The Re-Ranking Tournament began, as it always did…with opening speeches. Not terribly exciting, but thankfully they didn’t last that long. The teacher in charge seemed to get the hint from the blank expressions of the audience that anything longer than 2 minutes would be met with irritation.
The second opening speeches ended, the crowd immediately heated up into a cacophony of chaos and cheers, and the loud rushing of at least three people who’d clearly mistaken the start time and showed up late mid-sprint.
A sea of students filled the stadium seats, their voices like a tide of anticipation. Signs were waved, snacks were sold, and one overzealous alchemy student was actually trying to sell his dubious elixirs to the students of other departments nearby. The Academy staff had to station a pair of glare-intensive professors at the entrances just to keep order.
‘The crowd for the second year re-ranking is a lot more lively than I remembered it being in first year.’ Kain wasn’t sure if this was because now by the second year, students from different departments had more time to mingle and befriend one another, and these friends from other departments had now come to give support. It also seemed like enough time had now passed for some members of the beast-taming department to even have some fans after their names had spread.
And as if to reflect the increased attention, the auditorium provided for this re-ranking was far larger than the previous ones. From what Kain had heard, this arena was usually reserved for the fourth or third years’ reranking, but Kain’s year happened to be unusually popular.
Kain could see banners for several members of the top 5.
Kain, Serena and Soren, naturally had the most banners that he could see. However, immediately after them wasn’t the other members of the top 5, or even the top 10, like Kairos (4), Ranya (5), or Dwayne (6).
Rather, the next most common banner in the crowd had the name of someone named “Peaches” and the picture of a relatively pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair and bright green eyes.
Kain was unfamiliar with her, and had little impression of her, likely because she was outside of the top 20…
Also, probably because after seeing Serena’s face so frequently, other attractive faces really didn’t leave much of an impression.
What did leave an impression, however, was the sheer number of over-the-top signs and themed merchandise for Serena being waved around.
A full-color chibi plush of Serena in a white training uniform. Next to it was a massive sign filled with gushing words and a picture of her in a skintight white and blue training suit, clearly taken discreetly when she was in class.
A boy in the third row wore a full cape with Serena’s face printed on it, features distorted by the waving fabric, cheering so aggressively that Kain actually took a half-step back. Unfortunately, he didn’t look away fast enough. The caped boy made eye contact, gave a glare, and mouthed “Serena belongs to everyone!” with frightening conviction.
Kain pressed his lips into a line and turned away, resisting the strange pulse of irritation in his chest. It wasn’t jealousy. Of course not. Probably…
On the center stage, a teacher responsible for refereeing stepped forward, he raised a hand, and the noise died instantly. Not from respect—mostly fear.
“Let the final Re-Ranking Tournament of this year… commence.”
The cheers reignited like wildfire.
Kain stood from his seat to make his way to the competitor’s tunnel with his arms crossed and a twitch in his left eyebrow. He made his way to tunnel 2 as the designated ‘second seed’ of the group stages in Phase One of the tournament.
He stared at the large number TWO sign. Then sighed.
“Still bitter?” Serena asked not far from him, the tunnel in front of her bearing the very obvious ONE sign.
“No,” he lied through his teeth. “It’s fine. Completely fine. Totally doesn’t bother me that the judges arbitrarily decided I’m the second seed even though we tied.”
Serena tilted her head. “Maybe they just alphabetized?”
“N and K both come before S.” Kain pointed out regarding their last names Newman and Storm, and first names Kain and Serena. Either way, he should be first!
“…Maybe they hate you.”
He gave her a look.
“Or maybe,” she added, a faint smirk appearing, “they just like me better.”
Before Kain could retort, Bridge slapped him on the back—hard— cutting him off. He was also one of the first matches of the day—assigned to group 8 with a girl named Hailey as the eighth-ranked seed. “Hey, second place means you’re the best loser. Chin up, champ.”
Kain swatted his hand off like a mosquito.
The screen above the stadium lit up with the group breakdowns and to remind the crowd of who would be facing who soon, as well as what stage to go to for each match, and murmurs spread through the crowd.
Group 1: Serena’s group. No names Kain recognized. And none of the rankings were particularly high. The highest one after her was rank 19.
Group 2: His group. There was a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces. But nobody he felt he needed to take too seriously. It consisted of ranks 11, 23, 31, 35, and 42. He barely skimmed them before muttering in disappointment, “It’s a boring group.”
Bridge raised a brow. “You wanted harder fights? I was thrilled with my grouping”
In addition to having the weakest member of the top 8 as the seed, the other competitors in Bridge’s group were quite weak; consisting of the current rank 36, Aria at rank 46, the current Rank 47, the current rank 30, and Bridge at rank 20.
Hailey—nicknamed as the ‘gatekeeper’ due to her never moving from the rank 8 position since entering the College—was the seed of this group.
It was an absolute playground and Kain felt that Bridge had a decent shot at making it into the top 8 for the first time.
Overall, Serena’s, Kain’s, and Bridge’s groups were relatively easy. But that was largely because most of the tougher opponents had the misfortune of meeting one another, with multiple of Kain’s friends being packed into the same group.
Elias (rank 42) and Aiden (10) were together in Group 4 with Kairos, which was basically the equivalent of being thrown into a blender on purée. Due to the other members of their group all ranking above 30 (9, 17, and 21).
The matchups in Addison (Group 5), and Finn and Leonara’s groups (Group 6) were not much better…
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter