32 Chapter 32:

"3,2,1, GO!", the computer shouted out, almost deafened by the cheers of the students that had made their way to the observation zone, cheering for their favourite candidate. Some students were of Ace's year, and they had just finished their P.E lessons and were observing, while enjoying their break. Some others were older students that had either skipped class and had come here randomly, or now had a free period for 'self-study'.

Ace dashed across the track, only a bit slower than the other boy, however, while the other boy took a straight right at the first alleyway, Ace kept running straight. As he came across a short wall, he gained momentum by jumping on a pile of rocks of some sort, which allowed him to get over the wall in a clean move, he did not place his hands on the wall when jumping across, forgoing the stability it offered for the increased speed, he landed in a roll, and kept on running, then taking a left. He weaved through various ledges and obstacles, then finally came across his first milestone. It was a wall with a window ledge on it, however, it also had a roof that one could run in, the only problem was that it was nigh impossible to make the jump without any other sort of help, even while running.

Common sense would dictate to use the window ledge, but you would then realise that the body control needed to bounce off the ledge and then reach up was astounding. One needed to convert all momentum into a vertical jump, if you moved forward even one inch, you would knock your head into the roof's ledge, and if that happened, you would most likely lose consciousness.

Ace kept running, increasing his pace, getting ready to boost himself to the roof using the ledge. The people that understood what was happening laughed, not even considering that Ace could pull off the move, the ones who did not, cheered, getting ready to see either an amazing move or an entertaining accident.

Ace lightly jumped and propelled himself on the window, jumping at a perfect vertical angle, and reaching for the ledge with his hands. He made it and kept on running, from there on it was a straight line to the finish, he hopped over various obstacles, gaining momentum and preparing for the final move, one he was not even sure he could pull off, a deep dive front.

A human could safely fall from 6 to up to 9 metres, although it largely varied depending on how you fell, considering a woman fell from 33 thousand feet and survived. The jump Ace was going to attempt was about 8 metres, he had never tried to jump so high, but he felt he could do it.

He knew the exact way he had to jump and the exact way he had to land, he had made extraneous calculations in his head before even considering it. His failsafe was the fact that his body was much more resistant, so if anything happened, he would still be relatively ok, as long as he did not fall on his head or neck.

He had practised the dive front, where you dived from a high place and landed in a front roll - the safest way to do so, but never from more than 3 metres, so it would be an interesting experiment. He continued to sprint down the rooftops, jumping from one to another when necessary, he had no idea how the other boy was doing, but considering the fact that he was older and seemed to come to the course quite often, he would most likely win.

He was 5 metres and closing, he began to count his steps and prepare for the positioning of his foot, he would jump on his right foot, giving him a stronger leap.

'3,4 and…. Jump.'

As he jumped, he extended his arms 45 degrees from his hips, before placing them before him, in preparation for the front roll, he landed, first with his arms then with his shoulder, before finally completing the roll perfectly, an execution that took him right to the end of the course.

Ace got up, as he did, everyone cheered like mad, no one could have expected this outcome, not only had Ace made a crazy jump (for his age), but he had also been able to achieve a tie with the sophomore that currently had the highest rank on the course. He had shown them a new route they could take, as long as they could achieve the crazy jump to reach the rooftops and the astounding dive at the end. They may have drawn, but considering that this was Ace's first time truly racing on the course, most people already considered it a win.

Apparently, so did the sophomore, he came up to Ace with a goofy grin on his face, "Damm, that was crazy, the replays for the propel to the roof and the dive at the end are going to be all over the school net for the next few days!"

The school had its own social media and net, this was set up by the school and parents in order to keep the security and privacy of the students, It was highly maintained, and as students were not allowed to take electronics with them to school, they only had access to Noxias.

Furthermore, if an embarrassing picture of a student was posted, the culprit would have to face the victim's family pressure, but not only that, as well as the School's pressure, the culprit would receive and expulsion on his permanent record which would ruin their future careers, and as per the contract signed when he first applied to join the school. The family would have to pay billions of dollars in fines both to the school and to the victim's family. All of this was of course, without counting the eventual lawsuits that would come from other students' families for compromising the children's privacy and security, and the bad media it would receive. The hellhole that could be dug by the culprit would ensure that no one posted anything they were not supposed to. It kept the school and the student's safe and private, and all families liked it that way.

This meant that students had set up their own social media account, one for each student, were the student could post whatever they wish, follow and friend any other student they wanted, it worked just like any other social media platform would.

The same group had also set up the unofficial rankings, where everyone in school was ranked, nothing in it was official, but it was a good indication, for example, if they said that a student was ranked number 20 in Biology, it was a good estimate as they had probably found out his scores and correlated them with everyone else's, they could not account for all variables, but it was useful nonetheless. They also gave out rewards for various news and information that was then usually posted on the appropriate news boards.

Ace assumed that there were also more private news boards, but not everyone had access to those, the same way that only members of a particular club were given access to that club's private group chat.

This made for an organised school community, where gossip was rampant, and Ace had no doubt that the official recording from his race had already been posted on the boards. Ace was fine with that, any publicity was good publicity, and since his goal was to explore all this school truly had to offer, the more his popularity grew, the more he was prone to discover how things truly worked in the Gold Institute.