Kicked Out, She Came Back To Rule - Chapter 430: Chapter 430

To be fair, Andrea's project was actually decent. But with her nasty attitude, no chance Kaia would ever let someone like that set foot in the research team.
Andrea took center stage, exuding confidence as she introduced her creation. "The robot I've developed can sing, dance, and even transform songs into any style; rock, rap, whatever you like."
She kept up her commentary while expertly operating the robot, putting on a show for everyone in the audience.
"Gotta say, this one's a real standout. Head and shoulders above the rest," one judge remarked.
"Yeah, honestly, it's the best we've seen so far," another chimed in.
Andrea basked in the nonstop waves of admiration from the crowd, feeling absolutely triumphant. 'Knew it,' she thought smugly. 'With my talent and skills, the championship is basically mine.'
Now, with only Stephen left to judge, and since he represented Dr. Bennett's research institute, Andrea knew that if he gave his approval, the championship was pretty much hers.
Andrea looked over, full of confidence, but to her surprise, Stephen was bowed over his notes, not even glancing at her project, like he couldn't care less about it.
'What's going on?' Andrea was growing anxious. 'My project is top-notch! Just a minute ago, the judges and sponsors were practically praising me!'
She remembered Stephen clearly. At the recent launch for new nanomaterials, he'd stopped by to chat with her parents. Back then, her whole family assumed he was impressed with her talent and had come to connect because of her.
But now, it looked like they couldn't have been more wrong.
'So… if that wasn't the reason he spoke to us, what was? And was he really even looking at me?' Confusion swirling inside her.
'Hold on!' The realization hit Andrea like a bolt of lightning. 'What if he wasn't looking at me at all? Kaia was standing right next to me that day!'
"Alright, next," Stephen said, sounding impatient.
Andrea stepped down from the stage, unwilling to accept defeat. As she walked off, she shot Kaia a look from the audience, her eyes filled with resentment and confusion.
Next up was Zion. He brought his project onto the stage, gave a thorough demonstration, and explained how it worked. When he finished, Stephen gave his verdict.
"Very impressive. This is the best entry I've seen so far," Stephen said, sounding genuinely pleased.
Andrea's heart lurched in panic. 'No way, please, anyone but him!'
She had to get into Dr. Bennett's institute. It was Andrea's only shot to flip her fate and finally get her revenge on Kaia. There was no way she let this chance slip away.
While Andrea was practically losing her cool with worry, Zion couldn't hide his joy, he was grinning from ear to ear.
His family was barely scraping by and both his parents were in bad shape. Deep down, Zion knew this was his only hope. If he could prove himself fast, maybe he'd finally have a shot at changing everything for them.
"But..." Stephen's sudden turn made Zion's heart jump, he was on edge.
"There were some errors during assembly, most likely due to the materials you chose for the robot," Stephen continued.
That instantly brought to mind what Kaia had pointed out before.
Stephen wasn't finished. "Plus, the navigation could be further improved. If you leverage the dynamic obstacle avoidance and path planning tech from AS-R mobile robots, you'd get a big boost."
'Holy crap!' Zion was totally stunned.
He shot a look straight at Kaia, and didn't know whether to be amazed or freaked out. She'd gotten everything exactly right.
'Wait, with her brains and skills, why the heck isn't she in this competition herself? If she wanted, nobody else here would even stand a chance,' Zion wondered.
The competition went on for a solid two hours before everyone finally got to see who came out on top.