Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

Han Yue

Red Lotus City. Godslaying Archer. Level 34 at the time of the examination. Final score, three hundred and eighty points. Fourth place overall. The same examination that Lin Yi had topped by seventy points. They were in the same class.

Wang Hao noticed where Lin Yi was looking. He followed the line of sight. Then he leaned approximately three centimeters toward Lin Yi and spoke at a volume that was technically a whisper but carried further than intended.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"Yes," Lin Yi said, at the same volume.

"Red Lotus City genius."

"Yes."

"He’s in our class."

"Yes."

"Brother Lin." Wang Hao’s voice carried the tone of a man updating a large number of calculations simultaneously. "This is going to be a very interesting year."

"I know," Lin Yi said.

Han Yue, across the room, had not looked away. His expression was not hostile. It was something more measured than that. The expression of someone who had a question they intended to answer through means other than asking it out loud.

The faculty introduction was brief and factual. Their primary instructor for first-year Level A introduced himself as Instructor Fang, a former frontier-level dungeon raid leader who had transitioned to academy instruction after a career that he described in two sentences and which those two sentences made clear had been significant. He was not warm in the welcoming sense. He was warm in the way that competent people who respect other people’s time tend to be. Efficient. Direct. Genuinely interested in what was in front of him.

"You were selected," he said, looking across the eight of them, "because your examination results placed you here. That is the only reason any of you are in this room." He paused. "It is also the last time your past results will be relevant. What matters from this point is what you do here." He looked at each of them in sequence. "I don’t care where you ranked in the regional examination. I care how you perform in this classroom and in the field. If those two things align with your examination results, excellent. If they don’t, the ranking system will sort it out quickly." He set down the folder he had been holding. "Welcome to Heavenly Phoenix. I’ll see you tomorrow morning."

He left. Eight first-year Level A students looked at each other in the particular way of people who had just been told something completely reasonable that was also slightly confrontational.

Wang Hao broke the silence first, which was predictable. "He’s great," he said, with complete sincerity. "I already respect him enormously."

...

Lin Yi’s room was at the end of the eastern wing corridor. Single occupancy, as promised. The training terminal in the corner was more sophisticated than anything Jianghe had offered, capable of running real-time combat data analysis and projecting skill assessment overlays that mapped to the academy’s internal measurement criteria. The skill assessment pod beside the desk was compact but clearly high-grade. He ran a palm across the surface of it briefly. The technology was serious. This was what institutions at this level could afford to provide as standard accommodation.

He unpacked, which did not take long because he traveled with less than most people expected. The Celestial Lord Blade went beside the bed. The Grand Defense Ring stayed on his hand. The Spatial Storage Token went on the desk where he could access it easily. Everything else was manageable from there.

He sat on the edge of the bed and opened his system panel out of habit. Level 79. Strength 448. The numbers were familiar and settled. He closed it and let himself think about the room instead.

Eight students in 1st Level A. Wang Hao, whose score had earned him a genuine place here and who would work harder than almost anyone because that was who he was. Han Yue, whose golden arrows and Level 34 ceiling and three hundred and eighty points represented the best Red Lotus City had produced in years, and who was now sitting fifteen meters away with something to prove. Five others whose names he hadn’t fully mapped yet but whose examination results meant every single one of them was capable of being interesting.

And somewhere in the city, in Level 1B or in the older years or on the faculty, hunters who had been at this for longer than Lin Yi had been enrolled in any academy at all.

He thought about what Instructor Fang had said. Past results were no longer relevant. What mattered was what happened here. Lin Yi considered this and found he agreed with it completely. He hadn’t spent weeks in the wilderness between the examination and enrollment because he was satisfied with where he stood. He had done it because standing still felt wrong when there was ground to cover.

Level 79 was not the ceiling.

Heavenly Phoenix Academy was not the ceiling.

The ceiling, wherever it was, was still somewhere above him. That was the only thing that mattered.

A knock came at his door. He opened it. Wang Hao stood in the hallway holding two cups of something warm, his room apparently three doors down, his expression carrying the particular brightness of someone who was exactly where they had decided they wanted to be.

"Settling in?" he said.

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

"Good." Wang Hao held out one of the cups. "Did you notice Han Yue didn’t look away from you the entire introduction session?"

"I noticed."

"He’s going to come for your ranking."

"Probably."

"Does that concern you?"

Lin Yi took the cup. "No."

Wang Hao looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded, slowly and with great satisfaction, like a man confirming something he had always believed. "No," he repeated. "Of course not." He leaned against the doorframe. "You know, most people, first day at the best regional academy in the territory, surrounded by geniuses from eight cities, a Red Lotus prodigy three doors down with a score to settle, brand new ranking system starting from zero." He gestured broadly at the hallway. "Most people would be at least a little nervous."

"Are you nervous?" Lin Yi asked.

Wang Hao thought about it honestly. "A little," he admitted. "But also extremely excited, which is covering most of it." He looked down the corridor toward the other rooms. "This is where we’re supposed to be, Brother Lin. Both of us." He looked back. "Doesn’t that feel like something?"

Lin Yi considered the question properly, which was the only way he knew how to consider questions.

He thought about the Jianghe dormitory room where this had started. The system panel appearing for the first time. The E-Rank Laborer class and what everyone in the room had said when it appeared. The qualification matches and the tournament and the wilderness and the Dragon God Tower. Wang Hao asking him if he was going to enter the tournament at all, back when the answer was uncertain.

It had been a long sequence of steps to get here.

"Yes," he said. "It does."

Wang Hao smiled. "Good," he said. He pushed off the doorframe. "Get some rest. First real class is tomorrow and I want to at least appear prepared for the first five minutes."

He walked back toward his room. Lin Yi watched him go, then looked down the corridor at the closed doors of the other six rooms in Level 1A. Somewhere behind one of them, Han Yue was probably doing exactly what Lin Yi had done when he sat on the bed. Running the room in his head. Calculating. Deciding something.

Lin Yi stepped back inside and closed the door. He’s First day at Heavenly Phoenix.

Tomorrow, the actual work began.