God´s Eyes

Jason woke up early in the morning and did his workout before he showered and changed into the school uniform.      

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

There weren't many rules to keep in mind 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 roll number of the opposite class.     

Once someone was kicked out of the combat arena or unable to continue fighting, it meant this student lost the first round.      

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 weren't allowed to interfere in the class battles and it was forbidden for them to tell students which opponent to pick.     

Learning tactics was important for future hunting sessions to be able to enter a hunting squad.     

Along with tactics, clear and concise communication and a certain degree of knowledge with respect to the prey, its habitat, and its behavior were important aspects to hunt in order to survive in the wilderness.     

Class 75 hadn't learned anything about tactics since their entry in high school but their combat prowess had increased by a lot.     

At the end of the third round, the class with the most students who had survived all the three rounds would either stay at its rank if it was challenged or switch the class.      

Class 75 would fight Class 74 as their first battle.     

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 fighting the other classes in descending order, while class 75 would remain exactly the same.     

While their class was fighting class 74, 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 changes 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 wouldn´t be allowed to enter the class ranking.     

To make it fair, the class would decide which student of their class should participate in each round of the class ranking through voting.     

Normally, the top 200 students would receive the most votes, but not this year.     

There were many irregular students in Class 75 which other classes wouldn't know.     

Jason, for example, was one of them.      

He was number 224 but had tied with Leo Heart who was number 4 from their class in their last spar. Additionally, Jason was the only one in their class who had increased his mana core rank in the past few weeks.     

And not only once or twice but thrice at that!! If one added the first day of school, Jason´s mana core rank had increased by four levels throughout his school life, while others were only nearing breakthrough to the next level in some days.     

Jason had almost defeated a magus ranked instructor while fighting at the same mana core rank, overwhelming to a point where the Instructor had been forced 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 who had finished the hard assignment provided by their teacher, at least half of them were below Nr 150.     

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

There was also one student with exceptional comprehension who was probably as good as Jason or maybe even better.      

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

It was more likely that they preferred to keep it low-key but that didn't mean that they would hide under their beds 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 more 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, it was still useless to rank higher than their classmates at the moment.      

As such, the class decided to let the special cases fight all three rounds while some dejected students who thought they were special but clearly weren't, got forced to decide whether to not 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 his usual way to school with a shuttle, while Greg and Malia used their soulbonds to ride to the main school.      

His routine was almost set in stone as he practicedHeaven's Hell second level in the shuttle that reached the school's gate at the exact moment he finished his practice. After paying for the service, he headed inside.     

Upon reaching the arena´s first floor, he saw that his classmates were already waiting on one side, while Jason could also see around two hundred pairs of eyes scanning him.     

Activating his mana eyes, Jason did the same and was somewhat astonished by what he saw.     

Their mana core ranks were roughly the same as their class'.     

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 was deflecting elemental attacks, which he had noticed while fighting Leo.     

He had been too easily distracted by his earth spikes and would have been easily defeated if hadn't been 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 who seemed to be the worst out of all the students in Class 74.     

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

Jason could fight Greg head-on if he restricted his strength to that of Jason.     

The only exception was the amplification received from their soulbonds.     

Greg´s battle prowess was essentially high, but he was not the most intelligent in his family, causing Jason to employ several tricks while fighting 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 Jason´s mana core.     

It was mostly due to his soul world´s physical amplification.     

Fighting someone like this head-on wouldn't be a wise move, but luckily Greg´s speed wasn't highly amplified owing to the reinforced horned bull´s characteristics.     

He had 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 be noticed by some senior teachers, once their godly combat prowess would be seen.     

But truth be told, not a single teacher with any decent authority would watch class battles of the lowest classes of the weakest affiliated school.     

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

Punctual as always, Mr.Greil walked inside the Arena´s first floor with a middle-aged man next to him.     

Jason activated his mana eyes and noticed that this middle-aged man, who was class 74's headteacher, had only slightly more liquefied mana drops inside his mana core than Instructor Brian. But his mana core size looked even worse than that of the Instructor's.     

It was quite amusing for Jason to see that Class 74´s teacher was probably weaker than Instructor Brian.     

When the students saw their respective teachers walking into the large arena hall, everybody felt silent.     

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

Class 75 had grown used to their teacher's impatience, but the other teacher was slightly astonished by this.     

Class 74's teacher explained everything two or three times until even the slow-witted students could understand him, but Class 75´s teacher couldn't care less.     

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 label the combatant as 'dead.'      

The color would have a certain mana fluctuation which the AI would use 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 heavily one was injured by the amount of color released from the weapon.     

Saving credits was important for everyone and employing referees for such trivial class battles would be pointless.     

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 gain more experience through observations.     

When that would happen, the teachers would act as referees while explaining the mistakes and flaws made by the participants 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 farthest.     

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

And true to his guesstimate, the student Jason found to be the weakest was now standing opposite him and hesitated a little as 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 assumed 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 a throwing knife in his hand while his opponent overcame himself, deciding to rush at his enemy with a short-sword in his hand, ready to cleave Jason.     

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