Line Hunters

3. Spiritual, Physical, and Mental Rank

"Ian, Baby? Why aren't you awake yet?" Ian's mother lightly knocked on his door and paused. She didn't hear anything and was about to enter when the door opened, and there was her son, awake and dressed for the day.

"Do you need something?" Ian said.

The mother brushed it off. "I thought you were still sleeping so I came up to check on you. Now, come downstairs and eat, the servants have already made your breakfast. I'm heading to work in a few minutes. Have fun on your first day of school!"

Ian headed downstairs and sat at the table. When he took a bite of the pancakes, he was surprised and looked at his plate.

One of the servants noticed and came up to him. "Master Ian, is the food not to your liking?"

"The taste is different," Ian stated.

"Oh, yes. I apologize, but we ran out of strawberry-flavored pancakes and only blueberry-flavored ones were left. I've sent Mina to buy more."

Ian slightly tilted his head in confusion. "Who's Mina?"

The servant lightly coughed. "She's one of the cooks here and is in charge of getting the supplies."

"Hmm..." Ian looked back at his food. "Why are there blueberry-flavored ones? I prefer the strawberry ones.."

"Er... Madam likes to have one occasionally... Young Master?"

At the mention of 'Madam,' Ian had noticeably stopped his movements. "It's nothing."

Then, Ian got up and grabbed his backpack, the rest of his pancakes untouched.

"Wait! Master Ian, it's not good to go to school on an empty stomach, especially at your age, when your body's still growing."

The servant sighed and rubbed his head. He turned around and ordered, "Clear the table and throw the food away!"

High Stone Academy came into sight and Ian got out of the car. The two teachers standing at the school gates to welcome the students were astonished to see Ian, and the other students nearby stole glances as well. Who wouldn't? It was rare to see a gentle pretty face and Ian looked like he came from a wealthy family.

Ten minutes before classes were supposed to start, an announcement was made, and the students were instructed to gather outside, where there were three stone pillars. Amidst the crowd of energetic students, Ian quietly stood alone. A man in a brown suit finally came up and spoke into the microphone.

"Good morning, everyone! I am Connie LaCrow, one of the teachers who teaches magic. I will make this short so you'll have time for your classes. Everyone here knows the process already, and if you're new or coming in as freshmen, you would know too if you went to the orientation and listened to your teachers this morning while they were explaining the process. As you can see, there are three pillars next to me. You were all randomly given a number and I'll call the numbers in order."

The students began checking their numbers and whispered among themselves.

"No way! I'm gonna be stuck here all day?"

"Oh, I'm eleven! I don't want to go up so early!"

Ian looked down at his jacket and saw the number four on the white circle stuck to his jacket. One of the girls saw his number and said, "You should go to the front and save yourself the pressure of walking up with people staring at you."

"Thanks," Ian said.

As he did, Connie continued, "These pillars will test your spiritual, physical, and mental strength. Keep in mind, that your physical strength isn't just based on how strong your punch is, it's also based on your body's capability to heal itself and your immunity to sickness. Your spiritual strength usually indicates how strong your powers are, but it can also show how much potential you have that you haven't reached yet. You can suppress or hide your powers, but this stone will reveal it all."

Ian was a little shocked. How much of his spiritual power would it show?

"All you need to do is place your hand over the stones and after that, you will be given a piece of paper that tells you what special class you'll take based on your performance. With that being said, number one, please come up!"

A boy with spiky blue hair and black highlights walked up, fierce and confident. None of the students knew who he was, but they could make an accurate assumption based on his wild and proud look and his uniform that wasn't properly put on. The boy placed his hand over the spiritual stone, and a transparent white beam with numbers and lines appeared above the stone like a ruler. The highest number was 2000. Then, a blue-green color appeared from the bottom and rose, settling.

The blue-haired boy was displeased that his spiritual power only reached 800, so he was confused while everyone else was amazed.

Connie saw the disappointment and confusion on his face and explained, "The average spiritual power male adolescent have is 400, which is about the average for everyone else. Yours is almost double that! 80% of the population's spiritual power is under 1,000, 10% between 1,000 and 1,500, 9% between 1500 and 1,800, and the little 1% has between that and 2,000. And because there is green light showing, it means you have two or more specialties."

"What's your spiritual power?" a student asked.

Before Connie could speak, someone else answered, "It's 950!"

"Wow! Mr. LaCrow's not just handsome but also strong!"

The man being praised chuckled nervously as he noticed the boy staring at him with a determined look.

The boy pointed at him and said, "I'm not that far behind you, I'll become stronger soon!"

He moved onto the physical strength stone and a red color rose up to 110.

"110 out of 200! That's equivalent to 1100 out of 2000—"

"What's yours?" the blue-haired demanded.

The students giggled at the boy's competitiveness. They didn't mind because they could see the blue-haired boy wasn't looking down on Connie.

"It's 80!" someone shouted.

The blue-haired boy grinned in satisfaction and walked over to the mental pillar. However, he was disappointed and angry when he saw his mental strength was 37 out of 100, equivalent to 540 out of 2000. He looked at Connie.

"It doesn't matter—"

"It's 67!"

The blue-haired boy scowled, and Connie helplessly smiled at him.

"Don't be disappointed!" Connie said. "It's only nine points away from the average of 76% of the population.

"And you're 17 points above it!" the boy retorted bitterly.

"It's actually 21 points!" someone corrected.