In fact, the higher an academy ranked in the Campus Association, the less importance it usually attached to the association. Once a school reached a certain level, its students had accumulated over the years and spread throughout the universe. After those students grew up and established clans, most of them maintained close cooperative relationships with their alma mater. Thus, whenever the Unified Examination was held, the higher-ranked academies would have established clans send them their outstanding direct descendants. In many cases, they simply did not care that much about the students recruited through the Campus Association.
That was not to say that the Campus Association's students were necessarily poor. Most of them were commoners, while a small portion were illegitimate children whom their clans did not value. Although there were outstanding individuals among them—and some were even more talented than direct descendants—they were ultimately in the minority, selected through a process of sifting gold from the sand. Therefore, to the higher-ranked academies, maintaining relationships with established clans was far more reliable than panning for talent through the Campus Association.
As the Southern Star Region's second-ranked Mecha academy and a perennial top-ten institution in the Interstellar Federation, Blue Spirit Academy was naturally the same. With the support of the Blue Spirit Royal Family, Blue Spirit Academy was the first choice for the direct descendants of the various Blue Spirit Families, so it basically never had to worry about its student intake. Thus, even though its ranking had slipped somewhat this time, Blue Spirit Academy's strategy was still to have veteran professors use their connections to lobby the various clans and recruit their direct descendants. The professors sent to recruit at the Campus Association, meanwhile, had only average foundations.
For example, Professor Morgan Sony, whom Blue Spirit Academy had sent this time,