Also I wrote more words per chapter and there are limits of Tapas so chapters are dived into 2. 

On the thirty-seventh day of late autumn in the Federation Empire, nothing unusual happened.

At least, that was what most people thought before eight o’clock in the evening.

The border planets were still rotating quietly beneath the long patrol routes of the Mu family’s fleet. Mining stars continued their shift-change alarms. The central planets remained bright and extravagant, their orbital rings crowded with private aircraft, diplomatic vessels, academy shuttles, and merchant ships whose hulls reflected the cold silver glow of the capital star.

In the imperial administrative district, the palace’s night lamps lit up one by one.

In the military zones, soldiers finished their drills, removed their helmets, and leaned against the walls of their barracks while scrolling through the star network.

In ordinary residential planets, parents urged children to finish their homework. University students complained about research reports. Office workers reheated nutrient meals. Young Omegas compared the latest pheromone-stabilising products. Mechanics students cursed at half-finished models. Nobles attended banquets beneath crystal domes, their conversations polished, indirect, and full of hidden meanings.

It was a perfectly ordinary day.

Until every screen in the Federation Empire flickered.

Personal terminals.

Public projection walls.

Military rest-area broadcasts.

Academy information boards.

Commercial floating screens.

Even the small holographic window above a child’s study desk.

For half a second, the entire star network seemed to fall silent.

Then a line of golden characters appeared.

The Imperial Academy Elites

A second later, music rose.

It was not the bright, noisy opening used by ordinary entertainment programmes. Instead, it began with the deep sound of a ceremonial bell, followed by the distant roar of starship engines. The camera swept over the capital star from above: silver-white towers, suspended bridges, imperial banners, academy spires, and the ancient dragon crest of the Federation Empire half-hidden in the clouds.

Then came Imperial Academy.

The highest academy in the empire.

It occupied an entire floating district above the capital’s northern sea. Its main gate was built from starstone and black crystal, and its inscription had been personally written by the first emperor after the founding war.

For centuries, it had admitted the most gifted students in the empire.

Nobles sent their heirs there.

Military families sent their successors there.

Researchers sent their geniuses there.

Ambitious commoners treated its entrance examination as a path to changing their family’s destiny.

And now, for the first time, Imperial Academy had agreed to open part of its student life to the public.

The announcement voice was elegant, official, and calm.

“Jointly produced by Imperial Academy, the Ministry of Education, and StarNet Entertainment, the academy observation variety show The Imperial Academy Elites will soon begin broadcasting.”

“The programme will follow twelve students from Imperial Academy.”

“Six S-Class final-year students.”

“Six A-Class third-year students.”

“Their studies, research, competitions, teamwork, conflicts, growth, and youth will be recorded under academy supervision.”

“Let the Federation witness the brilliance of its new generation.”

For three seconds, no one reacted.

Then the star network exploded.

The programme had not even released a trailer yet, but the words “Imperial Academy” were enough to detonate every entertainment forum, academy discussion board, noble gossip channel, military chat group, and family dinner table across the empire.

Imperial Academy students.

S-Class.

A-Class.

Final-year students.

Third-year students.

Twelve guests.

The public’s imagination immediately began racing in twelve different directions.

Noble glamour.

Genius rivalry.

Inter-class tension.

Mecha battles.

Academic competitions.

Imperial gossip.

Hidden family grudges.

Friendships between young elites.

Possibly even romance.

Especially romance.

After all, the Federation Empire had beast forms, pheromones, noble bloodlines, childhood engagements, and young geniuses who were too beautiful to look like ordinary humans. If a variety show could place these people under the same camera, how could the audience not imagine several hundred dramatic possibilities?

The bullet comments rolled so fast that the programme team’s newly opened livestream announcement page nearly froze.

【Imperial Academy??? Did I read that correctly???】

【S-Class? The real S-Class? Not some entertainment-company fake genius setting?】

【Six S-Class final-year students… isn’t that the legendary teacherless class?】

【Teacherless S-Class! The group that completed all required credits early and then started stealing professors’ research rooms!】

【Upstairs, be respectful. They did not steal research rooms. They occupied them legally with terrifying results.】

【Are we finally going to see what imperial monsters look like in daily life?】

【I only care about whether the Crown Prince is attending.】

【Impossible. His Highness never joins entertainment programmes.】

【The Ministry of Education is involved. Maybe this is semi-official publicity?】

【I smell imperial soft power.】

【I smell gossip.】

【I smell Alpha-Omega drama.】

【Be honest. Everyone is here for noble drama.】

The programme team clearly understood the Federation’s curiosity better than anyone.

After the opening scene ended, twelve silhouettes appeared on the screen.

The first six were covered in dark gold.

The last six were covered in light silver.

Then the guest list began to unlock.

The first name appeared.

Yin Canglan.

For a moment, even the bullet comments stopped.

Then the entire star network seemed to scream.

Crown Prince Yin Canglan.

The empire’s black dragon Alpha.

The heir who had entered military strategy classes at thirteen, attended administrative meetings at fifteen, personally reorganised three border supply systems at seventeen, and was said to smile gently while making corrupt officials lose the courage to breathe.

He was twenty years old this year.

Final-year S-Class.

Crown Prince.

The future ruler of the Federation Empire.

No entertainment company could invite him. No noble family dared to use him for publicity. Even his public appearances were usually related to state affairs, military ceremonies, disaster relief, or diplomatic receptions.

Yet his name was now on a variety show guest list.

The audience’s first reaction was disbelief.

Their second reaction was madness.

【His Highness?????】

【Programme team, say that again. Who???】

【Yin Canglan? The Crown Prince Yin Canglan? Black dragon Yin Canglan?】

【I was eating noodles. I am now wearing noodles.】

【Is this still a variety show? This is a political event wearing an entertainment coat.】

【Do we have to kneel while watching?】

【Does the Crown Prince even know how to participate in variety shows? Will he inspect the director’s governance efficiency?】

【I suddenly feel sorry for the staff.】

Before the comments could recover, the second name appeared.

Mu Xiyu.

The reaction this time was stranger.

There was excitement, yes.

But also hesitation.

Surprise.

Curiosity.

A faint, hard-to-define tension.

Mu Xiyu.

The only Omega of the Mu military family.

The youngest child of Marshal Mu.

The white tiger Omega who rarely appeared in public, rarely accepted interviews, rarely attended ordinary social gatherings, and was somehow both extremely famous and extremely mysterious.

He was only eighteen.

Yet among Imperial Academy’s final-year S-Class students, no one questioned his position.

Because Mu Xiyu was not there because of age.

He was there because of ability.

At fifteen, he had improved the stability structure of military mecha energy cores.

At sixteen, he had entered the Thousand-Year Mechanical Manufacturing Competition and taken first place with a combat-support model that several military laboratories later requested permission to study.

At seventeen, he had developed the first public formula of Soothing Pills, a product that helped Omegas, soldiers, emergency workers, and high-pressure professionals regulate mental strain and pheromone pressure without the heavy side effects of traditional stabilisers.

At eighteen, he was already exclusively responsible for upgrading and maintaining Crown Prince Yin Canglan’s personal mecha equipment.

These achievements were all public.

But Mu Xiyu himself was not.

The public knew his work, his family, his title, and his engagement.

They knew the Mu family guarded border star regions where Zerg tides often appeared. They knew many remote planets survived because the Mu family’s military flag had stood above their defence lines for generations. They knew that on certain border planets, children grew up recognising the white tiger crest before they could even write the characters of the capital star.

They also knew another thing.

Mu Xiyu was strange.

Cold.

Quiet.

Difficult to approach.

He rarely smiled. He seldom explained himself. He answered emotional questions like technical problems and technical questions like military orders. Rumours from Imperial Academy said that he could reduce a conversation to silence with one sentence.

Some people admired him.

Some disliked him.

Some feared him.

Some insisted that the only reason no one dared to criticise him openly was because he was the Mu family’s Omega and the Crown Prince’s fiancé.

The bullet comments around his name were far more complicated.

【Mu Xiyu is joining too? The programme team is really brave.】

【Cold Omega genius! I have only seen him in competition recordings. His face is unreal.】

【Is he the one who made the Soothing Pills? My sister uses them during exam season.】

【Not just exams. My father is stationed on X-17 Border Planet. Their whole medical unit uses Mu Xiyu’s emergency formula.】

【The Mu family protects our planet. Please be respectful.】

【I heard he is very arrogant at school. He ignores ordinary students.】

【He ignores everyone, not just ordinary students. That seems fair.】

【Isn’t he the Crown Prince’s fiancé?】

【Childhood engagement. Palace lessons together since they were young, apparently.】

【Wait, Mu Xiyu upgrades His Highness’s mecha?】

【So the Crown Prince really does eat soft rice?】

【Careful upstairs. That soft rice comes with military-grade energy stabilisation.】

【I heard Mu Xiyu once looked at a crying classmate and asked, “What practical assistance do you require?”】

【That sounds cold.】

【That sounds useful.】

【As an Omega, I don’t care if he smiles. Soothing Pills saved me during my internship.】

【As a mechanics student, I only want to know whether he will show his model designs.】

【As a gossip lover, I only want to know whether His Highness peels fruit for him.】

The guest list continued.

He Lianzhou.

Golden lion Alpha. Heir to the empire’s largest interstellar transport network. Known for solving logistical problems with a level of wealth that made economists silent for three seconds before recalculating inflation risk.

Wen Shuo.

Beta. From an old academic clan. Astrophysics, data modelling, ancient civilisation studies. Famous for writing papers whose footnotes were longer than most students’ graduation theses.

Qi Nian.

Silver fox Omega. Pharmaceutical dynasty heir. Beautiful enough for entertainment companies to cry over, sharp-tongued enough for entertainment companies to give up immediately.

Luo Jingshen.

Black panther Alpha. Finance and resource-modelling genius. Allegedly once reduced a noble family’s three-generation business plan to “emotionally expensive and mathematically dead” in six words.

These six names formed the S-Class list.

The public stared at them and understood again why Imperial Academy’s S-Class had no formal teachers anymore.

What teacher could manage this group?

A crown prince.

A military-family Omega genius.

A transport-route heir.

An academic monster.

A pharmaceutical fox.

A finance panther.

The staff should not be given microphones.

They should be given emergency insurance.

Then the A-Class names unlocked.

Compared with the S-Class, they were less dazzling, but far more approachable to ordinary viewers.

Ji Ran.

Beta. Commoner background. Excellent grades. Known in A-Class for being warm, hardworking, articulate, and good at mediating conflicts.

Ruan Qingyao.

Omega. From a prestigious noble family. Beautiful, proud, socially skilled, and once rumoured to have belonged to the same childhood circle as the S-Class students.

Bai Suling.

Beta scholarship student from a poor planet. Environmental restoration major. Genuinely outstanding in practical governance coursework.

Xu Cheng.

Alpha. From a respected military family. Straightforward, disciplined, and famous for treating every academy competition as if it were a battlefield.

Tang Miao.

Omega. From a media and entertainment family. Delicate appearance, sharp image sense, and unusually strong public communication skills.

Han Yue.

Beta. From a wealthy merchant family. Often called “the poorest rich student in A-Class” because he insisted on describing himself as ordinary while wearing limited-edition custom protective gear.

The contrast was obvious.

Six S-Class final-year students who seemed to live above the clouds.

Six A-Class third-year students from mixed backgrounds, closer to the public’s imagination of youth, struggle, ambition, and growth.

The programme team’s intentions were clear.

This was not merely a show about noble glamour.

It was a show about hierarchy, talent, misunderstanding, comparison, and the empire’s future.

Of course, the audience translated that into simpler words.

【S-Class gods versus A-Class top students? I am seated.】

【Ji Ran looks very gentle. Finally, someone normal.】

【Ruan Qingyao is so beautiful. Noble Omega rivalry incoming?】

【Xu Cheng! Military family! I watched his academy combat clip. Very clean style.】

【Bai Suling is from a poor planet? Respect. Imperial Academy scholarship students are monsters too.】

【Han Yue saying “ordinary students like us” while wearing a custom merchant-family watch is very funny.】

【Tang Miao understands cameras. I can tell from one publicity photo.】

【The A-Class group seems more human.】

【That is because the S-Class list looks like a disaster-response committee.】

【I want rivalry.】

【I want romance.】

【I want His Highness and Mu Xiyu in the same frame.】

【I want to know whether Mu Xiyu is really as cold as rumours say.】

【I want to know whether Ji Ran can make friends with S-Class. He seems emotionally intelligent.】

【Why do I feel there will be drama?】

There would, of course, be drama.

No variety show survived on academic brilliance alone.

The Federation wanted to see geniuses, but it also wanted to see geniuses eat breakfast, fail at teamwork, look embarrassed, reveal old grudges, and accidentally expose childhood gossip under high-definition cameras.