Sixty, sixty.

Since Yuan Hanshuang declared that she wouldn't fight today, she truly did not fight.

Under the gazes of the staff members who looked at her as if she were already a dead person, she leisurely made her way to a luxury hotel in the Black Street.

The Black Street owned numerous upscale hotels, and the ones in the Central Star System were particularly extravagant. As the most lucrative celebrity combat program in history, the provided accommodations naturally had to be the finest available.

The moment Yuan Hanshuang stepped inside, she was warmly escorted to the buffet restaurant by the welcoming staff. Ever since she signed the agreement, a golden star had been added to her Black Street profile card, granting her access to premium services throughout the entire Black Street territory.

"This entire floor is the hotel's buffet restaurant," the receptionist smiled and said. "Please feel free to help yourself to anything you like."

Turning her loose here was no different than releasing a tiger back into the mountains. Naturally, Yuan Hanshuang had no intention of standing on ceremony with them.

To be honest, the last time she ate outside with the young miss, the entire restaurant stared at her in gawking curiosity while she just focused on her own food. Now, wearing molecular sunglasses that obscured everyone's faces, was she really going to bother avoiding suspicion?

Fortunately, the Black Street was still rolling in wealth—unlike that manager from the other day, who acted like such a stingy capitalist despite having deep pockets. No matter how much Yuan Hanshuang ate, the smile on the waitress's face never wavered by even a fraction of a degree. This only solidified her resolve to come back and freeload more meals in the future. After all, the money earned by the Black Street came from grey industries; just the casino sector alone raked in an unfathomable amount of ill-gotten wealth every single day. Unjust gains were meant to be devoured by everyone!

After stuffing herself to the absolute brim with food and wine, leaving absolute devastation in her wake, Yuan Hanshuang yawned as she took the elevator to the presidential suite on the top floor of the hotel, intending to catch up on her sleep before returning to campus.

"Such a soft bed. It's actually the exact same brand as the astronomical-priced mattress the young miss bought."

Yuan Hanshuang had a wonderfully blissful sleep.

When she woke up, it was already pitch black outside. So, after tidying up, she went back downstairs to freeload yet another mountain of food, then caught a dedicated transport back to Silver Star Academy, without sparing so much as a single backward glance at the VIP lounge for the rest of her stay.

Following her successful selection for the Celebrity Combat Program, Yuan Hanshuang was even less hurried.

Prioritizing her academics, she only planned to work part-time in the Black Street on weekends.

It wasn't until the first day of the week that Yuan Hanshuang finally reappeared in the morning drill formation.

Her companions were quite pleasantly surprised to see her return.

Xuan Yuanheng clutched a dumbbell: "I haven't seen you for four or five days. It felt like you went missing."

Xia Mengrou let out a cold snort: "Don't even mention him. I'm in the same dorm as her, and the most I usually see of her is when she's waking up to make up for lost sleep."

"Don't bring it up," Yuan Hanshuang sighed. "I've been working for an exploitative capitalist these past few days, pulling nine-to-nine shifts six days a week with mandatory night work. My brain was practically turning to mush, so I slacked off for an entire day yesterday before running back here."

Hearing this, Gu Dong glanced at her silently, as if pondering what kind of thievery she had been up to.

After the start of the semester, let alone being in different departments, even Xuan Yuanheng—who was in the same department as her—only saw her when they shared classes. Ever since he became the chief of the close-combat department, this guy had specially spent a hefty sum to rent an activity venue inside Silver Star Academy. Ke Jiunda had also run for the chief of the defensive department; although he didn't win the election, he deeply impressed the current defensive department chief and was reportedly being groomed as the next successor.

In short, everyone was busy with their own affairs.

"Working for a capitalist?" Xuan Yuanheng frowned. "Are you that short on money?"

As soon as those words left his mouth, he quickly realized how inappropriate they sounded and scrambled to patch things up: "I didn't mean it that way. I just meant... doesn't Silver Star have a lot of student loans? Now that I'm the department chief, just let me know if you need anything, and I'll help you apply for them."

"Save the explanations, I know what you meant."

Listening to Xuan Yuanheng dig himself into an increasingly deeper hole, Yuan Hanshuang raised a hand to interrupt him: "Of course I'm short on money. Just feeding myself requires a completely astronomical expenditure every single month."

Xuan Yuanheng: "..."

Xuan Yuanheng: "That's true."

Judging by the way Yuan Hanshuang ate, probably no family short of being a top-tier aristocratic house could afford to keep her.

Those present who had suffered deeply from this—Xia Mengrou, Wu Haoxuan, and Ke Jiunda, who had witnessed their boss's appetite from a very early age—nodded repeatedly. Only Gu Dong had what looked like a tiny question mark hovering over his head.

"By the way, Senior Ming Jia has been looking for you lately."

"Mhm, she already found me," Yuan Hanshuang said.

A few days after the chief combat tournament, Ming Jia had specifically intercepted Yuan Hanshuang to ask why she hadn't participated. Yuan Hanshuang replied that she had been very busy lately, offering a whole slew of excuses. Since it was a personal matter, Ming Jia couldn't force her, but before leaving, she patted Yuan Hanshuang's shoulder with a sigh: "Next year, without people like you to shoulder the heavy burdens, it'll probably be the worst year in Silver Star's history since its founding a millennium ago." She left Yuan Hanshuang standing there alone in deep thought.

"No matter what, next year is the Academy Ranking Tournament. Given your cultivation level, Hanshuang, and Silver Star's current situation, you're definitely going to be selected for the main roster—" Xuan Yuanheng was just about to appeal to both emotion and reason when he suddenly sensed the aura emanating from her, his eyes snapping wide open. "Wait, you're at the middle stage of Tier 4?!"

"Oh, right. Got lucky and broke through a couple of days ago."

Wu Haoxuan, who was watching from the sidelines, also raised his hand: "Big Brother Xuan Yuan, I've reached the advanced stage of Tier 3 as well."

Ke Jiunda chimed in to say that he felt the bottleneck of the Tier 3 peak starting to loosen.

One after another, these declarations of "getting lucky" meant the remainder of the training session was spent in dead silence.

Xuan Yuanheng stopped talking, his face flushing red as he continued his workout. To be honest, although he had long since accepted the fact that his new friend was an peerless genius, the pride of a lifelong frontrunner who had always far outpaced his peers was still acting up, refusing to let him be left this far behind. Furthermore, everyone was advancing so casually—talking about breaking through once every six months as if it were as easy as drinking water and eating food—which severely stimulated his competitive spirit as the holder of an S-grade mimesis.

Today was a spiritual mimesis class.

As luck would have it, the instructor was none other than Wei Wenwei, the current commander of the Third Legion, who had been reassigned to finish babysitting military training before officially stepping up to his teaching post.

"I am the instructor for this class, and you should all have heard my name."

During military training, the freshmen had mostly interacted with Adjutant Feng Bo. Wei Wenwei had happened to be summoned to the Privy Council for a joint investigation during the training, but since everyone had gone out to greet the horned melon anger monster on that day, there was no way anyone didn't recognize him.

By the time Wei Wenwei finished his summons and returned, he could hardly believe his ears upon hearing that the current batch of Silver Star freshmen had actually defeated the Imperial freshmen in the inter-academy match.

"Have the freshmen from the Imperial Academy gotten that pathetic lately? They couldn't even beat Silver Star?"

Wei Wenwei was an outstanding graduate of the Imperial Academy, and his badge was still displayed in the graduates' corridor of excellence to this day.

Precisely because of this, for his very first class with the Silver Star freshmen, Wei Wenwei intended to test their strength to see how on earth they had managed to defeat the Imperial Academy, which had ranked first year after year.

"We won't be discussing skills in this class. Just release your spiritual mimesises directly."

The Silver Star students on the training ground successively summoned their mimeses.

The most eye-catching among them was naturally Xuan Yuanheng's large golden lion, followed closely by Yuan Hanshuang's red-and-white koi fish, which lately looked like it had grown a size chubbier.

Wei Wenwei swept his gaze across the field. To be honest, most of the mimeses on display were around the B-grade level, with not even many A-grades, and only a single S-grade—Xuan Yuanheng's golden berserker lion. In terms of mimesis grades, several freshmen at the neighboring Imperial Academy possessed S-grades, with the general average being A-grade, and it was nearly impossible to even find a B-grade there.

He truly couldn't fathom how this gathering of geniuses had managed to get stomped by Silver Star.

Frowning, he released his own mimesis.

The pressure of a peak Tier 7 powerhouse instantly diffused across the training ground. The moment it appeared, it caused the students' generally Tier 3 mimesises to step back repeatedly, not daring to meet its fierce edge.

Wei Wenwei's mimesis was a mechanical beast possessing formidable computing power. Of course, his ability wasn't solely used for interstellar network data collection; it also possessed combat capabilities in the physical world, capable of assembling ray guns for ranged attacks.

"Since it's our first class, let's play something interesting."

The legion commander tugged at his gloves. "Line up and take turns having your mimesises attack it. Groups of two, three, or four are all fine, up to a maximum of five people. As long as a single mimesis manages to touch it, I won't fail a single one of you from Silver Star for this entire semester."

"Holy shit! What?!"

"Is this real? No failing grades! Friends, charge! For the sake of not failing, we must touch the teacher!"

"No failing grades... what has blinded my vision? It's the glory of no failing grades!"

A single short sentence instantly electrified the Silver Star freshmen.

Enticed by the temptation of avoiding failed grades, they spontaneously formed squads. Xuan Yuanheng naturally pulled Yuan Hanshuang along, teaming up with Xia Mengrou, Wu Haoxuan, and Ke Jiunda to form a five-person squad.

When the other freshmen saw this, their confidence surged: "With the squad formed by classmate Yuan, classmate Xuan, and classmate Xia, I feel like we have great hope today."

"Yeah, yeah! We owe it all to your command during the match back then. Can you guys think of something today?"

Miraculously, there was not a single dissenting voice. Everyone crowded around them, waiting for their reply.

Only now did Yuan Hanshuang realize that their squad had unconsciously established a leadership position among the Silver Star freshmen, whose decisions were followed implicitly and met with overwhelming approval.

"Don't be too optimistic. Since Instructor Wei dared to make that claim, it means he has absolute confidence," Yuan Hanshuang shrugged. "Besides, he's at the peak of Tier 7, just a hair's breadth away from Tier 8. Today, forget about groups of five—even if all of us charged together, we wouldn't necessarily touch a single hair of his mimesis."

Ever since she learned how to synchronize and fight alongside her mimesis, Yuan Hanshuang rarely fought using her mimesis purely on its own.

After watching for just a moment, she could tell that Wei Wenwei wanted to test their micro-control abilities over their spiritual mimesises. Generally, only the three rear-line branches paid special attention to training spiritual power; the three close-combat branches were much more inclined toward enhancing physical fitness—though that didn't include a scroll-grinder like her.

Still, a peak Tier 7 confronting a group of Tier 3s was clearly a bit like bullying.

"Does that mean classmate Yuan thinks Instructor Wei might be trying to give us a reality check today? So he deliberately offered such a lucrative condition just to hook us in?"

Xuan Yuanheng noncommittally replied, "There's actually a very high chance of that, considering he's an Imperial Academy graduate. So let's all just do our best without holding too much hope."

Leaving Yuan Hanshuang standing alone in place.

A team of Silver Star freshmen had already excitedly commanded their mimesises to charge forward.

Sure enough, the mechanical beast executed a mid-air backflip right where it stood, opening its silver-white locking mechanism in mid-air. Tech-infused fluorescent blue symbols emerged above its wing-flaps, immediately followed by molecular variable changes for rapid assembly.

The next second, the landing mechanical beast leveled the pitch-black barrels of its laser guns right at the first group of students.

"Swish, swish, swish—"

Columns of laser fire erupted from the muzzles. Out of the five mimesises on the field, two were shot down in the blink of an eye. Among them, a bird-type mimesis had half its wing blown off, struggling as it fluttered in the air.

Wei Wenwei stood leisurely to the side, speaking at a slow pace: "In theory, my laser gun can fire continuously without stopping. But considering you're just a bunch of rookies, each of my shots will only last for a single second."

Witnessing this scene, the freshmen in the audience felt their legs turning to jelly.

Although mimesis combat wouldn't cause physical pain, defeat of a mimesis would still leave the user feeling dizzy and disoriented for a while. If defeated too many times in a short period, it could even leave behind the sequelae of brain damage. While getting defeated once or twice wasn't an issue, it certainly wasn't a pleasant experience overall.

Next up was the following group.

This group lasted for even less than half the time of the previous one before being struck down.

Looking at the tragic spectacle on the field, Yuan Hanshuang crossed her arms, her brows tightly knitted.

She thought to herself that although it would be extremely difficult, touching Wei Wenwei's mimesis wasn't entirely impossible.

As it happened, her koi fish possessed a rather flamboyant innate ability; if utilized well, it might just pull off an upset victory.