"Are you sure you should be walking around now?" Mage asked as he and Leo made their way down the hollow hall.
"Pssh, am fine. See?" Leo waved his right hand about to emphasize. His friend had texted him that the girls' fights were finished. He decided to go take a look, mainly because the text mentioned how hot the girl that won first place looked. He had naturally cajoled Mage, who had nothing better to do, into following.
"Well… Okay." Mage replied after a moment. "Just don't try and lean on me or something. I'd break your other arm."
"Gasp!" Leo gave a mock shock expression. "A dagger straight into my chest, Where has chivalry gone? Sigh, what a cruel world we live in." He clasped his chest and bemoaned with a tragic expression on his face.
Mage face palmed at his horrible acting, "I don't even want to guess what's going through your mind." Mage said to Leo who was still engrossed in his world.
Leo gave a satisfied grin at that, but didn't have the opportunity to say anything, because they had just arrived at the main hall. It was more of an entrance hall really. Conveying systems that looked a lot like elevators that ran to a few respective dorms and a few select locations were on one side, while an enormous screen perched overhead on the opposite side of the room. There were various hallways just like the one Mage and Leo emerged from branching off, and at this moment there was a small sea of white-uniformed freshmen under the screen, excitedly looking for their names.
The screen was divided into two sections: Boys' ranking list and Girls' ranking list. Most of the crowd were paying attention to the girls' listings, but n fairness, the boys had been finished for an hour or so. Mage and Leo made their way to the screen and began their search for Mage's name. Mage first glanced at the top of the list and saw the name "Quinn" giving off a dominant vibe as it sat at first place. Oddly enough, there was no surname attached to it, only Quinn.
"Tenth?!" Mage exclaimed in disbelief after searching for his name. "How did I rank so high? I went down in the second round! Is this some kind of error?"
"It isn't just about how far you advanced, but on how you used your abilities against the ones you were fighting and how well you thought on your feet. I imagine that if you were fighting a statistically one-sided battle, but still managed to show some skills then it was factored in." Leo explained.
"I get all that, but still… tenth?" Mage sighed, he still couldn't figure out if it was good to stand out or not, so he took it in with mixed feelings of pride and worry.
"What's the name of the guy that almost turned you to a roasted human?" Leo asked casually.
"Balak Simons," Mage answered instinctively. The 'Boy on fire' left a deep impression on Mage. It wasn't wrong to say that his image had been seared into Mage's mind. He would always remember his face, and one day when the time was right, he would collect on the debt. Mage was fickle like that…
But now, he was very weak, among the weakest of his class despite his high ranking, so he could only lower his head for the time being.
"Oh, he's number two!" Leo shouted bringing Mage back to reality.
Mage hurriedly looked at the ranking again to find that Leo was indeed right. Under Quinn at number two, was Balak Simons.
Mage's mood soured at the discovery that Balak was at number two. He didn't know why, but he wished Balak had crashed out earlier.
"Look on the bright side," Leo laughed. "At least Balak being number two shows one thing. It's not that you were too weak, but rather he was too strong. After all, he went all the way into the final round." He patted Mage on the shoulder consolingly.
Mage didn't know what face to make, but he didn't deny the fact that he felt much better after thinking with that logic. But he also felt fear in his heart. Even Balak who he was so helpless against wasn't the strongest in the class, how strong would the one who beat Balak be? All of a sudden, Mage felt the name Quinn at the top of the list carried a suffocating pressure.
"Well Leo, I've got to head back to my dorm now, and see if any of my dorm mates are back." Mage turned to Leo
"Shoot! That reminds me. I gotta go look for my dorm too and meet my dorm mates."
"You have not checked into your dorm yet?" Mage asked.
"Yep, I just arrived here today and came straight for the orientation."
"Oh. Well hurry up, I'm sure they can't wait to see you. I'll see you tomorrow when classes officially start." Mage waved, then he walked into one of the elevator-like conveying devices towards the upper campus.