In a galaxy-spanning empire, Earth has become a forgotten backwater—and Wang Zheng just scored a genetic mech pilot rating of 28. That’s right, barely above a lab rat. His dream of piloting a mech is crushed, his pride is shredded when the campus beauty rejects him (and rumors say he tried to end it all), and then the old man from the bookstore—his only family—vanishes, leaving behind nothing but eerie instructions for a birthday gift. But when that gift turns out to be a mech from an ancient technology beyond humanity’s wildest dreams, Wang Zheng discovers that blood scans lie. And that someone—or something—is pulling the strings of a stellar conspiracy that will drag this low-scoring nobody into a tempest of interplanetary war, martial arts duels, and forbidden romance. From schoolyard brawls to the coliseums of alien mecha, Wang Zheng must battle not only the galaxy’s elite pilots but also the treacherous chessmasters behind his mentor’s disappearance. And as he unlocks the gift’s secrets, he learns that his 28-gene rating is the key to a power that could reshape the universe—or destroy it. Action. Martial arts. And a whole lot of sci-fi mayhem. Ready to soar beyond the stars? Dive into Tempest of the Stellar War today.