Jason woke up early in the morning, doing his workout before he washed and changed into the school uniform.

It was Monday and today was the first day of the first Class battle.

There weren't many rules for the first-class battles and it was pretty simple.

A class battle would consist of three rounds,

The first round let the students fight the corresponding number of the opposite class.

Once someone was kicked out of the combat arena or unable to continue fighting, it meant this student would be immediately kicked out.

One could say it was the first K.O round.

Following the first round in the second round, the lower-ranked class would be able to challenge their first opponent, while the third round allowed the higher-ranked class to challenge students.

With that, one could prepare many different kinds of tactics in order to win the class battle.

It was not only a battle of the physique but also the mind.

Teachers wouldnt be allowed to interfere with the class battles and it was forbidden for them to tell students which opponent they should pick.

Learning tactics was important for future hunting sessions because one would probably enter a hunting squad.

Communication and a certain degree of overall knowledge were important aspects to hunt in order to survive in the wilderness.

Class 75 hadnt learned anything about tactics since they entered high-school but their combat prowess increased by a lot.

After the third round finished, the class with the most remaining students within the combat arena left would either stay at its rank if it was challenged or switch the class.

Class 75 would fight Class 74 as first.

If their class came out victorious, they would become class 74 and their path could continue.

However, if class 74 won, the other class could continue its path onwards the other classes, while class 75 would remain exactly the same.

While their class was fighting class74, Class 73 would be fighting against class 72, and so on.

Each day, 6 classes would fight against each other.

Under normal circumstances not many would change in class rankings would occur, with only a few exceptions.

Because Class 75 had 25 students more than any other class, it would be unfair once the same rules applied for them as everyone else.

With that in mind, 25 students wouldnt be allowed to enter the class ranking.

To make it fair the class voted for the students who should participate in each round of the class ranking.

Normally one would pick the best 200 students, but not this year

There were many irregular students in Class 75 which other classes wouldnt know.

Jason for example was one of them.

He was number 224 but tied with Leo Heart who was number 4 from their class and his mana core rank increased as one of the only ones during the past few weeks.

And not only once nor twice but three at that!! If one added the first day of school, Jasons mana core rank increased by four levels throughout his school life, while others were about to breakthrough after some days.

Jason almost defeated a magus ranked instructor while fighting at the same mana core rank and he forced the Instructor to release his restrictions.

But he was not the only one who was special in this year's worst class.

Out of the 40 students that finished the hard assignment provided by their teacher, at least half of them were below Nr 150.

Many weird students with a bad class ranking but some special features like exceptional soul-awakenings, high amplification, or special soulbonds with some kind of unique affinities existed.

There was also one student with an exceptional comprehension that was probably as good as Jason's or maybe even better.

These were mostly special admission students who tended to avoid getting bullied or implicated in quarrels as they choose to stay behind in their ranking.

It was more likely that they played low-key but that wouldnt mean they cowered behind their classmates once the class battles would begin.

There was also no use in ranking higher in their current class and it was only for show because the resources they received were mostly martial art techniques or time at the mana gathering circle.

Higher classes would probably receive potions and other things that had to be distributed according to their rankings.

But right now it was still useless to rank higher than their classmates.

As such the class decided to let the special cases fight all three rounds while some dejected students who thought they were special got forced to decide whether not to fight at all or to switch with other students.

Jason was now Nr.200 in his class ranking for the time being until the class's battles would be over and he would be able to fight all rounds once he won the first one.

He finished his breakfast as he went on his way towards school, while Greg and Malia used their soulbonds to ride to the main school.

Inside the shuttle, Jason practiced the most common path Heavens Hell second level.

When he was done, the shuttle arrived at the perfect moment and Jason left it after paying up.

He walked inside the arenas first floor where his classmates were already waiting on one side, while Jason could also see around two hundred pairs of eyes scanning them.

Activating his mana eyes, Jason was somewhat astonished.

Their mana core ranks were roughly the same as theirs.

Not many of them had an elemental affinity mixed into their mana, which meant that they had formed a soulbond with a physical beast.

This was good news because Jason's biggest problem in fights were elemental attacks, which he noticed while fighting Leo.

He was too easily distracted by his earth spikes and would be easily defeated if he wasn't paying enough attention.

Jason roughly knew who he wanted to fight in the first round which caused him to smile lightly.

With his 9th Novice rank and the small increase in strength, he could defeat the low-Adept student that seemed to be the worst out of Class 74s students.

The difference between the peak of the Novice rank and the first Adept rank was large, around 30% to 50% but Jason was confident in his own capabilities.

Jason could fight Greg head-on if he restricted his strength comparable to Jasons.

The only exception was the amplification from their soulbonds.

Gregs battle prowess was essential high but he was not the most intelligent in his family, causing Jason to fight with many tricks against Greg.

But who would say something against that if they were to fight a life and death battle?

Greg had an amazing soulbond which enhanced his physique by almost three levels when he restricted his strength to match Jasons mana core.

It was mostly thanks to his soul worlds physical amplification.

Fighting someone like this head-on wouldn't be that smart but luckily Gregs speed wasnt highly amplified thanks to the reinforced horned bulls characteristics.

He only reached the beginner-Adept rank which was why Jason could fight Greg.

It didn't take long for everyone to gather and the two classes were perfectly divided.

Jason found it ridiculous to see that some were even glaring at each other with a competitive spirit.

Nobody wanted to lose!

Maybe there was a chance to enter the eyes of some higher-up teachers, once their godly combat prowess would be seen.

But if they faced reality, not a single teacher with any decent authorities would watch class battles from the lowest classes of the weakest affiliated school.

Wouldn't that be a waste of time? Nobody could answer that and if someone attracted attention with their combat prowess or other capabilities, the headteachers or referees would report it to the higher-ups.

Punctual with the school beginning, Mr.Greil walked inside the Arenas first floor with a middle-aged average looking man next to him.

Jason activated his mana eyes and noticed that this middle-aged man had only slightly more liquefied mana drops inside his mana core than Instructor Brian, but his mana core size looked even worse than the Instructors one.

Class 74s teacher was probably weaker than Instructor Brian which he found quite amusing.

When the students saw their respective teachers walking into the large arena hall, everyone stopped talking with each other.

Till was the first one to say something: "Today, we are going to have the first-class battle of our first graders. Everyone should be familiar with the rules. If nobody has any questions, we can immediately start!"

Class 75 already knew that their teacher was impatient but their opponent was slightly astonished about this.

Their teacher was always explaining everything two or three times until even the slow-witted students could understand everything, but Class 75s teacher wouldn't explain everything multiple times and start right off the bat.

Because 200 battles would take place at the same time, they would use training weapons that were dulled and would release some kind of magical neon color to paint the targeted enemy once hit.

Once a certain amount of paint was released on one opponent, the arena AI would appoint the combatant as `dead`

The color would have a certain mana fluctuation which the AI would detect this fluctuation to determine if one was `seriously` injured, `unable` to continue the fight, or dead and the fight would end immediately.

It would be a waste of credits to hire referees as it was easy to see how heavy one was injured by the amount of color released from the weapon and so on.

Saving credits was important for everyone and referees were exaggerated for such trivial class battles.

Probably only in a week or two when the fights become more interesting, lower-ranked classes would want to watch their peer's battles in order to accumulate more experience through observations

When that happened, the teachers would take place as referees while explaining the mistakes and flaws made during the battles to their own classes.

Jason and the others would have to reach these higher-ranked classes first before they could use their own weapons, they were comfortable with.

Everyone was ready to start as Jason went to arena 200 that was the furthest away from everyone.

Holding two training daggers that were relatively well balanced and ten small knives, one could throw, Jason was ready to fight his opponent.

And exactly like he predicted, the student Jason found the weakest was now standing opposite him, slightly hesitating when he entered his fighting stance.

The only reason he was hesitating was because of Jason's eyes that looked somehow cold, as if he was his prey, even if he was confident in defeating his opponent under normal circumstances.

After getting to know that Jason was not even an Adept-rank, goosebumps appeared all over the student's body, even though it was illogical.

Jason went into his Weaponry Knight combat stance and waited for the starting signal without looking away from his opponent.

"3...2.1..: Start!" When Jason heard the starting signal, he took out a throwing knife in his hand while his opponent overcame himself, deciding to rush at his enemy with his short-sword in his hand, ready to cleave at Jason