Chapter 29 Round One
The hall buzzed with anticipation, a sea of bodies filling every seat. It didn’t take long for all the newly awakened freshers of the year to assemble. The seating had been pre-arranged in advance—every chair was occupied. This meant that everyone who was supposed to be here, was here.
Each group clustered around their respective senior representatives.
It was the same for those who had come from Whistler Town.
Zane sat among twenty-seven others, forming a small group of twenty-eight students under the guidance of Thor Shelby.
Shelby moved through the rows, distributing application forms to each of his juniors. The quiet rustle of papers being filled spread across the group like a gentle breeze.
Zane, halfway through his form, paused and glanced around the massive hall. He began mentally counting.
There were ten clear groups, each formed around a senior representative. Each group had roughly fifty-six students, give or take.
"Five hundred and twenty-seven..." he whispered under his breath, concluding his count. "So, are we all of this year’s awakened?"
Shelby, collecting the finished applications, glanced at him with a smirk. "Nope. This tower only represents the Eastern Region of the Continent. There are five more towers, each for a different region—Northern Highlands, Western Frontier, Southern Lowlands, the Island Nations, and North-Eastern Ranges. The overseas students have an even more complicated selection process."
Zane raised an eyebrow. "So, by estimation, there should be almost three thousand new awakeneds this year?"
Shelby chuckled, shaking his head. "Mathematically, that’s not how this works. Each region yields a different number of awakeneds each year. It fluctuates, depending on countless factors—environment, bloodline concentration, spiritual density, and so on. Statistically speaking, our Eastern Region produces the fewest. So don’t jump to conclusions."