The arrangement of the sector HQ's interior was nonexistent. The students were scattered in a combined cluster with seats spread out to create small groups all within the building. Attached to the wall directly in front of them was a digital mission board which contained the relevant information for the sector's current assigned mission.
Mission assignments were split into two categories. Student missions which included anything from harmless time wasters designed to help the students master Ressence to mildly harmful civil assurance missions that have them shadowing local law enforcement for some time and Staff missions, highly dangerous and confidential missions issued by the government at random times, an example being the one the base commander was on right now.
Henry took Alden through the crowd of students to the very back where a small group of about 7 students including Henry himself sat. On the way he picked a random empty seat and set it down among the group members before directing Alden to sit on it after which he sat on his own chair which was directly behind Alden's chair.
Alden looked around, his mind slowly unraveling itself. This was the second time in less than a week that he had been let down by the world. First was his placement issue, now he can't even get the department he'd worked so hard towards. What really hit him worse than anything was the actual value of the General Arts Department.
In terms of priorities, most factions and the government itself pick talent over anything else, especially if that talent is accompanied by potential. However, for any hidden gems to be discovered in the current era, it depends heavily on the setting and situation. For example, most factions would pick a mildly promising student of a grade A base over an exceptional student from a grade B base and it's all because of the funnel system the government had created.
The system of resource distribution was deliberately set up by the government to move all exceptional talents to grade A bases to better cultivate them with the best of everything available while watching the other bases fight for scraps. This created a savage system where grade A bases groom exceptional talents while the others grow with whatever they could scrounge together. Grade B bases usually had it the worst, while C and D bases are known to be disregarded by the government, Grade B receives whatever is left behind after the Grade As are done which caused a lot of public expectations, obviously leftovers were not even close to enough to meet the basic requirements for below average students by Grade A standards, the disappointment and outrage caused by the public letdown further elevated the status of Grade A giving the government an excuse to continue investing in them.
Now, with the very limited amount of resources being given to grade Bs, most of them invest it in the department which requires the most talent and potential, the Research and Analysis department which is also the most sought after department by the outside world. Among departments, the lowest in terms of value was the General Arts Department, reason being that there was no real skill to be learned by those who end up in such a department. If Research and Analysis was training scientists, General Arts was training foot soldiers and factory workers. In such a situation, even if he went ahead to become the best student in the whole base, outside factions would still pick weaker students with less than half his capabilities from all other departments to fill up their available slots before looking in his direction.
The people born from the General Arts Department are usually known as jacks of all trades, masters of none. They are pumped full of incredibly useless and generic information while they are tought to follow orders and shadow their superiors which in turn means if a faction needs a specific specialty they absolutely would not pick from General Arts because at most what they'd receive is a very strong pawn who would most likely die in some random battle or get assassinated by rival factions for having battle power that could change the tides of war.
And most factions were not willing to spend large amounts of time and resources to help you specialize or teach you something that you were supposed to learn during your stay at the base. Funny enough, this whole situation still benefits the government because all those rejected by the factions were usually swept up by the government to officially join the army.
Alden was lost. Everything he'd worked so hard towards had crumbled to dust by circumstances he had no control over whatsoever. This was the biggest fuck you he'd ever received by the government, everything was lost, his future future career prospects, his life goals, even the path forward was lost.
Currently, Alden's mind was completely blank. It wasn't an emotional mess like most people's minds if they were placed in the situation. If it was to be described, Alden felt like he was in a wide, infinitely stretching desert that looked the same no matter where he looked, he had lost his tracks and no longer knew which direction he was supposed to be moving in. He could pick any direction and make a new path but he had lost all his will and motivation. He no longer saw a point in moving and he didn't even know which way was forward anymore.
Within this mental expanse, he felt as though the wind had picked up, meaning any and all tracks he'd left behind were gone and any he'd leave in the future would be erased, like a twisted game created by an unseen entity to ensure that he would never truly make progress in any direction due to confusion and self consciousness.
On the outside, Alden had zoned out, any and all attempts to interact with him would result in him murmuring half thought responses as though his soul had been taken out leaving his outer shell in the hands of those around.
Just like that, Alden's purpose in life was gone, his flame extinguished, he could see his destiny clearly. He was going to be nothing more than another foot soldier to the army's games, nothing more than another forgotten number in the list of millions before and millions to come.