Demon Legacy

After two grueling hours, the lesson finally came to an end. At this point Kaden was about ready to drop dead.

He was sitting in his seat contemplating whether it was worth it to get up and take a look at the leaderboards.

There was a quite a lot of commotion coming from outside the classroom. All the other students had probably gone to take a look at the rankings.

…

"Who's Kaden Arkatal? He's ranked first on the martial arts leaderboard." Students from every class were gathered around the leaderboards, looking over the various names.

"Oh, I think it's him there." Someone spotted Kaden as he came out of the classroom and started heading towards the group gathered around the leaderboards. After hearing all the commotion, Kaden wanted to take a look at what was going on.

The group all turned around and watched as Kaden walked over.

"Are you Kaden Arkatal?" The same boy who wanted to know who he was went forward to meet him.

"Hm? Yeah." Kaden stared at the tall blonde boy, wondering why he had stopped him.

"Ah, we're classmates. I saw that you're ranked first in martial arts. I'm Chet Thoran." Chet stretched out his hand for a handshake.

Kaden was caught by surprise. Hearing he was ranked first wasn't much of a shock, instead it was Chet's forwardness that bewildered him. Nonetheless he shook Chet's hand to be polite, "Thanks for telling me Chet."

Chet got a bright smile on his face, "Don't worry about it. Here, let me show you."

He put his hand on Kaden's shoulder and lead him to stand right in front of one of the screens, "You're up there at first. I'm a bit below at third.

The screen on the wall showed the top 200. In first was Kaden, followed by a Raphael at second and indeed Chet in third.

"First is pretty impressive. I thought I would be at least second, but you and Raphael beat me out. If I had dropped any lower I probably wouldn't have made it into the class." Chet spoke of these things laughing, it didn't seem like he minded being pushed down on the ranking all that much.

"You would've been pushed out? What's your overall ranking?" Kaden was rather interested now. Someone who was so gifted in martial arts, but barely made it into the Elite class had to be somewhat like him.

"It's 49, so I only just barely made it into the class."

Kaden smiled when he heard that. Just like he suspected, Chet was a kindred spirit. Both of them were bad at other subjects and had relied on their martial arts to enter the class.

"Not bad," Kaden took a look at the overall rankings to find his own placement. Somehow he was further up than he thought he would be. "I'm ranked 32."

"Yeah I saw, quite good for relying on martial arts."

"How did you know?" Kaden was confused. There wasn't any way to see what tests a student had taken. Not unless you had direct access to the academy's database.

Chet shrugged his shoulders, "I just assumed. Besides, if you were good at something else you would've easily been in the top 20. However you're not even in the top 30."

Chet had easily deduced the truth behind Kaden's rank. He himself was someone who had entered the Elite class solely due to his cultivation. Since that had only earned him the 50th spot on the overall rankings, it wasn't hard for him to figure it out by applying the same logic to Kaden's rank.

"Good thinking." Kaden was rather impressed with this Chet person.

"Anyway, my friend and I are going to the cafeteria to eat lunch. Do you want to come along?" Since he got along well with Kaden, he invited him to come along.

"Sure." Kaden liked martial arts the most, meeting someone who shared that mindset was fortunate. He didn't really know anyone in the school, getting to know Chet and his friend seemed like a good idea.

…

The other students were envious seeing Chet chat so happily with Kaden, even to the point of leaving to eat lunch together. A few of them chastised themselves for missing the opportunity.

In their school year, Kaden was the only one from a prestigious family. Befriending him would certainly be beneficial to their future.

Raphael who had overheard Chet's conversation with Kaden was rather unhappy. He had been training desperately so that he could rank first, he felt slighted seeing his name in the second spot. Even worse, he had lost to someone who was so far down the overall rankings. After Kaden left, he saw his chance to shine in front of the crowd, "Tsk. Whatever. The entrance test was all about cultivation, who knows if he's actually any good at fighting?"

"Yeah that's true. Perhaps he's only good for cultivating. You could easily beat him in a duel Raphael."

"It would be a waste for Raphael to fight him, I'm sure even I could beat him in a fight."

Raphael's two friends began speaking up, echoing his sentiments and trying to bring the crowd on their side.

However the crowd gathered around the leaderboards just looked at the trio like they were idiots. Most of them knew of the Arkatal family, and if they didn't, they had certainly seen the crest on Kaden's uniform.

None of them were dumb enough to think that someone from a prestigious family would be completely lacking in martial arts. To them it was comical that Raphael was acting so arrogant.

In this way, Raphael had quickly shattered his image in the minds of all the first year students. It hadn't even been a full school day and everyone already considered him and his friends idiots.

"What?" Raphael didn't understand why everyone was looking at them like that.

"Are you really so stupid you don't understand?" Seeing Raphael's expression of bewilderment, a student spoke up and questioned him.

"Don't blame him, he's probably from some backwater planet in the middle of nowhere." Another student remarked, eliciting laughter from everyone in the crowd.

The crowds words embarrassed him, in fact they had guessed the truth. He'd only moved to planet Aldera a few months before now and wasn't familiar with how things worked in the capital.

Him and his friends had joined a branch dojo on their home planet. After training for years and having good results, all three boys had been offered the chance to move to planet Aldera so they could train at the main branch.

Their attempt to turn the crowd against Kaden had backfired, everyone was now targeting and making fun of them instead.

The boys couldn't endure the crowds ridicule and awkwardly had to take their leave. Being made fun of by so many people was hard to handle, even more so since they were still young and inexperienced.