Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

More than a month had passed.

Lin Yi sat at his desk in the early morning. Heavenly Phoenix Academy had become ordinary in this sense. Not easy. Not unchallenging. But known. The corridors, the seminar rooms, the faces in the halls, the specific weight of the suppression field in the lower dungeon circuit chambers, the way Instructor Fang’s evaluations were phrased when he was genuinely impressed versus when he was performing neutrality. All of it had been learned and filed.

He opened his datapad and checked the sect rankings.

Heavenly Phoenix Academy — Sect Rankings Current Session Only

1st: Celestial Legion — 3,245,800 pts

2nd: Crimson Vanguard — 891,400 pts

3rd: Heavenly Sword Sect — 744,200 pts

4th: Ten Thousand Poison Sect— 681,900 pts

5th: Azure Tide — 512,700 pts

The gap between first and second had widened over the month. Crimson Vanguard had pushed their output significantly, Xie Yanran clearly having identified the competitive pressure and redirected her sect’s activity toward higher-yield scoring events. Their eight hundred thousand point total was genuinely strong work from a ten-member team operating at high coordination.

Heavenly Phoenix Academy — Sect Ranking

Combined Session

1st: Celestial Legion — 3,245,800 pts

2nd: Crimson Vanguard — 1,738,600 pts

3rd: Azure Tide — 1,466,100 pts

4th: Iron Bastion — 1,379,400 pts

5th: Heavenly Sword Sect — 999,200 pts

Historical first place. They had overtaken Crimson Vanguard’s year accumulated total in the ninth week of the session. Xie Yanran had been at a seminar when the ranking updated and had apparently looked at the display for a long time before continuing what she was doing.

Lin Yi noted the numbers, closed the ranking display, and returned to the skill refinement notes he had been reviewing. The restricted dungeon circuit had opened two weeks after Celestial Legion qualified, and it had done exactly what Shen Rou’s projection had suggested it would do. Grade 7 and Grade 8 environments, monster level ranges between 60 and 90, the first academy-sanctioned environments where his system’s amplification had room to generate experience. Three circuit sessions in the past month had produced results that his system panel now reflected fully.

He was reviewing those results when the knock came.

Two knocks, spaced with a particular interval that he had learned to recognize without consciously deciding to learn it.

"Come in," he said.

Shen Rou opened the door. She was carrying two cups, and she was wearing the glasses she had started wearing approximately three weeks ago. The first time she had appeared with them, Lin Yi had observed that they suited her, and she had said thank you. After that, she had started wearing them consistently, which he noted without attaching particular significance to except that she seemed more comfortable with them on than she had been before he said anything.

She set one cup on his desk and sat in the chair by the terminal with the ease of someone who had sat in that chair many times. She had. Over the past month, the morning review sessions had become a regular occurrence, starting from the formation theory supplementary materials she had offered on the first day and expanding into a general working discussion that covered everything from assessment preparation to dungeon circuit strategy to the ongoing sect management questions that came with eight members generating activity across multiple concurrent scored events.

"Current session is still first by near four times second place," she said, pulling up her datapad. She did not need to check it herself because she had already reviewed it before walking over. She did it because the gesture of presenting organized information was how she communicated investment in a shared context. He had learned to read this accurately.

"I saw," Lin Yi said. He picked up the cup.

Whatever she had brought today was slightly different from the previous week’s version and he noted this without mentioning it, because mentioning it would produce a twenty-second pause in which she processed whether to explain the difference and then did, and he was interested in the explanation but not ready to have it yet.

"Combined Session is first as well," she said. "The gap to second place in historical has grown to approximately 1.5 million points. At Crimson Vanguard’s current session output rate, they cannot close that gap within this session even if we stopped accumulating entirely."

"Good," Lin Yi said.

She looked at him over the rim of her cup for a moment. The glasses reflected the morning light from the window at an angle that produced a faint lens flare when she moved her head slightly.

"I wanted to talk about the membership," she said.

"Go ahead."

She set her cup down and opened a different file on her datapad.

"Celestial Legion currently has eight members. That’s eight of a possible ten." She looked at the list. "I’ll go through them."

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"Founding members," she said. "You. Wang Hao. Myself."

"The additions from the past month." She continued. "Zhao Tianming joined in week two. His Flame Knight class contributes directly to expedition clearance output and he’s disciplined about formation positioning, which was my primary concern when the conversation first came up."

Zhao Tianming, the same person who challenged Lin Yi during his first ever appearance in the academy classroom, is now a dedicated lackey of his.

"He processes new information through action rather than reflection, which creates an early adaptation period, but once the standard is established he maintains it." She looked at the next name. "Luo Peng joined in week three. Iron Crusher class. His physical output in the lower dungeon circuit zones is genuinely strong and his presence in formation anchor positions during combined assessments has improved the collective defensive metric significantly."

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"Week four," she said. "Zhang Ruoxi. Storm Dancer. She and Chen Yanming applied together, which I anticipated based on the existing dynamic between them. Chen Yanming’s Void Cutter class creates a complementary pairing with Zhang Ruoxi’s mobility, and the combined output in the expedition last week demonstrated it working as expected." She paused. "Six members through week four."

"And the last two," Lin Yi said.

"Week five." She scrolled slightly. "Wen Jiahao. Formation Sentinel. He came to me directly, which I thought was interesting. He said he had been watching the sect’s performance metrics and had calculated that the structural approach Celestial Legion used was more aligned with how he wanted to develop than any existing sect had offered him." She paused. "He was correct in that assessment."

"He was," Lin Yi said. Wen Jiahao’s addition had been the one he had been thinking about longest. Formation Sentinel as a class produced output that was largely invisible in individual score metrics but shifted the quality ceiling of everything the sect did collectively. Two weeks in, the effect was already measurable in the combined formation assessments.

"And the eighth member," Shen Rou said. She paused with a slightly different quality than her other pauses. "Mei Lihua."

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"She requested a meeting with me before approaching you," Shen Rou said. "She wanted to understand the sect’s academic component before making a decision." A brief pause. "We talked for about an hour."

"What did she want to know?"

Shen Rou looked at her datapad screen. "Whether the academic contribution was genuinely valued or whether it was secondary to combat output in practice." She paused. "I told her it was genuinely valued. She joined the next day." She closed the file. "Eight members. Two slots remaining."

"We’ll fill them when the right people are identifiable," Lin Yi said.

Shen Rou nodded. She picked up her cup again and held it with both hands, her eyes meeting his, and in that moment....