Contrary to their thoughts, the students actually weren't that disappointed when they heard the words of the Principal.
Their training regimen was becoming a lot more intense and stricter, but was that not the reason they came to the best university in the Federation anyway?
To receive the best training that there was to offer?
Only the lazy and underachieving students were the ones somewhat dissatisfied about this, as it meant that their free time would basically be taken away from them, which they would usually spend doing something less useful like playing full dive VRMMO games rather than training their actual real life abilities.
However, for students like Alex, there was also some dissatisfaction among them.
'Theory classes will be reduced to one per 2 weeks rather than once a week?'
Alex was not happy about this in the slightest.
This would slow down his comprehension of the Soul drastically, as there would now be less soul studies classes for him to attend.
He hadn't even gained any comprehension from the first class, and he wasn't sure that he would from the second one either.
At the rate he was going, the war with Zorath's race would start before he actually gained anything meaningful.
And Alex, as bold as he was, decided to voice out this dissatisfaction.
"Mr Principal, I disagree with you on decreasing the frequency of the theoretical classes, please reconsider your decision on those!"
Alex pushed a large portion of his energy into his voice to enable it to travel over the millions of other students' voices and reach the ears of the Principal on stage.
However, as a side effect of this, it meant that all of the millions of students present heard his voice too.
And they all turned in his direction, giving him thousand yard stares as they pitied him and ridiculed him for questioning the decisions of the Principal.
Mira understood Alex's plight though, especially now that she had been fully exposed to the effects of Alex's Soulforge talent.
He didn't have the time to explain to her his reason for attending the Soul studies classes, as they were rudely interrupted by the casual declaration of war on the human race by this unknown Alien race.
But she was smart enough to make an educated guess, which wouldn't really be hard when one had all the facts like her.
If Alex could come to that same conclusion, then Mira sure as hell could.
The fact that there were essentially double the rewards available for these missions was also a very big motivator for the more daring students.
"However, there will also be some changes made to the mission system." The Principal spoke again, causing the excited students to hold their breaths as they prepared to hear the bad news.
"Previously, only second year students onwards were allowed to take on these missions." He continued.
'What? I didn't know this!' Alex thought to himself.
He had a feeling that the Principal was about to announce a change to this rule, but if he didn't, then Alex would be in some deep shit.
His only other option for ranking up would be to take another trip to the Primordial Expanse, but that was only a last resort.
"But, considering the fickle situation of the Federation right now, we have come to the decision to allow first year students to take on these missions. BUT, only if we deem them fit to do so through our own evaluations."
Hearing this, the second to fourth year students all sucked their teeth, as this was bad news for them.
With the first years now being allowed to take on these missions, it only meant that they had even more competition. only found at NovelFire _e-mp|y,r
Sure, the frequency of missions was increasing by 5x, but one had to consider the fact that there were millions of students all vying for these missions, and now with probably hundreds of thousands of new students joining them, the competition would only become more fierce.
A 5x increase in the frequency of missions might have sounded like a lot, but that was without considering all of the other background details.
Like the fact that beforehand, the average completion rate for these missions among the students was a measly 10%.
This wasn't because they were so dangerous or anything like that.
No, it was simply because the number of students that could take on the same mission wasn't restricted, but only one student, or one group could actually complete it.
This left all of the others with wasted time and another failure under their belt.
The completion rate was higher for the stronger and more talented students, but it still only neared 40%.
This system might seem very stupid to some, but it was the best the university had to offer.
It wasn't like they engineered these missions themselves.
These missions were real, with billions of lives being at risk each day until a strong awakened or university student comes over to complete the mission.