The Boy Who Left the Classroom

The classroom's ceiling fan creaked as it turned, like part of the city's aging machinery, quietly reminding everyone that the seasons had changed. Outside, the leaves of the locust trees rustled in the wind. Sunlight streamed through the windows, spreading a hazy glow across the podium like a thin filter over the long river of time.

It was an ordinary graduation exam, but it might also have been the last time Ryan sat in a classroom at this school. He had handed in his paper early and sat in the second-to-last row, silently watching Teacher Wang pace back and forth at the front. His classmates were still writing furiously. Some frowned slightly, some gnawed on their pen caps, and some kept glancing out the window. Perhaps they would enter the city's top high schools, perhaps move to another city to continue their education, then follow the tracks society had laid out for them. But Ryan—from this day onward, he would no longer take part in that game.

"Ryan, could you come here for a moment?" After the bell marking the end of the exam rang, Teacher Wang closed his lesson plan, his tone as gentle as ever.

The commotion in the classroom had not yet fully subsided. Some students had just breathed sighs of relief, some began packing their bags, while others were still bent over their answer sheets, checking them over. For an instant, everything seemed to return to normal. But for Ryan, something had already quietly snapped. He walked slowly to the podium.

"Teacher," he said, his voice low but crisp.

"I heard you're not planning to continue your education?" Teacher Wang got straight to the point without any preamble. He was an old-fashioned teacher—gentle and refined on the surface, but someone who disliked beating around the bush.

"That's right." Ryan nodded, his tone steady, as if he were stating a fact without the slightest emotional fluctuation.

"Do you know you're in the top ten in the whole school?" Teacher Wang stared at him, lowering his voice. "Your practice scores are more than enough for a top high school. You could even qualify for a scholarship—so why are you giving that up now?"

"I'm not giving up." Ryan let out a soft breath, his gaze calm and resolute. "I'm just choosing a different kind of exam."

"The Hunter Exam?" Teacher Wang narrowed his eyes. It was not as though he had never heard of those words. He had watched Ryan grow up—from a quiet, reserved first-year middle schooler who had been steady and calm, to the intelligent young man before him, sharpness concealed beneath restraint. He had once thought this child would become a scientist, an engineer, or at the very least, an outstanding civil servant. Yet now Ryan said he intended to walk a... completely different path.

"Do you know what kind of exam that is? Do you know its elimination rate? Its death rate?" Teacher Wang pressed him hard, his words carrying undisguised anxiety. "That isn't something someone your age should be touching!"

"It's precisely because I know what it is that I have to go." Ryan looked Teacher Wang in the eye without flinching.

The murmurs in the classroom gradually died down. At some point, the other students had begun listening to the conversation as well. Some strained their ears, while others covered their mouths and whispered, "Is he crazy?" "I heard people die in that kind of exam." "He doesn't seem like that type..." "Though, I've never really seen him hang out with anyone..." "Didn't he get into fights before? I heard he won..."

The whispers spread through the quiet classroom like ripples across water, but Ryan never looked at anyone else. He only faced the teacher who had taught him for so many years. Teacher Wang parted his lips, but in the end, he said nothing more to dissuade him. In Ryan's eyes, he saw that familiar light—the kind that only appeared in the eyes of those "madmen" who truly knew what they wanted and were willing to gamble everything for it.

"I respect your decision," he finally said slowly. "But I hope you understand—the truth of this world is not hidden only on the Hunter Association's maps. If you change your mind halfway through, even two years, three years, five years from now... the school gates will always be open to you."

Ryan bowed once more, then turned and left the podium. His shadow stretched long beneath the setting sun, as if he were giving one final farewell to the large classroom that had carried his youth.

The dinner table was unusually quiet.

His father silently shoveled rice into his mouth. His mother occasionally picked up food, but never once raised her head to look at him. The soy sauce bottle on the table was nearly empty, yet no one reached for it. Outside the window, the night breeze stirred the gauze curtains with a soft rustle, as though an invisible judgment was about to begin.

"The school called me." At last, his mother spoke, her voice slower and calmer than usual. "Teacher Wang said you don't plan to take the high school entrance exam, and that you want to take the... Hunter Exam?"

Ryan nodded. He set down his bowl and looked up at them. "Yes."

"You're crazy." His mother's voice suddenly rose, shattering the balance of the dinner. "You're only fourteen! Do you know what kind of place that is? Have you thought about the possibility that you could die?"

His father did not interrupt. He merely averted his gaze from Ryan and continued eating with his head lowered. He neither opposed nor supported him—he was a pragmatist, and he knew their family had no right to stop a child who had grown up from walking the path he had chosen. Especially when that child had already spent seven or eight years preparing for it before ever voicing his decision.

"Mom, I know you're worried." Ryan kept his voice low, but it was as steady as iron. "But I didn't decide to go today. You both know that I've been training, studying, and preparing for something ever since I was little. I don't want to lie to you anymore."

The anger on his mother's face had not yet faded, but the corners of her eyes were already wet. It was not that she did not understand. She simply did not want to accept it.

"You're not even fifteen yet..." Her voice softened, as though she were speaking to the air. "Other children are still doing homework and eating snacks, while you're going to take an exam where people can die..."

"I'm not other people," Ryan said slowly. "And I'm not the child you imagine me to be. I... know my limits, and I know where I have to go."

His father finally spoke. "So when do you plan to leave?"

"Three weeks from now," Ryan answered. "There's still a registration window for the exam. I'm planning to go a few days early."

"What about equipment? Do you have enough money? Where will you stay?" His father fired off one question after another, as if confirming that this was not his son running away from home on impulse, but a genuine and fully prepared expedition.

"I have everything." Ryan lowered his head and took out a small bag from the drawer. Inside were all the supplies he had saved up over the years: a spare knife, camping rope, dried rations, a simple stove, an old-style Hunter storage scroll, and two train tickets and route maps he had picked up at the secondhand market.

He had planned every last thing.

His father looked at the supplies and could not help giving a bitter laugh. "You're more prepared than I was when I was young and getting married."

In the end, his mother still cried. Her hand kept wiping at the corners of her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let the tears fall. As she cleared the table, she muttered, "Your father nearly fell off a building back then... and I didn't even cry this hard..."

After dinner, his father took him up to the rooftop. They sat side by side beside the water tower as the night wind tossed their hair.

"When you were little, you fell down the stairs once. Your head was split open and bleeding, but you didn't cry." His father spoke slowly. "Even then, I knew you were a child who would never grow up according to the usual rules."

"Dad..." Ryan did not know what to say for a moment.

"Your mother is afraid you'll get hurt. I'm afraid you'll make the trip for nothing." His father sighed. "Neither of us is afraid of you becoming strong. We're afraid you'll regret it."

"I won't."

This time, Ryan spoke with exceptional resolve.

His father looked at him in silence for a long while, then nodded gently. "Go. But remember, being able to endure doesn't mean it won't hurt, and being able to win doesn't mean you'll never lose. When you're out there alone, don't force yourself too hard, and don't trust people too easily. Staying alive matters more than anything."

"I will."

They shook hands, like a wordless passing of the torch between men, and like the unspoken trust between father and son that had long since been established.

In the distance, the lights of Heaven's Arena flickered from the rooftop, like a sword thrust straight into the sky.

It was the highest place in the city, and the first mountain Ryan intended to conquer.

He knew it was only the beginning.