Natalie’s first fight of the day ended up being a two on two. She received Er, an axe-based and somewhat petent all-around fighter, against two oppos from a different css: a fighter and a mage. Only the more diligent students had earheir level up this weekend, and it didn’t seem like their oppos were in that group—so Natalie was at a huge advantage.

  The spar turned out to be as satisfying as she had hoped it would be.

  This new aggressive style of hers pyed far more to her strengths. [Juggernaut] tly hough it didn’t provide her defensive boosts, she was a moving whirlwind as she carried her momentum forward, swinging a giant hunk of metal with terrifying speed, her retly boosted strength meaning she could overpower nearly anyone. Her oppo made the mistake to eat the impact with his shield only once. Warhammer met reinforced wood, and his defenses crumpled immediately—he went tumbling across the arena, shield dented, and while not out of the fight entirely, it left his supp mage wide and open.

  Which meant, of course, that the fight didn’t st long after that.

  Turning and seeing Sofia’s raised eyebrows, and Jordan’s smile, was even more liberating than the win itself.

  She would o learn how to work the aggressiveness into a proper tanking style, though. Thrilling as barreling forward and being an unstoppable tornado of heavy metal would be, their team already had offense in spades; she would have to focus on keeping attention through being an unstoppable nuisance, rather than trying to disable her oppo with her newfound strength. Though, the two were somewhat iwined. She would certainly be seeing a higher kill-participation in the following dungeon run than she had with shield-and-hammer.

  Hopefully, future levels would e with a taunt ability, or something simir. She inteo work on her [Illusions] to somehow help, too. If nothing else, she could leverage the ability to peel for her teammates—to provide distras should she somehow lose her target’s focus.

  The rest of the css went just as well. By the end, the fifteen cssmates she’d spent two weeks with were all looking at her in an appreciative new light. That also held for Natalie and some of them—she hadn’t been the only oo level and receive powerful new abilities.

  But of the css, Natalie’s jump upward in unofficial rankings was the most noticeable. As much because her new skills were strong, it was that they actually fit her this time—and her on choice, too. She’d seen several upgrades to her personal strength at once, both dired i.

  The only damper tood mood was that, unfortunately, Sofia had also gotten much stronger. Natalie was itg for the day she could y that woman ft on her bad dominate her—she wa more than just about anything, so bad her skin got hot thinking about it—but it might be some time yet. The white-haired girl flowed between her oppos with newfound grace, and her offensive power had also taken a sharp leap upward. One of her immediately noticeable skills was a movement ability. She seemed to be able to step through attacks, now.

  Infuriatingly, that would be doubly effective against Natalie, with her slow-but-powerful style. So long as Sofia saw the attaing, she had a mitigating ability. There was still the option to feint and catch Sofia off guard, but Natalie begrudgingly admitted that would be a herculean task. Sofia had always had a natural talent for reading her oppos—it was a foundational skill to her style. Natalie would have to pay attention to the ability’s limitation. Such a potent dodge skill had to have them. At first appraisal, Natalie suspected a long cooldoerhaps a charge-up time—she had to predict the attack, rather than simply react. Still, those weren’t easy limitations to exploit for Natalie herself.

  At the end of css, Instructor Robin gathered them for a short annou. She was sharp and punctual as usual, not wasting breath.

  “As a reminder, with the start of the third week, student rankings have been posted. I suggest you peruse them at your leisure, either now or sometime during your lunch break. It’s important to know your petition, and where you stand. They’re posted at most student bulletins.” Cool eyes surveyed the collected students, and Instructor Robin nodded. “That will be all, css. Keep up the good work.” With a sharp turn, she exited the sparring room, leaving them to also disperse.

  Natalie found herself surprised by the annou; she had known student rankied, but that they would be ing out today had slipped her mind. She shared a look with Jordan, then Sofia. They hardly o discuss it; as soon as Instructor Robin dismissed them, they beelined for the bulletin board.

  Then, at seeing the absolute crowd packed around it, ceded defeat—they took a detour and found a less poputed one on the way to the cafeteria.

  Natalie wasn’t surprised to see Liz iop twenty. Though not fshy, being a healer, her skill was obvious as day—as expected from a member of the literal royal family.

  At space twenty-four, a tragedy y in wait. Sofia. Sofia had made the first-page of rankings, and Natalie and Jordan had not. Natalie groaned, and Jordan patted her on the back. Sofia just stared at the listing, lips pursed.

  “What? Expected to be first?” Natalie asked, more sourly thaended. It was hard not to have her pride bruised with Sofia on top of her, obvious as the result was. She hated being topped by Sofia.

  “I said no such thing,” Sofia said.

  “You aren’t hard to read, princess.”

  “Hm.”

  They flipped through the pages, seeking out their e was a big academy, so ending up on the sed page—iop fifty—wasn’t a mark against Natalie in the slightest; it still put her iop ten pert of her year. Holy, that was better than she’d expected; she really didn’t think she’d put up a good showing, sidering everything that was going on with her css, and how it seem poised to be retively weak early, but strong te. She would be shooting up the rankings as time passed. With her level-up, the current rankings were already inaccurate.

  Jordan was also on the sed page, though lower doace forty nine. Nobody in the group seemed especially happy with their pts, but they were all intensely petitive, hence how they’d ended up i in the first pce.

  Ana was a few spots above Natalie. That also made sense; she was no slouch.

  “We’re just getting started,” Natalie decred. “I expect all of us to be in positions oo five by the end of the year. Anything less and we’re n hard enough.”

  Sofia nodded, and Jordan seemed mildly amused at the statement, but didn’t disagree.

  The looked through the other rankings. bat wasn’t the only category Te graded their students in. Natalie obviously wasn’t that ied in the academic list, but she did wi how she was he bottom—it took some flipping through of pages to find her name. Also unsurprisingly, Jordan and Ana were both he top, and in fact, were iop ten, the highest among them of any individual list. To be fair, it wasn’t like Natalie was really trying in that regard. Who went to Te for the academics?

  For the dungeon rankings—which Te appraised through the quality of loot and amount of monster cores teams brought back up—Natalie aeammates were all on the sed page. Again, that put them in the upper echelons of Te’s freshmen, and sidering how they had literally beeen and robbed during their most important dungeon run, that was quite good.

  Elida aeam, unfortunately, were all on the first page for both bat-reted rankings.

  Even more annoyingly, Elida was the number one—for both. Even Johanna, the other major pyer, hadn’t cimed the spot for personal bat strength; she was wo. Otto was twelfth, Natalie noted.

  Natalie reized most of the other hough not all of them. Te’s freshmen css had a lot of students.

  atic about their rankings, but also not devastated, the three of them finished looking through the pages, then headed off for lunch.