Chapter 87: The D- Rank Student Who Caught Their Attention

The D- Rank Student Who Caught Their Attention

Evelyn looked at her.

"You encourage him too much."

Selena smiled, completely unbothered.

"Because I know he’s right."

Leon glanced between the two women.

"You two are talking about me as if I’m not standing here."

Evelyn’s lips curled into a faint smile.

"You noticed?"

"Of course."

"Then you can deal with it."

Leon shook his head, though a faint smile remained on his face.

For a brief moment, the tension around them seemed to disappear.

It almost felt normal.

Almost.

Then Ryan’s irritated voice cut through the atmosphere.

"Are you looking down on me?"

Everyone’s attention returned to him.

The irritation on Ryan’s face was impossible to miss.

Leon’s expression changed slightly.

"No."

He looked directly at Ryan.

"I’m not looking down on you."

His voice remained calm.

There was no mockery in it.

No deliberate attempt to provoke him.

That somehow made the words feel even harsher.

Leon paused for a moment.

Then he continued.

"I’m simply telling you the truth."

Ryan’s expression tightened.

Leon’s eyes remained fixed on him.

"I’m saying that none of you here can give me a real fight."

Silence followed.

Ryan stared at him.

For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond.

Those words should have sounded arrogant.

They should have been insulting.

And yet, there was something different about the way Leon said them.

He wasn’t boasting.

He wasn’t trying to prove anything.

He genuinely believed it.

That was when Ryan finally understood.

He understood why Leon had looked so detached from the beginning.

Why there had been no excitement in his eyes.

Why every exchange seemed to leave him completely unmoved.

Leon wasn’t pretending to be calm.

He really was bored.

Ryan’s fingers slowly tightened.

A strange feeling rose inside his chest.

He had experienced this feeling before.

Many times.

Whenever he faced ordinary opponents.

Whenever someone weaker challenged him with everything they had.

He remembered the look on their faces.

The desperation.

The anger.

The disbelief.

And he remembered what he had felt.

Nothing.

Just boredom.

The difference between them had always been too great.

Their attacks could never reach him.

Their strength could never truly threaten him.

Their determination could never change the result.

Back then, Ryan had never questioned it.

Why would he?

He had been called the crown of Redcloud’s younger generation.

The one who stood above everyone else.

Undefeated.

Untouchable.

People had looked at him with the same mixture of fear and frustration that he was now seeing reflected in himself.

He had always been the one standing at the top.

The one deciding how serious a battle needed to be.

The one wondering whether his opponent could even make him move.

But today...

The roles had been reversed.

For the first time, Ryan was standing on the other side.

He was the one being measured.

The one being judged as insignificant.

The one who couldn’t force his opponent to take him seriously.

A bitter smile almost appeared on Ryan’s lips.

What an irony.

--------------------------

Supreme Heaven University.

As the top university in the Great Dawn Dynasty, they had the most efficient intelligence network in the nation.

Inside one of Supreme Heaven University’s observation rooms, several enormous screens floated above a long black table.

Each screen displayed a different arena.

Every movement of the examinees was recorded.

Every score was updated in real time.

Every student with unusual potential was immediately flagged for further observation.

The atmosphere inside the room was normally calm.

Today, however, one screen had attracted unusual attention.

"Ethan lost that fast?"

An observer responsible for Bellemont Province’s martial exam recruitment furrowed his brow.

His fingers paused above the information panel.

Ethan from Redcloud City had been his primary observation target.

The young man had blonde hair and blue eyes, and his S-rank beast-soul aptitude had already made him one of the strongest candidates in Redcloud City.

In the first three matches, Ethan had performed steadily.

His scores were 9.1, 8.9, and 9.2.

Nothing spectacular enough to make the entire nation talk about him, but certainly enough to attract the attention of Supreme Heaven University.

He was a stable candidate.

A student worth watching.

But this fourth match...

Only one point.

The observer stared at the result.

His eyebrows slowly tightened.

The placement matches had ten rounds.

Ten points each round.

A total of one hundred points.

And every point counted toward the final score.

A single disastrous match could completely change a student’s final ranking.

The Supreme Heaven University observer felt a chill run down his spine.

"Who is this boy?"

He immediately searched for the opponent responsible.

Leon’s profile appeared.

The observer clicked on it.

"Hiss..."

His eyes widened.

For several seconds, he simply stared.

"D-rank?"

He checked again.

There was no mistake.

Leon was only a D-rank beast-soul master.

The observer almost thought the information system had malfunctioned.

Then he noticed the contract information.

Two beast-girls.

His expression became even stranger.

"Wait—a D-rank beast-soul master with two beast-girls? Aren’t you afraid of running out of mana?!"

Under normal circumstances, maintaining contracts with multiple powerful beast-girls would put an enormous burden on a beast-soul master.

The more powerful the beast-girl, the greater the mana consumption.

For an ordinary D-rank master, contracting two beast-girls of this level should have been extremely difficult.

But what the observer didn’t know was that Leon’s contracts with both Selena and Evelyn were soul contracts.

Soul contracts had the most efficient communication between beast-soul master and beast-girl, with the least mana loss.

That meant Leon could maintain both contracts without suffering the enormous mana drain that ordinary contracts would cause.

There was another reason.

Selena’s breakthrough ability had completely changed the equation.

She had a 5-Star Breakthrough Skill.

Her mana reserves were enormous.

Even after unleashing terrifying amounts of power, she could still fight without showing obvious signs of exhaustion.

The observer leaned closer to the screen.

Leon stood quietly in the center of the arena.

He didn’t look exhausted.

He didn’t look nervous.

He didn’t even look particularly excited.

It was almost as if everything happening around him was completely ordinary.

The observer’s fingers tapped against the table.

"This combat potential is impressive. This team is worth continuing to observe!"

His tone had become serious.

After all, Supreme Heaven University was the highest institution in the entire Great Dawn Dynasty.

Their admission standards were brutal.

Not everyone could get in.

Even students who performed brilliantly during the martial exams might not receive an offer.

But there was another path.

After the martial exams, if a university offered early admission, a student could enroll directly—skipping the application process entirely.

It also gave top universities a chance to recruit talent early.

For an elite university, discovering an extraordinary student before everyone else could be worth countless resources.

Getting an early admission slot from Supreme Heaven University was even harder than climbing a mountain of blades.

And now, a D-rank student had suddenly appeared on their radar.

The observer looked at Leon again.

Something about this boy didn’t make sense.

That was precisely why he wanted to keep watching.