Derrick was never really one to pay too much attention to details, by his own admission he could barely remember the alphabet of his own language.
He was the type of person to miss all the side missions in a game just to finish the main story faster. In kinder terms, Derrick was not very observant and in less kind terms he was lazy.
He would have been just another nameless commoner in the great capital of Aserx if not for his innate spirit being a "lucky mutation" that was found by a passing traveller and tested to show that he could become one of those magical and terrifying kei masters.
Naturally, upon finding out his personality, his newfound teacher and mentor helped him to hone his skills and instincts to take advantage of these otherwise useless characteristics.
As a mixed human with a faint dwarf bloodline, Derick could be considered the pinnacle of dullness when placed in almost any crowded events.
Poor Derrick was naturally stunned. After all, for a smaller half of his childhood Derick did not even think about what his life would be like in the future, so of course, it came as a great shock to him when he found out from his parents that he would be doing this so-called kei cultivation.
Why would he want to get up before even the sun woke up just to breath in an uncomfortable position?
Not to mention, the mentor had told him that his talent was only barely enough to make it into Heaven and that other kids were already a few years ahead of him in that awful routine.
And that alone was a mystifying statement in itself for the young boy. As far as he knew, a few years before that he would have been only 5 years old and he was almost certain that no kid could possibly wake up that early.
Thinking fondly back over memories like that, Derrick for the first time really wished he could go back in time to hit his younger self until he was practicing all day every day.
If his younger self had seen kids his age with auras more powerful than the strongest adult soldiers in his home district Derrick knew he would have been startled out of that wasteful mindset long ago.
While Derick knew his personality, after training with his mentor since the age of 8, Derrick had long ago figured out that even the most problematic personality could turn into an advantage if the proper discipline was instilled and the proper fighting style found.
A coward could turn into the most terrifying assassin, a narcissist could become the best music master.
All these and more had been drilled into him by the mentor, and it was only now, as Derrick sat in the spacious auditorium after barely surviving the random pressure that suddenly appeared and covered everyone that he finally began to understand some of the things the mentor had always told him.
A collective clearing of voices sounded, interrupting the internal dialogue Derrick was going through and causing him to look up by instinct.
It wasn't until he saw the four figures wearing teachers' robes that happened to be matching colors to the four explosive pressures that appeared earlier that Derrick finally got a clue as to what was going on and suddenly understood what had just transpired.(Chapter 3)
One of the first and most important things Derrick's mentor had taught him when he first became his pupil was how to use his strengths.
Unlike what he thought and was told all his life, the mentor taught him that by using a couple quirks brought about by his personality Derrick could, with extremely strict and repetitive training, learn to pick out the main details of any situation or environment and use that information to build a complete picture with varying accuracy.
This may not seem too useful but he has seen the mentor play with rogue cultivators and lead them by the nose without ever touching them by using this simple trick.
Of course, Derrick was nowhere near the level of mastery over himself or his technique that would allow him to do the same things the mentor did
with ease.
What he could do though was use context clues to an extreme level. Sounds lame, and to be fair the process behind it isn't really mystical in any way but it did lead to him realizing that for one, the pressure was a test and that test was far from over regardless of what the teachers may say.
He also noticed that even in the class of approximately 50 people, which it must be remembered was already a much smaller number than the hundreds that were around earlier, there were still too many weaklings from the little kei aura he could sense from some of them.
Before he could continue to decipher the situation he had found himself in, he saw the woman wearing purple step forward.
Listening to her, his expression steadily became more serious and by the time she had mentioned the "Hell Month", Derrick was seriously wondering how many people would even make it through. By his best estimates, it would already be the best case scenario if half of the remaining students managed to get past this first month.
Derrick was suddenly hit with an anxious feeling, it churned in his gut and caused his blood to start moving faster. His instincts were suddenly screaming at him.
Sweating Derrick had only enough time to register the feelings from his instincts. Before he could even begin to question what had happened, and before he could take any counter measures to change the outcome, it was already over.
The Elven teacher in purple, who had introduced herself as Levina, had already waved her hand. A small point of purple lightning condensed on her outstretched finger, quickly blossoming with a small flick from her hand that landed right above the floor.
Astonished, Derrick could only watch as the light flared and faded down revealing a ten foot by ten foot platform that could only be a platform to fight on according to Derrick's previous conjectures.
Motioning around the room she addressed the class once again. "Now that everyone is properly awake we the teachers have a tradition we will let you in on now. Since everyone here has the bare minimum talent needed to excel, We the teachers of the Heaven Class have started making a ranking list for the students on the first day." Teacher Levina spoke with a smile, but Derrick could tell that things weren't as simple as they made it sound.
"Naturally, in order to ensure that all of the students give their best effort during the duration of the Hell Month every week we will be eliminating the bottom five on the rankings from the Heaven Class." When Teacher Levina spoke till this point the entire classroom seemed to freeze.
Thankfully all the students who had made it to this point were somewhat intelligent and knew not to burst into outrage.
Levina smiled even brighter upon seeing that, "Ah it's wonderful to see we have so many calm heads on the first day. Last year's students didn't have the same quality I guess that explains why they all ended up failing out of the Heaven Class." Again, Derrick and nearly every other student in the auditorium had to hold back from jumping out of their seats.
Seeing the smile on her face, Derrick shivered slightly, he now could tell that Teacher Levina was the scariest of all the teachers present just based on the others' reactions to her smile.
Not giving anyone a chance, a small tender hand, the smoothest and fairest Derrick had ever seen in his life until that point shot up from the middle aisle. A pretty elven girl with long silver and icy blue hair with eyes just as cold soon stood up after receiving permission from Teacher Levina.
"If it is ok with the teachers, I would like to start the battle." the girl spoke confidently, and judging by her mannerisms and expression she must be part of royalty somewhere.
Derrick had to give her credit, it was a good plan to establish your own dominance first, that way if everything worked out well then others would be subconsciously moved to not try and target her later.
It was too bad for her though, that the teachers had likely seen similar things too many times to count and had a ready made answer to disrupt her momentum based on how they looked at each other with amusement.
To Derrick's great surprise, they let her plan go and Derrick watched her turn and point at a student seemingly at random. He could tell she had done it on purpose though, which meant others could too.
Nevertheless, the calculating elf girl went up to the stage that continued to sparkle quietly, and coldly looked at the boy who she had called out to fight.
The boy was of a strange breed to Derrick, he had caramel skin, silver spiked hair, and dangerous looking green eyes. All in all he looked to either be a bastard of a big royal family, or from a smaller family that declined.
That was fairly normal but what wasn't normal to Derrick was that he couldn't read the boy. He looked normal from all angles if not a bit handsome, but that was it. There was no one who didn't have any unique quirks, so the fact this boy didn't portray any could only mean Derrick wasn't strong enough to see them.
The boy, who had seemed surprised to be called on, turned his head at the exact moment when Derrick tried to probe his kei energy level and looked him dead in the eyes.
Derrick, who prided himself on his analytical ability, could tell that he had just been seen through completely and he jumped up from his seat at the surprise.
He completely missed the boy's reaction as he was instantly embarrassed by his blunder, he didn't dare to raise his head and sat back down hopping the teachers would not comment on his small transgression.
Thankfully, they seemed to have expected something similar and Teacher Levina just gave a small laugh and shook her head at the Derrick.
By the time Derrick dared to lift his head, the boy had already reached the platform and seemed to be talking to the teachers and ignoring the girl entirely.
"What a strange guy," Derrick thought and watched as a consensus was reached and both students leaped away from each other. When they reached either end of the platform they began the fight.
On the boy's side, a single black chained door, awash with shadows and lightning covered in patterns with a dragon's insignia appeared. Derrick was stunned, this level of talent was said to be one of the best, in other words the boy was a born Duke.
Feeling a little bad for the pretty elf girl, Derrick turned his head and nearly had a heart attack. The girl had two doors! Two doors could only mean that she was a holder of twin innate spirits, something arguably more impressive and rarer than even being a born Duke talent.