“Ah, you first-years don’t need to worry about that yet. It’s still a bit too far off.”
Irina waved her hand dismissively, but she still took the chance to explain what the Degree Battles were.
Each school year consisted of two semesters. Every time a semester ended—after half a year had passed—the school would compile a ranking for the students based on their performance within the academy and their overall results from the major examinations.
There were two kinds of rankings: “Combat Ranking” and “Comprehensive Ranking.”
The Combat Ranking was easy to understand. Each year, using the combined scores from the mid-term and final practical assessments, the school ranked students from highest to lowest.
The Comprehensive Ranking was practical scores plus cultural scores plus extra points. The so-called extra points came from achievements earned inside the school or from completing coursework beyond normal academics, and they made up a very large proportion.
Top 3, 4–10, 11–50, 51–100.
Failing to rank didn’t affect your original benefits, but those who made the list received extra monthly subsidies. Especially at the end-of-semester ranking settlement, there were extremely generous additional rewards for both rankings.
The difference between the two was that the former—Combat Ranking—changed constantly. After the school released the ranking at the end of each semester, anyone ranked lower could challenge someone ranked up to twenty places higher within the three days following a monthly exam or mid-term assessment to steal their position. Whoever successfully defended their spot on the final day of the month would receive the next month’s subsidy, and the final defender at the settlement seven days before the end of the semester received even richer extra rewards.
In contrast, the Comprehensive Ranking never changed. Its sole purpose for being displayed for an entire semester was to settle alongside the Combat Ranking and let students with the highest overall qualities flex for a full semester, encouraging them to keep striving.
As long as you made the list, you received a fixed four-month subsidy plus the end-of-semester bonus.
From another perspective, at the end-of-semester ranking settlement, the Combat Ranking reflected the final results after half a year of changes during that semester, while the Comprehensive Ranking settled the scores from the previous semester.
It could be said that the Combat Ranking favored students majoring in combat who dreamed of becoming knights, while the Comprehensive Ranking was the home field for tech-oriented students like Irina who had no interest in fighting and killing.
The monthly subsidy aside—after all, it was money, a truly enormous amount of money.
But those extra rewards were a whole different story.
So far, except for the first semester of the first school year—because there had been no exams or assessments yet, no scores, and thus no way to rank—
in the subsequent seven semesters, if you managed to enter the list in any given year and reach the top ten at the end-of-semester settlement.
The worst reward on the Combat List had always been a direct school recommendation to become a knight with an exclusive Magitech Knight. The Comprehensive List brought invitations from major national powers in droves; basically, you could directly join extremely high-value institutions right after graduation.
If you could hold the ranking consecutively, the rewards would stack even higher.
Don’t think these rewards sound exaggerated.
Keep in mind that the regional Magic Academies, when recruiting, selected from an entire region spanning several countries and tens of millions—or even hundreds of millions—of local peers of the same age, choosing only those with outstanding talent. The average level of graduates already rivaled the grassroots backbone of most national powers. Those who made the rankings were the elites among elites who had fought their way out of tens of thousands of students—their value was undeniable.
“Then shouldn’t Senior Irina be really amazing? Why do you look like you have no confidence in the Degree Battles at all?”
According to Senior Irina, she should be one of the absolute top students in the third year. Even among fourth-years she would rank near the front. Yet every time the Degree Battles were mentioned, she looked utterly dejected.
“Eh, little junior Laixi, you don’t understand…”
Irina’s face filled with bitterness and helplessness.
“My Comprehensive Ranking really is high, no lie. I first made the list in the second semester of the first school year at 73rd place. Now, in the first semester of the third school year, I’ve climbed to 35th. I’m confident that by the graduating semester I can lock in at least top 10 on the Comprehensive Ranking, and I even have a shot at pushing for top three.”
“But… but…”
As if remembering something painful, Irina’s eyes grew watery, as if she would start crying the very next second.
“But she’s weak! This girl isn’t valued in her family, she has no personal machine, and can only use a teaching machine for the Degree Battles. Think about it—how many of us students who grind away at technical studies have rich magic levels and combat experience?”
Before Irina could finish speaking, Ye Xu’s arm was hooked again. Turning his head, he saw Blake · Wood sitting smugly on his other side with his legs crossed.
Across the lab, Melina · Etels was panting, pointing at Wood from behind the big table in the middle of the room, too out of breath to speak.
In comparison, Senior Riel · Bean had long since silently returned to his own experiments.
“The Degree Battles only allow students to use teaching machines for the matches. Even if you have a personal machine, you have to adjust all its performance aspects to roughly match a teaching machine.” Riel waved his hand toward the lab, and a document on the big table flew over on a stream of mana before Wood stuffed it into Ye Xu’s hands.
“Of course, if you have the ability, you can modify the machine yourself within the fixed framework and values provided by the school, installing higher-precision and more refined weapons to create advantages for yourself. Otherwise, the academic students would be at too much of a disadvantage.”
“But you should also know that this girl Irina isn’t favored in her family. She has no personal machine, and the school definitely won’t let students heavily modify teaching machines. Her own combat talent isn’t actually bad.”
“Compared to direct combat, she’s actually better suited for battle simulation and battlefield planning. This also means her mid-term and final practical exam scores aren’t bad at all. Her Combat Ranking at the start of each semester is relatively high, which leads to…”
The document contained the specific rules of the Degree Battles.
Simply put, it was like skill points and attribute points in a game. Whether you piloted a personal machine or a teaching machine, the machine’s performance and armaments would be strictly allocated according to the school’s set values.
But if you understood the technology yourself, you could modify the machine by hand to reallocate those skill and attribute points, thereby creating favorable conditions for yourself.
However, Magitech Knights were far too valuable. Even teaching machines, the school wouldn’t let students mess with casually. After all, there had been incidents in history where students had ruined their own machines through modifications.
Irina had no personal machine, couldn’t modify one, and her direct combat ability was lacking—yet her Combat Ranking wasn’t low at all.
To those students proficient in combat, what did that mean???
Wasn’t this just a pure, delicious target???
He still remembered the beginning of last semester. After a year of bitter training in the first semester of her second school year, Irina finally made both the Combat and Comprehensive Rankings in the second semester.
She hadn’t even been happy for long before the school’s students gave her a harsh lesson.
Because there was a rule that during one Degree Battle period, a student could challenge at most those ranked no more than twenty places above them. Thus, Irina—who started the semester at 78th on the Combat Ranking—was named and dragged onto the stage to be thoroughly thrashed twice in a single day, directly kicked off the Combat Ranking.
This semester her starting Combat Ranking was even higher, at a lofty 49th. As expected, she was going to get beaten three times in one day.