The most fitting word to describe the situation was tense. The air felt heavy, and even with hundreds of voices gossiping, your own heart stood out the most from the noise.
Every person there was feeling the same thing, because the ceremony that would begin in a short five minutes would determine the rest of their lives.
However, groups of people reacted differently to that stimulus.
Some people let out nervous laughter to cover their anxiety.
Some gave an indifferent look as if they didn't care about the results.
A few even looked confident, as if the sky was theirs to claim.
Five hundred students were gathered in neat and orderly lines on a wide grass lot. An encompassing school in the distance behind them.
In front of all the students was a podium with a clear crystal standing on the support of mechanical beams. A gray-haired old man in a sharply tailored suit paced himself in front of the crystal at a podium.
The man brought a book out from under his arm and placed it on the podium. Immediately, every person's focus assembled on him, and the crowd fell dead silent. It was finally time.
"As you all know, today is the annual day of awakening, and I would like to give a short speech before we proceed." The man had no microphone, but was still loud enough to be heard by every single person.
"As the principal of Grandberry High School, I am proud of every single student who has made it this far." The old man continued with minutes of pleasantries that people were too nervous to pay any real attention to.
"We have raised every student here to be fearless in the face of danger. After you awaken, I am confident that your generation will lead the fight for the survival of our human race in the dungeons."
"I will now call you up one by one to awaken. We have already taught you everything you need to know. So let's relax." The old man tried to leave on a soft note, but the one thing people couldn't do at that point was relax.
The awakening was the most important moment in any person's life. Once a year, people who reached the age of seventeen were able to awaken the system. The system would give them power far beyond what the human race was historically capable of.
The rank that one awakened, as well as whether one was a combat class or not, would largely determine their future. Grandberry High School was a school that aimed to awaken the top combat classes. Starting from the Grandberry Middle School, they collected children with high potential and put them through an accelerated curriculum.
Strict lectures about the mysterious system that granted classes, as well as harsh combat and survival training.
However, there are only small correlations between academic and physical ability and the quality of awakening.
Basically, all the students could only pray that they had a good awakening. If they awakened a combat class even at E-rank, they had a chance to become an elite in the future.
However, if they awakened a non-combat class, they would most likely have to live an ordinary life below the combat classes.
While most students set their sights on receiving any combat classes, one boy desired a single class in particular.
This boy had black hair and black eyes, and he was currently one of the people pretending to be indifferent to the ceremony.
"Hey, Cassian. How can you not be nervous?" The boy's friend asked him while shivering.
Cassian was one of the school's hopefuls. Since middle school, he had excelled at combat and survival classes, and wasn't too shabby at academics either.
"Being nervous about something you can't control is a novice mistake. If my awakening is something worrying, then I can feel all the despair later."
"That's insane!"
Cassian smiled. There was one class he really wanted, which he was obsessed with. Of course, he didn't share that fact with others.
The principal started calling names, "Class 3-E, Andrew Hormine."
Andrew seemed to know that he would be called first because he was already drenched in sweat.
He walked up to the podium and placed his hand on the clear crystal. Waves of energy roared from the crystal, and then glowing white characters appeared above the crystal.
C-rank Water Mage
Everybody began to cheer; it was a sort of superstition. The first person who awakened this year had a very good rank and class. They believed that he brought some sort of luck to their own awakenings.
"It's good to start the ceremony with a C-rank; it seems we could awaken many high ranks this year." The principal spoke to some of the teachers excitedly.
C-rank was already considered a prodigy. It was a high enough rank that you could consider a high-ranking combat college.
With the first sign of good luck combined with the tense excitement, everybody became eager to awaken.
Soon, many other students had become awakeners.
D-rank Warrior
D-rank Chef
E-rank Mage
C-rank Alchemist
A-rank Knight
Once people saw the appearance of an A-rank Knight, they exploded. Natalie Herson, a tall girl, was the first A-rank in the school.
"With an awakening like hers, she could aim for a top school."
"The Knight is a defensive class that still has high damage capability; she is a top stock."
Many admirers were created in that moment; she was sure to soar.
By the time they got to the most awaited class 3-A, they had an array of high-ranking classes.
Cassian had been keeping track of the number of Combat classes C-rank and above since they were particularly rare.
So far, they had 64 C-ranks, 18 B-ranks, and 5 A-ranks. That was out of all five hundred students, minus 3-A; however, the highest expectations were in that class. They were the cream of the crop of the whole school.
The very first student of their class was finally called up, "Class 3-A, Dragon Smither."
Some people laughed at the name; it was actually a trend to give children high-sounding names in the hope of a good awakening. Though even seventeen years ago, the trend was considered old.
After Dragon touched the stone, a blinding light emerged red blinding everybody in attendance.
S-rank Inferno Mage
The crowd fell silent. S-ranks were qualitatively different from everybody else. From E to A, the differences were pretty linear and predictable, but when it came to S-ranks, they were in a league of their own.
Dragon turned towards all the students and raised his fist in victory.
Cheers louder than ever before echoed all the way back to the school buildings.
Dragon was immediately given a chair on the podium, and others began to be called up.
Besides his own, there was one other person's awakening Cassian was concerned about.
"Alizée De Glacielle." Cassian immediately gave all his attention to the podium.
A gentle maiden with light blue hair gracefully stepped up to the stage. Cassian was not the only person focused on her; she was the goddess of the whole school.
She was beautiful, intelligent, athletic, and came from a rich family. While there were only small correlations between ability and awakening, everybody expected her to get a high rank and a good class.
Even Dragon, the S-rank, turned his gaze to watch her.
Alizée placed her hand softly on the stone, and the usual energy blasted out.
E-rank Spiritualist
Once the characters appeared, it was like a sudden downpour. At first, everybody was just quiet, but then they turned their heads away from her.
If it were a normal E-rank combat profession, it would have been fine. However, the Spiritualist class was notoriously hard to draw combat potential from.
The spiritualist class had to make contracts with spirits to battle; however, spirits are extremely rare and do not have accepting attitudes. Enough so that even coming from a rich family doesn't have much of an effect on the class.
'How is she feeling?' He immediately concerned himself.
Alizée walked off the podium with a controlled pace, but he could tell that she was devastated.
Cassian wanted to comfort her, but he really didn't have any relationship with her. His feelings were entirely one-sided, and he knew she did not even remember him
"Cassian Locke." A slight air of expectation grew in his classmates.
Everybody's attention was on him now, and he was grateful for it. That way, Alizée would be able to relax somewhat without prying eyes.
He walked up to the podium and was about to walk past Dragon.
"You'd better awaken a high rank, we still have to fight it out," Dragon whispered to him. In fact, the two had a kind of rivalry; there wasn't exactly hate between them, but they weren't friends either. They constantly used each other to sharpen themselves.
Next, Cassian walked past the principal, "I know that you won't disappoint me, unlike others."
The man's words drew anger from him; he did not like Alizée because of her family or her potential as an awakener. Even if she received a non-combat profession, he knew his feelings wouldn't change.
However, he did not dispute the principal's words; everything would change with his own awakening.
He finally placed his hand on the clear crystal and held his breath.