"Room 1 of Dorm B-25 is mine, rooms 2 are Lydos and Fidio's, and room 3 seems to be for you two," Sergeant Louise, the squad leader, said.
Archie was about to reply when he suddenly remembered something: "Oh, right, we need to clean up room 4 when we get back. Sergeant Major Valina seems to be moving in from the Storm Academy later."
Because Horatio and Archie were roommates, and the 15th preparatory students had different specializations and would soon have classes, Archie and his teammates got to know each other briefly before Archie and Horatio left together.
"Speaking of which, she's both our instructor and a team member?"
Horatio thought about it. This concept was a bit like a student counselor in a 3K era university.
"Yes, she doesn't interfere with our command and plays the role of a Soldiers in the squad, but she only participates in high-risk missions."
"She's probably also responsible for evaluating us."
Lydos said grumpily, "More and more deduction items."
The advantage of the dormitory being close to the dining hall was perfectly demonstrated.
This was a dining hall, but it could be considered a club, with both long mahogany tables and circular booths.
Some Naval Officers who had no classes or missions were playing cards and Regicide inside. The dining hall was self-service; you could eat as much as you wanted.
The meals were very rich, thanks to the Imperial Navy Captains from the Loyalist Academy. When they returned to port, they would bring tons of various planetary specialties.
The group chose a nearby long table. There was no Chinese food, so Horatio picked a section of ribs.
"Be prepared, it will only get more dangerous later."
Louise sat next to Horatio and placed a cup of frosty Mjolnirs beside Horatio's hand.
Horatio picked up the cup and took a small sip: "It tastes very good."
"A Captain returning from the Valhalla route brought it back. It's rare, but the taste is good."
"Are our external missions very frequent?" Horatio asked.
"Yes, now is the calm before the storm."
"Sergeant Louise."
Suddenly, a male voice came from beside them, followed by the sound of several chairs being dragged.
The group looked at the young man who sat silently next to Louise, and the squad he led.
That was Henry Harvey. He had changed into a crisp military uniform, his bicorne hat placed perfectly at a 90-degree angle on the table, and several medals pinned to his left chest.
"Your team is very early," the young man sat up straight and began to cut a Grox steak.
"Our team is always early." Louise's slightly friendly tone vanished instantly, replaced by a polite indifference.
Except for Louise, who, as the squad leader, exchanged courtesies, Fidio and Lydos, sitting opposite, completely ignored him and continued eating their food.
Horatio kept observing the two groups of people. From the strange atmosphere, Horatio could feel the huge gap between commoners and nobles.
Harvey's gaze shifted from Louise to Horatio, who was sitting next to her, and his slightly raised lips then inverted.
"Let me introduce the new blood of our team, whom everyone must know, the famous young master of the Ravenberg Family, David Beatty."
"Nice to meet you, classmates. I'm sure everyone knows the Supreme Commander of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, the protector of the Gothic Sector, the Gothic Fleet's..."
"The new blood of our team, Horatio Cochrane, a descendant of Imperial hero Admiral Spire's family."
Louise's introduction was very concise, like a Soldiers reporting, without repeating lengthy titles as if to say, 'How many people have actually come into this room?'
Because all praise and glory in the Gothic Sector only required the single word 'Spire'.
"Please guide me, Sergeant Major 'Sir'." Horatio bowed gracefully.
"I am Henry Harvey, as you can see, I am a Sergeant Major of the Imperial Navy, in the same department as you, the Chief Midshipman (first place)," Harvey said, straightening up, not caring about Horatio's slight teasing, then turned to Louise:
"Louise, this week you..."
The address without a rank seemed a bit too intimate, which crossed Louise's boundaries. She frowned unhappily.
"I have something else to do, so I'll take my leave first.
Also, we are just comrades and classmates, nothing more."
Louise wiped the corners of her lips with a napkin, replied expressionlessly, then stood up and left, carrying her finished meal tray.
Lydos and Archie also stood up. Fidio wolfed down the last piece of meat and then followed suit, leaving their seats.
"It was a pleasure to meet you, Sergeant Major," Horatio replied politely.
Only a table of laughing noble students and a darkened Henry Harvey were left behind.
A gentle summer breeze blew across the faces of the young people. Since it was break time after lunch, there were few pedestrians on the road.
Fidio yawned lazily. Lydos walked and shadow-boxed, rehearsing for tomorrow's combat training. Louise carried a small notebook and was reviewing recorded course content. Archie was introducing the Gothic Fleet's history of the past century to Horatio.
Horatio clasped his hands behind his head, enjoying the plant-scented summer breeze, and for the first time in a long time, he regained the beautiful memories of walking on a tranquil university campus in the afternoon that he had lost.
Back in the dormitory, everyone had their own things to do.
Lydos went straight to the boxing room; Fidio wiped down his father's shotgun and his mother's laser pistol; Louise sat at her desk preparing for the next make-up exam; Archie had mostly organized his things, so he went to organize room four for them, making space for Sergeant Major Valina.
Horatio placed his Naval Officer professional course books on the dedicated bookshelf. Everyone had many books. Although they were divided into departments, Naval Officers would not only work in one department.
Therefore, a large number of subjects overlapped. Everyone theoretically had to learn all knowledge of navigation, combat, management, and maintenance in the 41st millennium. The division into departments was only to allow different focuses.
Horatio received 12 subjects, covering a series of theoretical subjects such as mathematics and physics, mechanical operation, etiquette and diplomacy, fleet tactics, command and control, military management, aviation scheduling, high gothic, commonly used low Gothic dialects, and so on.
He even saw the operation manual for the Imperial Navy's main fighter jets. It seemed that he also had to learn to pilot various aircraft.
Horatio was not surprised; anything that flew was something the Imperial Navy needed to master.
He had just heard Louise say that much knowledge could be transmitted into the brain through electrical signals, making it possible to learn a vast amount of knowledge in a short time.
However, the forgetting speed was relatively fast, requiring constant consolidation and review, and classes also involved listening to Naval Officer instructors explain practical applications.
In addition, the exams were difficult, the amount of questions was huge, one subject took a whole day to test, and the failure rate was very high. Almost every Midshipman would lose points and have to retake exams, and the average academic score was generally not high. Only before graduation did nearly half of the people barely meet the threshold for Midshipman prepared by, which was 10,000 points.
Although Louise didn't say how many subjects she failed, when the topic came up, a rare blush of awkward shyness appeared on her cheeks.
Horatio looked at his prosthetic limb.
' + Activate: machine soul Favor + '
As Horatio flipped through the pages, the knowledge in the book was compiled by the prosthetic limb like binary code, transmitted, and finally stored in his mind.
After finishing a book of three hundred pages, all the knowledge was stored in his mind word for word. No matter what content, he could immediately recall the specific page and line.
Horatio suddenly thought of something and quickly took out the book "Imperial Holy Word—high gothic."
In the Imperium, high gothic was considered a pass for the elite, but its complex language system made it difficult to learn in a short time.
After inputting the entire book into his mind, he closed his eyes, then opened them, and tried to converse with himself in high gothic.
Although it was not yet very fluent, with more practice, he could speak eloquently.
Moreover, Horatio found that he could now read high gothic articles without any problem.
[Very good, if this continues, 500 per subject is possible.]
A total of 12 subjects meant that he could earn an extra 6000 points, enough to reach the rank of Naval Sergeant just by taking exams.
Add in mission points and commendation points. Perhaps by St. Giles Festival at the end of this year, he would be a Sergeant Major of the Imperial Navy, on par with Henry Harvey, or even higher.
[First, find something to practice with.]
Horatio turned around and looked at Louise, who was preparing for a make-up exam at the study desk behind him.
She was racking her brain thinking about artillery trajectory functions. From the draft, it could be seen that she had already calculated 5 trajectories aimed at a Chaos cruiser 1000 kilometers away.
But from the knowledge Horatio had just acquired from "Void Ballistics," none of these five trajectories would hit.
Because her function framework was correct, but the parameters were filled in incorrectly.
"Squad leader, try raising the polar angle in the function by 3 degrees and reducing the propellant charge to 4/5 of the original value."
Louise tried it and indeed got the value from the reference answer.
"Have you studied before? I remember you weren't..." Louise was very surprised and looked at Horatio in confusion.
"My father is the Chief Lord Captain; he taught me some knowledge of void ballistics." Horatio found a reasonable excuse to prevaricate.
Even if he was lost in the Lower Hive, he was still the son of a Naval Officer family, so it was not strange for him to know some things about the Imperial Navy.
"Thank you."
Louise looked at Horatio's blue eyes, feigning composure amidst the awkward shyness of a newcomer guiding an elder, and took out another book: "Ah, right, this question, heading angle and yaw..."
Horatio answered all of the squad leader's questions.
Moreover, he found that as long as his iron hand touched a practice book, he knew all the solutions to the application problems inside.
At least for exams, there would be no problem. As long as he got more practical experience on ships later, he could easily apply it in actual combat.