"Breaking news! Breaking news! Principal Bruce Pang has just accepted a five on five friendly mecha battle challenge against the Glorious Sky Mecha Pilot Academy! It would be our fifth years versus theirs!" An over-excited third year ran out into the field, screamed loudly at the top of his lungs, and then disappeared as quickly as he came.

However, even though he was gone, the wave of excitement he brought with him instantly infected everyone in that field.

"Five on five battle against Glorious Sky Mecha Pilot Academy! The top ranked Aerial Mecha Academy in the country! I assume it will be an aerial battle??"

"Of course it will be an aerial battle! Their land and sea based mechas are pure crap. Bruce Pang will never waste our time by sending us to useless competitions!"

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god. This is so epic! I heard my big bro say that we've always consistently, and I mean CONSISTENTLY, lost to them in terms of aerial combat! This friendly challenge will be anything but friendly!"

"Damn right it won't be friendly! My big sis is in her fifth year, and she had been going on non stop about wanting to win the Aerial Mecha Trophy in this Tri-annual Inter-School Mecha Competition for the WHOLE six week holiday! Everybody is fired up about the Aerial Mecha Tournament this year!"

"I heard their fifth year Ace Pilots, Hu Lin Tao and Xia Jing had been scouted by the Black Knights of the Chinese Federation Air Force!"

"Xia Jing! She is super pretty! She is the prettiest girl in the Federation!"

I instantly got all the information I needed to know about the Glorious Sky Mecha Pilot Academy by just listening to the kids gossip about the news.

Their excitement was so thick and palpable that I felt as though I could touch it! The atmosphere was instantly electrified.

Even Instructor Blackwood was affected.

"Hohoho. It's just the third day of school, and the first challenge has already arrived? The other academies sure are impatient. They can't wait to give their students more pressure so that they can improve rapidly before the Preliminaries of the Tri-annual Mecha Tournament!" He said with shining eyes.

"The first challenge? Preliminaries? So you mean.."historical

"Yes! There will probably be lots and lots of challenges this year! And maybe even some at your level! And all that even before the preliminaries set to take place three months from now. Of course our National Mecha Pilot Academy won't have any problems at all with the preliminaries. We usually field our third stringers for that.

But every battle is very valuable experience for greenhorns like you guys.

So make sure you focus on your lessons and improve yourselves! Who knows you might just be selected to represent our academy in a challenge against another school!" Instructor Blackwood said loudly to encourage us.

Of course everyone was excited.

We were kids, we lived to compete with each other and to one up each other.

To have the chance to compete against other academies and show the rest of the country how awesome we were was something extremely appealing to us.

Even I was excited.

"The friendly competitions and the preliminaries will be officially graded and each participant would receive Competition Points which would go towards your ranking systems! Don't forget that you are all currently listed within the National Youth Pilot Ranking and the local National Mecha Pilot Academy Ranking!" Instructor Blackwood said.

"Oh my god. That's right! Rankings! I completely forgot about them! Let's go to the Ranking Valley later during lunch to check our ranks!" A boy shouted loudly.

At the mention of the Ranking Valley, all of the kids burst into excited chatter.

The first two days of school were so intensively exciting that we had all forgotten about rankings!

"Hehehehehehe." I laughed gleefully in my mind.

(Picture Anya's signature smile from Spy x Family lol)

"I am definitely ranked first in this batch! And very very high up in the local academy ranking! And in fact, I am probably among the top in the National Youth Mecha Pilot Ranking too! The juries and judges were probably extremely impressed by my "secret technique" which made me extra strong and extra resistant against my enemies!"

I was very confident that I did very well. Who wouldn't, after doing what I did?

And so you could imagine my shock around three hours later when we checked out the Ranking Valley.

"What the heck? I am ranked 28,347th in the academy??? Impossible!!" I shouted with my eyes bulging out in utter disbelief and no small amount of frustration.

My bubble of gleeful anticipation of seeing my name right at the very top of the list was popped in the worst way possible.

Not only wasn't I ranked first, I was ranked so low that it took my extra sharp eyes a full minute just to find my name near the bottom of the list!

"This is ridiculous. There is no way Justin is ranked so low. This ranking board must be broken! Let's find a teacher and report this!" Roland Hu said loudly.

"Broken? Ha! This massive ranking board is a marvel of technology! It is linked to all the teachers' TeachLinks and will update in real time! It is linked to three backups in three completely different servers in three separate networks.

If there is any discrepancy in information, full time technicians working around the clock will instantly tackle the issue.

There is no way all four systems are faulty at the same time on the same student." A thin and weasely faced Rushblood clan member shouted happily at Roland and me.

"Face it! Your rank is that low! Your status as Champion is probably being revoked right now, and replaced by Cheater! Hahaha!" His ugly and equally weasely faced friend laughed at me as well.

I glowered at them and wondered if smashing their faces in right there and then would be worth the trouble I would get into.

But at that moment, a sleepy faced Elder came out of a nearby small maintenance building and approached us.

The Ranking Valley was a very important place that was revered by all students.

There was almost a sacral atmosphere within it.

It was located in a real valley between two mountains at the front end of the academy's sprawling estate, and so it was within walking distance for us.

Within the Ranking Valley was a massive screen that was at least a hundred meters wide and twenty meters tall!

There was a massive assembly field that doubled as a mini mecha battle arena in front of it, and a couple of maintenance buildings nearby.

All five major ranking systems were located there, and we can all keep track of the ranking of every single member of the academy, staff and students alike.

Unlike the original rankings, it was an active-only ranking that took away all retired and historical figures.

The numbers attached to the rank though, were the ones that included the historical value, so as not to confuse us.

The National Mecha Pilot Academy Ranking system was right at the edge of the screen, and it was where we were gathered at that time.

The sleepy faced Elder that came out of the maintenance room was dressed in a regal black Elder uniform and despite of how sleepy he looked, managed to cause my senses to tingle a little.

There was a faint sense of bloodthirst emanating from his very being, and I could sense it very clearly.

I knew without a doubt that before me was a man that could butcher all nearly five thousand of us without missing a single beat.

He took a glance at our excited faces and guessed that we were first years.

"Hello cute little first years! I was wondering when you guys would show up. My goodness, you first years this time are so uninterested in rankings huh? Took you three days to get to this place! It's a brand new record." The sleepy faced Elder sighed deeply.

"In the fifteen years I've served as a Ranking Elder in charge of the Ranking Valley, your batch by far took the longest to come here."

"Ranking Elder! Wow, you're the famous Elder Chen Jun that killed hundreds of rebel mechas by yourself in the Dark River Uprising more than twenty years ago!" Barrick Rui shouted in a rare moment of excitement.

"Wow! What do we have here? A very well learned student!" Elder Chen Jun beamed his sleepy face at Barrick and gave him a wide smile.

"Your exploits are legendary, Elder Chen Jun! Of course I know about you! I've studied all satellite footages of your final battle, and I just can't get enough of it. May I schedule an interview with you?" Barrick Rui, in true information gatherer fashion, instantly tried to secure his source of information!

However, at the mention of the final battle, Elder Chen Jun suddenly paled slightly, and then turned back into his building without a single word!

"Huh? What was that about?" I asked curiously. "I thought he would be giving us a brief explanation of the ranking systems and everything. And I wanted to ask why the heck is my ranking so low! Why did he just turn away like that without a word?"

"I think you just touched something he was trying his very best to forget." Jack Yang said to Barrick Rui.

"His final battle was classified information apart from whatever I just said. I think he lost a lot of his mates in that battle.." Barrick Rui said softly with a contemplative look on his face.