The Ghost System

As instructed, Rhys stood up straight with his legs in line with his shoulders and his hands flat against his sides.

After the final round Rhys and the others were herded into one section of the gym. The one hundred students were made to stand in ten lines of ten people each, with a narrow isle down the middle. All the instructors who had been overseeing their matches ominously stood around the group of students demonstrating how they were supposed to be standing.

Zora was at the front of all of this, her beady eyes scanning through the rows of students making sure no one was out of place. She nodded her head, finally satisfied that everything was to her liking.

"Congratulations." Her voice once again filled the entire gymnasium. "You survived the first day of the Military College Program. MCP for short. Today was without a doubt one of the toughest days for the freshmen to get through. Not because you won't face harder challenges than this in the future, but because you are all still ignorant babies who have not learned how to control your abilities properly yet."

She burst out laughing at what she must have thought was a funny joke in her speech. Rhys cringed as everybody stayed silent while she chuckled to herself.

Zora finally cleared her throat and continued. "As you'll remember, the purpose of this tournament was to rank all the students and put you in categories that reflect where you are in your training. As an incentive to improve, rank A has the best benefits while rank F..."

From the way she had described rank F before everyone had pretty much surmised that it was a particularly awful hell in what was already a hellish military academy.

"Rank F..." Rhys saw she trying to come up with an explanation as to why Rank F was so horrible. "The students in Rank F are encouraged to rise in the ranks through the specialised extra training they will receive as F rank trainees."

She clapped her hands together with a big smile on her face. "Let's get on with the rankings then!"

"As the winners of the evaluation tournament you four will all automatically be placed into the A rank class. Please step forward team 25!"

Connor, the red-headed teleporter, the huge burly bear guy, and the wind user girl with long straight hair stepped out of the line and walked to instructor Zora. They were an imposing bunch and all eyes were on them as they made their way to the front.

"Welcome to the front Connor Twenty, Ezra Abrams, Roman Grigg, and Wren Collins. Congratulations."

Rhys finally heard their names, he could stop referring to them by their features now.

"On top of the perks of being A ranked students, you four will receive these silver cards each loaded with 50,000 zen that you can spend on outings or at any of the MCP stores on campus."

Whispers of disbelief broke through the lines of students. For the kids from the 20th district especially this was an insane amount of money. Rhys also would have gasped if he didn't have a gold card tucked away in his room.

"As soon as you are given your rank you are free to leave, but you are also free to watch the others' ranks being called out." She advised the students and pulled up her tablet to scroll through the lists of names.

"Okay let's start with the C category!" She swiped her hand over her bald head. "When I call your name please come to the front to fetch your evaluation card then you can leave."

Rhys watched with a pounding heart as students were called to the front and they received a folded card with a big stamped 'C' on it. Rhys knew he deserved a better score than a 'C' but then again he did break the rules and get his team disqualified. But Zora did tell him they would evaluate him fairly despite that. But still... This was honestly a lot more nerve-racking than he thought it would be. Finally, after the 29th name had been called Zora spoke up again. She congratulated all the C-ranked students and then moved onto the B rank.

"Joel Adams." Rhys's eyes went wide as he heard the name of his teammate being called. He watched as Joel raced to the front with a hug smile on his face and collected his grading card. Honestly, Rhys was a little shocked that Joel was ranked so high, but when he thought about their matches Joel had been a huge help. He transferred his energy to help Sampson make powerful fire tunnels, and he did his fair share of impressive fighting. Although he wasn't quite what the standard for a B rank was, it meant sense why the instructors gave him a chance.

Rhys was biting his lip as the names were being called. If he was not placed in the B rank, he would either be in A, D or F. Zora announced another seventeen names including the water manipulator Rhys had faced off against during their first match. Despite being knocked out so early he was still marked as a B student.

Zora then went on to announce the D rank which was filled with the majority of the strengthening core users as well as other weak elemental manipulators. Rhys could not help but glance over at Nim whose head was downcast, her name had not been called yet and there was no doubt that she would not make it into the A rank. If she wasn't called out for the D rank she would certainly go to the F rank.

"And that's all for the D rank." Zora was chipper as ever as she scrolled down to the next list of students. The instructor proceeded to call out the names for the students in the F rank, Nim's name was the first one called. She hid her face behind her short ginger hair and jogged to the front to get her grading card.

Rhys felt bad for her but then again he saw it coming. The only time she used her power was to heal a guy on the opposite team who just got back up and attacked Rhys.

Rhys watched a few other familiar faces go up and get their F ranked cards, among them was the team whom had forfeited against Connor's team at the beginning of the second round.

"Finally, we come to the end!" Zora cheered. Including Rhys there were only four more people standing in the line: him, Sampson, Aria and the guy who could wield light blue energy.

"Congratulations you four. You've earned your spot in the A rank despite not being in the winning team. I hope you train hard at MCP and never fall from your spot."

There were some whispers from the crowd as Aria went up to fetch her grading card. Most of the people did not see her match so they were unaware of how terrifying she actually was. Rhys on the other hand knew that she absolutely deserved the A rank.

With the rankings all announced Zora said goodbye to the remaining students. Rhys was relieved to hear that they had the rest day off, he already decided that he and his bed were going to spend some quality time together. He quietly walked back out through the lecture hall and headed towards the forest where the obscure Glowry dorm was situated.

Even though he lost to Connor and was disqualified he still managed to get an A rank. It was annoying and frustrating but at the end of day everything had worked out. Somehow he just did not feel satisfied.

Rhys froze as he heard the crunch of dirt and old twigs under someone's shoes. He spun around to see Connor nonchalantly walking a few meters behind him, and ways behind Connor was Aria making her way through the forest.

Rhys knew a Connor had good reason to be heading to Glowry, they were roommates after all but what was Aria doing here?

"What are you doing here Aria?" He asked with a smile fully aware that she could project poison at him any time she wanted.

"Um... I live in Glowry?" She made a face like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What, really?"

She nodded blandly before walking past Rhys, leaving him puzzled as to how he didn't know this.

"Connor did you know this?" He was so confused that he accidentally called out to Connor like they were close.

"Yeah, I saw her in the hallway before you moved in."

"Oh." This was all Rhys could think to say after Connor replied to him. Slightly embarrassed, Rhys followed on behind them until their old stone building was visible behind the tall green trees, but the three of them halted in their tracks as three shady figures in front of their dorm became visible. Both Connor's and Aria's auras surged on instinct ready to attack whoever was blocking their path.

Rhys on the other hand frowned at the familiar auras he was seeing in front of the door.