But that is just how it goes here. Cor starts to grin. 'Surviving' a surprise gang-up type fight against low rankers grants a middle class student 5 points. If a middle class student manages to reach a total of 100 points they are allowed to fight for a spot in the upper class. This was also what the lower class students where trying to do just now to get into the middle class. They, however, get 5 points deducted each, meaning they have to work a bit again before gaining the right to fight a middle classer again for his position. Now that Cor has 98 points he will soon be able to try fighting an upper classer. For that however, he still has to improve his skills a bit. The points also still have to be added to his badge but there is no real rush for that yet.
But even then it is not enough to be noticed by the scouts yet. After all, barely being an upper classer in a low rank Nature Survival College, or NSC only equates to being at most a middle classer in a middle rank NSC, and they dont particularly need more of those there.
If only the competition was similar to middle- and highschool, it would have been far easier. Back then it was mostly up to pure talent in fighting or genetics, and Cor has plenty of both. Unfortunately, now that he got into an NSC everyone has at least a fair amount of both so now hard work is very, very needed to keep up. It almost feels like the competition to survive in here is worse than in the real nature sometimes! But on the other hand, at least Cor managed to get into a NSC at all. Not everyone is able to feel so focussed on improving instead of surviving nowadays.
Common people are struggling everywhere. Before the Great Change in 2046 at least everyone was still somewhat similar when it came to physical parameters. But who would have known that scientist everywhere where secretly making stronger, more dangerous human specimens in labs.
Well... alot of people expected it actually. In fact, it was surprising that the war between China and Europe had to last for 7 years before the improved humans started being used in combat (back then they where called mutants). But the moment they first strated participating, which in this case actually meant that they where finally released, they immediately initiated the Great Change because they realised that guns and other modern weapons could not stop them. Only bombs and heavy artillery seemed capable of that (and even that is not the case anymore for the absolute elite). Eventually ther war just stopped because the mutated humans, now called the elites, decided to take charge and gain absolute freedom. And nobody could really stop them because they attacked from within. They first took over the army that they worked for and then destroyed most of the machinery capable of hurting them. Although everyone later came to realize that, even if they tried to play it down, that was their first mistake
After taking charge of their armies and forming alliances with each other, creating a new world order went quite quickly. At least, that is what they thought us in elementary school. However, nobody expected the Great Change to soon begin its second phase.