The reaction to Sheila Granger’s name was completely different from the reactions that had followed every student before her.

For a moment, the Eastern Grand Hall seemed to forget its exhaustion. The second years were still battered, still hungry, still aching, and still desperate for proper treatment and rest, but the instant Lucia announced Sheila as rank one, a wave of relief and approval passed through the crowd with such force that it almost became visible.

Students who had barely reacted to their own names lifted their heads. Those sitting on the edge of collapse straightened just a little. A few even smiled openly, not with the forced politeness of students acknowledging a high rank, but with genuine relief.

It was not simply because Sheila was respected. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

She was respected, of course. Even those who were jealous of her position could not easily deny her skill, control, or composure. She had been rank one before Liam took the position from her, and for many of her peers, her return to the top felt like the world correcting itself.

But beneath that respect was something more honest, something less flattering to the academy’s unity and far more revealing of how the second years truly felt.

They were glad Liam Hunter was no longer above them all.

For half the semester, Liam had stood at rank one like a shadow over the entire year. He had not demanded obedience. He had not walked around barking orders. He had not even seemed interested in the authority that came with the position.

But that had somehow made it worse for many of them.

The thought that, during a major class event or future group assessment, they might be expected to listen to him simply because of his rank had unsettled far more students than anyone openly admitted. Liam was powerful, dangerous, unpredictable in the quietest way, and above all, he was a dark mage. To some students, that alone made him intolerable as someone placed at the highest point of their year.

Now Sheila had taken that position back.

To many of them, it felt as though an angel had come to rescue them from a demon.

Even those who did not particularly like Sheila looked relieved. Disliking the princess of Crescent was one thing. Disliking Liam Hunter was something else entirely. Sheila could be envied, resented, criticized, or challenged, but she was still someone they understood. She was noble, composed, familiar, and acceptable in ways Liam would never be to them.

Liam’s presence at the top had felt like a threat. Sheila’s felt like order restored.

The murmurs quickly became warmer than anything heard during the previous announcements. Some students called quiet congratulations. Others looked toward Sheila with open approval, while a few who had once competed harshly with her still seemed almost glad to see her there. It was not applause, not exactly, because the hall still carried the discipline of the academy and the weight of the instructors’ presence, but the emotion behind the reaction was clear enough.

Sheila stood within the crowd, stunned by it.

She had known her peers preferred her to Liam. She was not naive enough to miss that. She had seen the way students responded to Liam’s rank, how they stiffened around him, how they watched him with fear, hatred, or discomfort. She had understood, intellectually, that if she ever returned to rank one, many would welcome it.

But understanding that and standing in the middle of such an obvious wave of relief were two very different things.

For a brief moment, Sheila did not know what expression to wear.

Beside her, Ariana looked at her with a gentle smile, her cracked glasses catching a little of the magical light from the screen.

"It seems they were waiting for you more than they realized," Ariana said softly. "Not because they think you are easier to surpass, but because they trust the kind of strength you carry."

Sheila turned slightly toward her, and for a moment, something warm but complicated passed through her eyes. Ariana’s words were kind, but they also carried truth. The students were not merely celebrating Sheila’s success. They were seeking comfort in what her success meant.

Before Sheila could respond, Mystica Moonstone rose from her seat.

The simple act drew the hall’s attention almost immediately.

Lucia, Regulus, and Kaelen stepped back slightly from the pulpit as Mystica approached with her usual graceful ease, her dark gown shifting around her as though even exhaustion and tension in the hall existed partly for her amusement.

Her eyes were bright, her smile faint and unreadable, and when she reached the pulpit, she looked toward Sheila with an expression that carried both congratulations and the dangerous playfulness that made students unsure whether they were about to be praised or dissected.

"Well then," Mystica said, her voice smooth as it drifted across the hall. "Congratulations, Princess Sheila Granger. A little over three months after dropping to second, you have climbed back to the top."

The words caused another stir among the students, though it quieted quickly as Mystica continued.

"And before anyone decides to reduce that to simple fortune, let me make something clear. Sheila did not return to rank one because someone else made a mistake. She returned because, from the beginning of the assessment to the end, she performed with remarkable consistency in nearly every area being evaluated."

The magical screen shifted fully into Sheila’s highlights. The first scene showed her in a frozen river region of Nalim, the air misty and pale around her as the surface of the water cracked beneath shifting sheets of ice.

Several Feral-class demons moved along the riverbank, their claws scraping over frost-covered stone, while Sheila stood alone with one hand lowered and the other raised slightly near her chest. She did not unleash a massive attack. Instead, a thin line of water rose from the river, froze into several narrow blades, and struck the demons at precise angles, forcing them into positions where a single burst of light finished them before they could fully close the distance.

Mystica watched the screen with visible satisfaction.

"Your affinity control has become far more refined. Months ago, there were moments when you treated your affinities as separate tools, switching from one to another depending on what felt most effective. That alone is impressive for most students, but for you, it was limiting. During Nalim, you showed a much stronger understanding of how your affinities interact. You used ice to restrain, water to redirect, and light to finish or blind when necessary. More importantly, you understood when using all of them together would be wasteful and when focusing on one would be more efficient."

The screen shifted to Sheila moving through a ruined stone bridge while rain fell through the broken canopy above. She used water gathered from the rain to sense movement along the stones, then froze only a narrow section beneath an approaching Horror-class demon rather than the entire bridge.

The creature slipped, and before it could recover, radiant light gathered around her hand and pierced cleanly through its core.

Mystica’s smile deepened slightly. "That kind of restraint matters. Many students with multiple affinities become drunk on options. They believe having more means using more. You are beginning to understand that versatility does not mean excess. It means choosing exactly what is needed and nothing more."

Regulus stepped forward next, his expression still measured, though his tone did not carry the cold edge he had used with Chris.

"In terms of combat performance, you were not the most destructive student in this assessment. Liam Hunter exceeded you in raw destructive output. Asher Hawthorne and Chris Rature produced higher kill counts in certain classes of demons, especially through direct offensive engagement. However, destruction alone is not what determined this rank."

The screen displayed Sheila facing two Advanced Horrors near a collapsed shrine. She did not rush them, nor did she try to overpower them through force. Instead, she used the broken terrain to divide them, freezing one demon’s legs just long enough to create separation while blinding the other with a controlled burst of light.

When the first broke free, she had already repositioned behind a shattered pillar, using water gathered from the damp stone to create a thin barrier that redirected the second demon’s claws away from her body. Her counterattack came immediately after, precise and clean.

"You were precisely efficient," Regulus continued. "You did not chase unnecessary battles. You did not exhaust yourself for meaningless kills. You did not allow pride to dictate your route through the realm. When you fought, you fought with clear intention. When you avoided combat, the decision was made early enough that avoidance remained a strength rather than a desperate retreat."