The upper deck erupted.

"Did he just beat a fist-fighting class... with his fist?"

"Did he even use a skill?"

"That was a Storm Caller spell. How does a mage have that kind of strength?"

"Is he a strength-based caster or something?"

They’d heard the rumors. The dud had finally awakened. Given his father’s legacy, everyone expected something impressive.

They hadn’t expected this.

The Lightning Lance was what confused them most. It was a mage skill, pure and simple, yet he’d just knocked out a C-Rank martial class with a single punch.

Either he’d leveled so high that both his magic and strength had become monstrous, or his class was something mage-adjacent that somehow hit like a warrior.

No one believed the first explanation. Nobody leveled that fast.

But the second didn’t hold up either.

No one could figure him out.

Professor Cain’s voice cut through the noise. "Ready for another match, Persival, or do you need rest?"

"Is there a difference in grading?"

"No. You’ve already passed. But if you want to challenge more, I won’t stop you. Grades are based on my observation; you won’t be gaming anything by sitting out."

Damon rolled his shoulder. The blistered palm stung, but it was already healing.

"Then I’ll fight another."

Cain’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

"Good."

The whispers hadn’t died down. If anything, they’d grown louder.

Damon ignored them. His palm still throbbed where Kara’s gauntlet had burned him, the skin already beginning to knit under his VIT’s recovery. He flexed his fingers once, testing the range of motion, then turned his attention to Professor Cain.

"Who’s my next opponent?"

Cain consulted his tablet. "Jin Harrow. C-Rank. [Wind Blade] class."

A lean second-year stood from the middle rows. His arms were wrapped in light leather vambraces, and a curved shortsword hung at his hip. He moved with the fluid, deliberate grace of someone who’d trained in formal dueling forms rather than brawling.

He stepped into the circle and drew his blade in one smooth motion. "I saw your fight with Kara. Impressive. But you’re unarmed, and I’m not going to sheathe my sword just to make things fair."

"I wouldn’t ask you to."

"Begin."

Jin didn’t circle like Kara had. He came straight in, his blade tracing a crescent arc through the air. A visible gust of wind trailed the strike, extending its reach by nearly a foot.

Damon leaned back, felt the wind shear past his throat, and countered with a straight punch to Jin’s ribs.

Jin folded around the impact but rolled with it, twisting away before Damon could follow up. He reset his stance, one hand pressed to his side.

"Fast," he admitted.

Damon didn’t let him reset further.

He pressed forward with a combination: jab, cross, low kick. Jin parried the first two with his blade, the wind extensions deflecting the strikes just enough to keep him alive, but the low kick caught him behind the knee.

He stumbled.

And Damon’s palm stopped an inch from his throat.

"Yield?"

Jin exhaled slowly. "Yield."

"Victor: Damon Persival."

The next was a second-year girl named Mira Chen. [Shadow Step] class. C-Rank. She was smaller than Jin, faster, and her class let her flicker between patches of shadow like a skipping stone across water.

For the first thirty seconds, she was untouchable.

Damon’s punches passed through empty air. His Lightning Lances struck the floor where she’d been a heartbeat before. The arena lights cast long shadows across the metal, and she used every single one.

But her offense was limited. Her daggers couldn’t penetrate his guard, and every time she flickered close enough to strike, his counter was already waiting. She was faster than him in short bursts, but her stamina wasn’t infinite.

He caught her on the seventh flicker, relying completely on prediction. He’d watched her pattern, counted the intervals between her jumps, and threw his Lightning Lance at the shadow she was about to land in before she’d even started moving.

She materialized directly into the bolt’s path.

It struck her shoulder, spinning her to the ground. She rolled to her feet, clutching her arm, then raised her free hand in surrender.

"A-Ah... what the hell?" she said, wincing.

"Guess I got lucky."

She shook her head, but she was smiling. "Like hell I’d believe that."

The third opponent was the largest student in the class.

Tomas something. [Earth Shaper] class. B-Rank. He stood nearly seven feet tall, his body layered in plates of condensed stone that shifted and reformed with every movement.

"I’m not as fast as the others," he rumbled, stepping into the circle. The floor groaned under his weight. "But I don’t need to be."

He was right. Speed didn’t matter when your opponent could turn the entire arena floor into a hazard.

Stone spikes erupted under Damon’s feet. Walls of rock sprang up to block his Lightning Lances. The ground itself rippled like water, trying to throw him off balance.

Damon was forced onto the defensive for the first time since the matches began.

He leaped over spike formations, kicked off rising walls, and weathered a glancing blow from a stone fist that caught him in the ribs. The impact rattled through his chest, a reminder that twenty VIT wasn’t invincible.

But Tomas had a weakness. His stone armor took time to reform after each shift. The plates didn’t move instantly; they flowed like thick mud, leaving gaps between transformations.

Damon found one such gap after a particularly aggressive spike barrage. Tomas’s chest plate was still reforming, the stone not yet solidified.

Lightning Lance was enough to strike the exposed gap.

Tomas grunted, stumbling backward. His stone armor convulsed, trying to seal the breach. But Damon was already there, his fist glowing gold. He punched through the weakened stone like it was plaster.

His knuckles stopped a millimeter from Tomas’s sternum.

"...Yield."

"Victor: Damon Persival." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The upper deck had gone quiet. Not the stunned silence of a single upset, but the gradual, creeping realization that they were watching something unprecedented.

Three matches.

And three victories.

Each against a different class, a different fighting style. The dud who couldn’t fight was dismantling the academy’s best one by one.

"Is anyone going to stop him?"

"He’s not even tired. How is he not tired?"

"What even is his class?"

Professor Cain’s voice cut through the murmurs. "Ready for another, Persival? You’ve more than proven your competence."

Damon flexed his hands. His knuckles were raw, and his ribs ached from Tomas’s glancing blow. But his breathing was steady, and his mana pool still had plenty to give.

"I can keep going."

Cain’s red eyes studied him for a long moment. Then he glanced at his tablet, and the faintest crease appeared between his brows.

He was... excited.

"Very well. Your next opponent." He looked up. "Will be Matthew Voss."

The arena went dead silent.

Matthew rose from his seat with deliberate slowness. The smug grin was there, but it looked painted on now. A mask over whatever he was actually feeling. His lackeys exchanged glances but said nothing.

He descended the steps, each footfall echoing against the metal flooring. His gauntlets gleamed under the morning light, the same expensive ones he’d worn in Verdant’s Edge.

He stepped into the circle. The barrier runes flared at his entry, then settled.

"Been waiting for this," Matthew said. "Ever since that hallway."

He rolled his shoulders, and the familiar shimmer of [Steel Sentinel] rippled across his skin.

"You cracked my Shell back then. But that was one hit, one lucky shot while I wasn’t taking you seriously." The steel plating across his knuckles thickened, forming jagged ridges like built-in brass knuckles. "That won’t happen again."

Damon said nothing.

Matthew’s jaw tightened. "What? No witty comeback? No ’move’?"

"Do you really have nothing else fun to do?"

"Fucker..."