As the commanding aura of the man enveloped the surroundings, a hushed silence fell upon the millions of youths gathered in the area.
Atticus, fixating his gaze on the airborne figure, narrowed his eyes slightly.
Amongst the information he had gathered about the other families, he had also found out some information about the Paragons.
To be honest, all these 'information' he had gathered was simply by searching the web. Due to everything that had happened and him spending practically all his time training, Atticus hardly ever had time to spend on devices.
He sometimes even forgot that this world had the web. But, of course, due to security reasons, getting expansive information regarding each family was impossible. But getting general information was still very much a possibility.
This man currently floating in the air was the paragon of the 10th tier one family in the human domain, a man known for his mastery with the sword, Aric Stormrider.
This Stormrider family was the only family that was not actively controlling an entire sector.
Becoming a paragon automatically makes you able to join the paragon council and establish your own tier one family.
But instead of doing this, he chose not to establish a family and instead become the 'principal' of the academy.
The accurate word to portray his position would be that he was the one the paragon council unanimously chose to handle the academy.
The only reason he was chosen was because of his decision not to establish a tier one family of his own. But of course, he answers directly to the paragon council.
Amongst the paragons that Atticus had searched about, he wasn't able to get any information about Aric's bloodline.
The only information he was able to get was that it dealt with swords, nothing else. And seeing the army of sheathed swords around the man, Atticus was able to see why.
Aric swept a gaze through the area, seeing all the millions of youths present. His eyes momentarily stopped for a moment on a select few, mostly at the tier one area.
But as he got to Atticus, his eyes came to an abrupt stop. He observed Atticus for a few moments, moments that every single youth in the area couldn't fathom.
'Interesting,' he thought.
Then suddenly, he threw down something towards the area where the tier one youths were gathered.
Atticus focused his eyes and saw that what Aric had thrown was the form of a young boy. The boy was descending at a fast speed, and everyone watching was very sure that he was going to have a rough landing.
However, as he got close to the ground, the boy landed quietly, shocking some of the youths in the area.
Everyone in the area turned their gazes towards the boy who landed. There was only one way to perfectly describe the boy: the younger version of Aric.
He also had different sheathed swords surrounding his waist, a huge broad sword on his back, and a crown of brown hair adorned his head.
Seeing this boy, some of the youths started murmuring.
"Hey, isn't that Kael Stormrider, the grandson of Lord Aric?" a voice asked.
"Yes, he's the one. Is he also turning 15 this year? If he's participating, I guess the first position is already taken, huh?" another said.
"I heard he is already at the advanced+ rank," another added.
But the boy, Kael, who everyone was talking about, remained unfazed, his expression bored. It was clear to anyone watching that he really didn't want to be here, as if he was being forced.
Atticus also turned his gaze towards the boy, Kael, but as soon as he did, Kael suddenly turned and locked eyes with Atticus for a second.
'Hmm?'
Then almost immediately, Kael removed his gaze away from him and turned to face his front.
'Advanced+ rank, huh,' Atticus thought.
From what he had seen so far, amongst the group gathered, most of the tier one family youths were intermediate+ rank; only a select few among the groups were Advanced rank.
And if this was the average of the talented tier one family youths, the rest of the youths were sure to be lower.
But this boy was currently an Advanced+ rank at 15. Which could only mean one thing: he was incredibly talented.
Atticus could understand why everyone was saying the first place was taken already.
Atticus was currently using 'conceal' to appear as an Advanced+ rank. He had done his findings and found out the rank he could show to the public that wouldn't be too high that everyone would want to know his secret, and wouldn't be too low that he would be looked down upon.
But even then, most youths in the area wouldn't be able to tell his rank. Only those who had awakened their perception were able to tell the rank of an individual. And most people in the human domain only awaken their perception at the Expert rank.
There were only a few people currently present that Atticus suspected had awakened their perception already, the Enigmalnk family youths. They all had bloodlines focusing on intelligence, so it was a given they would all awaken their perception early.
But from a look, none of them even cared enough to scout out their competition. It looked like they all had their hands full with simply standing there.
So basically, no one except a few knew Atticus' 'rank', which could explain why they all regarded Kael as the winner already.
"Welcome, youths," as soon as Aric spoke, everyone immediately went silent. His voice wasn't loud. In fact, it felt as though he was talking to a friend in front of him, but even then, every single one of the millions of youth sprawled across the large expanse heard him clearly.
"As most of you already know, my name is Aric Stormrider. And I am the principal of this academy."
"I shall skip the useless talks. All you need to know for now is that this academy was founded for one thing: to turn every single one of you into warriors."
