Director Jasper Quinn, who had been the focus of the teachers’ attention, now strode into the monitoring room.

The man wore a crisp military uniform. Though it bore no insignia, his mere presence was commanding. He stood with a solemn posture, a ramrod-straight spine, and a pair of sharp, resolute eyes.

The previously lax atmosphere in the monitoring room instantly shifted.

All the teachers and dispatchers instinctively rose to their feet.

Jasper Quinn’s gaze swept over the room before landing on the scene displayed by the mechanical eyes. "This incident is utterly egregious," he said in a low, heavy voice. "To think it was students who had to discover the problem."

"What if it wasn’t Miles Sherman and his team who encountered this, but another A-level squad?"

"What if it wasn’t these two individuals with ulterior motives who lost their lives, but our students? Who would be held responsible?"

When lives were on the line, no one could bear that responsibility.

The Alphas admitted to the Federal Military Academy generally came from well-off families, each one carefully nurtured for success. The rare few from less privileged backgrounds were accepted only because they possessed absolutely first-rate talent.

The loss of any student, regardless of their background, would bring immense grief to their family.

"The personnel involved have already been identified and are being disciplined. While you aren’t responsible for deploying the Xenobeasts, you can’t just stand by with no response plan whatsoever."

He pointed at several blacked-out screens. "What’s going on with these monitors?"

A teacher stood up to explain, "Students damaged the mechanical eyes, so we’ve temporarily lost the feed."

Jasper Quinn’s brow furrowed, a humorless, angry smile on his lips. "Check all surveillance drones immediately. I want eyes on every single student. If anyone doesn’t want to be monitored, tell them to come see me directly."

’Even now, these teachers somehow haven’t realized that more accidents could happen.’

’They’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. There’s no guarantee the students won’t uncover something else.’

"This is a massive scandal. If word gets out, it will do irreparable harm to the academy’s reputation. Who can take responsibility for that?"

Jasper Quinn’s two consecutive questions about responsibility silenced all the teachers.

Because, once again, no one could take that responsibility.

Seeing looks of contrition on their faces, Jasper Quinn continued, a vein pulsing on his jaw, "No one *can* bear this responsibility. That’s why we must take every precaution."

Perhaps it was the lack of any incidents for so many years that had allowed the teachers to grow complacent.

The academy hadn’t suspended the joint exam immediately because they were considering the potential fallout.

Apparently, nothing had gone wrong over at the First Military Academy yet. The problem had started here, at the Federal Military Academy. For the moment, it seemed to have been handled appropriately, without escalating into a bigger crisis.

If they had called a halt right from the start, the First Military Academy would obviously know something had happened here.

An incident during a competitive joint exam would expose the academy’s problems on multiple fronts. This was a military school exam, not some ordinary test. For something like this to happen pointed to a dual failure of both management and surveillance.

"I’ll get on it right away," the teacher in charge of the surveillance drones replied grimly.

Jasper Quinn was here to clean up the mess.

Once he was certain the teachers’ attitudes were completely different from a moment ago, he spoke again, more slowly this time. "Where is Miles Sherman’s squad? Someone go get them and bring them to the conference room for a meeting."

The teacher nearest the door immediately acknowledged the order and hurried out.

Jasper Quinn reiterated, "I don’t want any more incidents before this joint exam is over."

The teachers in charge of monitoring immediately assented.

The moment Jasper Quinn left the monitoring room, they immediately began combing through the student rosters.

By filtering out the eliminated students, they could quickly see which teams were still in the running. Cross-referencing this with their drone feeds, they could instantly identify which squads were no longer under surveillance.

The Intelligent Brain automatically pinpointed the students’ locations, and several teachers personally delivered new bee-like surveillance drones to each team.

The teams who had destroyed their drones were startled by the sudden appearance of teachers bringing new ones.

’No one said teachers would personally deliver new drones.’

Before they could say a word, the teacher stated bluntly, "Do not damage these drones again. Anyone who does will lose course credit and be required to submit a written explanation to Director Quinn."

’How many Director Quinns could there possibly be at this school?’

’There’s only one director with that name: Jasper Quinn.’

Everyone immediately shut up and accepted the new drone. Director Quinn was famously strict and had always kept the students on a tight leash. Now that his name had been invoked, no one dared to destroy the surveillance drone again.

Lord knows, Director Quinn had a million ways to make a student’s life hell. For example, he might make someone run 100 laps of the training field, or force an Alpha from the Mechanical System to assemble their mecha from scratch, alone, or even send students from the Command Department to attend classes in the Warship Department...

Officially, it was all for the sake of "improvement." In reality, being thrown into an unfamiliar field left everyone completely clueless. But no one dared to tempt fate by getting on his bad side.

「Meanwhile, at the conference room.」

Halfway through their run, Zoe Pierce and the others were informed by a teacher that Director Jasper Quinn had arrived and needed them in the conference room.

Zoe Pierce’s knowledge of "Director Quinn" was limited to the fact that such a person existed at the academy. Since waking up, she rarely heard the name in her day-to-day life, and she certainly didn’t know the man.

She glanced at Miles Sherman and the others. ’They don’t seem to have any particular reaction to the director’s arrival.’

That set her mind at ease. ’After all, besides the secret of my spiritual power, I have nothing else to hide.’

It took the group five minutes to reach the conference room.

A middle-aged man in a silver military uniform stood ramrod-straight in the center of the room. At the sound of footsteps, his dark eyes snapped up to meet them.

It was none other than Director Quinn.

Jasper Quinn sized them up. He recognized Miles Sherman’s group—an entire squad of S-Class Alphas, and the most promising cadets the academy had seen in years.

The young men were glistening with sweat, towels still draped around their necks.

Their expressions betrayed nothing upon seeing him.

He gave an inward nod of approval. Then, his peripheral vision caught sight of Zoe Pierce, who was trailing behind Nathan Lockwood and just ahead of Chase Shaw.

Large beads of sweat rolled down the young woman’s forehead, and she was frequently dabbing at it with her towel. Judging by her height and build, he could tell at a glance she was an Omega.

He frowned slightly. His gaze flicked over to the accompanying teachers, who looked completely unfazed by her presence. Seeing their nonchalant expressions, he instantly concluded there was something going on that he didn’t know about.

He didn’t press the issue, instead saying, "I’ve called you here today for two reasons."

"First, I want to thank you. You discovered a critical problem during this joint exam, prevented other students from potentially coming to harm, and notified the faculty in time, minimizing the incident’s impact."

"The faculty has already petitioned the principal. As a reward and compensation, both the course credit and the scholarship money for this exam will be doubled for your squad."

"On behalf of the academy, I thank you." With that, Jasper Quinn gave a formal salute.

Once the salute was complete, Jasper Quinn continued, "Second, there is something else I need to tell you."