CHAPTER 12: THE RANKINGS BEGIN
All the students of the school had gathered under the auditorium.
The auditorium at Assassin Academy was oddly oversized. The seats wrapped around a large open space separated from the seats only by vertical glass screens. At its center stood Gabriel on a high rise platform. Gabriel’s smooth blue suit sunk in his muscular skin as he spoke.
“So what’s the gathering for today?”
Riku asked as he took a seat beside Nakita within the crowd of students. Nakita ignored him as the principal continued to speak.
“As you all know, our annual ranking tournament begins tomorrow.
This year to encourage more skills and craft we have upped the prizes and rewards.
The rules are the same, each person can fight anyone twenty ranks above or below their own.
Except for the top ten!
Now witness!
the list of the current rankings, and the rewards for each rank at the end of this season.”
As Gabriel spoke the monitor above his head lit up and showed a list of students and their ranking, Riku on the verge of sleep yawned.
In truth he wasn’t interested in some competition to flex about superiority. At the moment he was exhausted after having so many physical fitness classes.
Well that was until he was yanked out of sleep after seeing the reward for each rank.
Being ranked in the top two hundred students would earn at least a million dollars, while the top hundred would earn two million dollars minimum.
But at rank fifty the rewards skyrocketed to four million and upwards and the number one position would get a whopping twenty million.
To Riku that was enough to pay off his debt and start a new life.
Riku was elated by the end of the announcements. He met up with Dante and the rest of his schoolmates trying to find out what exactly the rankings were.
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After meeting up with them Jose sat Riku down and explained in more detail. Apparently the rankings were just the Academy’s way of finding out who was the best.
It seems that everyone who attended the school had an initial rank, even Riku himself, this rank was determined by the rankings tournaments, and along with a few other factors.
Basically it would be a no holds bar fight within an holographic room.
Here everything was computer generated, translating to being completely safe.
While explaining they walked over to take a closer look at the rankings list that was published.
It would seem that Riku was among some rather dangerous friends, Riku’s jaw dropped when he saw the ranking of some of the persons beside him.
Nakita was ranked 93rd, while Jose ranked 51st, and Dante ranked 26th, meanwhile Riku ranked 707th out of 707.
Although he was only a first year student and the rest were second year students with the exception of Dante it was still unimaginable that all of them were ranked in the top one hundred.
The board was depressing to look at. With his low rank Riku could not even consider the top 100 just to get the preliminary cash prize,
That was until Jose whispered,
“Don’t worry, first years almost never participate anyways. They are way too weak for this kind of challenge.
So if you at least participate in one fight, I'm sure you can make it to about the top 500’s thereabout.
That’s a very respectable rank for a first year you know”
Jose patted his back as they all chuckled at his despair.
Until Riku thought,
“Wait, what if you guys gave me some pointer? would I stand a chance then?”
They all smiled awkwardly at each other, none wanted to have to babysit the toddler.
“You could last a few more seconds maybe.”
Nakita interjected in a low voice, the other two facepalmed themselves,
“Fine, I'll tell you what to do.”
Dante interjected before pulling him and walked in the direction of the school's open field.
“Let’s watch a few matches of the other students when the fights start tomorrow.”
With a firm nod Riku agreed and a glimmer of hope returned to his heart.
The next day after classes the first of the\ Ranking fights began.
Unlike what Riku had thought, the auditorium was actually pretty empty. It was only him and Dante, along with a handful of spectators.
“It's normal this is only just the preliminaries anyways. These fights go on for at least two more months. So no one is wasting their time watching these cannon fodders fight.”
Dante explained as they looked for somewhere to sit.
The two persons in the ring were two second year students, one held an axe, while the other carried a quiver on his back, with a miniature crossbow attached to his right arm.
A countdown was displayed above the arena and the words ‘Jason vs Alex’ were brightly shown.
As the countdown went on, a child’s playground could be seen taking form as the digital surroundings transformed to the likeness of any ordinary playground.
Riku was awed by the technology that had just been exhibited. To see an empty open field transform into a wide open playground with swings, sandboxes, monkey gyms and slides was unheard of to him.
By the time the count down had reached zero, both participants had already reached two different ends of the playground.
Without delay Jason, the one with the bow, raised his crossbow and sent three arrows flying at Alex, almost as effortlessly as swatting flies he swung his battle axe stopping the arrows mid flight.