The Author's POV
chapter-36

"Thank you for your help"

After expressing his gratitude, Ren directly left the classroom.

Staring at the departing figure of the student who he had just helped for a brief moment, Kevin turned around and returned to his seat.

Taking out his bag, Kevin packed up his stuff.

Just as he was about to finish packing up, a handsome individual whose looks rivaled that of a top celebrity calmly looked down on him.

"What did you do that for?"

"What do you mean?"

Tilting his head, Kevin questioningly looked at Jin.

"Why are you helping a pathetic loser like him?"

Frowning at Jin's choice of words, Kevin secretly shook his head and responded.

"Picking on someone weaker than you is more pathetic in my opinion"

"Hmph, you should already how the world works by now."

Snorting at Kevin's comment in disdain, Jin turned around and went towards Arnold who was sitting two rows ahead of Kevin.

"Don't waste your time on helping losers like him. It's beneath you"

"Just ignore him"

Just as Kevin was about to rebuke him, a beautiful voice entered his ears, prompting him to turn his head around.

With her short brown hair accompanied by her porcelain white skin, Emma stood there looking up at Kevin who was half a head taller than her.

"He's an idiot so ignore him"

"But..."

"Just leave it at that, he's just gonna ignore whatever you say anyway so there's no point in arguing with him..."

Turning around, Emma left towards the exit of the classroom.

"You coming?"

"Ah...yes"

Sighing, Kevin took his bag and followed Emma out of the classroom.

Since he was still not used to this place, Kevin had asked Emma to guide him during the elective fair.

Catching up to her, Kevin walked side by side with Emma.

Normally, a person would've been extremely happy to walk next to such a beautiful girl, but it was extremely uncomfortable to Kevin, who was not used to this much attention.

Since his parent's death, Kevin preferred staying out of people's sight, hence why he was not used to the stares.

But unbeknownst to him, they weren't just looking at Emma, but at him too.

His looks, which rivaled Jin's, perfectly matched Emma's breathtaking beauty making everyone who saw them walking together sigh in admiration.

"You'll get used to it"

"Huh?—excuse me?"

"I mean you'll get used to stares soon enough"

"Oh? ok...but why do I need to get used to the stares? Aren't they just staring at you?"

Shaking her head as if she was looking at an idiot, Emma picked up her pace.

"Sigh, whatever...do you have an elective you want to join in mind?"

"Not really, I was thinking of joining some sort of combat-related elective since from what I've seen there isn't anything in particular that attracts my attention"

Cocking her head to the side to better hear what Kevin was saying, Emma's auburn hair which was moderately short, lightly rested on top of her shoulders, muting the azure blue uniform.

Hearing Kevin's response, Emma couldn't help but roll her eyes as she pinched the middle of her brows.

"Is all you do training?"

"Not really, I just thought that any other elective would've been a waste of time"

"Well...I don't think it's my place to say what you should choose and what you shouldn't, but I do urge you to think about it more thoroughly."

"Will do."

Stopping, Emma's eyes narrowed. Turning around she looked back at Kevin with a serious expression and spoke

"No, I don't think you do..."

Noticing Emma's behavior and expression, Kevin's back unconsciously straightened as he listened attentively.

"Electives have a much deeper meaning than you think, especially for someone as talented as you"

"If you just randomly choose an elective and it happens to be under a faction, even if you don't plan on entering the faction, they will still consider you as a part of them. Especially since it's you...moreover, once you join a faction, you will officially be an enemy of all other factions that are against the faction which you are a part of"

"Keep in mind that once you entered a faction, even if you didn't mean to, if you wish to exit, you must prepare yourself to make an enemy of that faction"

Hearing's Emma explanation, Kevin became dumbfounded as cold sweat dripped from his back

"All of this just for joining an elective?"

Poking Kevin's chest with her finger, Emma looked at Kevin seriously.

"Yes, so don't just carelessly join an elective"

Repeatedly nodding his head, Kevin promised Emma to be careful when selecting an elective.

Seeing her turn around, although Kevin didn't show it, he was extremely thankful to Emma who chose to help him out of her own volition.

Kevin already knew that Emma had already chosen her elective, and was just doing him a favor.

Although they had only known each other for about three weeks, Kevin already considered Emma a good friend.

They first met when entering their boarding apartments.

It was also at the same time he met, Jin, Amanda, and Melissa.

Since they were in the same building, they had no choice but to interact with each other, and from there they had gotten along with each other well.

Well, there were a couple of ups and downs in the beginning as Jin displayed obvious hostility against Kevin.

Looking back at the previous events, Kevin had a hunch it had something to do with Melissa, as Jin's hostility would shoot up a notch whenever he interacted with her, but he didn't want to pry too deeply.

Thus as such, because of Jin, the atmosphere in the dorm was quite tense. But fortunately thanks to Emma who got along with everyone, the awkward atmosphere dissipated and everyone managed to get along with each other.

It could be said that Emma was the key that linked everyone in the dorm.

If it weren't for her, who knows if Kevin would've even bothered talking to Jin.

"Hey, Hey, you listening?"

Snapping him out of his thoughts was the figure of Emma who had stopped walking and was looking at him with an annoyed pout.

'Cute'

Kevin thought as he resisted the urge to smile at her expression.

"I feel like you're thinking of something that would make me extremely annoyed.."

"!"

Opening his eyes wide, Kevin turned his head to the side and pretended to have not heard anything.

"Ah! So you were!"

"Don't know what you're talking about"

Kevin's outward expression was calm and expressionless, but on the inside, Kevin felt a storm of thoughts and emotions

'How in the world is she able to read my mind? Is this what they call a women's intuition? Terrifying...'

Narrowing her eyes and scrutinizing Kevin who tried his best to maintain his poker face, Emma shook her head and opened a huge door that led to the outside.

"I'll let this one go...now follow me"

Led by Emma, Kevin exited the building and strolled around the academy campus.

"Wow, this is a lot busier than I expected"

An ocean of students was swarming the campus as they each made their way towards the elective fair.

Some were leisurely strolling around the campus with their friends, some were sitting in the patches of green around the campus, and others were frantically rushing towards the stalls in the elective fair.

If it weren't for the fact that for some odd reason some of the students were going out of their way to step away from their path, reaching the location where the elective fair was being held was not going to be as unobstructed as it was now.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"Section B"

Pausing slightly, Kevin's eyes widened a little bit.

"Section B? Isn't that the professor area?"

"It's precisely because it's the professor area that the elective fair is taking place there"

Dumbfounded by her response, Kevin looked at Emma in confusion.

"How does that make sense?"

Rolling her eyes, Emma continued walking forward ignoring Kevin who was dumbly staring at her.

Finally, after seeing that Kevin still had not understood, Emma sighed and spoke

"Didn't I mention before about the deeper meaning behind electives?"

Nodding his head, Kevin replied, "Right, but how does that relate to the fact that the fair is in section B?"

"Because professors are also part of a faction..."

Halting his steps, Kevin took a moment to process what Emma had said.

If what Emma had said was true, then choosing an elective was a far more serious matter than he had originally thought.

If even the professors were trying to influence the elective fair, then it meant that the 'hidden politics' in the academy were rooted deeper than he had previously thought.

"Although professors are technically no longer part of a faction, that still did not mean that they couldn't indirectly help the faction that they used to be a part of."

"Though they may no longer be a part of a faction, their loyalty is still there..."

"If they wanted to, they could force students to join their faction by abusing their authority and make their lives harder"

Seeing how Kevin's complexion was becoming grimmer by the second, Emma realized her mistake and tried to encourage him.

"Ah..but you don't need to worry about that."

"Although you're extremely sought after, they won't carelessly try to force you to join a faction as you are protected by the school."

"Moreover you have me, Amanda, Melissa, and that guy protecting you."

"No professor would dare to mess with you with our backing..."

Seeing how she was frantically coming up with excuses to make him feel better, Kevin felt warm in his heart.

Having spent most of his life in solitude, having friends that supported him and helped him in times of trouble was a new feeling for him.

He couldn't say he disliked it...

"Thank you..."

"For what?"

Taken aback by Kevin's strange attitude, Emma took a step back.

"You're not falling for me, right? I'm sorry but I don't plan on dating right now"

"..."

There goes all the goodwill he had for her...

"Hey what's with that disgusted face? I was just joking! but still, the fact you are looking at a beauty like me with that kind of face irritates me"

"Narcissistic aren't we?"

"No, I'm just acknowledging the truth"

Dumbfounded by her fast response, Kevin was momentarily left speechless as he did not know how to respond to her.

Ignoring Kevin who was too speechless to talk, Emma continued

"My beauty aside, you still have to be careful when interacting with the professors as although they can't touch you, they can still indirectly try to make your life harder if they hold a grudge against you"

"ghhh...why does everything have to be so annoying?"

"Actually, now that I think about it, a few professors already hold a grudge against you"

"What? how? What did I do?"

"What didn't you do? I mean you suddenly showed up out of nowhere and bulldozed your way to the first rank"

"You pretty much humiliated those that believed that bloodlines or backing was the most important factor in being the best"

"Your existence alone is an eyesore for them, of course, they built a grudge against you"

Letting out a pained groan, Kevin couldn't help but curse at his own stupidity.

The only reason why he tried his best for the test was that he had still not figured out that he was strong.

Having been living isolated from society since the death of his parents, he didn't know that with the skills that he had developed thanks to the cheat-like system, he could've been considered as one of the bests of his generation.

He had thought that since some of the rich second-generation kids had access to top-end facilities, they would've surely been stronger than him.

But he had severely underestimated how much of a cheat the system was.

Not only did it provide Kevin with the best training regime, but it also rewarded him with top-end skills, stats increase, and artifacts at the completion of each mission.

By the time that admissions for the lock were open, he had already grown to be a prodigy.

Had he known this fact, he wouldn't have tried as hard as he did during the examination.

I mean since coming to the lock, Kevin had been through many annoying situations where his rank 1 status had drawn too much unwanted attention.

If only he had known...

Seeing how distressed Kevin was, Emma who took pity on him, decided to change the topic to relieve his mind from the troublesome problems.

"The sky is nice and blue right?"

"...excuse me?"

"The clouds sure are fluffy..."

"Are you okay?"

"Never been better, how bout you?"

"What about me? I'm more worried about you who is being weird"

"Back to your normal self?"

Finally realizing Emma's intention, Kevin blushed in embarrassment as he thanked her.

"Ah...Thank you"

"No probs, just don't think about all that annoying stuff. At worst you'll just have some minor troubles, you may have not realized it yet, but that number 1 rank is as much of a burden as it is a shield"

"With it, you don't have to worry about people openly doing something to you, and in fact even if you haven't noticed it yet, you are constantly under the protection of the academy"

"The number 1 rank is not just a title, it's a representation of hope...a light that shines down this god-forsaken world, and guide us to true freedom..."

Looking at Kevin straight in his eyes, Emma lightly punched his shoulder as she flashed a stunning smile.

"So instead of worrying, be proud of what you've accomplished and destroy anything that dares obstruct your path to success"