Duke Madison was the Minister of Defense in the Kabas Empire. He was drinking coffee when his assistant, Ruth, knocked on the door and came in. "My lord, the latest recruitment letters have been sent. All citizens required to serve will receive them by 6 p.m. today. Fia, the central AI, has confirmed everything will be delivered," Ruth reported.

Madison didn’t care much. Recruitment was a regular task every year. He didn’t need to be involved. This year, however, the relationship with the Fuluo Federation had become tense. There had been some small conflicts, which made him pay a bit more attention to the issue.

His mind was mostly focused on his family's business.

After Ruth left, Madison opened his personal holographic device. He connected with a major general, a chubby officer.

The officer’s hologram appeared, almost lifelike, in front of Madison.

The major general greeted him quickly. “My lord, do you have any orders?”

Madison said, “General Wang Feng, as the head of logistics, you need to help the Empire.”

Wang Feng looked confused. He didn’t understand why Madison was saying that. His job was to handle supplies, not these matters.

Wang Feng smiled awkwardly. "My lord, I don’t understand. Please give your orders."

Madison said, “For this round of recruitment, increase the proportion of synthetic food from 30% to 35%. Tell the Kaimeng Trading Group to change their supply. They should now provide 5% synthetic food and 5% natural food instead of 10% natural food.”

Wang Feng immediately understood.

The Kaimeng Trading Group was Madison’s family business. They also supplied food to the military. When the military bought food, they paid in advance. The payment for this batch of food for new recruits had already been made. Starting tomorrow, Kaimeng would supply food for the recruits for six months.

Madison’s plan was to have Kaimeng replace higher-quality natural food with cheaper synthetic food. Synthetic food cost half the price of natural food. This would allow Kaimeng to make over 300 billion Kabas coins in profit.

This was a common practice, though usually, the percentage was much smaller—between 0.1% and 0.5%. Wang Feng didn’t understand why Madison was making such a big change this time.

“My lord, is this... a little too much?” Wang Feng asked carefully. He was worried about the risks.

He was in charge of logistics. If something went wrong, he would be blamed.

“Wang Feng, you are a senior officer. You should understand the situation. The Empire is struggling. We are saving military costs. This will help the Empire,” Madison said. “Here’s what we’ll do. All Panhua recruits will get synthetic food. The Panhua make up about 2% of the population, and their soldiers are around the same. The other recruits will get less synthetic food than before. This way, the overall amount of synthetic food for other ethnic groups will still be lower. It’s settled.”

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Madison ended the call.

Wang Feng felt sad. He was from the Panhua tribe too, but he had to rely on Madison’s family to survive.

At dinner, Jackson was eating delicious food. He didn’t realize that once he joined the army, he would only eat bland synthetic food.

His mother, knowing he was leaving for the army the next day, kept adding more food to his plate. “Justin, eat this chicken leg. You’ve always loved it since you were little.”

Jackson felt warmth in his heart. He was touched, even though she wasn’t his real mother.

He remembered the information he read online. The Panhua tribe had once built the Panhua Empire. At its peak, the empire was the third most powerful in the universe. Its army was one of the strongest. But for some unknown reason, the empire was destroyed by all the other nations in the universe. At the end of the empire, some people surrendered, while others fought to the death.

Those who surrendered were scattered across the universe, wandering. The ones who fought were exiled to an unknown star system. That system was called the Solar System. No one knew where it was, only the name. The United Federation of Intelligent Life turned the Solar System into a massive prison to hold them forever.

Jackson realized that humans on Earth were part of this world. He noticed many things here were like Earth.

After learning all this, Jackson felt lost. With his current strength, trying to return to Earth would be suicide. He didn’t even know where the Solar System was. Even if he found it, the United Federation of Intelligent Life would catch him and punish him.

For now, he had to focus on surviving here.

“Thank you, Mom,” Jackson said, trying to sound cute. It felt awkward calling such a young woman “Mom.”

His parents, though they looked in their twenties, were actually over 1,000 years old. People here lived long lives—up to 10,000 years—about 100 times longer than humans on Earth.

The universe was strange. Even though people lived so long, it seemed like something controlled their lives. People didn’t start having children until 800 years old, and there had to be at least 100 years between each childbirth.

Scientists had tried and failed to solve this issue. That’s why the population here didn’t grow quickly. The population of Bibo, where Jackson lived, was only 3 billion. Industrial planets and entertainment planets had larger populations, over 8 billion.

Most intelligent life in the universe was humanoid. There were other kinds, too. There were even rumors that entire planets were alive. Jackson hadn’t seen any such life, and Justin’s memories didn’t mention it.

“Master, Li Feng and Trelia are here to see you,” the robot at the door, Chen Wu, called out.

Jackson finished his chicken leg and went to the living room to meet Li Feng and Trelia.

They were his high school classmates. Li Feng was from the Panhua tribe, while Trelia was from the Kabas tribe.

“Justin, you got your conscription letter too, right? Haha, now we’ll go to the army together!” Li Feng said, excited to join the military.

“Trelia, didn’t you get into Rift Valley University? How come you got a conscription letter too?” Jackson asked, confused. Normally, young people who went to higher education didn’t have to serve in the military.

“I signed up voluntarily. I heard they are recruiting warship pilots, and that’s been my dream. Plus, the Fuluo Federation keeps bullying us. As a citizen, I should do my part,” Trelia said firmly, her blue eyes full of determination.

Jackson paused for a moment. Then he realized that Trelia, being from the Kabas tribe, loved her country. That made sense.

The next day, the three of them went to the recruitment station in Rift Valley City.

Rift Valley City was the capital of Bibo, with a population of 800 million, almost a third of the planet's population.

The recruitment station was a huge square building, located right next to the military airfield. New recruits would board spaceships there and be sent to various training bases.