Classroom of the Elite (LN) - Vol 1 Chapter 2.1: The students of class D Part 1

History speaks of a famous Genius... a genius who at the start, no adult whished for their child to emanate.GORT FAIRBANG.That's the name.He was the son of the current village chief, the son who won awards and even headed out to prestigious schools in a grand manner.But one day, a few screws came loose in his head, and he decided to return to the poverty stricken village, throwing away his good cards for the live of nothingness!Crazy! Crazy!He must be insane, many concluded.But what they didn't know, was that this one-in-a-million-year genius, had returned with one sole mission in mind.And that was to SAVE HUMANITY!

In a world where power is marked by glowing runes and monsters bleed through the fabric of reality, **Ryu** is nothing—an orphan with no name, no status, and no hope. Beaten down by nobles who wield their divine-given strength like a whip, he survives on scraps and stubborn defiance.But when a black rift—an anomaly unlike any ever recorded—appears in the dead of night, Ryu faces a choice: die a beggar, or risk everything by stepping into the unknown.Inside, he finds a nightmare. Kolasis, a legendary predator, hunts him through a twisted forest. The rules here are simple: kill or be killed. To survive, Ryu must forge himself into something sharper than the claws of monsters and crueler than the nobles who cast him aside.Yet the rift has its own secrets. The same power that could make him a legend might also break him—if the monsters don’t tear him apart first.

Lives are a currency, and Noah Vines is rich.Reincarnated into the body of a poisoned magic school professor, Noah is given more than just a second chance at life. Every time he dies, his body reforms. With infinite variations of runic magic to discover and with death as a painful soul wound rather than a final end, Noah finally has a chance to wander the lands of the living once again. And this time, he plans to get strong enough to make sure that he never has to wait around in the afterlife again.

Deep below the earth's surface, a mystifying subterranean seascape lurks, an archipelago bathed in inky blackness where suspense and horror hold court. Here lie strange islands and even stranger monsters, far beyond the realms of human imagination. In this domain, mankind is far from dominant; instead, madness and death rule supreme.

Pleading for mercy from the unknown creatures of the deep only leads to a slow, tortured existence. The trapped survivors gradually distort, losing what made them human, both physically and mentally, to the gloom as they remain trapped in this eternal obscurity. Their only hope? A perilous expedition into uncharted sea territories.

Fueled by determination, Charles embark on this daunting voyage aboard his steamship, aiming to reclaim humanity's past glory. Together with his crew, they sought a way out of this hidden sea world, a path back to the sunlit world above, where humans once stood tall.

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I read a few comments from Chinese readers that compared this novel with Lord of Mysteries because of similar elements: Lovecraftian, western fantasy, first industrial revolution, and steampunk. However, I have yet to finish reading Lord of Mysteries to do any actual comparison, but I do think those who have enjoyed that novel would enjoy this as well. Also, the author of LotM, Cuttlefish That Loves Diving, also did a shout-out for this novel, so I guess he approves of it too?

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