With all eyes on him, the really short person, if Reno had to estimate he would be 4 '5 or around a bit or a meter in height.

 

Based on the memories that Reno had gained, the teacher for his Swordplay class was a gruff white haired old man last year.

 

To add on to the really short height of this person, he had a distinct look with his crimson eyes and fully white hair.

 

The really short person then cleared his throat and stared up at everyone in the class. 

 

“Greetings to everyone from the 6th swordplay class pool. My name is Egon Ford and as most have already inferred, I will be the new teacher for your pool of students”

 

“As this is our first class and I’m a new teacher to all of you, I’ll permit any questions that you may have unless they’re too personal. I’ll answer as many questions as our class time permits.”

 

Hearing this, Reno and a few others raised their hands in hope that Egon would pick on them.

 

Looking around for a bit, Egon picked on a random black haired girl. The black hair girl got up and asked Egon what she wanted to know.

 

“Uhmm sir, I would like to know how good of a swordsman you are, not that I’m doubting the academy but before we even met our old teacher we knew he was a B+ rank who excelled in swordsmanship  but we don’t know what level you are at sir.”

 

Right when the student finished asking their question, Egon was ready to answer it. 

 

“I’m a A- rank who excels in swordsmanship, hopefully this answers your question” 

 

Reno wasn’t too surprised but A rank was a high level most people like him would never be able to reach, most thought the old Reno was crazy for even wanting to reach B rank.

 

Similar to most games in Reno’s old world, the ranking system of combatants from lowest to highest was : H, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, S. 

 

The thing that made it different from the games was that there were a few ranks above S which were called special. In the same order these would be Legendary, Mythical, Monstrous.

 

From what Reno knew though, most of the special ranked people were actually like ghosts as not many people even knew if they existed due to how rarely they appeared or were talked about.

 

The ranks given to different races were different however. Different races used the system that rifts used which could give one an estimate of how dangerous they were.

 

As soon as Egon answered the girl’s question, parts of the class erupted into chatter.

 

“Is someone from a prestigious family going to join or something, I can’t believe we actually got an A rank teacher!”

 

“A rank and seems to be agreeable, I might actually start doing work this year!”

 

“Most A ranks are scouted by guilds and the like, all of the class's luck must have been used up to get us this one!”

 

From the class's reaction, anyone could see how valuable an A rank teacher was, Reno was also happy but was a bit curious why an A rank swordsman became an instructor at the ‘backup’ academy.

 

Luckily enough, he didn’t have to wait long for an answer as the next person that Egon picked on was Reno.

 

Reno got up and then asked. “ Mr Egon, if you are an A rank then why are you teaching at this academy, I think lots of places would be dying to have you”

 

Egon expected a question like this and gave his answer right after he heard the question. “ This place was just close to where some of my family lived so I chose it so I could rush back when needed, no profound reason really, next question”

 

Reno thought it would be a more important reason than that but just took the answer he got and sat back down.

 

Egon then looked around the class some more and picked a guy with long, light blue hair this time.

 

From his memories, Reno recognized this guy as Chasin Fermin. 

 

Not just the original Reno but most people in the swordplay class knew of Chasin whether they wanted to or not. 

 

His slim and slender body seemed to be perfect to be a mage combatant on the outside but his vital core was a stick shaped one that was more suited for weapon oriented combat.

 

Not only that but he had a serious and to the point personality with a weapon choice of a great sword that from what Reno remembered weighed around 20kg!

 

He was definitely the strongest person in Reno’s swordplay class. 

 

“I’ve been wondering since you entered the class but only the vampire race is able to have crimson eyes, if you were actually a vampire then you definitely would not be able to even enter the academy.

 

“I wonder then, is teacher Egon a genetic combatant?”

 

Hearing this, the entire class got even more rowdy!

 

Genetic Combatants. Essentially people that have had their body strength enhanced by fusing the genes of other races into our own human genes.

 

They were a relatively new topic as the chance of surviving a gene merge was so small until some years ago where a scientist created a solution that increased the chances of it succeeding by a whopping 30%! 

 

This made more people give it a chance but even so, not many people opted for it on account of it depending on luck.

 

The benefits were great though as the most basic thing any successful genetic enhancer would have at the least superhuman level abilities and senses with certain chances of awakening some sort of ability.

 

Reno knew a decent amount about the topic of genetic enhancers as he had to make an entire presentation about them for his Survival 101 class.

 

A light smile then appeared on Egon’s face and he started clapping his hands. 

 

“Yes I am, a vampire genetic enhancer in fact. I won’t be telling you about most of my abilities but just know that I’m a fully genuine genetic enhancer.”

 

Upon hearing this, the entire class was riled up and continued to ask Egon lots of questions with some just being stupid like

 

“Does that mean Mr Egon’s height is a result of the genetic enhancement”

 

Which Mr Egon just chose to ignore. 

 

Doing this question and answer session, the class time seemed to just fly by until class was around 10 minutes from ending where Mr Egon chose to stop all the questions.

 

“I’m sorry I almost forgot but I need to tell you the date of the combat test for the normal credit students will be in a month while the tests for the merit based students will be in a month and 2 weeks.”

 

“Furthermore, when all of your classes for today finish, you can go to the library and choose a skill from there for the new academic year”

 

Hearing this Reno’s face went dark. ‘I swear, sometimes I just want to strangle the old Reno. Why did he have to choose to become a merit based student’

 

Most combatant academies had two systems in place for a student to graduate. One of these was the credit system which was the one that most students chose.

 

As the name implies, all the student needs is to earn credit by taking courses and passing them which will earn the student enough credits by graduation.

 

The merit based system now was different as the person had to take missions from the school, most of these missions being dangerous but gave a good chunk of merit points while others were really simple and barely gave anything. 

 

The student had to choose one at the start of their academy life and it wasn’t able to be changed. 

 

‘Choosing the merit system wouldn’t be that bad if we were around C rank in strength but currently, C rank was a far stretch from my current strength.’

 

‘If someone with C rank strength were to even just slap me, I’d be surprised if I didn’t die’

 

‘To put it calmly without freaking out too much.  If I don’t get stronger as soon as possible then I won’t graduate and waste the money Reno’s parents spent for him to even attend this academy’

 

Reno calmed himself down a bit. 

 

‘It’s not as if being on the merit pathway is all bad, a key difference is the exam for it. Unlike the normal credit pathway that gives you an academy rank based on their exam, the merit exam is mostly to just see if they’re any new seeds.

 

‘Even though most of the time there aren’t any, just the fact that I won’t be looked down upon for a low rank is already a good thing, not that it’ll help the making of friends though, because if you’re weak and on the merit system people think you’re delusion and crazy’

 

Seeing Reno looking a bit sad, Grania consoled him. “Don’t worry Reno, even though you’re on the merit pathway and most girls look at you like they would a madman, I’ll get you some play, count on me!” 

 

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Reno just thanked Grania.

 

After making the announcements Egon picked up his stuff. 

 

“Class is dismissed for today, the first week will be just going over some sword theory and in the second week, we’ll have a class wide sparring match to see how good each of you are individually.”

 

When Egon finished saying this the bell rang and he left the class. 

 

‘Sparring match next week huh, hopefully I don’t get thrashed too hard.’ 

 

Reno then got up like everyone else, said bye to Grania and then left through the door for the next class. 

 

‘I’ve got Rift Exploration class next’