"Huff... huff..." Li Wei pushed through the crowd, panting heavily as he spotted Zhao Chen. "Old Zhao, I thought you'd come in through entrance A. I waited there for ages. Let me tell you, those people from Tianyao Noble Starship Military Academy are just too much, acting all arrogant..."
As he spoke, Li Wei finally noticed the two vice deans present. He quickly coughed a few times, deliberately shifting his gaze away and falling silent, quietly moving closer to Zhao Chen.
"Where's your sister? I just saw her starship's status..."
"She went to prepare for the next duel," Zhao Chen replied.
"Next duel?" Li Wei was surprised.
Xue Xiaoxiao chimed in from the side, "You missed it! Just now, Wan'er's brother was amazing—he directly confronted that nasty woman and even beat up her protector. Now, Wan'er's brother is having Wan'er pilot his starship for another duel. Wan'er's brother, is it that Zero Blizzard from before? Am I going to see that huge cannon of yours again?"
Xue Xiaoxiao blinked expectantly at Zhao Chen.
"It's not Zero Blizzard," Zhao Chen said.
"If it's not Zero Blizzard, then what starship is it?" Xue Xiaoxiao asked, a bit disappointed but still curious.
"You'll find out when you see it later," Zhao Chen replied before asking, "Where's Senior Su Lan? Isn't she usually with you? And from the looks of it, it seems like they deliberately targeted you. Is there some conflict?"
"Senior Su Lan is attending an exchange meeting between North Star Starship Military Academy and Tianyao Noble Starship Military Academy. As a sixth-year student representative, she's often brought along by teachers for such occasions," Xue Xiaoxiao explained, then began recounting Zhao Wan'er's situation with indignation.
"This is entirely that nasty woman stirring up trouble! Unable to control her man, she takes it out on us!"
Xue Xiaoxiao then detailed the whole incident.
It turned out that Tianyao Noble Starship Military Academy had visited North Star Starship Military Academy a week earlier for a half-month academic discussion and exchange. During this time, outstanding students from each grade level would also interact with one another.
Naturally, academy beauties like Zhao Wan'er and Xue Xiaoxiao became targets of attention.
During this period, a noble student from Tianyao Noble Starship Military Academy had been approaching Zhao Wan'er every other day—his intentions were obvious to everyone!
Zhao Wan'er firmly rejected him each time, directly telling him to stop harassing her. Yet, every day, this Tianyao boy would arrange for someone to deliver exquisite natural food meals and various gifts, even promising to gift Zhao Wan'er a T3 Starship if she agreed to be his girlfriend.
"A T3 Starship? That's quite the extravagant way to chase girls," Zhao Chen remarked in surprise.
The construction cost of a T3 Starship was around ten million Star Coins, and its market price could reach hundreds of millions. Such a tempting offer would likely be irresistible to most girls.
"I think he's just a playboy, using these sugar-coated shells to win you over, then kicking you aside once he's had his fill. I even had my friends investigate this guy from Tianyao Noble Starship Military Academy, and it turns out that's exactly the case!"
He's played around with who knows how many girls!
There are even rumors that during his time at our Academy, he's already had ambiguous relationships with several girls.
Scumbag! Ugh.
It's no wonder that bitch Zhou Min is infatuated with this man; they're a perfect match." Xue Xiaoxiao said with disdain and disgust.
Li Wei added from the side, "But so many girls have been fooled because of that guy's status.
Feng Xiao Wei, the second son of the Hurricane Consortium!
The Hurricane Consortium is currently a rising star among the new consortiums in the Stellar Glory Empire, with a vast commercial territory in grain trade, star system transport trade, and especially in starship technology trade.
The best-selling T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer over the past decade was launched by their consortium. From its release to now, cumulative production and sales have exceeded one hundred thousand ships!
Rumors say that this single starship alone has earned the Hurricane Consortium hundreds of billions of Star Coins in wealth over the past few decades.
It was also because of this T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer that the Hurricane Consortium rose from an obscure interstellar consortium to become a newly prominent major consortium in the empire!
With such a major consortium's young master promising you a T3 starship, those little fans are naturally willing to believe it and give it a try. If they really managed to get a T3 starship..."
Li Wei didn't say more after that; everyone understood what he meant.
Li Wei's expression was somewhat uncomfortable when he mentioned the T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer earlier because he had previously purchased one himself.
"Is that man not here?" Zhao Chen glanced around. If that young master were present, he would likely become the target of everyone's criticism.
Xue Xiaoxiao crossed her arms and snorted coldly, "That playboy is best at keeping himself out of trouble. He never gets involved when women fight over him."
There was still some time before the two starships were ready to enter the arena.
"Xue Xiaoxiao, Li Wei. Let me ask you something: do you know how to skip grades in a short amount of time?"
Zhao Chen took this opportunity to inquire about grade-skipping.
"Skip grades?" Xue Xiaoxiao looked at Zhao Chen in surprise, not understanding why he was asking about this. However, because of the Zero Blizzard cannon, her impression of Zhao Chen was still favorable, but she didn't know the answer either. "I'm not really sure."
"Our Academy's grade system works like this: as long as you accumulate enough assessment credits for each grade, it's equivalent to completing the assessment for that grade, and you can advance to the next grade in the following semester.
If you can accumulate three times the assessment credits required for a grade within the academic year, you can directly skip to the next grade.
However, if you don't meet the assessment credit standards for the grade you skipped to in the subsequent studies, you'll be held back." A voice chimed in from the side.
Zhao Chen looked over and saw it was Vice Dean Hong, who had stepped forward earlier.
"Is there a limit to how many times you can skip grades within one academic year? For example, skipping from first grade directly to third grade consecutively," Zhao Chen inquired.
Vice Dean Hong was taken aback for a moment before replying, "Theoretically, there's no such restriction. However, the original grade assessments are already quite challenging. Accumulating three times the required credits, skipping two grades consecutively within the same academic year, and ensuring you don't get held back..."
This has never occurred in the history of our North Star Starship Military Academy. Most students only skip one grade level and then successfully meet the assessment points standard for that grade after skipping.
This ensures they won't be held back and can smoothly advance to the next grade the following semester."
Zhao Chen now had a rough idea of the situation.