Chapter 46 End of the Selection Process
After the competition, 7 students from the first year were selected according to the number of battles they won.
Alec took the 1st position with 12 consecutive wins and one loss where he admitted defeat against Nine.
Carcel got the second position with 11 wins, and to everyone's surprise, Kyle was tied with Carcel with 11 winning streaks.
He only lost when he fought against Alec and Carcel.
Mia was 3rd and Lara got the 4th position. Standing in the fifth position was Lily. She lost to Kyle but she defeated Jake who was a rank higher than her in the class ranking.
Nine got the last spot making it among the top 7 participants. He was so happy that he embraced Alec and Carcel to thank them wholeheartedly.
The moment the result was announced Professor Aliza who was nowhere to be seen during the competition walked inside the hall.
She looked at the winning participants, her gaze paused at Kyle for a while before she nodded because she expected such results.
Afterward, she asked the 7 students to follow behind her. Outside the hall, 7 more students from the second year were waiting for Aliza.
She introduced all the students to each other before taking all of them to a special Classroom.
The classroom seemed to be specially prepared for the 14 winning participants as the only things present inside were 14 benches and chairs lined together in two rows.
Professor Aliza stood in front of the students sitting on the chairs and started briefing them about their new schedule.
There was still a week left before they left for the tower, that's why their classes and training schedule for the next whole week was changed.
Early morning instead of leaving for usual classes they would go to different Professors who would give them survival training for hours.
After the training at dawn, Professor Aliza would give them different lectures and tell them all the information related to the tower she knew.
As Aliza was not from the lucky generation who entered the Tower that's why her knowledge regarding the Tower was lacking, but she compensated for it by reading various books and old theories written about the Tower.
According to her 'Tower of Opportunity' had a total of 9 floors and the size of each floor was comparable to a Kingdom.
The first 3 floors were the same every time but information regarding the other floors was lacking because the structure of those floors was different every time the new climbers entered the Tower.
All the people entering the Tower have to stay inside for 6 months. No matter what, they couldn't come outside before the six months passed.
There was another way to exit the Tower and that was to climb all 9 floors and choose an exit scroll as a reward on the 9th floor.
But something like that had not happened in the past hundred years, because no one was idiot enough to climb the Tower of Opportunity just to choose an exit scroll in the end?
Also, six months was a lot of time and during this time those entering the Tower could get various opportunities by completing different trials or they could hone their skills through life and death battles.
The Tower was like a treasure trove for the younger generation because those older than 18 were not able to enter no matter what they did.
Various powerful individuals tried to enter the Tower forcefully but failed miserably, even those high rankers were not able to enter due to the arrays of restrictions set around the Tower.
The Tower which had so many opportunities to exploit also wasn't devoid of danger because a single negligence or mistake can cause death.
That's why every time the Tower opened only the best around the whole continent were selected to enter the Tower.
....
One week passed in a blink of an eye and today early morning, all 14 winning participants were standing in front of the Academy gate with Professor Aliza waiting for the Vice Principal.
Kyle was also standing with Nine at the far end of the small crowd.
While they were talking a student wearing glasses approached them, he was from the second-year batch.
Even though for the past week they have been studying and training together, Kyle hasn't talked to anyone else except Nine, Alec, and his team
Kyle glanced at the student who greeted him with a smile.
"Hi, I am Blane."
Kyle only nodded his head in response but Nine pushed him back and grabbed Blane's hand with a smile.
"Hi senior, I am Nine and he is Kyle. Also, he is a little shy around others so don't mind him."
'Shy who? me?'
A question mark appeared inside Kyle's head as he stared deeply at Nine's back.
"I mean he's not much talkative."
After kicking Kyle out of the conservation, Nine and Blane both started talking like old buddies.
'Bia go hit this guy. He's irritating me.'
Kyle ordered Bia who was sleeping peacefully, but the only thing he got in return was his hair being pulled by Bia.
"Ah."
-'Shut up don't disturb me.'
'What, do something useful at least for once. Will you.'
Kyle sighed because he knew he wouldn't get anything by fighting with Bia, the only thing he feared was his hair being burned and him becoming bald if she got too angry.
After obtaining the skill 'Fire resistance' normal flames stopped working on Kyle but for some reason Bia's golden flames were capable of injuring him.
As everyone was talking to each other, Vice Principal George finally appeared but he brought an unexpected person with him.
After nodding toward Professor Aliza Vice Principal George stood in front of the students, on his left stood an old man wearing mage robes who for some reason felt familiar to all the students but no one was able to exactly pinpoint who he was.
When everyone was whispering about the identity of the new person a small voice was heard.
"The librarian?"
The old man standing beside the Vice Principal gazed at Kyle stunned. He only had one question inside his head.
'I changed my hair and eye color so how the hell did you know about my identity?'
Vice Principal George's gaze also paused at Kyle but strangely his question was different from the Librarian's.
'He got selected?'
Vice Principal George didn't care about how Kyle knew about the identity of the Librarian because from his point of view, the Librarian's concealing techniques were always useless.
But how the heck did a lazy person who didn't even have a proper sword Art a while ago fight and win against so many students and get selected?
It was true that Professor Aliza had been reporting to the Vice Principal that Kyle had been working hard recently but he didn't believe a single word.
Because whenever he went to oversee the students, Kyle was always lazing around.
But now the Vice Principal was having second thoughts.
Maybe Kyle was working hard and he was the only one who failed to notice it.
Vice Principal George's point of view of Kyle was finally changing.
Meanwhile, Professor Aliza who was standing behind the two old men followed their gaze and sighed before asking them to continue because they were getting late.