Ranking
“Fuck!”
1.Assir — 2:49
2.Yu Huan — 2:32:00
3.Luiz — 2:33:00
4.Layla — 2:47:00
5.Ryu Ye Rin — Time Unlisted
497.Laplatan — 4:13:00
I stared at the fencing cadets’ ranking.
It was a mess.
At least one person had no recorded time.
It was strange for someone to be in the top five without an official record.
Ryu Ye Rin.
I remembered her—the Fourth Princess. She probably took the test in a different area, or inside the castle, and her time was deliberately hidden.
Considering there were already two girls ranked above her, hiding her time made sense. Even so, the gap between minutes was still massive.
“Hey there, prodigy.”
Luiz V. Inzaghi.
The eldest son of House Inzaghi, a ducal family.
His muscles were sharply defined, and his green eyes were like arrows.
There was no doubt—he was reading every single one of my movements.
“Thank you. Praise like that, coming from a great ducal house, honors me.”
“Don’t act like that, Assir. You did the impossible and went beyond it. Everyone here is shocked by your achievement. Fight me later.”
“Alright. Let’s fight later.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll fight at the end of the year, when we’re both at the absolute peak of what the first year can offer.”
Why did he push the date that far? Was he joking and I accidentally cornered him into an awkward promise?
“I understand. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Hahaha, that’s the spirit.”
Luiz rested one hand on his waist and the other behind his head while speaking.
Probably meant to show confidence. His body gave off a faint scent of sweat.
He must have been training. When I saw him rushing around earlier, bumping into things, I realized I was right.
Too much training pushes the mind to its limits.
I looked to the side and saw the magic rankings, from first year to last year.
The only ones that mattered to me were the first and second years.
First-Year Magic Ranking:
1.Anneliese — 1:12:00
2.Sirius — 1:12:00
3.Natan — 1:12:00
4.Mark — 1:19:00
5.Shaitan — Time Unlisted
231.Naklace — 3:07:00
I stared at the top three.
A nearly perfect tie—probably decided by microscopic differences.
I knew four of the people on that list, but Sirius… I had no idea who she was.
Even in my memories of the future, she didn’t exist.
I didn’t remember checking the rankings in my previous life, but if she was talented enough to tie with Anneliese, it was strange that I had no recollection of her at all.
The second-year ranking was posted beside it.
1.Helene — Time Unlisted
Obviously, her time wasn’t recorded. Someone who could teleport complicated things.
There were spells and items capable of stopping her, but that would have made the test unfair. The entire exam would need to be altered just for her, since she was already above standard mages.
Second-year mages were supposed to be nearing the Fourth Circle.
She was already beyond that.
It’ll be a challenge to kill her—but I already know how to prepare.
Searching through my memories, I recalled an artifact hidden inside a tree near the dungeon entrance.
In my previous life, Anneliese was the one who found it. This time, I had to get there first and use it against my sister—if I couldn’t catch her off guard.
The artifact interfered with spatial magic.
It created a teleportation-dead zone roughly five hundred square meters wide.
That would be enough.
!!!
I headed to my first class of the day.
Instructor Rèn was teaching while standing this time.
Our eyes met.
That deep blue gaze hit me like a heavy wave.
She frowned.
I don’t think she liked me very much.
Looking at it that way, I had passed through her technique far too quickly.
If not for how long the other students took, people might have thought she was the weakest member of the Black Blade family.
It was possible. Maybe the descendant my grandfather fought had a far superior technique.
After all, the shadow hummingbirds were her sword’s true form—I didn’t remember the Black Blade family having an ability like that.
Besides, even though the phoenix technique was annoying, the hummingbirds were far more troublesome. They could kill if she wasn’t holding back.
Thinking about it now… could that phoenix crush a body the same way my dragon crushed it?
It was a terrifying thought.
If she had been serious, I would have died.
My expression hardened.
The instructor looked away.
“Hello, students. As I’ve already introduced myself, my name is Yè Rèn. I’ll be your instructor for this year.”
She picked up a piece of chalk and began writing on the board.
“I won’t allow irrelevant conversations during class. And even if some of you are exceptionally strong right now, that doesn’t make you special.”
Those words felt aimed directly at me.
I opened my book.
Let’s just ignore anything that doesn’t help me evolve.
Rèn drew a wave of aura on the board.
Then she began writing her explanations. This was the best method—writing instead of speaking, since spoken words were easily forgotten.
Naturally, what she wrote differed slightly from what was in the book.
I could tell. Rèn was a talented swordswoman. Her aura quality—purity and efficiency—was mid-to-high level.
The book contained useful explanations, but also a lot of useless filler.
She continued writing, then started listing different weapons and where aura accumulated most efficiently, and how to guide it depending on the type of attack.
My gaze stopped on the spear.
Gael and Helene both used spears.
According to the explanation, the best place to gather aura at the start of a fight was the fists.
When aura was concentrated there, it could explode forward all at once, maximizing impact.
Since spears were slightly slower weapons, this allowed the user to extract maximum power from each strike.
You explode the aura forward, pull it back, then explode again.
An endless cycle of detonations with every attack.
Of course, it drained stamina heavily—but it could increase attack power by up to eighty percent, making it worth it in most cases.
Most cases.
If you couldn’t defeat your opponent even with nearly double your power, then you should give up.
Against multiple enemies, though, using it recklessly was suicidal—unless you could guarantee killing each one with a single strike.
My attention shifted as the explanation moved on to swords.
