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Xu Lingqu didn't know Liu Zheng well. In her impression, Liu Zheng was quiet, always cold-faced and sparing with words.

So the sudden question caught her off guard, and she wasn't sure what Liu Zheng was after.

"Yeah, why?" Xu Lingqu turned to face Liu Zheng directly.

"...When the shooting range opens, do you want to have a match?" Liu Zheng tried to sound friendly, but her usual cool tone came out like a challenge.

Xu Lingqu didn't think much of it. "Sure," she said, taking it as a normal invitation to compete.

When it came to shooting, Xu Lingqu had never studied it formally, but the first time she'd held a real gun, she'd already been killing.

After washing up, she left the building, leaving Liu Zheng sitting on the bed, a bit dazed, as if she hadn't expected to so casually challenge Xu Lingqu.

Lin Xiao pulled the blanket off her head, silent. Did she hear that right? Liu Zheng had challenged Xu Lingqu of her own volition, and Xu Lingqu had accepted without missing a beat?

She'd wondered if the two might ever clash, but in her imagination, it would be on a battlefield thick with smoke, not as mundane as two people asking if the other had eaten breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, Lin Xiao's stomach growled. She scrambled out of bed, got dressed quickly, and hurried to the cafeteria—if she was late, all she'd get was nutrient fluid, and she wanted hot, fluffy buns and fried dough sticks.

At the cafeteria entrance, she ran into Instructor Chen carrying two breakfast trays out.

"Instructor, you're here for breakfast?" Lin Xiao greeted him dutifully.

Instructor Chen nodded. "Going to pick up Instructor Kai Ang."

Lin Xiao skidded to a halt.

Instructor Kai Ang was coming back?!

That demon chief instructor, who delighted in tormenting them and had given them a few "gifts" the moment they'd met, was returning.

All of a sudden, the food in the cafeteria didn't smell so good.

The demon instructor Kai Ang had no idea his return had just killed an ordinary female student's appetite.

At that moment, he was lounging in Instructor Chen's office, legs crossed. When the door opened, the man was already there.

Instructor Chen shot him a glare. "I'd already sent my aircraft to pick you up, and you snuck in on your own."

Kai Ang had been lectured by the old men at Moye Military Academy for days, told to stop tormenting the kids, until his ears were practically calloused. He couldn't wait for Instructor Chen's pickup, so he'd slipped into the base himself.

Without a hint of being a guest, he grabbed a soft steamed bun from the breakfast Instructor Chen had brought and took a bite. "Don't you usually have tea and pastries?"

"These are for you," Instructor Chen said, pulling over a chair and sitting down, frowning at Kai Ang wolfing down his food. "What's wrong? Did they mistreat you when you went back? Not feed you?"

"No, nothing like that," Kai Ang said, washing the food down with a sip of soy milk. "It's just that the food here smells especially good. With those old men glaring at you all day, how could you stomach anything? You'd lose your appetite."

He'd had a rough few days—the old men seemed ready to hold a hearing to make him confess any plans he had to torment the students and give them up.

"Isn't it because General Shen's grandson is here and they're afraid something might happen? General Shen hasn't said anything, so why are they worrying? Huh?" Kai Ang felt genuinely unlucky. "They talk about the safety of all students so righteously, but they think no one knows their real intentions."

Instructor Chen tapped the desk with his index finger in agreement. "Moye is getting worse every year, thanks to them."

At that, Kai Ang's expression darkened. "If they kept training students like they were herding sheep, and Shen Shouli went back and told his grandpa about it, that would be a real embarrassment."

He stood up and looked out the one-way glass window. The students had already assembled, and another instructor was leading them through the morning's physical training.

"They think with Liu Zheng and Shen Shouli as guarantees, we won't look too bad in the mech arena at the military academy league, and that's enough for them. That's as flawed as their overall strategy."

The topic was a bit too sensitive, and Instructor Chen frowned. "Kai Ang..."

Kai Ang waved his hand. "Forget it, let's not talk about that. Nothing went wrong these past few days?"

Instructor Chen was silent for a moment. Kai Ang thought he was upset and quickly added, "Of course, with you in charge, nothing could go wrong. I shouldn't have asked."

"No," Instructor Chen interrupted his self-deprecating apology.

"Something did go wrong?" Kai Ang was taken aback.

Instructor Chen sent a data report directly to his smart device—it was the evolved version of the one Doctor Li had shown Xu Lingqu earlier.

It detailed all of Xu Lingqu's recent training data, supporting the existence of her special constitution.

"She's the same type as the Galaxy Admiral..." Kai Ang frowned deeper as he read. After thoroughly examining every piece of data, his brows relaxed, and he looked at Instructor Chen with sudden understanding. "So that's why you asked me the other day if someone with a B-level psychic power could pilot a mech."

Instructor Chen gave a slight nod, confirming Kai Ang's question.

Kai Ang fell silent and reviewed the data again. Xu Lingqu was truly an incredible person.

Even without seeing it with his own eyes, just from the growth in the data, he could feel how fast Xu Lingqu's 'evolution' had been over these past few days.

Instructor Chen had witnessed her transformation firsthand, and on the day of the cross-country with weights, he'd followed behind her alone.

He'd seen her willpower, courage, and determination with his own eyes, which was why he'd finally asked that question that went against his common sense as a soldier.

Can someone with a B-level psychic power really not pilot a mech?

Kai Ang understood completely. "It's like on the day of hand-to-hand combat training, when I saw her, my first thought was those maniacs from Ares. Remember how you comforted me then—psychic power limits..."

In this interstellar era, psychic power levels represented a certain strict hierarchy in a sense.

Countless bloody lessons had warned humanity not to cross that line, and everyone had gradually gotten used to seeing high-level psychic humans perform at high levels.

Xu Lingqu with her B-level psychic power was a bit too out of the ordinary. If she'd always been this strong, people might think the psychic test was wrong. But everyone had watched her go from weak to strong, which made it easy to harbor incredible fantasies about her future.

Kai Ang was silent for a moment, then said, "At least she'll definitely be a great commander. The map battles at the military academy league will be her time to shine."