Class 70 and those from the other classes who had chosen to watch Daru's match instead burst into lively mutters and murmurs, especially the ones whose swordsmanship was at a high-enough level to notice the techniques he utilized, though most only caught the first one.

Even the B-rankers were no exception.

Only Talon, whose heart now raced at the realization of how skilled Daru Finnley truly was, and Sylphina, who was also aware of such techniques and was actively using them, noticed all three.

The young A-ranker found it difficult to deny to herself that even she was shaken.

Although delayed compared to the others, the rumors of Sword Prince Daru Finnley's skills also began popping up in her mind.

She was the Sword Princess of Fellington Sword Institute, a high school just as renowned and famous as Ashton High, if not more.

Being a healthy young lady from an all-girls school, her ears were more sensitive to rumors and gossip, even though she always tried to hide the fact that she cared.

Lynn suddenly felt heavy pressure on her shoulders.

Her father always had high expectations for her, and if she were to be allowed to fail, it would have to be on a bigger stage like the inter-class representative competition, not a mere class representative selection tournament.

To make things worse, it had long been confirmed that Daru Finnley was an F-ranker.

She inwardly shuddered at the consequences of losing.

She simply couldn't, especially not against a lower-ranker.

Sylphina could imagine that the fact that Daru was somehow the only anomaly in history wouldn't help.

Fortunately, she almost instantaneously got an outlet she could vent on: her quarterfinals opponent.

Lynn had never been good at concealing her emotions and had always been very straightforward with them.

If she's in a bad mood, she'll take it out on someone, plain and simple.

The poor female C-ranker, Jelena, who advanced after a tough fight, was ruthlessly beaten down in a matter of seconds, slumping unconscious on the ground and twitching a few times before staying still after being struck cleanly at the neck.

She was carried on a stretcher by the medics like Bao was.

In the fourth and final match of the quarterfinals, Lionbreaker was relatively relaxed compared to Zach and Lynn.

He had never deliberately tried to challenge or antagonize Daru aside from that one time at the beginning of the class.

Furthermore, he wouldn't have to fight the darkest horse of all.

Dylan was in a fantastic mood after everything that happened, especially whenever he remembered how Bao lost composure, raged, and still lost horribly.

He felt vindicated and was able to perform way better than he usually would've, defeating his C-ranker opponent in less than thirty exchanges.

With his victory, the semi-finals were set:

Dylan Schmidt versus Lynn Pemberton; Daru Finnley versus Zachary Jambah.

After yet another fifteen-minute break, the wild semi-final matches of Class 70 would begin.

***

Meanwhile, in the Eleventh Training Field, another wild upset had just occurred.

A purple-haired, female B-ranker had just defeated an A-ranker after a 3-2 banger match, both sides breathing heavily.

However, the A-ranker kept on punching the wooden ground surface of the open-air dojo in utter frustration.

Almost everyone liked Elune Tseradze.

But no one had expected her to actually defeat the expected class representative, Gabriel Kovacic.

Now, the only one who stood in her way was another B-ranker.

Elune's chances of actually becoming the class representative had just shot up to at least fifty percent now.

But with how she was able to win against even an A-ranker, everyone thought it was only a matter of time.

And it was.

Her classmates talked among themselves, some about her beauty and likable personality, but most about the fact that she had been hanging around with Class 55's Cody Han recently.

After the afternoon swordsmanship classes, she would always head over to the Twelfth Training Field and train with the A-ranker from Ashton High.

It was clear that her training was paying off.

However, they couldn't help but wonder what the two's connection was.

Has the Moon Fairy's heart already been acquired?

Since Elune was approachable, even the E-rankers of her class dared ask her about it, but she would always reply with the classic "we're just friends."

Most of her classmates doubted her words.

But what couldn't be doubted was her current skill and seriousness with the sword — something she lacked in the past.

Her "friendship" with Cody Han was bound to blow up in the forums should she claim the class representative position.

***

Sixth Training Field.

The fifteen-minute break had ended, and it was time for the semi-final matches of Class 70 to begin.

Thanks to their instructor's generosity regarding rest time, their class was now lagging behind others in terms of tournament progress.

Class 69, for example, was already about to begin their expected finals match between Iris Snowcrest and Darren Zillman.

They, on the other hand, were only in their first semi-final match.

Lionbreaker stepped forward and faced Sylphina.

This would be the first time he would go all out in fighting his queen, and Dylan planned to impress.

He couldn't waste this prime chance after his rival slipped up and got brutally beaten up.

Resting his wooden greatsword on his shoulders, a fierce flash of competitiveness flashed in Lionbreaker's eyes, and he did something that only hurt his already nonexistent chances:

"Miss Lynn, I've always admired you from a distance," Dylan began, "but this time, I will walk a little closer behind you. I know that you already know my name. However, I insist on reintroducing myself to you. You'll understand what I mean soon."

Lionbreaker felt pumped, believing he just said something mysterious and profound — guaranteed to make the fairy finally pay attention to him.

The words were said from the bottom of his heart, even though he mixed a bit of posturing and pretentiousness in.

He was done hiding his feelings and actively decided to pursue Lynn after scoring at least two points on her.

Who knows?

Perhaps if Fortuna smiled upon him, maybe he would even emerge victorious.

In any case, he realized that merely following the young miss of the Pemberton Family would be futile, and that if he wanted to be taken seriously, then he would have to be bold and decisive with his actions.

He was done playing the safe game.

If he needed to beat Lynn up to capture her heart, then he would do so.

Dylan could imagine how shaken the class queen's heart was from his bold yet mysterious words.

...Except it wasn't.

Lynn didn't speak and merely met Lionbreaker's intense gaze, cringing heavily inside.

She had long known that her two followers had a thing for her.

She would be dumb not to.

However, she had also long been in a secret relationship with someone else, and her heart was not about to be shaken by a few cringeworthy lines.

Zach and his lackeys found it diabolically difficult to suppress their laughter, one of them even letting out an accidental fart due to struggling so much.

Lynn still thought she was hiding the secret well, but her boyfriend had long told his boys.

It was just that they were all pretending not to know.

Lionbreaker's episode was not much different from that of a prancing clown's performance in their eyes.

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