Admissions

Daniel and Jake had no idea why Amelia sounded even more enthusiastic than before when she arrived at Mech Parking Lot A to pick them up. Little did they know, Amelia simply felt a mixture of guilt and excitement for being responsible for initiating their little 'training exercise' earlier that almost cost both of them their lives without their knowledge. What made her excited though was the compliment that Student David gave towards Daniel.

One must know, David does not intermingle or even speak to another student unless they are worth his time. To be able to rouse his interest like that simply from the lowest-level training module must mean that the person before her must have certain skills to warrant such attention.

Thinking that she must take this opportunity to snatch up this diamond in the rough before any other academy gain knowledge of him, Amelia began to use his brain in overdrive, even secretly asking Minerva to plot out the best plan for her to psychologically manipulate Daniel in order to get the latter to enrol. Little did she know, Daniel had already told his uncle to handle the admissions for him, so there's already a 99% chance for Daniel to become a student of EUMA in the future.

The reason why Daniel haven't told Amelia about this was because using his connections to get an admission within a military academy is generally frowned upon in this day and age, where ideology of meritocracy trumps that of bloodline and connections. Furthermore, to enrol into one of the Big Three Military Academies require a rigorous and anonymous background check from the federal government to make sure that the prospective student is not a spy or a potential threat to the Federation before admission can be approved.

All of these combined factors made Daniel think it would be best to keep his enrolment a secret for now, since even with the expedited procedures, he would need to wait until December before the final results for his admission would come out.

That being said, it would normally take around a year for any other student if they wanted to get into the Big Three, so Daniel's admission times had already been expedited as much as possible, skipping over the normal queue and interviews, leaving only the government's background check left needed to be done before approval.

***

Amelia led both teenagers back to the train platform located a few hundred meters across from the main entrance of Mech Parking Lot A. Since a train would always arrive on time within a 5-minute interval, neither of them needed to wait long before getting back onto the train, bringing them back towards the transport hub near the dorms.

Afterwards, Amelia directly led the boys up the escalator located near the front of the train platform before taking them to the terminus of the cable car that would bring them to the very top of the mountain.

"There are a total of five stops for this cable car." Amelia explained as the three of them entered and sat on the very front row of the cable car usually reserved for guests and VIPs. "The lower terminus, where we are currently; the 500m level station; the 1500m level station; and finally the upper terminus, located about 3000m above sea level."

"The 500m level are where most of the in-class lectures are conducted, where students go to take their Natural Sciences, Arts, Social Sciences and Literature classes. The station is directly connected with the Main Building, where most of our auditoriums, lecture halls and classrooms are located."

"The 1000m level consists of various gymnasiums where most indoor combat training courses are held."

"Finally the 3000m level is where most outdoor combat training courses are held. There's also an observatory located at the very peak of the mountain for astrophysics courses."

After giving them a brief introduction to each area, Amelia brought both teenagers around every single building and area where students would usually have their lessons, most of which are empty due to the fact it's currently the weekend.

Since most of the structures on the mountain are for personal training purposes, Daniel and Jake did not manage to see even a single mech around the area, to their disappointment. When Jake took the opportunity and asked about the lack of mechs, Amelia replied in a professional manner.

"Most of the training fields and research stations for mech training and R&D are located around the valley of the mountain. Parking Lot A, where you've experienced your mech piloting earlier, is just one of the many training fields in the area. In fact, most of the train platforms from the transport hub mostly connects to these training areas. Unfortunately, unless you're a student, I am unable to bring you to these area due to the existence of sensitive content requiring prior approval before entry."

"Though, I would be more than willing to come and personally escort you and give you an introduction to each of these areas if you do become a student in the future." Amelia narrated, not even trying to obscure her motives as she tried to convince the two teenagers before her the perks of becoming a student here.

The blatant marketing ploy performed by Amelia almost made Jake roll his eyes, but he managed to restrain himself in the end when he thought that the person before him was just doing her job.

After walking around every level of the mountain, the three of them finally arrived before the observatory, located at the very top of the mountain. Since the only way to get up to the observatory were a flight of stairs spanning around 5 floors high, not to mention how thin the atmosphere was at the time, both Jake and Amelia were panting without stop by the time they reached the summit.

Daniel was doing a little better than the both of them, but his face still looked a bit pale from the physical exercise. After all, he had just steeled his heart and started his own physical training regiment a few days ago, and the results of that wouldn't be seen for another month or two.

***

Unlike the main hall and the various gymnasium scattered around the mountain, the observatory is still teaming with people even though it was the weekend. However, most of the people before them consists of scientists in their lab coats, mostly mumbling to themselves speaking gibberish too hard for any of the three to understand, while a few selected research students accompanied these scientists with their errands.

Even after their conspicuous entry into the entrance of the observatory, none of the people inside even batted them an eye, as they were all intensely focused on their research.

"From now on, we need to be as quiet as possible, unless you want to get kicked out by the Director." Amelia whispered towards the two teenagers. It was only after seeing the nods of acknowledgement from them did Amelia continue walking forwards.

"The reason why you see so many scientists here is because this observatory also serves as a transmission tower which sends and receives information directly from space. Many of our research requires a zero-G environment, and thus couldn't be done within this mountain. Therefore, many of our scientific teams would divide their members in half, with half researching in space while transmitting their latest results to the scientists here to assist in their research."

Daniel and Jake nodded as they subconsciously looked up towards the very center of the building, where a gigantic telescope is located. They thought they might be able to operate such a telescope only to be disappointed when Amelia had told them that the telescope is usually unused since there were many better alternative satellite telescopes owned by the academy in orbit around the Earth which would give their scientists better data, without needing to account for and calculate the atmospheric interference or Rayleigh scattering in their research.

Feeling like there was nothing else for them to do, Amelia simply brought the two disappointed teenagers back down the mountain, where the three of them had afternoon tea in one of the many canteens located within one of the dormitory buildings.

After replenishing themselves, Amelia simply brought them back towards the Student Center, near the entrance of the academy, before stating in a cheerful tone, "I hope you are satisfied with our tour, Mr. Daniel, Mr. Jake. If there are any questions, please feel free to DM me any time you want. If you have any questions about the admissions procedures and the courses that our school offers, you can always consult with the members at our information desk where you checked-in earlier this morning."

It was only after repeating herself several times that Amelia allowed Jake and Daniel to leave. In the end, as the both of them headed out the entrance, JAke could not help but give out a yawn,

"OMG! That was so boring, especially at the very end!" Jake complained loudly, garnering some less than pleasant looks from the students nearby. "I thought we would get to pulot some more mechs! But instead we were forced to walk all around the mountain! Can you see my ankles? They're completely red and sore!"

Jake lifted one leg and shoved it towards Daniel as he complained in an exaggerated manner, making Daniel feel slightly annoyed by his behavior.

"Be quiet! Do you wanna get beaten up just as you leave the school?"