In a large, coliseum-like stadium, the students of Arks Royal Academy had gathered for their new semester's opening ceremony. On the podium, the current headmaster, a young male elf with platinum hair and green eyes, was finally wrapping up his speech after he had been going on for nearly half an hour with it and nearly boring the entire student body with his words.

"We are also proud to have the new semester's students enrolling today. A total of 209 talented youngsters, it's the highest number of students that the academy has accepted since a decade ago."

The headmaster smiled gently and directed his kind gaze at the newly enrolled students, he then continued, "A total of 25 students have been accepted into our S-class this year! I have very high hopes for not only you, but for every student in this academy! Always look forward and tread your paths with confidence! Never stop advancing!"

He then raised his right fist into the air and closed his speech, "Mana ur prosperat et Urrug!"

Everyone in the stadium raised their right fists into the air and echoed, """Mana ur prosperat et Urrug!!"""

Cecil didn't understand what the chant meant since it was in Ancient Common Language. The language was something that the people on Alterna universally used during the times when the planet's continents were supposedly one whole super continent. It meant something like, to find the truth beyond mana or with mana we prosper? The ancient language could be translated into many different meanings using today's common language.

The headmaster smiled and walked back to his chair. After the headmaster was seated, the student council's secretary walked up to the podium. To Cecil and the new students, the rabbitkin secretary looked so worn out that she might pass out any second.

"Next is a speech from the first year's student representative, Lucia... Yukihime..." Serilla, the student council secretary, said in an overly exhausted tone. Lucia, who was sitting beside Cecil, stood up and made her way up to the podium. As she passed by Cecil, she harshly trampled on his foot which earned her a questioning look from him.

'It's your fault Cel! I wouldn't be doing this if you didn't hold back!"

Just before the assembly, the students received a notice of their assigned classes. The notice was delivered in the form of magic data that was directly transferred to each student's ID card that was delivered to them in the morning along with their uniforms. It was an ID card, but it was much bigger in size than the normal ID card that was issued by the city or guild. It was in the shape of a thick rectangle that had a length of about 7 inches and a width of 3 inches.

When Cecil learned of the ID's functions and saw its shape, he had involuntarily screamed "IT'S A PHONE!"

Yes, the 'ID card', or its official name, the Mana Network Interface Device or MID, for short, practically had the same functions and characteristics of Earth's modern everyday gadget, the smart phone. The only major difference was that there was no 'call' function on the MID.

After the data was sent to her MID, Lucia found her profile that stated which class she was in, her combat level and mana stage, along with a few other details about her. She could also search for other students and she quickly tried to search for Cecil's profile and quickly found him since they were side-by-side in the rankings.

When she looked at his details, she found that Cecil's combat level was an entire tier above hers. She smiled at that since it was something she expected. Her level was B while Cecil was an A, but her expression soon darkened upon noticing that his stage was actually separated from hers by over half a tier. The information showed that while she was in the initial mana core stage, Cecil was in the intermediate mana sea stage.

The bastard had held back when the two made an agreement beforehand. The agreement was that they would pull all stops and do their best in the exams! Lucia was incensed since in her opinion, Cecil had broken their promise even though the end result was still to their satisfaction. The two were still first and second in the rankings.

Cecil didn't know how to use the device, so he didn't know why Lucia was in such a foul mood when the two met up again at the assembly stadium. Ainz helped Cecil with the gadget so he was able to safely find his class and seat in the stadium hall, but with their dorms being in the S building, it was a no-brainer that they would be in the same class.

He was still trying to figure out why Lucia was suddenly mad at him when earlier that morning, they were still pretty friendly with each other. He honestly couldn't understand why his best friend would always have these weird mood swings. One moment, she would be extremely happy with him, and in the next, she was suddenly infuriated with him.

Cecil shook his head and could only ask her later about it. He looked up and noticed that Lucia had finally arrived at the podium. Normally, new students would take out the long speech that was prepared by the academy and read it aloud, but Lucia didn't take anything out and recited the speech by heart. Every year, the freshman speech was always different with only a little bit of similarities. Whoever wrote the speech was really good at their job since every year, they would always write a new one for the new freshman representative.

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After she finished her speech with just enough passion that it didn't look like she was bored or being pretentious, Lucia raised her right fist into the air and recited the same chant as the principle, "Mana ur prosperat et Urrug~"

After everyone echoed her chant, she bowed towards the academy's faculty before heading back down to her seat accompanied by a roaring applause. While she made her way back to her seat in the front row, 10 particularly piercing gazes were directed at her from 10 different directions. She halted for just a very brief moment before continuing towards her seat, acting as if she hadn't felt them.

Lucia had honed her senses alongside Cecil during their close to half a year journey, so she was very sensitive to people or monsters that gazed differently at her. She felt uncomfortable and frowned. Cecil saw her expression and activated 'Hyper-sensory', a new branch ability that he developed from Mana Burst. Like the name, Cecil's Hyper-sensory was a technique that used mana to enhance his senses to a frightening level.

With his senses enhanced by hyper-sensory, Cecil's reaction and response to the changes in his surroundings were almost at a god-like level although the downside to the technique was that his body's actions couldn't keep up with his brain's commands or speed of perception. His brain's reaction and response were incredible with it active, but it wasn't the same for his body.

Even with Mana Burst active, his body still had trouble keeping up with his thoughts. He had yet mastered the technique to the point where he could use it in combat, so instead, it was temporarily turned into his new detection 'spell' until he could masterfully use it in combat.

Although he had plenty of detection and sensory type techniques, such as his Mana Radar and Mana Eyes, the flaws were a bit too glaring. To Cecil, it was a pain to use mana like a radar since by using mana that way, it exposed his position to the monsters or people who were caught in the radar's zone. As for mana eyes, it was his best sensory technique, but it was limited to his field of vision.

In order to eliminate that disadvantage, Cecil developed Hyper-sensory and by only using his super enhanced senses, he could create a clear mental image of his surroundings by sensing the flow of mana in everything around him. His effective range for this technique was about 500 meters around him in all directions.

The detection area was smaller than Mana Radar, but at least this way he didn't have to worry about exposing his position. He could also use it in tandem with his Mana Eyes to increase the effects.

With Hyper-sensory active, Cecil frowned when he found out the reason behind Lucia's discomfort. He noticed that there were 10 people directing various odd gazes towards his friend. These 10 people were the leaders of the 10 factions in the academy and they were sizing Lucia up to see how she was like in real life as there was only so much they could get from the reports about her.

There were numerous people looking at Lucia right now, but Cecil had singled out these 10 people who were all sitting in different locations throughout the stadium because their stares were more annoying and irritating than the rest. The 10 leaders' gazes that were directed at Lucia caused him to feel a bout of irritation and although he didn't mean to, he had involuntarily clicked his tongue in annoyance and began to coldly observe them for a bit before retracting his senses.

That slight change in Cecil's demeanor caused the 10 people to feel as if some intense, but cold glare was directed at them. It prompted the 10 leaders to quickly survey their surroundings, trying to locate the source of the discomforting gaze. After being unable to locate the source of the earlier probe, one of the faction leaders soon became irritated and exclaimed, "HMPH! Looks like one of the kings have their eyes on the girl!"

This particular faction leader was a large and muscular tigerkin. He had azure blue eyes and the fur that was on his arms was white with blue stripes. He had braided light blue hair that matched the stripes on this fur. This Tigerkin was named Leon Darkclaw and he was the current leader of the Darkmoon Faction.

"Kings?" said a young female dark elf next to him.

"Nothing, it's just that things have gotten interesting."

"...I see..." The Dark Elf who spoke up was the current vice leader of Darkmoon, Almuri Treis.

In other areas of the stadium, something similar was also happening between the faction heads. Some were irritated and gloomy while others were amused and surprised. At the student council area, Zephyr frowned when he couldn't locate the source of that probing gaze.

"A king? But, how could a mere king avoid my counter probe?"

Beside him, Alex chuckled since he too couldn't locate the source of that cold gaze.

"Hehe, things are sure to be interesting this year!" Alex said while turning an amused look towards Lucia. "The factions aren't the only ones vying for her, but even the kings are as well! It seems that they're looking to replenish their numbers this year~"