Lena and Jay followed Lucas to his academy's airship and boarded it. On their way, one student that Lucas brought with him to the kingdom came to talk to them.
"Hey, I'm Manuel Lopez. I will be in the same age group as you in the academy, so I hope we can become friends. I'm ranked 3 on the list for students under 35."
He said with a friendly smile. He showed off his rank to make a good first impression.
"Hey, I'm Jay. I wonder what my rank would be."
"Haha, I've seen your fight and you're extremely powerful! You might not know it, but according to researchers from the empire, less than 1% of the population has three elements. And that's excluding the commoners who have only one element or very low affinities."
"Why aren't the commoners included in the numbers?"
"It'd be less than 0.001% if we included them. The reason the academies don't count them is that they're irrelevant to their research. Even if the empire could find a way to increase those chances, the commoners wouldn't be able to afford them."
Jay didn't like it since she was a commoner picked up by Shana herself, but she knew it wasn't Manuel's fault. He was just born into this world as it was. The fact that he treated them well despite being from a kingdom was already enough to show his good character.
"Hi, Lena, right?"
He turned to Lena who remained silent all this time.
"Yes."
"Is it true you're only 24 years old?"
"It is."
"She doesn't mean to offend you, she just doesn't talk much with strangers."
Jay said awkwardly when she felt Manuel's slight frustration from Lena's lack of responsiveness. She knew the truth, and it was because Lena probably deemed him too weak to be relevant in her life.
"That's ok. To be honest, she'd probably ranked third in our age group instead of me."
"Third? Do you have someone even more talented than Lena in the academy?"
"Haha, no, no. Miss Lena is the most talented mage I've ever met. However, our age group is 25-35, and there are no students under 25 in the academy except for a very few talented ones. The top two students are advanced mages. They are just older."
Lena smiled upon hearing his words. She was worried that she won't face any challenges when she heard she was studying with students under 35.
"What are the benefits of being ranked first?"
Lena finally spoke, encouraging Manuel to keep talking.
"Well, the top three students get to study directly under a magus once a week. Additionally, we get more resources and attention from the teachers."
"'We?', I thought you were out of the top three now."
"Ahaha…"
He laughed awkwardly. He was starting to regret approaching her.
"You're right. But the second-ranked student is 35, so next year he will move to another group age. In contrast, I'm still 33 years old. Who knows, I might even get to the next stage in a year or two and be ranked above you."
"If you take a whole year, I'm afraid it'll be too late."
Lena said and left Manuel gaping. Ever since she was strengthened by all 5 elements as a mage, her training speed was boosted by a huge margin. She didn't even know why, but she felt herself steadily getting closer to the next stage.
"By the way, what would be Jaina's rank if she was in this school?"
"Well, she was 38 years old, so I don't know. But if she was 35 with the strength before being forcibly advanced, she'd be around the sixth rank on our list. After advancing, she'd be third excluding Miss Lena."
Their conversation ended, and Lena spent the rest of the way training. Jay and Manuel kept getting closer to each other since they weren't training maniacs like Lena and had some free time.
Lucas also tried approaching Lena a few times, yet she never talked back. Frustrated, he just gave up for now and decided to try later when she realizes the benefits of having a magus as her backer.
The group reached the Moon Nova Academy a week later, and Lena was sent to a normal room meant for people who weren't on the top 500 list. She had 3 roommates whom she didn't bother to ask for their names.
Jay and Manuel came to visit her and took her out for a tour outside with them. Since Lena requested for the academy's head to be her teacher right from the beginning, her meeting with the magi was delayed by a week.
Manuel took the girls to get their Shiri watches, their academy's version for Alessa. On the first day, he showed them around campus.
"You got a new challenge."
Manuel's watch's voice caught him unprepared; nobody had challenged him in a long time. Jay looked at Manuel with curiosity, while Lena smirked.
"Who is it?"
"You were challenged by Lena Stormborn, unranked. You must accept within 3 days."
Manuel sighed and looked at the smirking Lena with irritation. Couldn't she talk to him about it before sending out a challenge?
"Ah, whatever. Let's do it in two days."
Manuel set the time for two days later, and the tour ended. Manuel parted with them and went to his residence.
"You turned the tour's mood sour. Couldn't you wait until it ended?"
Jay complained to Lena.
"We already know our way around the campus. He was just trying to spend more time with us because we look good. If he is Lucas' student, he must be as pervert as Lucas."
"That's not true, he was very nice to us throughout the journey."
"Sure. Don't take it to heart, I'm sure he just went to pack his stuff before I'm taking his lodging."
Lena wasn't completely wrong; he didn't really need to pack things since the inscriptions could teleport them to the new apartment when he loses his spot in the top 3, but he was indeed looking at his bed with the eyes of someone about to move out of his childhood home.
The top lists system worked in their academy quite similarly to the one in Gale's academy. The main difference was that almost no student would fight to the death, and the arena would stop the fight when one student couldn't block a hit even if he was conscious and didn't surrender.
Two days passed and the time of their duel arrived. Fights of the top three were announced by Shiri to everyone, and it served two purposes: The first was to bar students from blindly challenging the top ranks and wasting their time, and the second was to let the other students watch and learn from their betters.
The seats in the arena were almost full. A rumor spread about a rare genius who came to the academy and that she was the one who challenged Manuel, and curious students came to check the duel out. Even if the rumor was proven wrong, they'd still be entertained by the public humiliation of the challenger if the gap was too big.
"Fight!"
There was a human judge for their fight. Manuel came from a marquis household, and his family paid generously to the academy to ensure his safety in fights that were deemed dangerous.
As soon as the battle started, Lena launched toward Manuel, boosted by a wind speed spell and protected by a water sphere.
She dodged what she could and defended what she couldn't and faced him after a few seconds. Manuel watched her fight against Florian and knew what to expect. He clenched his teeth in anger and boosted himself with fire and earth spells to boost his strength as much as he could.
Since Lena was using a wind spell that boosted only speed and flexibility, he believed he would be able to counter it with explosive strength.
Oh, how wrong he was. The power and speed of a 5-time-strengthened higher elite beast wasn't something for humans to compare.
Lena easily dodged his kick by leaning backward, displaying her exceptional flexibility and response time. Before he could finish his kick, her leg was sent upward and hit him in the armpit, sending him rolling to the side. The power behind the kick was insane, and his shoulder blade cracked despite the earth spell's boost.
She appeared right next to him before he could get over the pain and performed an axe kick down to his chin, sending him to a dream of more pleasant things.
The crowd was silent. Everyone felt that they might have been too passive those past few months in which nobody challenged Manuel. Wasn't he too weak to hold that spot?
Manuel was going to see a long list of challenges when he woke up, and he'd have to remind the other students why nobody challenged him before.
"Lena Stormborn wins!"
The judge declared her victory and soon the top list was updated on everyone's watches. Lena left the arena with the pouting Jay by her side.
"You should've gone easy on him and let him show some might before beating him."
"That's stupid. No enemy will satisfy your ego before killing you."
A week soon passed, and it was time for Lena to meet the magi of the academy. During this week she attended classes to learn more about the world of magic and chose a second profession as well.
She chose healing as her second profession since her light affinity was a huge advantage in that field.
Jay also wasn't lying back and doing nothing. She challenged some of the top 100 and gradually got to rank 21 before losing.
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