Browsing Student Information, The Gap Between Classes A, B, C, and D

The lights in Room 402 shone brightly, and the environment was spotless. After seeing Sakayanagi Arisu off and ending their evening chat, Bai Mu cast aside every stray thought and devoted himself entirely to reviewing things in solitude. Compared to the lively bustle outside campus, he had always preferred this kind of uninterrupted alone time, where he could control the pace as he pleased.

Just as the room settled into silence, faint sounds of equipment being moved came from outside the dorm door, followed by several measured footsteps.

They were technicians from one of the school's partnered electronics services.

The top-of-the-line desktop, monitor, and full set of peripherals he had ordered from the campus electronics store yesterday had finally arrived for delivery and installation. Advanced Nurturing High School's service efficiency had always been the real deal. As long as you had the points, every kind of service was prompt and efficient—the perfect example of how money could buy ultimate convenience on campus.

Bai Mu opened the door and let them in, silently watching as the staff assembled the components, routed the cables, and calibrated the equipment.

A little over ten minutes later, a desktop computer with every specification maxed out—powerful enough to crush most mainstream gaming rigs on the market—sat firmly in the center of his desk. The display was crisp, the tower ran silently, the peripherals felt excellent in hand, and the entire setup was neat and sleek, with both looks and performance accounted for.

After briefly explaining the equipment's operating precautions and confirming that there were no issues, the installers politely took their leave.

The dorm room returned to silence.

Bai Mu sat down at the desk, expertly powered the computer on, connected it to the internet, and proceeded through the remaining fine-tuning steps one by one. He first disabled the system's redundant built-in programs and optimized its operating configuration. Then he installed decompression software, office tools, data-viewing programs, and a series of other essential applications. Finally, he thoroughly cleared out background junk, locked down system permissions, and eliminated any risk of background surveillance or program lag.

The entire process flowed smoothly, without the slightest delay.

His experience from his previous life, spent dealing with data, projections, and reports year-round, had made him highly skilled at tuning and optimizing electronic devices. His old computer had barely been sufficient for office work, but this brand-new, top-spec machine would easily support him for the next three years. He could even put it through the wringer with a AAA title.

Once everything was in order, Bai Mu picked up the USB drive he carried with him and plugged it into the computer.

The drive contained confidential files he had quietly copied earlier, taking advantage of his work helping Hoshinomiya Chie organize class materials—files covering the entrance evaluations, academic scores, physical data, personality assessments, daily records, and more for every student in Classes A through D across all three grades this year. It even included complete archived files for students from the previous two cohorts.

Bai Mu created an encrypted folder exclusively for himself, imported all the files in batches, sorted and archived them, then opened the master sheet of core data for this year's first-year students. His fingertip clicked the mouse as he began reviewing and breaking down the information item by item.

The name ranked first overall in the entrance examination immediately caught his eye—Ichinose Honami.

Her grades were balanced and outstanding across every subject. Her answers to subjective questions were meticulous, her papers neat, and her evaluations excellent. She had also earned high marks in the comprehensive quality assessment, the textbook model of an all-around honor student. No wonder she had such a steady personality, exceptional organizational ability, and the natural presence of a class leader. Her elite academic foundation was precisely what gave her the confidence to unite the class, earn their trust, and lead them forward.

Right behind her in second place was Bai Mu himself.

Bai Mu was not surprised by that ranking. In fact, he found it perfectly reasonable.

He knew that he had lost a small number of points in Japanese language and modern history, limited by gaps in his knowledge base and unable to achieve perfect scores.

But aside from that, he had received full marks in mathematical logic, comprehensive reasoning, foreign languages, and every science subject. His overwhelming strength in those areas had forcefully made up for his weaknesses in the humanities, keeping him firmly near the top of the grade.

It had to be said that the school's entrance evaluation system was fairly impartial. It genuinely recognized his hard strength. Only during the later class assignment process had personal bias and prejudice been mixed in, forcibly knocking him from the Class A tier down into Class B.

As he continued reviewing the data for each class, the pattern of talent distribution among the four classes gradually took shape in Bai Mu's mind.

Class B had the most balanced overall profile. There were no students with extreme weaknesses in particular subjects, nor were there any monsters who crushed everyone else. Every student's grades, physical ability, and temperament stood at a moderately above-average level. They were steady and reliable, with no obvious weak points. This was also the core reason Ichinose had been able to quickly unite the class and stabilize morale. With no troublemakers stirring things up and no deadweight dragging them down, unity was Class B's greatest advantage.

Class A, on the other hand, was packed with strong students and overflowing with geniuses. There were countless top talents in individual subjects. Sakayanagi Arisu's intelligence rating stood alone in first place by a huge margin. Even though her physical data ranked at the bottom, she still occupied a secure position at the top of Class A through her crushingly superior overall mental ability. Her strength was beyond question.

Class C, meanwhile, had an absurdly uniform style.

It perfectly demonstrated that you could not have both fish and bear's paw: students with outstanding physical abilities and talent for sports generally had terrible academic performance and rough logical thinking, while the few students who studied diligently and had passable academic ability were pathetically weak physically, with no capacity for confrontation. The entire class was sharply polarized, with extreme strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, there was Class D, which had remained at the bottom for years.

At first glance, the data for the entire class was disastrous. Most students ranked at the bottom in academics, physical ability, and social evaluation alike. Their flaws came in every variety, and they had enormous room to improve. They were unmistakably the school's catch-all class, the cannon fodder defaulted into trials by the school.

But Bai Mu's sharp gaze quickly caught the anomaly hidden beneath the data.

Class D appeared to be full of slackers and underperformers, yet scattered among them were several high-quality talents with overall ratings reaching A or B. Their gifts, foundations, and potential were all excellent. They fully possessed the hard strength needed to enter Class A or B, yet they had ultimately been deliberately assigned to the lowest-ranked Class D.

While marveling at the school's outrageous maneuvering, Bai Mu continued scrolling through the list, casually sweeping his gaze across the files of Class D's students.

Then an extremely plain entry, so bland it was practically glaring, locked his gaze in place.

[Name: Kiyotaka Ayanokoji]

[Entrance Score: 50 points]

[Physical Assessment: Average, no outstanding advantages]

[Personality Assessment: Easygoing and gentle, dislikes competition, passive socially, non-aggressive]

The entire file was absurdly clean. There were no highlights, no weaknesses, no special records. It blended perfectly into Class D's sea of mediocrity, so ordinary that no one would spare it a second glance if it were thrown into a crowd.

But what was most strange was that every single one of Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's subject scores was exactly 50 points—just barely passing.

Among the school's 160 new students, some had severe subject imbalances, some had outstanding strengths, some had flamboyant personalities, and some had obvious shortcomings. Everyone's assessment data rose and fell, full of the marks that living people ought to have. Only Kiyotaka Ayanokoji had every subject and every assessment category uniformly stuck at the passing line of fifty points—not one point more, not one point less. The precision was absurd.

How could this possibly be a coincidence? This was clearly treating the entire school as idiots.

Bai Mu cursed wildly in his heart.

If this had been the national college entrance examination, with tens of millions of candidates and such a vast population base, perhaps a freakishly balanced person could really emerge. The world was full of wonders, after all. But there were only 160 people in the entire first year. How could someone appear out of nowhere among barely a hundred people, hitting the passing line in every category with perfect precision and not the slightest deviation?

This flawless mediocrity was itself the greatest flaw.

Staring at the harmless, easygoing, noncompetitive personality evaluation in the file, Bai Mu immediately matched it to a real face in his mind.

He finally realized it completely.

Wasn't this his next-door neighbor?

Interesting.

This was really far too interesting.

Bai Mu leaned back in his chair, lightly tapping the desk with his fingers as a deeply amused smile appeared in his eyes.

With thoughts surging through his mind, Bai Mu casually switched file pages and turned his attention to the complete data of the upperclassmen from previous years. He intended to get a sense of the top fighting power among the third-years while he was at it, further completing his intelligence database.

Third-Year Class A: Manabu Horikita.

The student council president, universally acknowledged as the school's ceiling-level figure—a bona fide max-level, perfect-score player. Academics, physical ability, temperament, organizational skill—he had no weaknesses in any area. He wielded enormous authority and prestige within the school and was the most formidable student in its history. Even among the established powerhouses of the upper grades, no one could rival him.

Bai Mu looked over the nearly maxed-out ratings in the file and silently nodded. This was what a true top-tier Class A student looked like: strength, status, and influence all pushed to the limit, far beyond what ordinary geniuses could compare to.

But just as he flipped through the data, his gaze suddenly stopped on an incredibly familiar surname.

Horikita?

Wasn't there a first-year Class D student named Suzune Horikita?

Horikita...

Looking at that surname, Bai Mu could not help finding it a little amusing.

The characters were far too easy to misread. The beginning looked almost exactly like the surname of the well-known Horii team member, so it was no wonder many people mixed them up at first glance and casually called her "Horikita..." Anyone who had watched Tiga and Classroom of the Elite, step forward.

Putting aside that online joke, the surname itself was rare enough. Looking over their ID photos, their brows, eyes, and facial contours were highly similar. Their cool, sharp features and stubborn expressions were practically replicas. The answer was obvious.

Bai Mu immediately realized that the two were definitely siblings.

He opened Suzune Horikita's personal file and studied it carefully, unable to stop himself from clicking his tongue inwardly.

This girl's academic rating sat firmly at the threshold for Class A. Her thinking was meticulous, and she was exceptionally skilled at solving problems. Her foundation in academic subjects was fully enough for the top tier. Her physical ability was also above average, and her overall aptitude far exceeded the Class D average.

Only one statistic was utterly disastrous, directly dragging down her overall score—social ability, rated a glaring E.

Zero social skills, zero flexibility, intensely self-centered, unable to smooth things over, stubborn and solitary by nature, poor at cooperating with others, and deeply averse to cliques and social maneuvering. She was the perfect lone-wolf template.

It was precisely this fatal social weakness that had forcibly knocked her out of the Class A ranks and placed her directly into bottom-ranked Class D.

Looking at this absurd class placement, Bai Mu truly did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Who would have thought that the younger sister of the student council president—the dazzling figure who held power over the entire student body and stood at the very pinnacle of Third-Year Class A—would be thrown into the bottom of Class D, where everyone slacked off and the class remained at the bottom year after year?

Following Suzune Horikita's situation, Bai Mu naturally understood the ultimate predicament faced by all the hidden geniuses in Class D.

The school had thrown a group of geniuses with A- and B-tier potential into bottom-ranked Class D. On the surface, it gave those at the bottom a chance to rise against the odds. In reality, it was a nearly unsolvable dead end. Under the school's class-promotion rules, the entire class had to advance together. To reach Class A as a class, they would have to drag along a whole pile of deadweight classmates who were terrible at academics, physical ability, and social skills alike.

It was simply an impossible task.

After all, Classes A and B had never been full of mediocre students. They were packed with elites from privileged backgrounds, with outstanding talent and relentless work ethics. They steadily competed and improved among themselves, reinforcing their advantages layer by layer, and would only grow stronger.

For the geniuses of Classes C and D to carry a group of teammates riddled with weaknesses, turn the tide against the odds, and catch up to the top classes was nothing but a fantasy.

The path for those at the bottom to break through had been completely blocked. These geniuses trapped in the mire had only two ways to defy fate, exactly like the brutal and realistic logic behind poor people rising in the real world.

The first path: exploit from within, and fight their own kind.

The few geniuses in Class D would turn their blades on their classmates, frantically accumulating personal points by squeezing those around them at the same level. Once they amassed the enormous sum of twenty million points, they could forcibly buy their way into Class A. Put plainly, it was poor people competing against poor people, weak people feeding on weak people—using the exploitation of their own class to gather enough capital for a class leap.

The second path: attach themselves to the strong and sell themselves passively.

They would abandon the idea of breaking through on their own, actively display their value, catch the attention of high-level powerhouses from Classes A, B, or C, and be bought into those classes at a high price. By relying on the resources and protection of the upper classes, they could complete their class leap and escape the bottomless mire of Class D.

In truth, these were also the two most realistic and mainstream paths for countless ordinary people in modern society who wanted to rise in class. There were no fairy tales and no shortcuts—only naked laws of survival.