Chapter 59: The second class…

While we walked toward the So building, my mind eventually settled on it meaning “Solstice” as I couldn’t think of any other possibilities. My prediction was proven wrong the moment the building appeared, with a sign in front of it displaying “Soren Hall.” I guess this Soren is probably someone famous who did something or other at some point in time.

The Soren building was far simpler than the Celestria building. In fact, it was only four giant gym-sized rooms shoved together. The theme on the outside was the same as the rest of the campus, but the moment we entered through one of the four doors placed at the center of each side of the building, it felt like a high school again. White brick hallways formed a cross through the middle, and each room had two entrances, one from each hallway.

Room 101 wasn’t hard to find, although we had entered into the long hallway, and the room was at the other end, so we had the longest possible walk to get there, which was only a minute.

Unfortunately, our gap between these two classes was forty minutes so we had some time to kill. Thirty minutes of time to kill.

The first thing Melody and I did was attempt to open the door since we could see that the lights were on through the small window slot above the door handle. And it swung right open. Into a giant empty gym, except there weren’t any lines or anything painted on the floor that you’d expect of a gym. It was just a large open area with a high ceiling. “I guess we can just wait for thirty minutes.”

“Yeah,” Melody replied. And we waited, sitting down and leaning against the wall a few feet down from the door.

Around ten minutes later a few more people walked in, and seeing us, they mimicked, finding a seat and chatting or doing whatever on their phones. As more people trickled in, I decided to open up the academy app and check on that assignment for the leadership class and see if it was an actual assignment we had to submit online.

It was. Not the brainstorm a memory thing, but the paragraph about leadership. Just a text entry, not a file upload, so he definitely wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t want much. Might as well do it right now.

Let’s see… What does being a good leader mean to me?

Smart… charismatic… commanding… domineering… sexy as fuck… Melody? I can just describe Melody right… without the Melody and the kinky parts… just the… personality. Yeah.

Let’s see… The core principles of leadership involve the same aspects discussed in our first lecture. But to me, a specific subset of communication is the most important. A leader needs to look like a leader, to feel like a leader. A leader must have the charisma that sways their followers, but also the strength and ability to make split-second decisions confidently. Confidently enough that their followers think it’s a plan that’s been in action for years. A good leader is able to combine that with all of their other traits and all of their actions, creating an aura of disbelief that captures all who follow them.

Like Melody when she’s staring… glaring down at me with her beautiful blue eyes and I can’t think of anything but her and her commands.

Yep, good enough. Submit. Okay… that only took like five minutes.

I took another glance around the room, seeing it start to fill up a little more. There were probably thirty or forty people here now. Then I returned to my phone, getting lost in some fantasy worlds until the class began.

Not a minute early, two slightly older people, one probably in their thirties, the other in their forties, walked in wearing casual clothes. They went straight to the center of the gym and the older one shouted, “Off your asses! Form a circle!”

Following his command, everyone walked toward the center of the room and the scale of this class became apparent. There were probably a couple hundred of us. And now I’m realizing this probably isn’t our whole class. We hadn’t run into our team yet either.

My thoughts were interrupted when the younger instructor began speaking. “As I’m sure many of you know, this course takes place in all four of this building's rooms simultaneously. If any of you have already formed and registered a team, please walk over to me so we can place you together. If you haven’t or don't know what I’m talking about, listen to this dude.”

Heeding the instruction, Melody and I walked over along with about twenty people, and the instructor led us straight out of the room and into the hallway, where we walked toward the center intersection and met up with groups of people from the other three rooms. One of the four instructors that led students out shouted over the hundred of us. “Join up with your teams, then group away from everyone else.”

After a couple seconds of wandering, Melody and I found everyone else. We all walked out of the mass of people and down one of the hallways a little. Melody spoke first. “Hello again.”

“Helloooo,” Fara replied, followed by Elle, then Silvia, and finally Amane. “So, how’s everyone doing?”

“Good,” Melody replied. “Is this everyone’s first class?”

“Yep.” Fara nodded along with Elle and Amane.

“I had a design class,” Silvia said. Design huh? I didn’t expect that for some reason… didn’t expect anyone to take a class so early, but also didn’t expect Silvia to be an art person. Although I can’t think of any reason she wouldn’t be, just wasn’t expecting it.

“What type?” Melody asked.

“Interior design,” Silvia replied, then added, “House stuff.”

Melody nodded, but before she could ask any more, once again an instructor shouted out. “Okay, you, you, and you, follow me!”

And then a second one pointed to four groups. And a third point to three, and lastly, the final instructor wearing casual black slacks and an unzipped jacket pointed to us along with two other groups. “Come with me.”

We followed and Melody asked if anyone came from this room, which surprisingly turned out to be a no. Every one of us came from one of the other three rooms. The room we were entering was room 104.

Once we entered the room, we saw tons of people just grouping up randomly and chatting with one another. I guess waiting for us to return? Seeing us, the instructor that was inside the room, who was a woman in her… late thirties-ish wearing, I kid you not, a long black cloak that dragged behind her. Under her cloak, she was wearing a black crop top and black shorts. She was very fit though. A six pack.

“Alright, everyone group up around me!” She called out, then waited as the roughly two hundred of us walked around her. Once we surrounded her, she continued. “As I explained, those of you who don’t have teams yet, decide within a week. For those of you who do have teams, hi, I’m Cressida. I joined the faculty here three years ago after my leg got fucked up in a dungeon raid, but I’ll still kick your ass in seconds.”

Cool. Hot women kicking ass is very hot. I hope there’s some entitled young master that tries to test her. Would love to see that ass kicking. I wonder if she’d beat Melody… she probably would. Melody is strong as frick to me, but if Cressida is an S tier, then she’d definitely be stronger than Melody right now, and even if she’s a lower tier… depending on how much time she’s spent in dungeons she should still be damn strong. Her base stats are definitely strong… those abs.

“Now,” Cressida began. “The first thing I want you to do is divide up by tier. Those of you on teams, go wherever your highest tier belongs.”

Then, she cut through the crowd and sprinted down to one end of the gym in seconds. She wasn’t lying, she definitely is capable of kicking anyone’s ass. No one here would be able to dodge fast enough, regardless of the damage. “A tiers over here!”

Then she ran straight back in the middle of the crowd. “B tiers here!”

Finally, she sprinted to the other end of the gym. “C tiers here! And if, god forbid, we have any D tiers, join the C tiers and hope for the best.”

For some crazy reason, Melody had the balls to shout, “What about S tier?”

Immediately, everyone stared at her, and I became embarrassed despite her appearing completely fine. Fucking insane. Do you have no social anxiety at all?!

“A tier, Princess Celestria.” Cressida’s laughter roared through the gym as she shouted back. ”And never act like that again in my class. Even if you’re my former boss.”

“I can still get you fired!” Melody completely ignored Cressida’s order and fired back.

“Screw you!” Cressida shouted before sprinting back toward the center of the circle and letting out an extremely loud and not at all secretive mumble. “Stupid fucking connections.”

After shaking her head. Cressida looked up, spinning around, then commanding. “The rest of you have no sway, get to your places!”

Her commands shattered the atmosphere as everyone began running toward their assigned sections. Except for the B tiers which were already in place. They also happened to be the biggest group. The other two teams who entered with us were B tier.

We, of course, walked over to the A tier section, where there were about fifteen other people. The B tier section had maybe a hundred people, and the C tier had fifty or sixty.

“Now!” Cressida yelled from the edge of the B tier blob, quieting the gym. “Every time we have this class, this is where you’ll go. If you don’t have a team yet. Form one from these people until you run out, only then can you go a tier lower.”

Segregation at its finest. That’s the way the world works. Especially when there’s something as clear as systems that literally means some people are better than everyone else. Like me. X tier. I’m better than everyone… heh. Power fantasy come true. Until anyone does literally anything remotely sexual. Then I’ll melt. I’m like an overpowered snowman except I can’t block out the sun. Which is everywhere sadly. And I keep seeing reflections of it in everything. Stupid horniness…