The selection trials were designed to be fair.
They were not designed for a team that had already been assembled through a dungeon crisis, a seven-bloodline concert, a political hearing, and the particular alchemy of thirteen people who'd decided that their bonds mattered more than their rankings.
The format was straightforward: three days of combat exhibitions, tactical assessments, and faculty evaluations. Each Gold and Zenith tier student could register for consideration. The top performers across all three criteria — combat, tactics, and faculty recommendation — would compose the seven-member team.
The first problem was my ranking.
Gold #41. Respectable for a student who'd been at the academy for seven weeks. Entirely inadequate for a tournament representative. The top forty students were the traditional selection pool — and I was at the bottom of that pool by the thinnest possible margin.
