold sat down, the person sitting closest to him shifted over and whispered vehemently, "Dude! What were doing trying to anger those spoiled rich kids?! Are you trying to get them to go all out later?!"

Arnold simply furrowed his brows and replied, "Today is my first day, so I had no idea what is going on."

"Aren't you a Level 1 or 2 resident? From taking a look at their attire, anyone would know that they lived in Level 3 or below. Are you retarded?" The boy chided at Arnold, causing Arnold to become speechless.

Arnold could not possibly say that he had not encountered much people from below Level 1 in his lifetime so he couldn't distinguish between them. Therefore, he simply replied by giving an embarassed smile, "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention just now."

The boy rolled his eyes, acting like he had never seen someone so stupid, causing Arnold to not know whether to laugh or to cry. Arnold, seeing this as an opportunity to know about the culture of the subterranean dwellers, asked in a curious tone, "What is their problem with us anyways? It's not like we have ever done anything to them."

"Most of them are spoiled rich kids who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths. Since they had not talent whatsoever within their family's own respective businesses, most of these untalented brats will be sent here in order for them to gain some fame for their family in the battlefield. In other words, these students who spent millions of gold to get here are spiled, useless brats. With their disgusting personality, of course they would hate scholarship students like us, who came here because of merit. They also couldn't stand the fact that a person from an upper level had better results than them." The boy sneered towards the direction of those second-generation rich kids. He seemed to have quite a history with them since Arnold could see the seething hatred from his eyes.

"The name's Nick by the way." The boy whispered, holding out his right hand. Arnold politely shook the hand and replied, "Troy."

Nick nodded. "Do you have any esper powers?"

Troy answered by shaking his head. At this time, Nick's facial expression softened. He seemed to be looking at Arnold with slight sympathy as he said in a soft tone, "Don't be too discouraged. Since you had the ability to come here, you must be talented!" He patted on Arnold's back and reassured him. Arnold really had nothing to say. A few others had already said the same thing when he revealed that he had no esper powers.

*

The teacher had divided the students into groups of 5. Arnold did not know whether this was a coincidence or not, but there were exactly 5 people from the upper levels in this class. The rest of the class seeemed to be students who paid the sky high tuition to come here from the lower levels. One can assume that all upper level students were scholarship students as nobody from the upper levels have enough money to send their children to the military academy.

From the get go, the upper level students, including Arnold, already sat next to each other, so when the teacher asked the students to form groups, they simply had to scooch over and form a circle.

The other four students were already quite familiar with each other. Therefore, in order to break the ice, Nick, who was the first to be acquainted with Arnold, introduced Arnold to the rest of the people. "Guys, this is Troy. The one who idiotically waltzed over to the side of those lower level scum."

His mocking tones caused the other students to giggle at Arnold. However, with this, the atmosphere within the group seeemd to be much more harmonious than before. Arnold was immediately included into the group as one of them, treating him no differently than the others.

In fact, the other 4 students were quite happy that an upper level student was finally added to this class. Having an additional person to fight with them was really helpful.

The names of the 3 other students were Elliott, Lucas and Darius respectively. They were all amicable teenagers that seemed quite cheerful towards Arnold.

Elliott seemed to be the leader of the group, as he was the one who planned out the strategy of the capture the flag game and allocated the jobs of each group member. Elliott's physique was quite tall. His body was well-defined, showing that he exercised a lot. He had infomed Arnold that he had a strength-type esper power that supplemented his body quite well.

Lucas was the youngest of the group, with the age of 13. He had been admitted to the military academy due to his amazing strategy skills. Therefore, he spent most of the time in the academy sitting behind a desk analyzing past battles. Of course, he still needed to come to lessons such as this capture the flag team-building lesson in order to get some practical experience. Due to sitting behind a desk all the time, Lucas' body was quite skinny. He wore a pair of glasses and looked like a stereotypical nerd.

Darius was the oldest of the group, with the age of 18. He was originally an academic student studying quantum mechanics, but he joined this class due to the fact that each academic student needed at least one military training class in order to graduate. Although Darius spent most of his time studying, he still spent quite a lot of time at the gym, causing his body to still be relatively strong, even if it wasn't as strong as Elliott's.

Finally, Nicholas, nicknamed Nick, has the same age as Arnold and therefore seemed the most friendly to him. He is a military student with a specialization in long-ranged shooting. It seemed that his precision skills with the sniper rifles garnered the admiration of the higher-ups, causing him to be placed in the military academy right after graduation from middle school.

After introducing themselves, Troy did the same. However, he downtoned his achievements and simply said that he was inducted to the academy simply due to the fact that he had an unnaturally high Foundation Establishment.

Since Foundation Establishment was related to the genetics of the person, people living in the upper levels, who did not have the money for genetic engineering, had mostly low Foundation Establishment levels. However, through natural selection, occasionally some babies in the upper levels would be born with unnaturally high Foundation Establishment. All the people within the team are such people, which was the reason why the military academy had established the scholarship student path -- to get these high-potential students and keep them from other occupation fields.

The lower level students who paid to enter the military academy were all genetically modified from birth, so their Foundation Establishment were all quite high. That was the reason why the academy had no qualms receiving them as students. However, they still prefer upper level students as they were much more obedient and desperate to stay within the military in order to earn more money for their family.