Chapter 742: The Rankings (1)
As he finished, Thion stepped back from the pulpit with the same controlled calm he always carried and returned toward his seat.
The movement drew attention toward Assistant Lucia Greydon as she rose from where she had been seated near the front. Sir Kaelen stood beside her, formal and composed despite the battered students before him, while Sir Regulus rose as well with his new usual measured seriousness.
The three made their way toward the pulpit together, their presence immediately shifting the hall's attention into something sharper.
Lucia stepped behind the pulpit first, adjusting her glasses slightly with one hand while holding her enchanted clipboard in the other.
"Good morning, second years," she said, her voice clear and steady. "And welcome back."
The words were simple, but there was something in her tone that carried more weight than usual. Lucia was not someone who wasted emotion openly, yet even she seemed to be looking at the students differently now. Her eyes moved across them, not with pity, but with professional recognition.
They had gone into Nalim as second-year students facing an assessment. They had returned looking more like people who had been forced to understand the meaning of survival in its rawest form.
"Due to your current physical states," Lucia continued, "we will proceed with the ranking announcement quickly. The format will remain the same as before. The full ranking list will be displayed for everyone to review, while only the top ten ranked students will be addressed directly."
A few students shifted immediately, exhaustion briefly giving way to anticipation.
Rankings mattered.
No matter how tired they were, no matter how badly they wanted rest, every second year knew the significance of where they stood after an assessment like this. Their rank was not simply about pride. It reflected combat performance, judgment, endurance, adaptability, resource management, decision-making, and overall growth.
For some students, it could confirm improvement. For others, it could expose weakness. And after seven days inside Nalim, no one wanted to discover that all their suffering had led to them dropping lower.