"Stop! Stop! That's too much!" Remian's head was spinning and he felt like the whole world was tilting.

Three hundred times. That was his limit. Even the Corpoman let out a low whistle. "That level of Psionic Power… if I didn't know better, I'd suspect you were a Human Ascendant, or a Revanan. But that's impossible. You'd have been registered long ago if you were either one."

"What's an Ascendant?" Remian asked, holding his head.

"A member of the Human Ascendancy. Like me. The Ascendancy consists of the Io Republic, the Blue Star Conglomerate and the Orion Empire. Members of any of our factions are called 'Ascendants'. Not to boast, but we're almost the most powerful human factions in the galaxy."

"Almost?"

"There's the Human Supremacy, but they usually don't mess around or get involved with others." The corpoman paused. "You can learn all about them when you start your sentencing."

At three hundred times acceleration, the ten years that Remian would spend imprisoned would, in real-time, take just a little over 12 days.

***

"We can't wait." Mindy decided, drawing her sword.

"I'll draw their attention. You guys. .h.i.t them as hard as you can." Wulfgar stretched, and dashed out. "URAAA!"

He bowled directly into the center of the five Tier 3 Spectres. Joshu, Jans and Denise started shooting just as the Spectres were scattered.

Ten seconds into the fight, Mindy stabbed a Spectre in the side...

***

Ten seconds for Mindy was 3000 seconds for Remian.

In these five hours, he found himself stuck with the most basic of basic beginner lessons available in Blue Stars Educational System.

Seated in the Edu-Sphere that was set up in his holding cell, Remian learned.

One of the first subjects he took up was Intro to Galactic Stellargraphy. In short, who the main powers in the galaxy were and how they were qualified.

According to the system, civilizations and interstellar factions were determined by Cla.s.s according to their capabilities. At the very beginning, a Cla.s.s 1 Civilization was qualified when they became a Tool Making Society, typically with wooden or stone tools for most basic purposes like farming or cooking. They were promoted to Cla.s.s 2 as soon as they harnessed energy in any form, most commonly with the use of a waterwheel or windmill.

Cla.s.s 3 Civilizations or Factions were reached when they were able to access all of their world's habitable zones. The exact definition of what was 'habitable' remained in debate, but commonly this was achieved by motorized travel. Some more exploratory groups achieved it earlier, other more placid ones did so later, but generally they'd all achieve it roughly within that same century.

Cla.s.s 4 happened when they colonized local s.p.a.ce. Whether for resources or living s.p.a.ce, when a civilization started building orbital s.p.a.ce stations for cities and mining local asteroids for resources, they were considered to have left their native planet and begun to be a s.p.a.ce civilization. Often this occurred with the help of their first s.p.a.ce Elevator or Electromagnetic Rail Launcher or something similar, depending on what sciences or technologies they advanced quicker. There was even one legendary civilization that advanced into s.p.a.ce with botanical sciences, using what amounted to a colossal beanstalk that enabled them to build orbital cities where their people grew to giant proportions due to the lower gravity.

But a real s.p.a.ce-faring civilization were Cla.s.s-5; the ones who managed interstellar travel. Whether they did so by gravitic drive, use of natural or artificial wormholes or the popularized Warp Gates, they were able to travel from star to star within their natural lifetimes (as well as often extending such lifetimes). These were considered 'young' human civilizations, of which there were hundreds listed in the Blue Star Conglomerate's database.

The human civilizations that other interstellar species usually interacted with, however, were the Cla.s.s-6 factions; the 9 clans, 5 inst.i.tutes and 41 nations who mastered Warp Drive. These were the ones developed enough for their people to privately own stars.h.i.+ps (s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps capable of interstellar travel at warp speeds). The Estuarte Clan was one of the Nine.

The current rulers over the human factions, however, were the three Cla.s.s-7 Factions; that is, the alliance known as the Human Ascendancy, consisting of the Io Republic, the Orion Empire and the Blue Star Conglomerate. There was a lot of boasting about how much effort the Conglomerate put into bringing these factions together into a peaceful mutual-defense pact and how it helped all humans greatly ever more…

To qualify for Cla.s.s-7, a civilization needed to achieve controllable energy-to-matter conversion. The fact that there were three such factions among human powers was already amazing.

Yet there was yet one more human faction more amazing still. This one had achieved the venerable ability to harness the power of a star. This group was known as the Human Supremacy, but they were rarely even seen or heard of, and there were people who even debated whether or not they even existed. The Blue Star Conglomerate, however, had concrete evidence that they did in fact exist, as did the Dyson Sphere they used to harness their star's energy. This was humankind's only Cla.s.s-8 civilization.

Information on Cla.s.s-9 civilizations was restricted. The system only explained that the qualifier for it was the harnessing of Chaos Energy.

Wait. Didn't the Quarin already do that?

Not entirely, no. A waterwheel could turn with the help of flowing water, but it did not control the water itself. There was a big difference between a plant that could grow using sunlight, and a Dyson Sphere.

As for Cla.s.s-10, even the theories on what it was or how it could be achieved were being debated academically.

What was most astonis.h.i.+ng was that there had been traces of extremely advanced civilizations found that were already destroyed, remnants with power far beyond what the Cla.s.s-8 Human Supremacy had shown publicly. Some scholars theorized those remnants could be from destroyed civilizations that would have qualified for Cla.s.s-9, possibly being on the verge of reaching Cla.s.s-10.

All this, Remian learned in a few hours and his head swam as he thought and pondered on what he'd learned.

***

On Mindy's side, the fight had only just begun.

"Get down!" she tugged Denise downward as a Spectre leapt for her throat. Mindy countered, stabbing it in the midriff and twisting her fire sword, pouring out as much fire through her sword as she could.

Joshu and Jans were back-to-back, having no s.p.a.ce or time to shoot any more arrows. Joshu blocked one Spectre's attack with his bow. That bow broke instantly, but he followed it with an arrow in his hand, shoving it directly into the Spectre's throat. Behind him, Jans was staving off another Spectre with her own bow, having already broken its string, but still whacking the Spectre like a cane.

Wulfgar meanwhile was engaged in what seemed to be a tug-of-war with a Spectre having bitten on to his axe with its teeth.

As for the fifth Spectre… that one had already been killed. Tang Yin didn't hesitate; he went straight up to the Rift and started weaving magic.

Ten more seconds pa.s.sed.

***

Over the next five hours, Remian started to study languages, particularly the ones used by the Human Ascendancy. These were the ones most recognized by all interstellar human factions. Most of them should already recognize the language the Conglomerate used, since they basically sold stuff to everybody, the same languge Remian was accustomed to, but there were enough exceptions that Remian decided it was best to learn at least a little bit of all three. Enough to recognize them, and greet or bid people farewell.

While Remian was studying languages, Xiao Yan was learning formations and arrays. That was what she'd been learning when they left her home world, and she figured she may as well continue.

To be frank, the formations and arrays she was learning from the Conglomerate was far, far more advanced than what she had learned back on her home world…