The moment Arthur entered the building, he could see two lines to choose from. One on the left was for the Bond Academy, and the other one on the right was for the military.

People in the left line were visibly wearing better clothes and accompanied by stronger Bonds. Arthur could see an eagle with metallic feathers and a tiger with flaming fur among them. They were either of very high cultivation rank or descendants of one.

"Considering they're in that line, they must have 2nd gen Bonds!" Arthur looked at the fantastical beasts with envy.

"Aw! What was that for?" he protested as a tail whipped his cheek.

The rat on his shoulder ignored him, avoiding eye contact and showing its displeasure at its master's train of thought.

Since he didn't get any reaction from his companion, Arthur went toward the right queue and joined the line. He didn't want to get kicked out by the guards in the building for blocking the way and being an eyesore.

In his line, Arthur could see some rather ferocious Bonds, such as a wolf and some type of large bird that he didn't recognize.

From the lack of visible mutations, these animals were clearly 1st gen Bonds, but that didn't mean they were harmless. "Even here, I still look like the weakest!" he thought.

Not only did the Bonds look stronger than his rat, but the people they belonged to had taller and stronger builds than Arthur, who had grown up on the street.

It took about five minutes for the line to move. "That took longer than expected..." he thought as he wondered why it took so long for the registration.

"Next!" a woman called from one of the military registration counters.

Arthur tried to keep his calm as he walked toward her. She looked to be in her late teens to early twenties, but Arthur knew not to judge a woman's age by her appearance. In the age of animal cultivation, most people stayed young as long as their companions grew strong enough.

"People even said that the city lord was 80 years old before the apocalypse!" he thought as he remembered that a few years ago, he saw the city lord looking like a middle-aged man while parading through the city after a successful incursion against spirit beasts.

"Name, age, sponsor," the woman said in quick succession. She clearly wasn't interested in talking with Arthur.

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"Huh?" he got confused, which annoyed the woman.

"Tell me your information! Don't you want to apply to join the military? Now, don't make me repeat myself again. Your name, age, and sponsor," she chided him.

"My name is Arthur, 15 years old. I don't know what a sponsor is, but I don't think I have any," he answered sheepishly.

The woman glanced at him once before scribbling on a paper, then continued to question him. "Trait, Talent, Bond species."

"My trait gives me a boost to hand movement, while my Talent makes my Bond smarter... as for my Bond... it's a rat," he stammered, which earned him another tail whip from his displeased companion.

"Come again? What was your Bond again?" the woman asked as she thought she misheard him, as his voice grew quieter at the end.

"It's a rat, ma'am," he pointed to his shoulder.

The woman gawked at him and his companion but decided to keep her comment to herself. She didn't want to waste her words.

After a few questions regarding his background, which he could not answer since he didn't have parents, never went to school, and didn't have a home address or emergency contact, the registration was finally complete.

"She definitely marked my application as suspicious!" he grimaced internally.

"Here, take this token and report to the military barracks near the west gate at 4 am tomorrow," the woman offered him a token.

"The west gate? I'm sorry, ma'am. Which gate is the west gate?" he asked in confusion, to which the woman palmed her face in disbelief and rage. Talking with Arthur had tested the woman's patience.

"The one furthest from the sun when it rises! Now, if you don't have any other questions, I have more people to attend to," she practically chased him away before calling the next person in line.

Arthur went out of the building, turning his brain to find the west gate.

"The sun rises from that way, so the west gate should be that way, near the market," he mumbled while looking for directions.

"I should probably look for the barracks now so tomorrow I won't need to look for it and risk being late," he thought aloud.

"Hey! Look where you're walking!" A young man pushed Arthur back after they bumped into each other because he wasn't paying attention.

Arthur fell backward from the push as he was not physically fit, while the young man's strength was anything but ordinary.

*Squeak!*

His companion positioned itself between him and the opposition, to which a muscular leopard beside the young man roared in challenge.

As fast as it had put itself between Arthur and the young man, the rat positioned itself behind Arthur, hiding from the clearly superior predator!

"I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention," Arthur could only bite his lips while apologizing to the young man.

"Do you think sorry is enough? If sorry is—"

"What is happening here?! Who dares cause trouble in the government district?"

As the young man was about to pick a fight with Arthur, the guards rushed toward them after hearing the leopard's roar.

"Tsk, consider yourself lucky," the young man muttered before he walked away as if nothing had happened.

"Damn it! I don't know if I was unlucky bumping into him or lucky that the guards saved me," Arthur thought. But his thought was cut short when the guards rushed toward him.

"Hey you, don't move!" they shouted.

Arthur quickly got to his feet and ran away into the crowd, knowing that he would be the target of the guards' scrutiny now that they had asked him not to move.

Shouting for people not to move was basically asking them to run away!