Chapter 754: She Is Back On Top (1)
The reaction to Sheila Granger’s name was completely different from the reactions that had followed every student before her.
For a moment, the Eastern Grand Hall seemed to forget its exhaustion. The second years were still battered, still hungry, still aching, and still desperate for proper treatment and rest, but the instant Lucia announced Sheila as rank one, a wave of relief and approval passed through the crowd with such force that it almost became visible.
Students who had barely reacted to their own names lifted their heads. Those sitting on the edge of collapse straightened just a little. A few even smiled openly, not with the forced politeness of students acknowledging a high rank, but with genuine relief.
It was not simply because Sheila was respected.
She was respected, of course. Even those who were jealous of her position could not easily deny her skill, control, or composure. She had been rank one before Liam took the position from her, and for many of her peers, her return to the top felt like the world correcting itself.
But beneath that respect was something more honest, something less flattering to the academy’s unity and far more revealing of how the second years truly felt.
They were glad Liam Hunter was no longer above them all.
For half the semester, Liam had stood at rank one like a shadow over the entire year. He had not demanded obedience. He had not walked around barking orders. He had not even seemed interested in the authority that came with the position.
But that had somehow made it worse for many of them.
The thought that, during a major class event or future group assessment, they might be expected to listen to him simply because of his rank had unsettled far more students than anyone openly admitted. Liam was powerful, dangerous, unpredictable in the quietest way, and above all, he was a dark mage. To some students, that alone made him intolerable as someone placed at the highest point of their year.