Chapter 1066: Chapter 428: Preparing to Leave the City Chapter 1066: Chapter 428: Preparing to Leave the City Wang Tao had just returned home when he heard the radio broadcasting about the Awakeners School.

The radio didn’t go into much detail, only mentioning that City Hall would be building an “Awakeners School.” As the name suggests, the mission of this school was to train Awakeners. Three days later, City Hall would start setting up registration points, encouraging residents of the base to sign up enthusiastically.

Of course, not just anyone could sign up; there were strict standards, and failing to meet them meant one could not register.

The criteria were straightforward and had to be met simultaneously.

The first criterion was that any person who had come to River Base and had no prior criminal record could apply.

What kind of person one had been before arriving at the base didn’t matter unless one confessed one’s dark history; otherwise, the base wouldn’t care. However, after arriving at the base, one had to abide by its rules. If someone committed an offense within the base, at the very least, it indicated a flawed character; at worst, it suggested problematic thoughts. Such a person definitely wouldn’t be accepted.

The second criterion was that the individual had to be a Level 1 Ability User or higher.

Ordinary people also had the potential to become Awakeners, but the probability was undoubtedly smaller. After all, if one wasn’t even an Ability User, becoming an Awakener was too difficult. It was relatively better to select directly from among Ability Users.

The third criterion was youth.

In many cases, youth was a significant advantage, and the apocalypse was no exception. Among two people of equal strength but different ages, the younger one undoubtedly had greater potential. Therefore, age had to be considered.

However, the age criterion differed from the first two; it was somewhat flexible. City Hall stated that it was best if the candidate was under thirty years old, but if the other conditions were excellent, then even thirty-five or forty years old could have a chance. After all, if a suitable candidate was found, could they really be rejected just because of their age? That definitely wouldn’t be acceptable…

These three criteria weren’t difficult, but they weren’t easy either. The majority of people would be filtered out at the registration stage.

This was intentional on the part of City Hall. After all, River Base had a population of over five hundred thousand; if all of them came to register, the registration points City Hall set up simply wouldn’t cope — even if City Hall could manage, the school and its budget couldn’t.

Therefore, there had to be standards to initially filter out a large number of residents. They would then slowly screen the remaining applicants, and after a final audit by Wang Tao to confirm there were no issues, they would recruit them.

This was something Wang Tao had previously discussed with Gu Yun, and Wang Tao knew there would undoubtedly be omissions. But in the world, no plan was perfect, and achieving this level was already commendable.

Moreover, this was only the first batch. They would continuously recruit more people, gradually lowering the registration standards to give everyone a chance to apply. It didn’t matter if they weren’t selected; the important thing was to give people a chance and leave no regrets.

“I guess everyone is going to go crazy…”

Ding Yuqin looked at Wang Tao and said.

“Definitely, becoming an Awakener is the dream of so many people!”

Wang Tao smiled and then added:
“You all know that they want me to be the principal, but a school can’t just have a principal. Teachers are essential, so I’ll arrange for you all to join the school later…”

“Ah? Us become teachers?” Lan Yulian’s face showed interest, but she quickly furrowed her brows, “But wouldn’t that take up a lot of time? Unless we never leave the house…”

Hearing this, Wang Tao laughed again.

“It won’t be to the extent of not being able to leave. We’ll be making guest appearances, occasionally guiding them, focusing primarily on enhancing our own strengths. There are other choices for permanent teachers. Also, this school is different from the ones you know; it’s designed to trigger Awakening. It’s clearly not possible to Awaken just by staying inside the school. Hence, the Awakeners School is actually practice-oriented, with theory as a supplement. When the heavy snow stops, the teachers will bring students out to fight…”

“I see… That does sound quite good!”

Everyone nodded.

Wang Tao continued to talk with them about the Awakeners School; they were all very excited and optimistic about this project.

After all, Wang Tao was to be the first principal, and they had personally experienced how strong Wang Tao’s ability to train Awakeners was. The Starfire Society, with only a dozen members, had half of them as Awakeners!

If Wang Tao could fully utilize his abilities in the school… they weren’t sure how many Awakeners he could train, but they were certain it wouldn’t be disappointing!

“However, speaking of Awakeners, you all guest-teaching later without the strength of an Awakener wouldn’t work. We still have a few who aren’t Awakeners… I think we should go out and enhance our strength?”

Wang Tao looked at everyone.

“Go out?”

Hearing this, many were eager to move.

They had been in the base for half a month, and although this comfortable life was not bad, given it was an apocalypse, they all had a strong sense of potential danger. Not advancing their strength made them feel insecure; enhancing their strength outside would be preferable. But with the current weather…

“Can we go out in this blizzard?”

Lan Yulian asked worriedly.

“It shouldn’t be a big problem. Qu Shilin retrofitted our vehicle, and it can now fully adapt to such extreme weather. We just need to be careful not to fall into any pits. The only issue might be the low visibility, but with Han Rui here, her Perception Ability can be very effective in this kind of situation…”