“I still think we should have rented a fighting pit and spent the day there,” Adion said in a low voice to Sell. She was standing next to him on the arena's stands. His brother, sister, and Rellitha were also there, standing to the right of him.

“And what if we were challenged?” Sell asked with a smile.

“Do you think anyone would dare? I’m a Silver mage, and you almost killed the only other high Bronze mage,” Adion said.

“True,” Sell nodded, “But you never know. And this could still be interesting.”

“I guess,” Adion nodded, looking out over the ongoing fights down below.

It was the second day of the tournament, and anyone not happy with their rank could issue a challenge in order to climb. Most people wouldn’t risk it, since the penalty for losing a challenge you had issued was a deduction in credits. But there were always risk-takers, and basically every student who had ranked near the top of their class wanted to take the chance to climb to a better class.

“Adion Remori, right?” Adion heard someone say as he felt a tap on his shoulder.

This again?

Adion hadn’t had much trouble the day before. Basically, everyone who knew he was a Silver mage were the other students in the diamond class and the professors. No one else had noticed yet, so he had managed to enjoy a pretty peaceful evening with Sell and his siblings. But that had changed overnight.

When Adion had made his way to the arena from his dorms earlier in the morning, he could tell that even if he had hidden his aura again, a lot of people were staring at him. Fortunately, most students still kept their distance. It was the teachers and professors who had made sure to bother Adion every step of the way, making him answer the same questions over and over again. While he could ignore other students, he couldn’t be too rude to the professors.

But even if most students had kept their distance so far, that wasn’t the case for everyone.

“What?” Adion turned around and asked.

The one behind him, on a slightly elevated part of the stands compared to where he was standing, was a girl with long black hair. Adion could feel from her aura that she should be in her third year.

“My name is Vila. I know you’ve probably gotten plenty of offers, but you shouldn’t just consider the top Houses. I am part of the Midnight Moon, and you would have a lot more freedom to do as you wish if you joined us. The top Houses would restrict you and determine your every move.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Adion said, “But I’m not joining any House at the moment.”

“Is that so? Well, there is still a chance in the future, perhaps,” Vila said with a smile, “Would you like to grab something to eat someday? I could tell you some information about the less well-known Houses.”

“Oh,” Adion was a little surprised at the invite, “Thanks for the offer, but I will be busy for a while.”

“Is that so?” Vila asked with a pout, “Well, come find me if your schedule ever opens up.”

“Right,” Adion nodded and turned away to watch the ongoing fights again.

As he was about to say something to Sell again, he noticed that she was looking at him with a sour expression.

Is she jealous? That’s cute.

Adion gave her a teasing smile and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“What’s with that smile?” Sell asked unhappily, “Are you happy at the invite? Then maybe we should cancel our practicing sessions, so could have more time to go to eat with girls.”

“That’s…” Adion was stumped.

Damn. It backfired.

Adion turned around to Vila again. “Vila, just so you know, I won’t ever meet just a girl alone for dinner, so if that was the idea, I'll always decline. I already have the prettiest girl in the world who grabs all my attention.”

“Oh, okay,” Vila nodded with a slightly embarrassed expression.

Adion turned around to Sell again. Her face was deep red, but she couldn’t stop a smile from sprouting.

“I didn’t mean you had to do something like that,” Sell murmured, taking a step closer to Adion, almost leaning on him.

Adion didn’t have time to enjoy the moment, though, as Ailera pulled him away from his girlfriend.

“What was that?” Ailera whispered harshly in his ear, “Are you just giving up on keeping your relationship a secret?”

“I never said I meant Sell,” Adion whispered back, defending himself.

“Are you actually this stupid? How can I never have noticed?” Ailera asked herself in disbelief.

“I’m not stupid, I just-” Adion began explaining himself but was interrupted by Ailera.

“And she is not any better,” Ailera said, looking toward Sell angrily.

Ailera looked up at Adion’s face and whispered sternly, “Stay away.” She shoved Adion toward his brother and Rellitha while moving to grab hold of Sell.

Maybe it looked a little obvious from the outside. But does it really matter that much? We can always just say it’s baseless rumors if anyone from her family were to ask questions.

Adion looked to Aiden and Rellitha. They didn’t seem to have heard anything as they were absorbed in a conversation of their own.

I bet not many people even heard me. But I guess I can be a little more careful. It’s just hard when it comes to Sell. For some reason, I can never make use of Atao when I’m with her.

Adion looked over and saw Sell nodding dutifully as Ailera scolded her.

I’m sure they’ll grow closer from this. All good.

“Have you seen him, Adion? He’s pretty amazing,” Aiden’s voice pierced through Adion’s thoughts.

“Seen who?” Adion asked.

“Sokken, right? Your roommate. He’s already challenged three people and won easily every time,” Aiden said.

Adion looked towards one of the fighting areas and spotted Sokken walking away, breathing heavily but without injuries.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“He started out as an unseeded student in the iron class but has already moved up to the top of the bronze class,” Aiden said, “It’s unusual to see such a rise in ranks. He might even get into the silver class.”

“I wouldn’t mind having someone like that in Soaring Souls,” Rellitha commented.

“I think the Raindrops will go crazy for him,” Aiden said with a smile, “But it could be worth a try.”

“I think so,” Rellitha nodded, “I’ll go tell Klissa to approach him. I’ll be back soon.”

“Alright,” Aiden nodded. He then turned to Adion and saw Ailera and Sell discussing something behind him.

“What happened there?” Aiden asked.

“Girl talk,” Adion shrugged his shoulders.

“Huh. Anyway, did you read the letter?” Aiden asked.

“I did,” Adion nodded.

Aiden had received a letter from their grandfather earlier in the morning that he had given Adion to read. Apparently, their grandfather had received quite a few guests after Adion’s true strength had been revealed, and he wanted to talk to Adion about it.

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” Aiden said worriedly.

“I’m sure it’s nothing much,” Adion said, “If it was, he would have told me to come over straight away.”

“That’s true,” Aiden nodded, “But even if we are a Noble family now, we basically only have Grandpa as our only strength. As far as Nobles go, we are very weak and poor. People could still cause us all sorts of trouble.”

“I’ll look into perhaps auctioning something of value I have,” Adion said, hinting at the Elixir of Life, “If Grandpa can handle it for me, I wouldn’t have to be as worried about being scammed.”

“You would give the money to the family?” Aiden asked.

“I would only be able to sell it with Grandpa’s help,” Adion said, “And I’m part of the family, am I not? It would put me at ease if Grandpa had money to solve potential problems. He could also hire some more guards.”

Adion had planned to use the money he would get from selling the Elixir of Life on his organization, but he would probably get more money than he could spend. It would be well worth it to give some of it to his grandfather.

“I’m sure it would help a lot,” Aiden nodded with a smile, “I’ll be able to help him out a lot after I graduate, too.”

“You will stay in Cyalis after graduation?” Adion asked.

“What did you think I would do?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t know, maybe go to the Outskirts and fight,” Adion said, “Explore and stuff.”

“Maybe one day,” Aiden said, “But I’m far too excited about our future here to think about that anytime soon.”

“That’s good,” Adion smiled.

Ailera and Sell came up to Adion and Aiden again, finished with their little discussion.

“So…” Adion looked over Ailera’s head to make contact with Sell.

“You are on this side from now on,” Ailera said, blocking Adion from going over to Sell.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Adion said.

“Adion, let’s just do it like this for now,” Sell leaned forward and said in a low voice.

“What did you do?” Adion asked his sister with narrowed eyes.

“I’m handling your mess,” Ailera said, flicking Adion on the forehead.

“Adion, we’ll talk about it later. Let’s just enjoy the fights,” Sell said.

Adion turned to look at his brother, but he only shrugged in response.

“I don’t like this,” Adion muttered. But he wasn’t too upset. It wasn’t like he could do anything with Sell with so many people around. And he would have plenty of privacy when they were practicing together.

Still, it’s always nice to just be next to each other.

Adion dropped the matter, however, and time quickly passed. Fewer challenges were issued as the classes got higher in rank. When it got to the gold class, only four sessions of fights took place in the 16 fighting areas.

Most fights bored Adion, but there were a few that managed to grab his attention. Mostly when he knew the people fighting.

One of those people was Astor, who made two challenges to students 100 ranks higher. He won both of them, but the second was won by a hair, and he was too injured to challenge anyone else.

Thank Ganta that he didn’t make it to the diamond class, at least. I guess even Astor wasn’t confident enough to challenge the students of the diamond class straight away.

Theoretically, even someone in the stone class could challenge Adion to a fight. Not that anyone would be so stupid, but they could. Likewise, Astor could have issued a challenge that would take him straight to the diamond class if he had won. But that was a risk not many were willing to take; the penalty was too harsh in case of failure.

Most people opted to challenge a safer opponent, usually around 100 ranks above them. The exact opponent would then be someone from 80-120 ranks higher, chosen at random.

That wasn’t the case for the diamond class, however. Anyone could issue a challenge to a specific person in the top 10, and that person would have to fight or lose their rank.

“It is rare to not see anyone daring to challenge the rank 1 and rank 2 students,” Aiden said as they looked out over the intense fighting among the top students of the diamond class, who had begun their fights after the gold class students finished.

“But it’s not surprising considering what Sell and Adion showed everyone yesterday,” Ailera said.

“Still, the difference in credits every week is so big that I would have thought someone to be crazy enough,” Aiden said.

That’s certainly true. I guess that’s why the challenges are so frequent among the top 10, despite the threat of a penalty.

Adion would receive 1000 credits every week, and Sell, just one rank below him, would receive 500. Vels, if he managed to keep his position as 3rd, would receive 300. But the reason that people wanted to enter the top 10 so badly was because a normal student in the diamond class received 100 credits every week, while the top 10 received 200.

Receiving double the amount of credits is no small thing. And I guess the battle for being number 1 is normally a fierce battle. It's a good thing I revealed my strength; otherwise, I might have had to deal with challenges despite my Gift.

I’ll still need to keep my guard up, though. I’m sure every single classmate will be eyeing my spot. I can’t afford to slow down.

“Seems like no more challenges will happen,” Aiden commented as all the fighting areas remained empty even after a few minutes.

“What was the final result? Did anyone keep track?” Ailera asked.

“I have someone handling that,” Rellitha, who had returned hours ago, said, “You all can come with me while I go check.”

“Sure,” Ailera nodded.

Even if challenges could still be issued during the year, the rankings would probably remain unchanged for a while. So every House kept an eye out for the results of the tournament, wanting the best to join them.

“Adion, are you still undecided about joining a House?” Rellitha asked him as they began walking.

“Yeah, I’ll probably not decide on anything for a good while,” Adion answered.

“Fine,” Rellitha nodded, “Just remember to talk to me before deciding anything. And you Sell…why won’t you just join Soaring Souls? I guarantee that no other House would treat you better. But not even I can justify helping you out if you are not part of our House.”

“I’ll think about it,” Sell said non-committedly.

“Haaah,” Relltha sighed, “Well, let’s talk about it later.”

Adion took a few steps to walk next to Sell.

“Want to see if there is a fighting pit available?” Adion asked in a low voice.

“Okay,” Sell nodded with a smile.

What a good day.

“Just remember that you have classes starting tomorrow,” Ailera said as she looked at Adion sternly.

“I know, I know,” Adion said, “I’ll be sure to be there on time.”

Getting to learn from the best Academy on the continent, I’m excited about it.