Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

The morning after the expedition, the academy felt different.

The corridors were the same, the seminar rooms were the same, the view from the residential block’s eastern windows was the same angled shot of Celestial City’s skyline that it had been since Lin Yi arrived. But the atmosphere had changed in the specific way it does when a group of people have all done something together and are now in the process of figuring out what it meant.

Students moved through the morning with the particular energy of people who were both tired and recalibrated. Conversations in the corridors were louder than they had been the previous week, the kind of loud that comes from having things to compare and argue about. Expedition results. Monster encounters. Who had done what, in which sector, with which team, and what it had produced.

Lin Yi walked to his morning seminar through the main corridor and ignored most of it.

He was not ignoring it because he was uninterested. He was ignoring it because the conversations happening around him were calibrated to a scale of experience that had nothing to do with his, and engaging with them required a kind of translation effort that didn’t produce useful information. A first-year student describing a difficult encounter with a level 30 Ember Construct was having a genuine experience worth describing. It was simply not a reference point that connected to what Lin Yi had spent six hours doing in the same wilderness zone.

He had reached the junction between the residential wing and the academic building when the voice came from slightly behind him and to the left.

"Lin Yi."

He recognized it before he turned. He turned anyway.

Xie Yanran was walking from the direction of the upper-year residential wing, which occupied a separate section of the building. She was in standard academy attire for a class day, which on her had the specific quality that confidence and physical capability tend to produce regardless of what a person is wearing. Three members of Crimson Vanguard were with her, two of whom Lin Yi recognized from the corridor incident the previous week and one he hadn’t seen before.

She fell into step beside him with the ease of someone who had decided this was going to be a comfortable conversation regardless of how the other party felt about it. "How was the expedition?"

"Fine," Lin Yi said.

"Fine," she repeated. "I heard the solo assessment data for the upper plateau sectors was unusual."

"Unusual how?"

"Monster clearance density well above the expected solo output for a first-year student." She looked at him sideways. "Or for almost anyone operating in the Grade 6 range, apparently. The tracking system flagged it for review." A brief pause. "Instructor Fang mentioned it to the first-year seminar instructors this morning, apparently. Something about verifying the data."

Lin Yi said nothing. He filed the information. The academy’s tracking system was more granular than he had given it full credit for. He had known it tracked clearance data. He had not specifically considered that unusual density patterns would generate a review flag.

"The data is accurate," he said.

"I assumed it was," Xie Yanran said. "Which makes you more interesting than you already were, and you were already fairly interesting."

One of the Crimson Vanguard members behind them, the one Lin Yi had clocked as the most likely to say something unnecessary in any given situation, made a sound that was technically not words but communicated commentary on the conversation nonetheless. Xie Yanran didn’t look back at him.

"Quiet," she said.

He went quiet.

Xie Yanran looked at Lin Yi again. "The expedition scoring results post this afternoon," she said. "When they do, the first-year ranking is going to look different from what it looked like yesterday."

"Probably," Lin Yi said.

"Definitely," she said. "Based on what the tracking flags suggest." She paused. "I’m bringing this up because the ranking shift is going to change how people approach the sect formation question for first years. Once the results are visible, everyone in the academy who hasn’t already approached you about a sect is going to reconsider." She looked at him directly. "I’d rather have this conversation before that happens than during it."

"The answer is the same as last week," Lin Yi said.

"I know." She didn’t say it with frustration. "But the reasoning might have shifted, so I want to make sure I understand it correctly." She paused. "Is it the level gap?"

"Yes."

"Party leveling mechanics don’t work when the gap exceeds ten levels."

"Yes."

"And you’re above level 69."

Lin Yi looked at her. He had not confirmed a specific level to anyone. She had done the calculation from available data, which meant she had done it carefully. "You figured it," he said.

"I reverse-engineered it," she confirmed. "Dragon God Tower floor 45 boss cleared with a torn arm during the examination, meant you are well above level 40. Then there’s the massive levels gained during yesterday’s six-hour expedition in a Grade 6 zone. The tracking flag data I just described." She met his gaze. "You’re significantly above level 70."

He said nothing, which was also confirmation.

She nodded once. "Then the level gap logic holds," she said. "Joining any current sect means forfeiting the leveling that matters most to you right now." She was quiet for a moment. "That’s not arrogance. That’s math."

"Yes," Lin Yi said.

Behind them, the Crimson Vanguard member who had been quiet for approximately ninety seconds reached the limit of what ninety seconds of restraint felt like for him.

"He’s above level 70 and he’s a first-year," he said, to no one specifically, in the tone of someone making an announcement. "That’s not impossible."

"No one reaches that level in the first month of their first academy session. That’s not possible without any form of cheating."

Xie Yanran stopped walking.

The entire group stopped with her.

She turned to look at the member who had spoken. She looked at him for approximately three seconds with an expression that communicated, without any particular heat, that what he had just said was going to require him to think about whether he wanted to stand behind it.

"Did you just suggest that a student who placed first in the regional examination, broke the Dragon God Tower record, and cleared a Grade 6 plateau alone, was cheating?"