The reason is quite simple: Liam is the protagonist. Besides that, another person is next to Liam and Irene.
"Kevin Cole"
The #1 ranked student out of all the first years.
Unlike the other female heroines, who have Liam as their first and only love, at the story's beginning, Irene actually likes Kevin, not the protagonist. Unfortunately for Irene, her love is clearly unrequited, as, like the previous me, Kevin was deeply in love with Lily.
Irene had to watch her first love, Kevin, and her second love, Liam, be stolen away by Lily; worst of all, she couldn't do anything about it. With her easily angered and irritable personality, she was essentially a ticking time bomb.
Channeling her anger into her magic, when Irene inevitably "exploded," she caused millions of dollars of damage to the school's facilities and injured around 10 first-year students by giving them burns.
Even with Irene's background, this behavior was unacceptable, so she was expelled. Her title as the "prodigy" of the magic world was stripped away, and her father was furious with her, banishing her from using magic.
Escaping the control of her father and the fire tower, Irene fell to the dark side, her magic becoming solely driven by revenge.
Revenge on the academy, her father, and everyone for abandoning her. To say she was one of those formidable villains for Liam was an understatement.
Right now, Irene should still be in the stage where she is in love with Kevin, as this is her first time communicating with Liam.
Rather than coming from a hero family, Kevin is the sole heir to the human realm's most potent and top-ranked guild.
Through looting these gates and receiving money from the Imperial family, the Bladebane Legion rose to prominence despite Kevin's dad and the founder not being related to any of the hero's family or any royalty, for that matter.
One would think that due to his father's humble background, Kevin would be down-to-earth and not one of those royal supremacists, but if you were to look at Kevin, you would see that you're entirely wrong.
Holding his chin up high, Kevin gave off an unmistakable aura of superiority. With his massive stature, he seemed to look down on everyone.
"Seriously, how the hell is he 6 feet tall AT 16"
Looks, height, power, and reputation. You name it, Kevin had it—the perfect candidate for the protagonist's rival.
Of course, with so many guilds and heroes existing, there has to be an entity that can control them all and ensure that none use their power for wrong.
This was the job of the Imperial family or "The High Dominion."
The High Dominion had the right to recruit people from the Celestial Academy first so they could poach top talents before any guild could. Alongside this, the Imperial Family is undoubtedly the ruler of the human realm, so they can offer unique perks that attract the attention of almost any hero.
The High Dominion contains over fifteen heroes from the top 100 rankings, including the second rank, making them the most powerful organization, and behind them, it's the Bladebane Legion with 9 rankers.
The main reason why Class A is so attractive is because if you graduate from Class A, you are guaranteed a spot in "The High Dominion."
Since my incident, Liam has been spending increasingly more time with Lily, and of course, Kevin does not like that, so he's currently confronting Liam.
On the other hand, Irene probably has mixed feelings towards Liam. If Liam takes Irene, then maybe Kevin will focus on her, but at the same time, if her lover dislikes Liam.
Anyways, those three will be forced to get along soon. Next week, the Elven kingdom will send some elves to Celestial Academy to build a relationship with the humans as the demons have shown signs of moving again.
The entire class system will fall apart, as it would be too difficult for the school to incorporate the hundred new eleven students. Instead of ranking them as classes, the school will randomly assign students to a class.
Conveniently, Liam, Irene, Kevin, Lily, the Elvin princess, and some other prominent cast members will be together in a class.
To compensate for the loss of the class ranking system, the school will assign each student a ranking number from 1 to 1100, depending on their current power level.
With these new rankings, the school would be forced to make the rankings entirely fair and ignore the status of the students, so Liam would rightfully be placed in the #2 spot.
Of course, there would be some outrage that a commoner could rank so high in the academy, but that would soon die down after Liam displayed his skill in a duel with another student.
I was somewhat curious about my ranking, as Ren would be placed much lower since the rankings did not account for social status. However, the power rankings didn't really matter to me as only the top 10 people received extra perks, so it would be impossible for me to get there without attracting attention.
As for the Class A perks, it will be decided that the 100 students with the most merit points will gain the privileges of Class A.
Recalling some of Ren's memories, I could remember that I had seen both Irene and Kevin occasionally at political events and family gatherings, but besides that, we were basically strangers.
Maybe Kevin held some animosity towards me for trying to chase his love, but now his focus would be on Liam, so I'm in the clear.
Ignoring the confrontation, I exited the gym, and instantly, the cold, fresh air of the wind blew into my body.
"... not as good as the mountain. Wait, no, I don't miss that goddamned cave... do I?"
Recalling my teacher's announcement about clubs from earlier, I pulled out my phone to check out the list.
I already had one in mind; unfortunately, the club contained the entire main cast. But, the pros definitely outweighed the cons in the case of the traveling club.
I can take having to deal with a few incidents if that means traveling across the human and even visiting the elven realm for free.
I returned to the dorm to shower after signing up for the travel club orientation this Friday.
Next, I pulled out my smartwatch to do some online shopping.
[Bloodroot Blossom (3P) : A vibrant red flower that only blooms under the light of a full moon. Known for blood-red petals, the uses of this ingredient are primarily for recovery and relieving muscle cramps]
[Moonshadow Leaf (2P) : Found in the deepest part of the enchanted Elven forests, the silvery leaves glisten under the night sky. Though the ingredient is rare, its use is limited to improving mental clarity and dispersing emotions for a short time.]
[Ironbark Moss (2P) : A dense dark green moss that grows on the sturdiest of trees, the Ironbark tree. The moss is tough and resilient, and while being relatively common, the ingredient is quite helpful in improving your endurance for a short while.]
1 Gold coin correlates to 1P, so if I add in the money I got from that djinn earlier, I have around 23P.
While these ingredients may seem completely unrelated, it is discovered later that when these 3 ingredients are combined, an advanced training potion that increases all stat gains by 15% is made.
While this wouldn't be as important as training potions had existed before, the cost of these ingredients was significantly lower as an advanced training potion typically costs around 100P. Not only is its price significantly lower, but the potion also heals all your fatigue after a night of sleep.
These ingredients would be a good investment as their prices would quadruple, but the new potion recipe would take around a year to be discovered, and I wasn't going to wait that long, especially when there were better options.
After buying two of each ingredient, I patiently waited for an hour until my dorm bell rang. Looking outside my door, I could see a drone with a package hanging from it.
Taking the package inside, I opened it to see the 3 ingredients. Going into my relatively small kitchen, I grabbed a chemical bowl that was supplied by the academy and brought the ingredients above it.
After crushing each ingredient and allowing the juices and liquid inside to fall into the bowl, I mixed it for about 10 minutes until the liquid inside the bowl was dark blue.
As expected, my ability to make potions was terrible, so instead of giving a 15% boost, the potion only gave me a 7.5% boost. Well, it's better than nothing.
In the future, though, I would definitely need an alchemist.
Next, I poured the potion into a water bottle and set it aside for my training session tomorrow.
Next week, after the Elven Academy exchange, the main storyline would start to pick up, so I didn't have any time to waste.
I would have to get stronger if I didn't want to be one of those side characters who randomly died to a djinn or a monster.
My goal was simple: Reach Intermediate Dagger Mastery, acquire a decent dagger art to begin training, and increase my stealth stat by upgrading from novice assassin.
While my stats were low for a Celestial Academy student, there was no reasonable way for me to increase them at once, so it would have to be gradual progress. Simply going to the gym and working out once or twice daily would be enough.
Putting my trusty daggers in my school backpack, I slumped down on my bed, exhausted from the day's work, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
---
"Oh hey Irene and Kevin, what do you two need!?"
" *TSK* I heard you've spent time with Lily lately. Let me just let you know that she's doing it out of sympathy; don't get any wrong ideas or let it go to your head."
Somewhat confused by Kevin's clear insult, Liam chose his words carefully before responding. If he were to insult Kevin, there would definitely be consequences, as he is just a mere Class D student.
"Ah, thanks for the advice."
"You're lucky that idiot Ren went and did something stupid. I swear that guy has a condition or something."
At the mention of Ren's name, Liam's expression darkened a bit. That guy did randomly attack him for no reason, and somehow, he wasn't even expelled. Liam had thought Ren could be plotting another scheme against him, but when Liam tried to confront Ren during class, he was completely ignored.
After giving one last disdainful look to Liam, Kevin left the training hall with Irene following him like a puppy.
Seeing that the two people in front of him had some connection to Ren, Liam called out.
"Hey, do you know if Ren would be plotting anything?"
Without turning around to face Liam, Kevin chuckled briefly before responding.
"Knowing that idiot, he's already devised some master plan. You don't have to worry; that guy is way too goddamn stupid. Nothing he made would work."
Somewhat reassured by Kevin's words, Liam returned to training his sword art on the dummy.