The next day.
The No. 3 starship duel zone under the authority of the Northstar Starship Academy had been made ready in advance.
This was a stretch of star region out on the academy's fringes, made up of some dozens of abandoned, uninhabited, barren little asteroids.
It was set aside expressly for the academy's starship simulation-battles, starship duels, and the like.
And at this moment, the duel too was being broadcast in full over the academy intranet — as was the standing custom for a starship duel.
Class 3-8's room.
Someone had gone to the trouble of pulling up the broadcast channel, and it hung as a holographic projection in the center of the classroom.
"When's Zhao Chen and Zhang Haoran's duel supposed to start?"
"I read the notice — the agreed time was 10, and it's already 10 now. By the duel regulations, both ships have to reach the battle zone within half an hour of the appointed time."
"Look, quick — that's Zhang Haoran's ship, isn't it! It's actually a T2 Bald Eagle-class Light Interstellar Cruiser!"
"That's the finest T2-tier interstellar cruiser in all our Starlight Empire — its speed is second only to the same-tier T2 interstellar frigates!"
"I hear a T2 Bald Eagle sells for 7 million star coins at the very least these days — and even then it's priced but not to be had! You couldn't necessarily buy one however much you wanted to!"
"He's finished. Zhao Chen's well and truly done for this time."
The students of Class 8 were, one and all, writing Zhao Chen off. With a ship like that sitting there, how was he to fight?
Was Zhao Chen going to somehow produce a ship even finer than that one?
Monitor Shen Bing kept her eyes on that T2 Bald Eagle-class Light Interstellar Cruiser — but she wore none of the envy the other students did, for she had studied the class, and it was, in her estimation, a "flash-without-substance" sort of product.
Its one and only merit was speed; beyond that, its loadout could only be reckoned that of a "hot-rodded" interstellar destroyer.
Being a light ship, its hull armor wasn't especially high, and its firepower didn't reach the standard of a proper T2 interstellar cruiser either.
But in a single-ship duel, so long as the Bald Eagle's captain commanded with sufficient finesse, he could fight in a kiting style, relying on its high speed to run rings around most ships and pick them apart.
On a true interstellar battlefield, though — faced with fleet-scale combat — it was of next to no use at all.
"Monitor, tell me — has Zhao Chen got any chance of winning?" Shen Bing's closest friend sidled up beside her and asked, curious.
Shen Bing hadn't earned her post as monitor on the strength of her class-beauty looks; she'd earned it as the finest student in Class 8.
Were it not for her ordinary birth, she could easily have made it into one of the higher-ranked classes.
Even so, across the theory exams of the past three years, Shen Bing had held a place among the top 10 of her entire year.
They called her the commoner scholar-ace.
"Very low," Shen Bing said mildly.
"Then wasn't he just slapping his own face, strutting about so grandly yesterday? If I were him, I'd have run back to my fief by now and settled down, nice and quiet, to being a good-for-nothing baron." The friend jeered without the least reserve.
Cold, cutting words were no scarce thing in the classroom just then either.
For Class 8 was a commoners' class; the overwhelming majority here were of common birth, or born into old interstellar-trade families.
Zhao Chen alone was the exception.
Zhao Chen's rank, set among the nobility, made him a thing to be mocked and looked down on. Set among these commoner students, it made him a grating presence — and so, naturally enough, everyone held this baron of a classmate at arm's length.
Shen Bing said nothing. She thought back on the look Zhao Chen had worn yesterday; in that moment, he had truly been so very confident.
Could it be nothing but his own "conceit"?
"How is it Zhao Chen's ship still hasn't shown up? There's under 15 minutes left of the half-hour limit. That little punk hasn't actually cut and run, has he?"
"I swear — I don't care whether he loses, but it's our whole Class 8 he's shaming here."
"Forget it, forget it. He loses either way, and at least next term we won't have to look at that sour face of his."
The students of Class 8 ribbed and jeered.
Bang.
A great crash rang out — it was Li Wei.
His fist had come down on the wall, and he swept a cold glare across everyone in the room.
Any who met that glare of Li Wei's shied their eyes away.
Li Wei's standing counted, within Class 8, as the very ceiling of the place — he had, after all, a rich-merchant father.
"Whatever else you say, Zhao Chen is still a student of our Class 8. You won't cheer your own classmate on, fine — but to stand here sneering and jeering! Where's that comrades-in-arms bond you all studied in your military-ethics course!" Li Wei berated them.
The students in the room gave Li Wei no answer to his face, but there was no shortage of them putting their heads together to mutter — and the greater part of what they said was nothing kind.
"Ahem, ahem, ahem…"
Just then a voice sounded from behind Li Wei — the teacher of this period's class.
"All right, it's time for the lesson. Every one of you, back to your seats now." The teacher spared Li Wei a glance, walked into the room, and took his place at the podium, readying himself for the lesson soon to begin.
Li Wei clenched his fist and silently sat back down in his place.
His heart was full of concern for Zhao Chen — but from this morning on, he'd been unable to reach him at all.
"Look, quick! That odd-looking ship — that couldn't be Zhao Chen's, could it?" someone suddenly cried out.
Every gaze fixed on the holographic broadcast window. Into the reach of space that had held only that one T2 Bald Eagle, another ship came slowly driving in.
Its hull wore the plainest iron-gray paint, and set beside Zhang Haoran's T2 Bald Eagle, this ship's shape was ragged and battered — you could even plainly make out, in a few spots, where "patches" had been fitted on.
"What sort of ship is this? How is it I don't recognize it?"
"Looks like an interstellar battleship… but those weapons… aren't the caliber a battleship ought to carry."
"This ragged wreck of a ship — I'd wager one shot from Zhang Haoran's T2 Bald Eagle blasts it to smithereens."
Seeing this strange ship, the students of Class 8 regarded it, one and all, as so much garbage.
"Shen Bing, you're the studious one. Do you know what ship this is?" the friend pressed Shen Bing again.
Shen Bing looked it over with care, and knit her brows. "This ship… carries the structural features of three ships. The T2 Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, the T2 Devil-Croc-class Medium Interstellar Battleship, and the T2 Grey Wolf-class Light Interstellar Cruiser… Could this be an assembled ship?"
"An assembled ship? Zhao Chen wants to beat a T2 Bald Eagle with some cobbled-together vessel? He isn't dreaming, is he?" the friend said with a sneer.
Shen Bing kept her eyes on the old-fashioned assembled ship and said nothing.
"Class has started. Shut off anything unrelated. What matters most for you now is your studies — not going and busying yourselves with unimportant things. A person ought to keep to his own place, and keep his feet on the ground." The teacher announced the start of the lesson just then.
But there seemed, somehow, to be some further meaning hidden behind his words.
Li Wei clenched his fist, seething inwardly.
The holographic video image in the classroom, too, was shut off.
Li Wei badly wanted to know how the battle between Zhao Chen and Zhang Haoran would go — but his own marks were nothing like Zhao Chen's. Skipping a month wouldn't be enough to hold him back a year, and so he had to be present for every single class.
The one message Zhao Chen had left him beforehand was this: don't worry, sit through your lessons in peace, and wait for his good news.
But in a situation like this, who could possibly sit through a lesson in peace?
And it wasn't only him. In truth, no small number of people in Class 8 were curious at heart — curious not about the result, but about how Zhao Chen would lose.
Badly, most likely.