Tightening Bolts at the Interstellar Military Academy, Hammering Everyone into the Ground

Experiment Log: Subject 420 massacred the life forms in Lab Three and displayed a violent personality. Sample termination completed.

...Supplement: Termination of Subject 420 failed. Mutant self-healing trait detected. Dissection preparations complete.

Bunker Alert: Beep! Beep! Warning, warning! The experiment bunker is under attack by an unknown life form. Vital signs unknown. Heavy weapons ineffective. Self-healing, immortal. The bunker has initiated self-destruct mode. All personnel, evacuate immediately. Repeat, all personnel, evacuate immedia...tely...

In the year 496 of the Interstellar Era, Jiang Yining crawled out of a mass grave in the wilderness of Baisha Star.

Experiment Subject 420 was "dead." Jiang Yining had transmigrated into the body of a child who had been kidnapped and dumped in the wilderness.

She killed the people who had abducted the child she now was.

She would go to prison and be sentenced to death.

The interstellar world was ruled by military might. Only military academy students had the right to appeal, and only a military tribunal could save her life.

After the child's family found her, Jiang Yining faced two choices.

Die, or get into a military academy.

Jiang Yining wanted to choose the first. She couldn't die anyway. But the child's parents gave everything they had to send her down the second path.

They wanted the child, wanted her, to live well.

One year, then two. They wrapped their little piles of spare star coins in sacks and saved enough to fill the space under the bed.

Lying on the bed, Jiang Yining decided she wanted to go to school.

For military academy, the options were healer, command, mecha engineering, and mecha combat. Her parents thought none of them suited her, so they chose the military specialty with the lowest admission score, the one she was most likely to get into: mechanic.

Mechanics were a new military occupation that emerged in Interstellar Year 389. They were responsible for maintaining the biological joint components of mecha.

During the Zerg War of Interstellar Year 389, poisonous miasma corroded the Federation's mecha joints until they were unusable, crippling the entire military.

The Federation dispatched an emergency team, and military experts discovered a new energy source on an uncharted planet: biological ore.

Biological ore had the characteristics of life but no independent consciousness. It could be grown in a specific location and molded into shape, making it an ideal material for resisting the Zerg's poisonous miasma and manufacturing mecha joints.

But biological ore needed to be nourished with mental power before it could be used as a material, so the military added a specialized troop type: mechanics.

Jiang Yining became a mechanic.

Her weapon was a hammer. A mechanic's hammer.

As the lowest-ranking member of her team, she couldn't get her hands on high-end materials like biological ore joints. All she did was the most exhausting and plentiful job: nourishing screws.

Then she discovered that if she used a healer's method to infuse components with her own undying power, she could link to and control every screw within her mental range!

Jiang Yining had a bold idea...

What if every mecha in the whole interstellar world used screws she'd "hammered" herself?

Her goal of getting into a military academy to stay alive was achieved. Jiang Yining planned to slack off and work on screws, but gradually she realized something was off. Why did the team's commander keep coming to chat with her whenever his mental strength was unstable? Why did the team's combat specialist always ask her to eat with him after getting hurt? Why did the team's mecha engineer keep inviting her shopping whenever he got overwhelmed with his studies?

Had they discovered her secret: that she was secretly studying the healer curriculum?

But she was just an ordinary mechanic.

From the start, the inter-academy competition drew a flood of media coverage.

In the Central Military live stream, competitors from the four-academy alliance stood proudly. They were heaven's chosen, the new blood of the military academies, the hope of the Federation!

But at this fiery arena, where the new generation of geniuses from the four great military academies battled for supremacy, a short person practically radiating resentment became famous.

Swords, guns, and shells. Mecha clashed.

Through the sand and sword light filling the sky, a potbellied support mecha hefted an ugly iron hammer and swung it at the strongest mecha combat specialist predicted to win this competition.

Jiang Yining carried her giant hammer, and every swing hit its mark.

She hammered away like an emotionless machine, aiming for the assembly screws in the biological joints of the opponent's Super-S mecha.

The camera zoomed in, and the live chat exploded.

[Wait... that's really a mechanic?]

[Holy crap, one swing knocked a leg off a Super-S mecha!?]

[Mom, nobody said mechanics were this vicious.]

Swinging her hammer in the arena, Jiang Yining stood on top of a combat mecha and declared with a swagger, "Come on! You're all just one swing away."

Theme: Take responsibility for what you do.