Waking up naked on top of the bed in full sun, I fully stretched myself fully and smiled as I felt no pain anymore. Looking down to my arm I saw a scar tissue covering what was yesterday's wound and I froze. 

   No Tamaranean had a scar, due to accelerated healing process and superior biology, compared to other species, but I had one now, as if X'hal was mocking me, like saying to my face that I don't belong there. 

   "I have to cover it now." I muttered, before going for the darker, long sleeved version of the traditional clothing. I will need some kind of clothes in the future, maybe with additional armor, so people won't question why I am wearing them and I can also make them much darker at the same time, as I prefer these colors. 

   After getting fully clothed, I checked the clock, to see when there would be breakfast time and luckily it was going to be served soon, so I decided to attend it in the dining hall. Maybe my father will finally acknowledge me. 

   Flying my way there, I passed by several workers, who were repairing parts of the palace that were damaged and extracting remains of the fighters. Finally reaching the destination, I sat down in the same place as the last time and waited. 

   Soon after, the rest of the family made her way there and Koriand'r smiled seeing me and threw herself at me "Sister! You are here! And all fine!" 

   In the answer I just placed my hand on her head and pushed her into her seat. 

   "My beautiful wife told me before that you are interested in my battle achievements. Hahaha! Last battle I managed to destroy forty eight fighters without a scratch. Even managed to cut down one in the middle!..." My father sat down in his place and started boasting about his battle stories. 

   As the breakfast was served I decided to completely ignore tales of the king, unlike my sister who was enamored with them and eat it fast, before going back to my room. 

   At the age of fourteen I finally graduated with honors as the first ranking student in everything, unlike my sister who struggled to be in tenth place in her class and applied to the military college. 

   As I came back home and into my room, my sister came flying, slamming the door open and throwing herself at me saying "You are amazing sis! Already graduated as the top student! You are the talk of the school. I am so happy for you." 

   I let my annoying sister cuddle for a moment, before pushing her away telling "Now I need to prepare for eventual acceptance from military college, so please leave little Kori." 

   Koriand'r smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her.

   The next day, when I was working on a new and better version of the belt that would allow me to change the effects of gravity forces on my body, so that I could fly without propulsors, I saw a letter accepting my application with a date set in two months to come for orientation day and list of things that I needed. It was a live-in type of school to prepare you for any situation. You had to do everything by yourself, as maids and butlers were forbidden. 

   I spent the next two months successfully making a new gravity changing belt, designing and producing a couple of dark colored body fit suit with armor plates mounted the way it would not block my movement, one I started wearing as soon as it came out, learning how to cook in the kitchen, where my sister always found me and started learning beside me and finally on how to operate washing machine. 

   I still practiced my compiled martial art set every day, before going to sleep, which I had kept working on and modifying as I experimented, analized and learned more about the biology of other species and my race. 

   I wanted it to be a masterpiece by the time I finished it. An ultimate way to fight. I had rewritten it a couple of times, redrawned pictures, as more I learned and my drawing skills became more precise. I already memorized every page of this notebook. Alongside that I kept a couple of other notebooks with my thoughts, analyses, confirmed and suspected weaknesses, alongside tactics of each race I knew of. Writing a martial art book was hard, as I had to take upon all kinds of enemies that I could face not only now, but in future. One such possible enemy would be a rogue Kryptonian, who were much stronger compared to the strongest Tamaranean, but had obvious weakness to kryptonite. 

   I had to find a way to fight one off without the crystal. At least that kind of fight would be really unlikely, as the planet Krypton blew up, but there is always possibility of survivors and escaped slaves. Most of the races also used technology to fight, such as fighters, battleships, drones, to which I had to find a way to counter, sabotage, destroy, or escape. I studied the available blueprints that were in the palace libraries, based on scavenged, destroyed, captured or just planetary available crafts and drones. 

   Looking at my desk, I just realized that with all of the information, analyses and tactics my notebook was becoming more of a combat guide, than just a martial art instruction, but I decided not to care and just packed it in my bag alongside spare clothes, backup belts and hygienic necessaries. 

   I then slowly flew towards the doors, closed them behind me and made my way towards the closest open window and looked towards the direction of the military college that I was going to spend most likely the next five years of my life. 

   Jumping out I started flying again with a bag on my shoulder towards the college and after ten minutes of flying I landed in the front of a big circle-like building that had everything inside and could even fit a five hundred crewed fully armed battleship inside. 

   Inside I decided to look at the building plan and saw that the whole building was partitioned into zones for each year and a living area in the middle. Each year was neighboring one higher and one lower, except the first and fifth years, as they were splitted by the entrance zone with a great hall inside for various balls and ceremonies, such as welcoming one for new students. 

   With a bag still on my back, I made my way towards the great hall for the welcoming ceremony that would start In twenty minutes and inside took a free seat in the third row, as second and first were already taken by other newcomers, who also all were one year older than me. 

   I waited patiently, as more people were taking seats near me and then in further rows, until the man came out on the stage, looking at us, he started his speech. 

   "Welcome everyone into the Tamar Military Academy. As you would want to know in near future, you can still leave, transfer out, or get kicked out as first years during the schooling process, In which case, you can still apply to other academies, but remember, if you pass the first year, then you are not allowed to leave, as you are becoming official military personnel, which will be treated as desertion and punished accordingly to law. You will learn about our enemies, our military and now neutral forces, you will be learning on how to fight both with your body and mind, how to use various machines of destruction and how to stop them. How well you do in this academy, will affect you directly on graduation day, by the rank that will be given to you during the start of the mandatory ten years in active forces to protect our people, as the payment for everything you will learn here." He stopped for a while, taking a while to slowly swipe his head across the spectators' seats. 

   "I can see that there are one hundred seventy six qualifying hopefuls, out of two hundred and three accepted, but I can assure you that in the second year this number will fall to between eighty to ninety and I am saying that, by experience. You have chosen the hardest Academy on this planet and we will work you to your bone. Remember, it is not too late to quit, the doors are right there" the man pointed his hand towards the door "Nobody is stopping you from leaving, we encourage you to do so, otherwise you might end up like one me aof the meat sacks on the ground after battle, for somebody to clean up and bury. There is no cowardice in leaving when you can. That's courage. Cowardice is leaving when you should have stayed, betraying your friends, family and race, by leaving the post and deserting, letting the enemy free and undetected. Cowardice is not killing the enemy, because you are afraid and letting him kill you, or your comrade. That cowardice will let you live for a while with blood on your hand, the knowledge that it is your fault that the woman, or a man you loved is dead. SO QUIT NOW, BEFORE YOU MAKE THAT MISTAKE!" He yelled the last part and a couple of people ran away, throwing their chairs back, which caused a couple of others to follow them. 

   After a while the person in front of them smiled and said "Now we have fourteen dropouts, but at least you will be able to trust your fellow warrior to watch your back. Don't make fun of them leaving. The life of a warrior is not for everybody. It is bloody and sad, not like in tales. People write great tales about victories, but in reality it is grim, dirty and bloody. Honor on the battlefield is rare, so don't go searching for it, enemies mostly don't care as long as they can kill you, or capture you. Your treatment will then wary on depending to who had captured you, but there are a lot of fates worse than death, such as slavery for Citadel. Remember this. Now you should proceed to the doors on the right side of the hall to get yourself an assigned room and lesson plan." He pointed at the doors, as he finished his speech and left the stage, moving away in the back towards the other gate. 

   I stood up, along with the other students and joined the queue forming at the open doors. After ten minutes of waiting, I finally reached the desk on the other side of the door, which was manned by a woman. 

   "State your name, family, take one of the cards and state the ID on it." 

   "Komand'r, daughter of king Myand'r " I reached then towards the top card from the stack, taking it I recited the number on the back "375-0107-C-TMA". 

   She looked at me for a moment with an appraising eye, before continuing "The card works both as your ID and your room door key, which has the same number as the middle part of the card number. Inside you will find the lesson plan alongside instructions and rules. Learn them, so we instructors would have less to work with. Next!" 

   I then made my way towards the living area, where I was welcomed by the highly placed glass roof and a green park between barrack type buildings. Each barrack was signed with a letter from A to E, with two entries, one in front, one in back. 

   I made my way towards the barrack C, where inside along the other newcomers I started searching for my room. After a while I managed to find it on the second floor and entered, using the card. 

   Inside were just plain white walls, a shelf, a small wardrobe, a desk with a lamp and a small book, wooden chair, a low quality bed with a stiff mattress and a clean sheet, placed near the window. Showers and toilets at this place were placed at the end of the corridor, for everyone to use. 

   I dropped my bag on the bed and sat on the chair and started inspecting the book that was on the desk. It contained rules and two copies of lesson plans. 

   I decided it would be a good idea to learn the rules first, before unpacking and started reading them.