The next day, Troy was hounding me. Despite the beating he took, he was still as bright and springy as ever. Evidently all his injuries had healed in under an hour…if he had even sustained any at all. Come to think of it, I did see him bleed, so I guessed he did suffer some wounds.

But looking at him now, you could never tell that he was battered pretty badly last night. Not for the first time I found myself impressed by Troy's vitality and strength. That was why I said, he wasn't G.o.dlike…yet.

He would eventually become a G.o.d, I had no doubt about that.

"Yeah, he knows. He says you're welcome to challenge him anytime." I smiled as I returned his greeting. Troy chuckled as he slapped me in the back so hard I almost toppled over. I flinched, but did my best to hide my pain.

"I look forward to it! Maybe next time I'll beat your dad, eh?"

"Maybe," I said vaguely and noncommittedly, but I couldn't imagine that happening. Dad wasn't going to sit still and wait for people to catch up with him. If I wasn't mistaken, he was going on another mission next week, and he had instructed us in the dojo to do our self-training while we were away. When he returned, he would no doubt be stronger and more experienced than before.

"In the meantime, we should climb the school rankings." Troy frowned as he glanced at his smartphone. "I've received a couple of challenges, so I had best get to them done." He looked up at me and grinned. "If we want to get into the elite universities…no, if we even want to qualify for their entrance exams, we need to rank among the top 100, don't we?"

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"We do," I agreed and then sighed. While I had climbed about over five hundred places in about four months, it was increasingly more difficult to raise my ranks. The reason was because the number of points I earned from beating my opponents would be less, the higher our ranks and the smaller the difference between our positions were. I didn't know the exact mathematical formula for calculating our matchmaking rating, but let's just say I earned about a hundred more points if I beat a 100th ranked person when I was ranked 1,000th than I did when I beat the same 100th ranked person and I was ranked about 500th. Or something to that effect. I guess levels and experience points might be an apt a.n.a.logy, though ranks were obviously different from levels. But you get the picture – if you were only level 1 and you beat a level 10 opponent, you might quickly jump all the way to level 5 or 6 at one go. But if you were at level 5 and you beat a level 10 opponent, you probably would only grow 2 or 3 levels at most, rather than 4 or 5. And the gap would continue to increase.

"What about you? I heard a lot of crazy rumors about you that happened when I was away. Apparently you took out a top 10 elite academy team of representatives by yourself!" Troy laughed. "Is that true?"

"Eh, well…you know how these things go," I replied ambiguously. "They always tend to be exaggerated."

"I see." Troy shrugged. "Still, if it's true, I would love to see the expressions of those representatives when you beat them! Hmm…yeah, I should ask for a replay."

"Nah, it's not worth your time," I hastily told him.

"What are you talking about, bro? Of course it is! If you're that afraid of being embarra.s.sed, at least think of it as me helping you out and giving you advice. I remember you're still having trouble with your summoning magic, right? Always getting knocked out before you can summon your soul beast or something?"

"Uh, I found several ways to mitigate that…"

"Oh, you did? That's awesome! I can't wait to see that!" Troy nodded thoughtfully. "We should have a match sometime!"

"Er…yeah…sometime…in the future." Now that was something I wanted to avoid. Troy was a terrifying opponent. I mean, you just saw how he fought on par with my Dad just yesterday, didn't you? There was no way I could hold up against him if he added magic to his martial arts as well. The guy was an absolute monster.

I pitied his challengers. With his experience from the mission he just recently accomplished, I had no doubt he would break into the top 100 by the end of this year. In contrast, I would be lucky to reach there by the end of next year, before the university entrance exams. My rank had fallen quite a bit and now I was hovering just above the 600 mark at 598 or 599.

Scary.

"Anyway, I'm going for gravitational cla.s.s. You have combat magic cla.s.s in the morning, right? I'll see you later then."

"Sure." I watched him leave, and then turned away once he disappeared down the corner. Taking a deep breath, I began making my way toward the cla.s.sroom for combat magic.

I had only taken a couple of steps before I heard a beep from my smartphone, notifying me of a message. I frowned and took a look at it. Even before opening the message, I already recognized the type from the red light that surrounded it.

It was a challenge.

"Oh boy…"

Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao would arrive.

Barely had I just spoken to Troy about our rankings and him receiving a couple of challenges than I received a single one of my own.

"Who is it this time?" I wondered as I opened to peer at the contents of the message. To my surprise, it was a rather familiar name.

Jie Bing.

"Isn't he ranked among the top 50?" I murmured, shocked. If I wasn't mistaken, he was ranked 47th or 48th. I could of course check the official rankings on the school's online bulletin board, but right now I was too distracted to switch the holographic windows projected from my smartphone.

Well, this wasn't the first time I fought against someone from the top 100. I managed to defeat Theodore Hammond, and achieved a draw with Craig Carlson, both of whom were from the top 100. But other than that, I hadn't faced anyone from the top 100 ever since. I did face a few people who were ranked 100+ or 200+, but I lost to them (that was where the 9 losses came from).

This challenge was intriguing to say the least.

"Are you free today?"

That was the first line of the email. Jie Bing wanted to schedule our match today, if possible. That wasn't strange – most of the top 100 students maintained their ranking by fighting matches against other students daily. They did not win all their matches – many of them had a 50% win-loss ratio – but the sheer volume of matches allowed them to slowly accrue the points to put them among the top 100. Of course this wasn't always advisable – losing to a much lower-ranked opponent would cost you a ton of MMR points. Theodore, for example, slipped down about fifty or sixty ranks after his loss to me, and he had to win about another fifteen matches before he reclaimed his spots (which of course wasn't realistic, given that he wouldn't win fifteen matches in a row, and would inevitably lose some of them in between).

That didn't stop people from trying, though.

I considered the matter for a few seconds, then made my decision. Typing a swift response, I accepted Jie Bing's challenge and agreed to his proposed timing.

The match would take place today, in the afternoon, after all our cla.s.ses ended.

*

What? Were you expecting me to enter the OP (Over-Perfection, or Transcend Perfection, depending on the translation) system or something? I'm not w.a.n.g Zhong. And I was not from the cannon fodder division, and Jie Bing wasn't from the elite division. Never mind there was no mention of hero division. And no, I'm not going to launch into some lengthy info dump about great clans, people lurking and spamming the OP forums or whatever. This wasn't that kind of story.

"You came."

Jie Bing was waiting inside his training room. Even though he was among the top 50, surprisingly enough he didn't join any of the great societies. Then again, anyone among the top 50 had the right to form their own society, and unlike the pathetic societies formed from the lower dredges of the rankings (like my Ultimate Outcast Society), they would be recognized as one of the most prestigious ones. Jie Bing's Aurora Society didn't have many members and thus couldn't compete with the likes of Black Roses Society or Holy Saints Society, but they received a significant number of resources and funds when compared to the smaller societies like Ultimate Outcast Society. Let's just say Jie Bing's rank alone was enough to earn whatever society he joined or founded a G.o.dly amount of prestige points.

Worse, Jie Bing had a victory rate of 80%, which accounted for why he was ranked so highly in our school. He had been growing rapidly since his enrollment last year, and was one of the few first-year students, alongside Alicia Violet, who could actually challenge the seniors and fight on par with them during his first year.

Compared to them, I was an embarra.s.sment. Which was why I was perturbed about his decision to challenge me.

"Well, it would be rude to turn down the honor of dueling you," I replied easily, masking my unease with a practiced smile. "You're such a cool guy."

Jie Bing raised an eyebrow at that. He probably knew I was trying to be funny. After all, Jie Bing was an ice user. Come on, if Dad and Dong Fang Yue Chu specialized in fire magic, then there was bound to be somebody who focused on ice magic, right?

Jie Bing was that somebody. And if I recalled correctly after checking up on his profile upon accepting his challenge earlier that morning, he was just coming back off an eleven-win streak. No wonder he was among the top fifty despite only being a second year student. Wow.

The ice mage regarded me coldly, and decided not to comment on my poor joke. He merely moved on to the main topic indifferently.

"I've always been interested in fighting you at least once," he remarked, his eyes glacial and his tone frosty. "I heard that your magic is somewhat similar to mine."

"…huh?" I gaped at him. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? You do know I'm a summoner, not an elementalist, right?"

Elementalist was the type of cla.s.s used to refer to mages like Jie Bing and Dong Fang Yue Chu, who specialized in casting elemental spells. Perhaps they could create and summon elemental spirits, but that relied a lot of magical energy and casting time (because it was basically summoning magic) so the vast majority of them tend not to do it, or reserve it as their trump card or finisher move. Their elemental magic mostly consisted of long-ranged spells or elemental-wreathed close range melee attacks, like Fire Punch or Ice Punch.

To my knowledge, I knew Jie Bing was not the type who summoned an ice elemental to finish off his opponents. He was known for his brutal fighting style and direct frost techniques. He usually favored close-range techniques, but he was not adverse to freezing his opponent or firing ice projectiles from a distance.

"You'll see what I mean," Jie Bing replied indifferently, his wintry tone causing chills to run down my back. He glanced at the holographic projection of Teacher Fielding, who was once again overseeing this match. "Shall we begin then?"