Chapter 11: Too Far
On his way back to his dorm, Theron passed by the only flashy ornament in the whole academy. It was a stele adorned with gold.
This stele was the Perfect Credit Stele. It listed the number of Perfect Credit students to pass from this branch of the Imperial Academy.
In its many generations of existence, Thistle Brook's Imperial Academy had just four names of their own. Three from the military stream and just one from the political stream.
A so-called Perfect Credit graduate was a student that managed to pass all available classes in a stream with top marks. This top mark didn't refer to a perfect score but rather the S-grade.
There were a total of 99 available credits and a total of 33 classes. One could receive a PASS, an A, or an S when receiving a credit, and of course, a FAIL was also possible.
A PASS netted one a single credit, an A received two, while an S received a full three credits.
One could spend a maximum of five years in the academy regardless of what age below 17 they entered. Graduating required one to accumulate 33 credits total, regardless of classes completed. You could graduate with honors if you managed to accumulate 66.
Just the title of Honored Imperial Scholar was enough to net a student a great deal of opportunities after graduation. It was just that a Perfect Credit graduate was on another level.
There were also benchmarks a student had to meet during their time here, or else one could be expelled early. Theron had joined the academy almost six months ago now and accumulated four S grades and 12 credits in that time.