บท 146: Book 5: Chapter 20 – Ranking Competition (1)
"As I mentioned two months ago, each of your next assignments will consist of you nine, not only challenging but also defeating the strongest students of each of the top nine institutions for young mages and warriors on the continent," Mathias explained slowly, mainly for Amira's benefit. "The institute you get assigned will be determined by your rankings at the end of the day.
As it stands, the rankings are as follows:
First: Ace
Second: Julius
Third: Amira
Fourth: Joel
Fifth: Killian
Sixth: Osiris
Seventh: Faye
Eighth: Alissa
Ninth: Yulana
Tenth: Kannal
Other than Julius, who won't be directly participating in the upcoming assignment, you are free to challenge anyone ranked above you. Each of you has one free challenge, and if you win, you take the rank of your opponent and receive another free challenge."
"Don't you think it's unfair that we can't challenge Julius," Yulana complained. "I know he doesn't like fighting, but his monthly allowance as second of the core students would allow any of us to improve at a faster speed."
As a fifth-rank warrior and mage of the fourth rank, Yulana knew that even if Julian were competing, she wouldn't be his match, but her words weren't for her benefit but for Joel's. Even after all this time, her loyalty to her young master hadn't waned in the slightest.
As far as she was concerned, even though Julian had already broken through to the middle stages of the seventh rank as a mage, Joel wouldn't necessarily lose to him.
Looking around, Mathias could tell that although no one said anything, many of the others agreed with her.
"The rules of the Pavilion are fair; although Julius doesn't take place in fights, as long as any of you are able to display strength that matches his, you will automatically take his place as second of the core disciples," Mathias explained slowly, exciting many of the other more confident core students. "But before you get ahead of yourselves, you should know that Julius isn't merely a mage of the seventh rank; his comprehension of the laws of fire has reached the profound level."
As soon as his words came out, the heads of every single teen present snapped toward the overweight teen in shock – even Ace.
Seeing that, Julius smirked as he raised a hand, creating a straightforward ball of fire, something just about any fire mage could do. But what shocked them was the heat of that simple ball of fire.
"Profound mystery of heat," Ace muttered, instantly recognising the ability.
The rules of the pavilion stated that a student must comprehend impose before being allowed access to the library for saints; as such, other than Ace, no one else was able to recognise the profound mystery, but it didn't stop them from sensing the mysterious power of the laws infused into that seemingly simple fireball.
Any doubts they may have had before about Julius' rank were quickly dispelled. As it stood, Julius had the power of a mage of the ninth rank, something that, other than Ace, none of them were capable of countering on their own.
"If there are no more questions, let's begin," Mathias declared, turning towards the youngest of the Core Students. "Kannal, as the lowest ranking student, you get to challenge first."
With a calm nod, Kannal nodded as he leapt onto the ring, turning his attention to Yulana.
No words needed to be said, as the student ranked ninth, Yulana had long expected to be the first challenge of her junior brother. In fact, she would've been more offended had he skipped her to challenge someone ranked higher.
As soon as the fight began, everyone watched with rapt attention looking to see how far the two had come.
"Who do you think will win?" Amira asked from beside Ace.
"They've both improved a lot since I last saw them," Ace said, watching the fight appreciatively. "But if I had to guess, I'd say Kannal."
Yulana had reached the fifth rank as a mage and the peak of the fourth as a warrior; she could even wield her whip as though it was heavy, giving her impressive power. With her seamless combination of whip-manship and her water magic, she would be hard-pressed to find an opponent in the sixth rank.
Still, Kannal's improvements were no less impressive. In fact, considering he was by far the weakest when they enrolled, the fact that he had caught up at all was inspiring.
Despite being two years younger at only 13, he was already a warrior at the fifth rank and a mage at the peak of the fourth rank. And having comprehended wielding light as though it were lighter, his liuyedao sword flickered through the air at incredible speeds, making it hard for Yulana to follow at times, especially with the addition of his wind spells.
The fight was intense and eye-opening for both Cesar and Ace's new subordinate – Cirulus. Both considered themselves well-travelled, but still, a genius at the level of either of the two would be one you would expect to stand at the peak of a generation, and yet, both were ranked at the bottom of this batch of students.
Kannal and Yulana had no idea what was going through the mind of their audience; they were too focused on their battle, knowing that if either of them were to lose concentration for so much as a second, that would be it for them.
Still, the fight had to come to an end at some point. As Ace predicted, the battle ended with Kannal defeating his opponent.
'If only your sister could see you now,' Ace thought to himself as he the image of a valiant young woman giving her life in a battle to the death against a twin-headed silver dragon for the sake of her city.
An appreciative smile suffused Ace's face as he recalled the day he and Kannal first met.
Back then, Kannal was just a snivelling child who was almost too scared to dream of avenging his sister, and now, despite his age, he had reached a level of strength that wasn't that much inferior to his sister back then.
The immaturity from back then had all but disappeared, leaving a young expert that all of Silverlight City would be proud of.
Ace wasn't the only one impressed with Kannal's growth. Whether it was students or instructors, everyone looked at the youngster appreciatively. They all knew exactly how hard he had worked these last few years.
Although he was talented, who among the ten teens wasn't? No, what set him apart from his peers was precisely his work ethic. Not many pushed themselves as hard as he did to improve. In fact, there were only two others who did – Ace and Killian. And finally, it appeared that all his hard work was starting to pay off.
"Kannal, as the winner, you are granted another challenge opportunity. Would you like to use it now or wait?" Mathias asked.
"I'd like to wait," Kannal replied.
"Understood," Mathias nodded before turning to Yulana, who could only sigh helplessly. "Yulana, you now have the opportunity to challenge any of those ranked above you. Would you like to make a challenge?
You can forfeit your challenge right, but should you choose to do so, you won't be given another chance later."
Everyone knew Yulana was put in a difficult position. She'd just gone through an arduous battle, and now, if she wanted to improve her ranking, she would have to go through another one. Still, she didn't complain; she and all her classmates knew this was done intentionally.
The Pavilion made a point – whenever possible – of teaching their students that life was rarely fair. If they wanted to succeed in life, they needed to use their own strength to make it a reality. In the eyes of Mathias and the other instructors, it was best they learnt that lesson here, behind closed doors, instead of outside in the real world, where a mistake like that could cost them their lives.
Having been a member of the Yin-Yang Pavilion for almost seven years now, Yulana was used to these types of situations. As such, instead of wasting time complaining, she simply took a deep breath, steadying her breathing. Her eyes steeled as she turned to another of her classmates.
"I challenge you, Faye," Yulana decisively declared.
"Your funeral," Faye sneered at her long-time rival.
Although Faye ranked seventh, no one disagreed with Yulana's decision.
Technically, Yulana could challenge Kannal to a rematch, but although their previous match was close, everyone could see that Kannal was definitely superior. Therefore, if they were to fight again, the match would almost certainly end with the same result.
As for Alissa, who was ranked eighth, that was even more foolish. Before she left, purely in terms of talent, she was already considered to be ranked near the top along with Ace, Amira, and Julius – and that was before she had awoken her Tiger Striped Warrior bloodline.
After a couple of months of training with Cesar, no one knew exactly how much she had improved, but what they did know was that she had already broken through to the mid-stages of the fifth rank as both a warrior and mage.
She was one of the few everyone already expected to improve their rankings; they just didn't know how much by.
Either way, knowing that challenging the current ninth and eighth place was futile, she could only challenge Faye in seventh.
Faye was currently at the fifth stage as a warrior and at the peak of the fourth as a mage, making her the equal but opposite of Yulana.
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Book 7: Chapter 22 - Soul Mutates
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