After the sparring session, we returned to class. Everyone was still going on about my battle with Roland, honestly it wasn’t such a big deal right?
To my surprise, Parzival spoke up from the desk next to me. “Damn dude, you are so strong.”
“Strong? Nah, he was just ridiculously weak.”
“It’s the truth man, Roland is pretty high up in the rankings, he’s like in the top 500 at the 479th rank.”
“Rank? Ranking of what?”
“Ok, so there’s 1000 students in the ranking system, the higher your ranking the more privileges you get, the top four will have a say in school meetings and exemption from exams-“
“You say what now?”
“That’s right, and the top 4 are the 4 kings of the school, each of them has a lot of influence on school matters. We have one right here in our class. The daughter of the Mage King, Anastasia Verdias Mirthstar, Ice Princess of Erewhon Kingdom. The headmaster himself is her mentor.”
I searched around the class and found who he was talking about. She wasn’t hard to find, but actually the opposite, standing out from the rest of the girls with her stunning white hair, and the aura of a royal princess, she looks drop dead gorgeous like a jewel amongst rocks.
**
[Name: Anastasia Verdias Mirthstar] [Race: Human] [Age:19] [5th Circle – Expert] [Magic: Ice, Light] [Ability: Ice Queen, Shield of Argarth]**
As i was checking out her status, her head swivelled over and met my eyes. Her eyes were freezing cold, and i could see no emotions in them. There was no one going near her table, and she just seemed very lonely.
“What’s her rank in the top 4?”
“She is second, and you’ll be at the bottom when you join. But you can’t directly challenge the 4 kings yet, first you need to get into the top 10 rankings then you are eligible to challenge them.”
‘I’ll join the ranking system, because f*** exams.’ I muttered.
“Alright so how do i get started?” I asked him.
“Just go up to the person and challenge them in front to an audience, that will be prove of the fight and will be recorded down.”
I should test of the the general strength of the students first, so i’ll start with the 420th guy first.
After school i walked around and searched for the guy. Entering another class of Year 2s, i found him.
“Hey, come duel with me.”
“What’s your ranking?”
“1000th”
“Heh, you better not regret it, i don’t want to hurt you too much.”
We moved locations and entered the arena for rank battles. There were not much audiences as this was a low ranked battle. A teacher came and refereed our match.
“Ready, start!”
This time i didn’t take out my sword. I let the opponent use his first spell and watched what he would do.
“Earth armor!”
He used a reinforcement type magic. The ground under him turned organic and slowly covered his whole body and turned rock like with jaggered edges, leaving only his eyes uncovered.
I went forward to test out the sturdiness of his armor. Appearing in front of him, i punched him with an uppercut to the solar plexus, causing him to heave forward and lose his breath, i then followed up with a mean right hook to his chin. He wobbled a bit and he fell unconscious.
“Challenger wins, rank changed from 1000th to 420th! Congratulation!”
“How weak was that flimsy armor, i was only trying to test the waters,” I mumbled, disappointed with the match.
The audiences who weren’t focusing on my match suddenly turned their attention to it. What they heard was a match being declared and ended as soon as it started. Confusion could be seen in the eyes of those who didn’t watch the match and even more for those who saw with their mouth gaping open.
I could hear whispers that i was actually a mage with abnormal strength.
I made up my mind and tried challenging the 69th guy next, but when i tried to issue the next challenge, the referee said that only one challenge can be issued per day.
Returning back to the dorm, i told Parzival about the match just now.
“Are you mad? You challenged someone 580 rankings above you, that’s crazy! The only time someone challenged someone another whose so many rankings above them was the ice princess, and even than she struggled a little.”
“I see, can you tell me more about the top ranker?”
“His name is Markeil Crystalheart, son of the Crystal Duke, his father is the head general of the kingdom. Currently he is the most influential and powerful student of this school. He has never lost a single match. His elements are Crystal and Air. He’s so powerful no one has dared to challenge him in a long time.”
“Between him and the princess who do you think will win?”
“That is a hard question to answer honestly, but i would say they are pretty tied. No one has actually seen both of them go all out.”
“That’s interesting, thanks for this info.”
—
The atmosphere in the classroom next day was different. When i entered the classroom, the conversations turned hush and they kept looking at me.
“People respect power around here, that match really made an impact on them, but i’m afraid this will just be inviting trouble, lots of people will be coming up to you to test you out from now on.”
“Hahaha that’s great, i always welcome new challengers, leaves me the trouble of finding them.”
Over the next few week, contenders keep popping up left and right, and i had no chance to challenge the 69th guy. After weeks of duels, the amount of people coming up to me lessened. There was only one reason, i had never lost a single fight, even when the year 3s challenged me, and they were afraid to lose their ranks. Those with ranks above me could not be bothered.
My rank was now currently 108th, and i’ve become the topic of interest in the entire school, some were even beginning to compare me to Markeil. I’ve even gotten some occasionally glances from Anastasia. Looks like i’ve somehow garnered her attention.
The good thing that happened during these few weeks was that i have gotten much closer to Parzival, no one has bullied him ever since i’ve associated myself with him. He has become much cheerful since then.
—
“Hehe, this guy is so interesting, get me all information you can on him, i want to know who he is before i crush him, how dare they compare me to him,” Markeil said to his henchmen while smoothing his hand over his spiky hair.
