Shion didn't hesitate for a heartbeat. The heroine leaned forward, the pink strands of her hair catching the light of the meeting room.

"If we weren't open to listening to what you had to say, Itsuki, we wouldn't have been here in the first place." She said.

Her voice cut through the murmurs around the table cleanly and the other class representatives gave stiff, begrudging nods.

Nobody looked particularly happy to be here.

They were all present for the same reason… to see what he wanted, the Class Reps were only interested in Class Points which were the only currency that mattered at this stage of mid-terms.

Itsuki relaxed.

He placed both hands flat on the polished table and looked around the room with a smile on his face.

"According to my older sister," he began, his voice dropping smoothly. "the past Buffer Days for ALI students always featured some kind of event where students were able to gain Class Points. She was part of the Fifth Generation… the very first group to walk these halls. She told me that after her group graduated and the Sixth came through and the tradition held firm. Every generation since has had some version of it..." He paused. "We are the Seventh and I intend to keep that opportunity alive."

The Class 4 representative spoke up immediately.

He looked like he was running on caffeine and pure anxiety with dark circles under his eyes.

"I knew someone who graduated last semester, right before ours started… He said those events were always rigged to ensure the strongest class won." He leaned forward. "If you're going to suggest the same thing, Class 4 is pulling out immediately. We aren't here to be your stepping stones."

Koya leaned back and watched the Class 4 rep.

He understood the desperation.

A quick check at the Class Point rankings told the whole story. Class 2 and Class 3 were locked in the same bracket while Class 5 was surprisingly only about two points away from catching up to them.

Class 4, however, was a disaster. Despite the mid-term questions being circulated ahead of time thanks to him, another student in their class had been caught cheating yesterday while the instructors were watching.

The expulsion was immediate and now Class 4 was now trailing far behind everyone else and sitting on the edge of total class expulsion since ALI had a strict rule… if five students in a single class were expelled, the whole class got ejected and replaced by students from the sister academy.

It had never happened before in ALI's history. Class 4 looked like they were going to be the first, their representative knew it and even the girl standing behind him knew it.

"While it's true I plan to hold an event similar to those…" Itsuki said, completely unbothered by the young man. "I am going to make it much more fair."

The Class 4 rep didn't believe him for a second. He stood up abruptly with his chair screeching against the floor loud enough to make the girl behind him flinch.

"I'm no longer interested in whatever you have to say."

The female student behind him nodded sharply, already gathering her things as he turned and began walking toward the door with long quick strides.

Itsuki's lips twitched in a tiny almost imperceptible movement.

"Class 1 is going to put all of our Class Points on the line for this event."

The Class 4 rep froze mid-step.

He turned back slowly and his eyes were wide.

He wasn't the only one… a heavy silence dropped over the entire room like this was a graveyard even Yoru looked genuinely stunned though Koya was sure this was an act. Misora had her eyebrows raised in total disbelief and Shion's expression didn't shift dramatically but her fingers had stopped moving.

Class 1's full Class Points… on the table… for a Buffer Day tournament? Wasn't that madness?!

"I am well aware of the gaps that exist here," Itsuki continued, sensing he had full control of the room again. "The gap between Great Nobles like us and the lesser nobles, as well as the Commoners. That gap is real, everyone in this room knows it and most of you have felt it directly."

He looked around the table at all of them. "To bridge that gap, I have made a specific arrangement." He looked toward the door. "Kaede, come in."

The door opened. Kaede, his personal maid entered with her eyes toward the ground. She moved quietly and soon she arrived at Itsuki's side, setting a sleek black tray on the table without a sound. On it sat a single unassuming black band.

It didn't look like much and that was probably the point.

The Class 4 rep walked back to his seat and sat down slowly. The woman behind him looked exhausted by his indecision but kept her mouth shut.

"What is that?" he asked, staring at the band.

"I'm glad you asked." Itsuki said. "This is the Ultra Mana Suppressant Band which is a new product from White King Industries."

Koya narrowed his eyes.

Everyone knew White King Industries.

They were a titan… producing everything from the furniture in houses to the toothpaste in the bathrooms and apparently now suppressant bands too. Other companies existed, but White King swallowed market share the way most companies swallowed smaller competitors.

Their recent pivot into products bridging the gap between Awakened and non-Awakened was one of the biggest industry shifts in recent memory and this band was apparently the latest entry in that line.

The fact that they had a suppressant product ready to ship meant they had been developing it for a very long time indeed since nobody released something like this overnight.

"This is a new product," Itsuki explained. "I was able to purchase them ahead of their release because the Aozora clan holds shares in the company. The band reduces one's mana output down to single digits. For reference… the average Four-liner commoner has around 100 points of mana while I currently have 700."

He looked around the table to make sure the number landed. "With this band on, I'd set it to 10 for example."

Itsuki picked up the band and strapped it around his wrist, he tapped a small glowing interface on its surface and instantly, the presence in the room changed.

The heavy oppressive weight of Itsuki's mana… the thing you didn't consciously notice until it was gone simply vanished.

He was still sitting there in the same chair with the same posture and same expression but something had changed.

If Koya had closed his eyes right now, he wouldn't have been able to locate Itsuki through mana sense at all… He'd register as background noise.

"Is it working?" Itsuki asked, turning to Shion.

Shion squinted.

"Your mana has been decimated." She admitted. "If I couldn't see your face, I wouldn't know it was you."

Behind Shion, Miyuki was looking at her brother with a worried expression.

She had her hands folded in her lap and was watching him, Itsuki caught her gaze and a small blush touched his cheeks before he looked away and back at the group. He was happy that his sister still cared about him and not Koya.

"Would this be enough? Every contestant from Class 1 would be wearing this during the event setting their mana to 100 which is average."

The Class 4 rep scowled.

"Class 2 is filled with nobles just a bit weaker than Class 1… Shouldn't they wear the bands as well?"

Itsuki looked at Shion and she didn't hesitate.

"The contestants of Class 2 will be wearing the bands as well." She said and Miyuki who was behind her let out a small breath.

The Class 4 rep wasn't done however.

"What about Class 3? There are nobles there too... Shouldn't they be wearing it? And what about Amagi Koya?" He pointed across the table directly. "Even if he's a commoner, he should be banned from using mana in this tournament. He can use two affinities after all"

Everyone looked at him, he was clearly overreaching and Yoru's eyes flashed as she was about to respond.

Koya cleared his throat first.

"I agree." He said calmly.

The room went quiet. Misora turned to look at him like he had said something in a foreign language but Koya just smiled.

This was a perfect opportunity.

He still had Analytical Sight slotted so he could see weak points without a single unit of mana leaving his body.

Fighting Spirit wasn't mana either so he was good and he had physical skills to boot, Koya didn't need spells to beat the people in this room. He was going to handle it with his hands.

"Class 3 are full of nobles that aren't high tier like us so it's allowed, if you have a problem with this then you can be on your way."

"... Tch, fine."

Yoru glared at the Class 4 rep; she hated them talking down on Class 3 as if they were a middle-tier footnote. She had already decided… if they were matched in the bracket, she was eliminating Class 4 thoroughly and she was going to enjoy it.

Misora folded her hands on the table and talked this time.

"Regardless of the bands, Itsuki-sama. what else is going to happen? Even with the suppressants running, the strongest people in Class 1 could still be selected by the randomizer and crush everyone else in the bracket. The bands close the mana gap but they don't touch physical training, technique or experience, that isn't exactly what I would call fair competition."

Itsuki offered a thin smile.

She was right and that was the entire point.

"While that can't be fully stopped," he said, "I am going to use a randomizer. The system will select three contestants per class automatically. No one gets to choose their own people… not me, not anyone else at this table. If a class loses their match, they pay a set amount of Class Points to the winning class and the amount will be agreed upon before each match begins."

He looked around the table one final time. "If any of you don't want to participate under those terms, you can leave now."

Class 2 looked ready… Shion had her hands folded and her expression showed that she was already prepared.

Yoru sat perfectly still, giving nothing away while Misora sat confidently.

The Class 4 rep was groaning, he looked like he was running numbers through his head in real time… losing Class Points now would be catastrophic but winning was the only thing that could keep them alive in ALI long enough to grow stronger.

The representative looked at the table then at the door and b back at the table then he slammed his hand down.

"Class 4 is entering." He growled. The girl behind him closed her eyes briefly like she had been dreading that exact decision but wasn't surprised by it.

Itsuki's smile widened slightly.

This had been the plan from the start.

His actual goal for the tournament had nothing to do with fairness… it was removal.

He wanted Class 4 gone. Their representative's constant disobedience and inability to read a room was an annoyance he had zero patience for.

The tournament was a clean mechanism which was to strip them of their remaining Class Points, let them drop below the expulsion threshold, and watch them collapse without him having to lift a finger directly.

Class 5 was also on the list but he had to admit… looking across the table at Misora that she was operating at a different level than he had initially mapped out. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She had gotten here, kept her composure through the whole meeting, and her questions had been exactly the right ones.

She was going to be more work than Class 4 but that was fine, he had time and would do anything to eliminate Koya from the Academy.

"How will the randomizer be done?" Yoru asked.

"Kaede, call the Professor." Itsuki said.

A moment later, the math professor stepped in.

Several students groaned immediately, they were still bitter about the Mid-term questions and it seemed like he not only did it to Class 5.

The man always claimed to be a person of integrity. He said it frequently and with great conviction but Koya didn't believe a word of it, especially now since Yoru had already told him that this man was already bribed by Itsuki to rig it.

The professor walked to the center of the room, stood beside the table and smoothed his jacket.

"I've heard the plan from Itsuki and I'll gladly assist my students in their endeavors." He said cheerfully, as if he hadn't just walked past three people visibly grinding their teeth at the sight of him. "What class will be going first?"

"Class 1 should go first." The Class 4 rep barked. "Since they're nobles…"

Yoru's voice cut in before the professor could respond.

"How do we know this can't be manipulated?" She asked. "How do we know it's actually random and not preset?"

The math professor chuckled.

"Do you all remember the probability magic covered in my classes?" He looked around the room.

Everyone nodded… some more reluctantly than others. "I'll be using an item that operates under Izana's First Law of Probability."

He straightened up fully and recited it from memory. "Izana's first law of probability states that, In a closed system where all internal variables are treated as equal units and external influence is nullified… each potential outcome possesses an identical mathematical probability ensuring the collapse of the result is purely non-deterministic and free from sentient bias."

Everyone knew the first law and what the item he was talking about was… In his math class, he explained that the artifact had been created by the Great Izana himself… a close personal friend of the White King, and one of the most brilliant analytical minds of that entire era.

Izana was unawakened with no mana and no affinity but he had a mind that operated on a different level from most people who were.

He had developed probability theory into something that worked as reliably as physical law and several other theories to boot like Izana's law of Motion and many other laws.

They also knew that the man wielded an item that was passed down to him as he was a distant descendant of Izana himself.

The professor reached into his breast pocket and produced the Pen of Probability which was an elegant white pen with a small slot built into its body near the base.

It looked like something you'd use to sign a document and Koya supposed that in a way, it was. He also thought that the God of novelty was fucking with him, why name the genius of this world after the same person that hated on his streams on Earth and even this world?

He plugged in a small flash drive carefully and Yoru looked at him.

"What makes the pen so special, Professor?" Yoru asked, crossing her arms. "Magic can influence almost any physical object."

"As I said in our class before… not this one," The Professor replied. "The Pen Of Probability functions by isolating the data within a localized field… Once I plug in the student registry, the 'Probability Well' is sealed. For the duration of the selection, the pen exists in a temporary state where mana including mine or Itsuki's or even yours cannot penetrate the internal logic gate. If anyone tried to force a specific outcome, the system would simply short-circuit and the pen would shatter… It is mathematically impossible to rig."

He cleared his throat and continued.

"This isn't a digital program that can be hacked, nor a magical scroll that can be enchanted… This is the ultimate neutral arbiter and each student's file is converted into an equal variable with each file holding one unit of probability. The registry is updated as of ten minutes ago and every student currently enrolled in ALI is in this drive so let us begin…"

The pen rose slowly out of his hand and floated at chest height above the center of the table, turning slowly on its axis.

"Hands away from the surface please." The professor said.

Everyone pulled back from the table simultaneously and the pen's rotation slowed then a holographic display projected outward from it in all directions with every Class 1 student's image spreading across the table surface in a grid with names printed beneath each face and each image lit from below by the pale blue light of the projection.

There were a lot of them.

A small compartment near the base of the pen began to glow in a deep purple.

"The probability is starting…"

And then three beams fired from the pen simultaneously… They moved fast, not in straight lines though.

Instead they darted across the grid of images like they were alive… overlapping, criss-crossing, bouncing between faces and names before the movement started to slow and then they locked.

The first beam held on Hyōga Reito.

His image lit up fully… he was the heir of the Hyōga Great Clana and an Ice Magic specialist who could also use Cold Zero.

The second beam held on Wisteria Riu. He had nature and Plant manipulation and every poison in his arsenal was capable of dropping even a Silver-class monster.

The third beam held on Tsukuyomi Kaguya. She had powers derived from the moon, illusion Magic and behind all of it… swordsmanship that didn't belong in the same room as anyone else at this table.

The professor let the display hold for a moment so everyone could read the names clearly. Itsuki looked at the three images then he cleared his throat once.

"Hyōga Reito, Wisteria Renji and Tsukuyomi Kaguya." He said clearly. "These will be the champions for Class 1 in this tournament."