Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

"Lin Yi. Jianghe City. E-Rank Laborer."

The silence that followed was a different category from the one after Wang Hao. Wang Hao had produced curiosity and mild surprise. Lin Yi produced something closer to a full stop. Everyone in the room processed the words in sequence and then apparently had to run them again.

"E-Rank," Zhang Ruoxi said.

"Laborer," Chen Yanming added, as though completing a sentence that needed both halves to make sense. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Luo Peng unfolded his arms and refolded them, which appeared to be his version of a significant reaction. "That’s a lifestyle class."

"It is," Lin Yi said.

"How," Mei Lihua said. She said it the way people say a single word when the sentence they were forming ran into an obstacle.

Han Yue had still not looked at Lin Yi directly.

"There has to be an error," Zhang Ruoxi said, turning to look at Chen Yanming beside her. "The intake process doesn’t accept lifestyle class students on academic terms. There must be a supplementary pathway."

"Maybe the principal owed someone a favor," Luo Peng said. It was not vicious. It was the offhand speculation of someone who found the situation confusing and was generating explanations.

"That seems unlikely," Wen Jiahao said. "The academy’s independence from political interference is well documented. A favor-based enrollment would be a significant institutional risk."

"Then what’s the explanation?" Zhang Ruoxi asked.

"Four hundred and fifty points," Han Yue said.

The room went quiet in a different way.

Everyone looked at him. Han Yue was still looking at his desk. His voice had been completely level. He said it the way someone states a number they have thought about many times.

"The regional examination," he continued. "First place overall. Four hundred and fifty points. Previous record was four hundred and thirty." He paused. "He broke it by twenty. Alone. On the second day." He finally looked up. Not at the room generally. At Lin Yi specifically. "That’s the explanation."

The silence that followed was the longest one yet.

Then Luo Peng said, slowly, "That Lin Yi?"

"There’s more than one?" Wang Hao said.

"I assumed." Luo Peng looked at Lin Yi with an expression that was recalibrating in real time. "I heard about the examination result. Everyone did. But I assumed the person who broke that record was." He paused. "An S-Rank. A high-level genius class. Not." He gestured. "Not."

"Not a Laborer," Lin Yi said, finishing the sentence without inflection.

"Correct," Luo Peng said. "Not a Laborer."

Mei Lihua was looking at Lin Yi with the focused attention of someone who had revised their assessment and was now operating from a new position. "Four hundred and fifty points. Floor forty-five of the Dragon God Tower." She said it quietly, like she was reviewing notes. "The monitoring hall confirmed he cleared floors consistently faster than any previous candidate at comparable recorded levels." She looked at Instructor Fang. "Is that accurate?"

"I’m not here to discuss examination records," Instructor Fang said from the platform, with the mild tone of someone watching something interesting unfold and choosing not to interrupt it unnecessarily.

Luo Peng was still looking at Lin Yi. Something in his expression had moved past confusion and arrived at something else entirely. He was, Lin Yi concluded, someone who processed new information through challenge rather than acceptance. The exact kind of person who needed to see something to believe it.

"I want to test that," Luo Peng said.

"Sit down," Instructor Fang said.

"No, wait." A different voice. Zhao Tianming. He had not introduced himself yet, which meant he was one of the two Lin Yi had not fully placed in his initial scan of the room. He was sitting at the far end of the arc, on Lin Yi’s left, and Lin Yi had assessed him as the student most likely to act on something before thinking it through completely, based on the way he had been sitting since the room filled. Restless. Wound tight. The specific physical language of someone who processes discomfort through action.

He stood up.

"Zhao Tianming," he said, apparently providing the introduction he had skipped. "Devil City. S-Rank Flame Knight." He looked at Lin Yi without hostility but with the direct confidence of someone who had never needed to second-guess a physical confrontation in their life. "Before we spend a semester pretending an E-Rank Laborer belongs in this class, I’d rather we just settle it now." He looked at Instructor Fang. "The rules say practical assessment is part of the grading system. This is practical."

"This is the first day of the first class," Instructor Fang said.

"Then it’s a good time to establish a baseline," Zhao Tianming said.

Instructor Fang looked at him with an expression that was completely unreadable. Then he looked at Lin Yi. "You’re not required to accept."

"I know," Lin Yi said. He stood up.

Wang Hao put his face in his hands briefly. Then he lowered them and watched with the alert attention of a man who knew exactly how this was going to end but was going to watch every second of it regardless.

Zhao Tianming stepped away from his desk into the open space in the center of the room, which was large enough for movement because rooms in this academy were built knowing students would use them this way. He did not summon a weapon. He positioned himself with the loose, ready stance of someone whose class gave them enough physical enhancement that they could make points with their body alone.

"I’ll keep it simple," he said. "First clean hit ends it. No weapons."

Lin Yi stepped into the open space. He did not take a stance. He stood the way he usually stood.

Zhao Tianming looked at him for a moment. Then he moved. He was fast, genuinely fast, S-Rank Flame Knight fast, the kind of speed that came from a class that enhanced both combustion output and physical reflex as paired abilities. He crossed the distance between them in less than a second and brought his right hand down in a single clean overhead chop, the kind of strike that was fast enough and powerful enough that blocking it cleanly was a statement in itself.

Lin Yi raised his left hand.

He caught the chop at the wrist. Not blocked. Not deflected. Caught. His fingers closed around Zhao Tianming’s wrist at the point of the strike’s full extension, the momentum stopped completely, and then Lin Yi turned his hand.

Zhao Tianming’s center of gravity inverted. His feet left the ground. Lin Yi directed the momentum downward and Zhao Tianming hit the floor on his back with a sound that was not violent but was extremely clear. The entire sequence had taken approximately one and a half seconds from the moment Zhao Tianming’s feet left the ground.

Lin Yi let go of his wrist. He stepped back to his desk and sat down.

The room was completely still.

Zhao Tianming lay on the floor for a moment. Then he sat up slowly, the expression on his face moving through several things in sequence. Surprise. Recalibration. Something that settled eventually into the quiet respect of someone who had needed to see it and had now seen it.

He got to his feet. He walked back to his desk and sat down. He didn’t say anything.

Wang Hao very carefully did not say anything either. He was sitting with his hands flat on his desk and his expression neutral, which was the most effort he had ever visibly spent on neutrality.

Han Yue, at the far end of the arc, finally looked at Lin Yi directly. The look lasted approximately three seconds. Then he looked back at his own desk.

Instructor Fang looked across the eight students from the platform. Nothing in his expression suggested that what had just happened was surprising to him. He picked up his folder. "Now that introductions are complete," he said, "we’ll begin with threat classification systems for dimensional rifts above Hazardous level. Open your assessment pads to module one."

Eight assessment pads opened.

Class had begun.