"F?"

"For real? How can he be F?"

"As weak as a non-awakener? Is he one?"

"Are you crazy? He has mana."

The students broke the silence and talked with confused faces. This was bad, very bad. I didn't think the average of the class would be as high as it was. Even if I wanted to disguise myself as a support-type awakener, it would be difficult to convince them with this large disparity in rank.

{It's wrong! The machine is inaccurate!}

Was it now?

{You're F+}

As if that's any help!

Mr. Claudio stepped in before the class could break decorum and asked with a slightly exasperated face. "W-what about your awakening? I think the machine can't factor all that in yet."

He just doubled down on my trouble.

Most people learned of their awakener abilities at the age of ten. These awakenings happened in three different ways. The rarest and most powerful, Ability Awakening. It created an ability unique only to the person who possesses it. It is said that the hero who killed the demon king 200 years ago had the ability to absorb other abilities. At a place with the creme de la creme of talents, there were likely a bunch of people here with the ability awakening.

Next was skill or talent awakenings. The Awakening that opened up the doors to a new world for many people and had them venture out to great heights. The hero's right hand and lover from 200 years ago had the talent of Mana. A talent that she developed so far that she could see the structure of the entire world and used it to help slay the demon king. Some awakened talents into specific stats or skills as well.

And the last and the most common type of awakening was Elemental awakening. The simple awakening that gave you affinity to some elements and skills to go with it. Even among the elemental awakenings, the worst was.

"A... Dark Awakening."

"Dark," Mr. Claudio lowered his gaze and repeated the words.

I had no choice, even if I lied here, finding out the awakening of a person was much easier than their stats, especially for an experienced awakener like Mr. Claudio.

"Ahahahaha!" Mr. Claudio suddenly broke into a large bout of laughter. "I knew you'd be a handful since the exams! Good, take your seat. I'm looking forward to your hellish personal development, kid!"

***

Monster anatomy class. A mandatory class shared with students in some research courses and an optional class for students in logistics and like.

The class took place in a wide lecture hall with elevated seats at the back outside of our course's building.

I sat in the very last row of the slightly empty classroom and listened to the lecture with Zachy not too far away. The words of the professor were loud thanks to the mic, but there was no hiding the sounds of the students' whispers.

"F ranked? How does that make any sense?"

"Isn't he just leeching off of the top student then? Look, even now he's shamelessly sitting with him."

***

Gates: Clearance and Expedition class. A class for students in support-type courses and us, the awakener course. The venue was much smaller than the anatomy class but the conditions were similar.

"Look, that guy at the front is the F-ranked kid, right?"

"He specifically went to sit with the top student, what a leech."

"Right, he's totally leeching off of Zachary!"

***

The day's four classes ended at 3 PM, with me changing my seats many times over from the back to the front and the middle. Yet, the word kept spreading right in front of my face. Zachy too continued to sit next to me the entire time without saying much.

Our last class was in the Awakener Course Class 1-A. I picked up my back and stood up from my seat. Kristina Steitz was looking at me with a slightly pitiful gaze. I could only show her a wry smile in turn as I picked up my bag and went out of the class. It really didn't have much use, a bag that is.

On my way, Zachy caught up to me and finally broke his awkward silence from the morning. "Look, don't mind what people are saying, ok? I know what you're capable of—"

"—Pfft." A snicker left me at his words. "You've been worried about the strangest thing," I said and tapped his shoulders. "Don't worry, these things are only temporary. I'll just need to mend my standing with everyone in the class individually and there'll be no problems at all."

Zachy placed a hand on his chest and sighed. "Well, as long as you're doing good."

"Worry about yourself, everyone in the top 10 has the same or greater rank, you know?"

Zachy waved that matter away with a shrug. "I wasn't supposed to be at the top anyway, it's fine. Let's go to the cafeteria instead of the dorm."

"Cafeteria?" I tilted my head. "We can use it despite the dorms?"

"Yeah? Did you not pay attention to the opening ceremony at all? We can also use the restaurant."

I pumped my eyebrows in surprise and went along with Zachy towards the central parts of the campus. The cafeteria was slightly before the central plaza. We stepped inside and saw it only about half filled with students from other courses.

Many of them recognized Zachy, likely from the first year as well. We went up to the kiosks at the end of the room and picked out a dish from the menu. Then, we went up to the counter on the side and received our orders from the staff.

Zachy ordered Pasta al Tonno while I went with a simple bowl of ramen.

As we sat down at a table in the corner of the cafeteria, soft murmurs reached my ears.

"Look at that,"

"Yeah, that's him, right?"

"The F Ranked Leech!"

I guess the problem was slightly bigger than I imagined after all.