The Devil’s Cage

E Block, 1st floor of the teaching building.

Unlike E5, which was used as a temporary welcoming hall for freshmen, E1 was much bigger, able to fit almost 3,000 people at once in its hall.

Despite the spacious venue, E1 floor was quite crowded at the moment.

Kieran couldn’t help but raise his brow at the crowd.

He saw more students today than the welcoming dinner, which had less than one tenth of the current number.

“A lot of them are transient students. They didn’t take the entrance exam, but were able to fork out a large sum to sponsor the school. They’re allowed to stay and receive teachings but they won’t get the same rights as normal students.”

Standler walked over and explained, spotting Kieran’s questionable gaze.

Kieran nodded in realization, not caring anymore.

The school in the Union back in real life had a similar system, but Theorate upheld it in a harsher way.

Or rather, the food that matched one’s body had value far larger than he had expected.

“Sir 2567, your first speech is beginning soon, this is your script,” Standler handed over a pile of papers.

Kieran simply flipped over the script, which had almost 10 pages with many words written on it. Kieran frowned hard.

He knew he had to give a speech as First Seat during the class distribution but not this long.

“Please follow the script accordingly. This is the most powerful speech that I’ve gathered. It accumulates all the speeches from previous First Seats and as long as you read accordingly…”

“Is it mandatory for the First Seat to read a speech?” Kieran interrupted Standler and asked.

“No, but…”

“Okay then,” Kieran waved his hand and stopped Standler again, walking up to the little stage. It was actually a round, wooden platform rather than a proper stage for a speech.

Around a meter wide and sufficient for a person to stand on it.

Kieran jumped onto the wooden stage and grabbed the mic from Maica, who had been waiting for his entrance.

“Good afternoon everyone.”

The moment Kieran jumped on the stage, he had already attracted the attention of the crowd and when he spoke through the mic, every single pair of eyes was on him.

All the freshmen were very curious about the legendary First Seat but soon, their curiosity was replaced by astonishment.

“The class distribution begins now.”

After that, Kieran passed the mic back to Maica and jumped off the stage.

The crowd was flabbergasted.

That’s it? That’s the speech?

Shouldn’t there be a generous, motivating speech?

What is going on?

The crowd looked at each other in utter shock.

But soon enough, distinct cheers erupted from the crowd, followed by thunderous applause.

Independent characters were everywhere at any time, especially in a school where some of the protected students neglected the rules, ignored people’s gazes, and did that they thought correct.

The same thing was happening right now. They thought Kieran did good, so cheers and claps followed.

A few of them started the cheers and claps and many others in the crowd joined their ranks.

Teenagers were always easily influenced.

The claps swiftly spread outside the hall and the teachers, who were paying attention to the class distribution session, felt a bit surprised before it turned into bitter laughter.

“Such heavy applause in his first speech… 2567 is much more capable than we imagined. eh?” Senile asked his colleague.

“Mmm. Ommm. Mm,” Leonard replied in a muffled voice because he had a cream puff in his mouth. Senile looked at his colleague with a judgemental gaze full of dissatisfaction.

Noticing his colleague’s dissatisfied gaze, Leonard shoved the bag of cream puffs into Senile’s hand. Senile grabbed two and stuffed them into his mouth without the least bit of courtesy.

“Not bad. The cream tastes good,” Senile commented honestly.

“The oven needs to be modified, the tenacity isn’t there,” Leonard added.

While the two teachers were discussing the cream puffs, Standler ran over.

“What’s wrong Standler?” Senile asked.

Standler wasn’t a stranger to Senile because for the past 2 days, he had been dealing with the freshman, who was working on behalf of 2567, despite it all being 2567’s duty.

“Sir 2567’s speech has ended,” Standler hesitated for a second before telling the truth.

“What did you say?”

Senile and Leonard were both stunned.

“The speech is over, so both Teacher Senile and Teacher Leonard are requested to instruct the class distribution,” Standler mustered up enough courage to deliver the message to the two dumbstruck teachers.

When he was interrupted by Kieran earlier, Standler had a feeling that this would proceed badly but never did he think it would turn out this bad.

The estimated 30 minute speech was shortened to a mere 10 seconds and it completely disrupted the class distribution procedure.

What was worse was tht Standler was held responsible for the messed up class distribution ceremony. Any mistakes he made here would be reflected in his academic scores!

It was just the start of the first semester and Standler was already risking a deduction in his academic score. He felt terrible. If he had a chance to redo this, he would choose to enter E5 teaching building last and never appear before Kieran.

“Interesting fella!”

While Standler dealing with his anxiety, Senile smiled and tapped his colleague’s shoulder, “Let’s go, it’s our turn to perform.”

Leonard opened his mouth slightly but no words formed. He walked into the hall with Senile.

Standler followed the two teachers closely.

When the three of them returned to the hall of the teaching building, the distribution of books was near its end.

‘Basic categorization of meat’.

‘Basic usage of spices’.

‘Basic agriculture and plantation methods’.

‘Basic knife skills and control of fire’.

‘Maintaining cooking utensils’.

…

Book after book, almost twenty books were neatly placed beside Kieran. He skimmed through all of them briefly before turning to Senile and Leonard.

The two teachers were holding test tubes and syringes to start the most important part of class distribution: the blood test.

Or more precisely: talent test!

As time passed, methods for testing talent had evolved from crude and simple to meticulous and systematic analyzation. A hundred years had gone by since modern methods were introduced and Theorate was the eminent school in this particular field.

The school’s large research system would not just determine what kind of food a student liked based on the blood type, it could even cook basic food that matched well with a student’s talent.

The class distribution was the most basic of procedures but not absolute.

There were many exceptions and one of them was Kieran.

“Where do you want to go?”

Senile asked after he passed the blood sample to Leonard.

“Cafeteria!” Kieran answered without a second thought.