Wang Jie leaned against a building in the plaza, watching as a platoon of soldiers escorted a few carriages through the city. This had been a common scene the past few days, soldiers hustling and bustling around, making all sorts of ruckus. Rumors were spreading that there was going to be be war. All things considered it wasn’t all that surprising. Wang Jie was barely 15 and he had already lived through two wars in this kingdom. The Eastrock Kingdom that is.

The Eastrock Kingdom was apart of a small cluster of kingdoms in the southeast part of the continent. Altogether they were called the 14 Lesser Kingdoms. The reason for that was that there were a distinct lack of resources in the area. The land was barren and it was hard to grow things. This all stemmed from the lack of spiritual essence in the air. Because of the lack of essence, the dirt was never nurtured, minerals never formed and it was extremely hard to cultivate. Altogether there wasn’t much to fight for in the area, yet the kingdoms did.

Wang Jie sighed as he pushed himself off of the wall, it was time to go home. The long walk back to the outskirts of the city gave him plenty to think about. At 15 years old it was about time for him to choose a profession. He wanted to be a cultivator, though he was fairly sure he didn’t have spiritual roots. Even if he did it hardly mattered, he would have to be tested for it and there’s no way they could afford that. His father had been dead since he was 6, and his mother toiled hard to provide for him as a baker. They could barely afford their daily necessities, let alone have money to squander. Wang Jie kicked a rock and gazed around at the dilapidated buildings, a yearning in his eyes. He tightened his fists and kept walking.

“I’m home.” Wang Jie called, looking around the cramped empty wooden house. Stepping inside, he slung his tattered cloth bag off of his shoulder and set it down on the wooden dining table. A few of the school books slipped out onto the table. His stomach rumbled, but he knew that they had nothing to eat in the cupboards. With nothing else to do he sat down on one of the chairs, picked up a random book and started studying.

The hours passed by and the room grew dark. The sound of boots hitting the wooden steps sounded out, right before his mother came in through the door. She had a bag in her hand and a smile on her face as she looked at Wang Jie, “Oh I’m sorry, did you have to wait long?”

“No it’s alright mom, but weren’t you supposed to be home before me?” Wang Jie gave her a tight smile as he put down his book.

“Yeah but one of the girls didn’t show up, so I had to cover their shift.” She said as she walked into the kitchen and took a loaf of bread out of her bag, “I managed to get this though, there are some benefits to working late.”

Half of that bread was all Wang Jie had for dinner, it wasn’t all that varied but it was decently filling. It was enough to go to sleep on at least.

Wang Jie woke up the next day feeling well rested. It was a Sunday so he didn’t have school. Putting on some clothes, he went into the living room right as a knock came from the door. Wang Jie’s brows furrowed as he walked over to answer the door, it was extremely rare for them to have guests. Opening the door he was greeted by the weathered face of a middle aged man in full soldier uniform.

“Are you Wang Jie?” His eyes looked down to scan his scroll.

“Yes?” Wang Jie raised his eyebrows as he looked back at the soldier.

“I’m Adjutant Zhang Yun, you’ve been drafted for military service. Get your things and follow me.” Zhang Yun looked up.

Wang Jie’s eyes widened in shock, “Right now?”

“You have 5 minutes.” Zhang Yun rolled his scroll back together and stuffed it into his inner pocket.

“My mom isn’t home right now though.”

“Just leave her a note.” Zhang Yun coldly replied, not willing to waste much time.

Shaken he could only go back inside, pick up a few necessities, write a quick note and follow the soldier outside where a group of other boys his age were waiting. 5 soldiers of lower rank accompanied them, standing around, perhaps keeping guard so none would run off.

Wang Jie couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. Wars hadn’t been rare during his life, but he’d never heard of the military drafting people before.

Silent with not a single word spoken, the group walked to the city gates where they met up with three other groups led by an adjutant. In total there was probably around 200 boys around his age, some older but none younger than 15. The adjutants spoke to each other briefly before one of them went up to a city guard and got him to open the gate. They still hadn’t said a single word to any of the groups.

Looking around, Wang Jie noticed that people looked quite nervous. A fat kid in the next column over was sweating quite heavily, perhaps from a mix of both exhaustion and fright.

The trip took quite a long time, they had been walking for at least a few hours when they spotted an army camp in the near distance. Perhaps the frightening atmosphere had done its job, because even the fat kid who had looked about ready to drop from the start managed to walk the whole way.

Without any issues they were led into the camp where a seemingly high rank military officer was waiting. The adjutants made them line up in their respective groups and then face the officer.

“Great, I’m sure you all have some questions by now.” The officer paced up and down the line. “I’ll try to answer them now. I’m Colonel Zhang Yong and I lead this regiment. I’m sure you’ve all heard rumors about a war, those are true. You’ve all been drafted to fight in this war as we are simply too heavily outnumbered. The Rosalan Kingdom has allied with the Highlands and the Valian Kingdom to fight against us.”

A few gasps rang out through the crowd. Some people started whispering to each other.

“QUIET!” The Colonel yelled, “We are lucky we learned about this in advance, which leaves us with a little time to prepare. Everyone with decent spiritual roots has already been sent to the capital’s military academy to undergo study. We will be testing the rest of you to see if you’ll have the same opportunity. We’ll call on you one by one and you will each have your chance.” Saying his piece, the Colonel walked off to return to his tent.

With the Colonel gone, one of the Adjutants walked up to take charge.

“When your name is called, follow me and I’ll take you to get tested. The rest of you, stand still and wait your turn.” Clearing his throat and reading from a scroll he called a name, “Liu Wei”.

Wang Jie tried to look around to see who it was. Looking in front of him there was that same fat kid who was slightly bewildered now. Stumbling a bit, he realized he was being called on and hurried up to follow the adjutant who led him inside another tent.

Less than a minute passed and he came back out and got back in his position. He didn’t seem too happy, so he probably didn’t pass. Shaking his head slightly Wang Jie stood and waited as name after name was called. Quickly he noticed that some people didn’t come back to stand in line, those were probably the people with good spiritual roots.

After a while, Wang Jie’s name was called and like so many others before him, he followed the adjutant inside the tent. Inside there was a man sitting behind a table with a crystal laying on top. Before Wang Jie could say or notice anything else, the man spoke up “Grab the crystal and hold in in your palm.”

Doing as the man said, Wang Jie grabbed the crystal and held it. Not a single thing happened as he did. The man behind the table shook his head and wrote something down. “No spiritual roots, get the next one.”

“Wait that’s it?” Shocked, Wang Jie couldn’t help but blurt out. The man didn’t even look up to answer him, while the adjutant just pushed him through the tent flap and told him to go back and line up.

His hopes and dreams were just destroyed in less than a minute and the man wasn’t willing to spare a single second on him. He knew this wasn’t the place to make a scene though, so he just got back and obediently lined up. A myriad of thoughts swirling through his head as he stood still for hours, waiting for the testing to end.

Finally an adjutant came forward and brought him out of his daze. “We’ll now be assigning you your accommodations.” The soldiers that had been escorting them earlier came forward and started handing out some wooden tokens. “These tokens are both your tent assignments and your new identity.” A quick look around let Wang Jie know that around 40 people had gone missing from the groups. “After you receiver your token, line up with the corresponding soldier and he’ll take you to your lodgings.”

Receiving his token he looked down at it and saw it read “11-4”, looking back up he saw a soldier holding up a sign with 11 on it. Resigned to his fate, he walked over to him and was quickly joined by 7 other guys, one of them being the fat kid, Liu Wei. Liu Wei saw him looking at him and gave him a nervous smile back, Wang Jie just nodded in response, slightly distant.

After the soldier saw his whole group was there, he led them to another part of the camp where there was a big grouping of tents. A wooden sign with 11 on it hung outside one of them and the soldier led them inside.

For an 8 person tent, it was really quite small. Four bunk beds were lined up at the back of the tent, while a wooden desk stood on either side of the entrance. In the middle there was a little clearing with nothing there. His fallen apart house had more space than this.

“Pick a bed and wait here, someone will come take you to get uniforms soon.” The soldier laid down that line and left, leaving no time for questions.

8 strangers stood there, alone in a tent together. It was kind of awkward.

“I guess I’ll take this one then.” The fat boy meekly scratched his face and set his bag down on a bottom bunk.

Taking their queue from him, the other boys quickly got to work claiming their own sleeping place. Wang Jie ended up picking a top bunk in the right corner of the tent. He’d never slept in a bunk bed before, but he could imagine it would hurt if he sat up in the middle of the night and slammed his head into the bunk above him. Besides, he was rather tall and would like to be able to sit up on his bed, especially with there only being two desks in the tent.