When I first received the invitation letter to GEN Academy, I knew I had to go. It was a famous school that gained a global influence reaching all the way here in my country, the United States of America.

The biggest hurdle was learning the Japanese language, but I was determined to pick it up during the holiday. When I was born, I was a competitive person, so to beat everyone else, I had to learn things faster than everyone else. As a result, picking up new skills and knowledge became second-hand nature to me.

However, I had learnt the hard way this mindset wasn't correct. Instead of doing things to beat other people, I began to do things to help other people. As a result, my own skill began to grow even more than when I did things alone with the sole intent of winning against others.

When groups of different people combine their collective strengths together, they are unstoppable in whatever they want to achieve. I truly believe that.

That's why when I first entered my class - D Class - I was surprised to find I was lumped in a dissociative class that had no unity. There was a massive divide due to everyone's contrasting personalities.

D Class had a large volume of delinquents that would breed fear into the large volume of weak students that had no one to stand up for them. I wanted to be the one to stick up for them and close the gap between them, since we were classmates, not enemies.

What it took to change our class was a lot of hard work from everyone I talked to. As I made more connections and my Japanese became better, the class's atmosphere had softened by a great deal, and people even began calling each other by their first names.

Regardless, there was still a stubborn group I had yet to unite. The delinquents.

However, even they yielded to me when I gave them a reason to respect me. One of the delinquents initiated a fist fight against me, and I had beaten him, which made them see me as their equal.

I was suspended, but during that period, they had taken it upon themselves to integrate themselves into our class properly. It was heart warming to come back to a class full of smiles and laughter, just like how it was back home.

Inadvertently, D Class became the first class within the 1st Years to be fully united. It felt like an astonishing achievement at the time, and proved extremely important when the school revealed it's true nature.

That we live in a meritocratic society.

The only thing we could rely on was our own skills, and nothing else. If we wanted to lead a good life at this school, and graduate with the benefits, we had no choice but to ascend the ladder.

Due to the bonds we built over the first month, we didn't go back to our old ways at the start. Instead, we worked together to prove to the school that D Class is A Class worthy material.

Our first challenge was the May midterms. We worked together and studied for them earnestly, with Shirogane Tetsuya at the helm of our operations. He was one of D Class's smartest students, and was the only person to score 100% on our mock exam in April.

With his help, me and some volunteers held multiple study sessions throughout the weeks leading up to the exams, and many of our friends came to study. Even the delinquents Takenaka Mikitaka and Nakajima Rokuro dropped by.

On the week of the midterms, we continued to hold these group study sessions, even though we were also exhausted from how brutal the exams were. We wanted to make sure everyone would succeed and no one would fail.

This was the correct call, as everyone's hard work paid off, and everybody in D Class passed the midterms!

Mikazuchi-sensei informed that over 80% of us had a grade that was above our targets. Those that weren't very academic like Hiraoka Shouhei and Yoshimatsu Suehiro were surprised at how much they improved just from putting in a bit of effort.

Our second challenge was dropped on us straight after we finished the midterms. It was an official war against E Class, the worst class in our year.

War time was very Vanguard-focused, and the majority of our class just wasn't interested in the game. The girls in particular were lacking, as many only had trial decks on hand. Aside from a few, most of the boys were bad at the game despite having slightly better decks.

Despite what should've been a difficult preparation stage, D Class had smoothly began getting ready for the war, even without my suggestion. Everyone began playing Vanguard to scout out who was good at the game, and we had a few surprising gems in our class.

Imaishi Reo was one of them. He's a hard worker, but hates standing out, so we never knew what he was good at. It turns out Vanguard was one of his main hobbies and he had major expertise in the game. He reluctantly offered to help the others out since he wanted to win the war.

There was one delinquent that was good at the game. His name was Shigeru Zenkichi. From the start, Zenkichi was always a little mysterious. When I first met him back in April, he was a distant loner that failed to make it into the student council. All of a sudden, he became good friends with the delinquents and was part of their clique.

Regardless, he also had a hidden talent for the game too, and agreed to help out teaching the delinquents alongside Takenaka Mikitaka, who was one of the less bad players. He was also really excited about this war, even though he was a tough punk.

For the girls, I relied on Tachibana Kana, a serious no-nonsense girl who can pick up things quickly. After Reo taught her some basic card theory and economy, she was excelling in the game in no time. She, alongside the female class representative, Horie Kanon, began to train the girls for the war.

For the rest of the boys, my right hand man, Satou Ishigami, wanted to take the lead. He had great skill in Vanguard too, so I felt like I could leave it in his responsible hands. Him and Reo were definitely more suited for teaching the masses than me, because I wasn't completely confident in my own skill for Vanguard.

As I didn't want to leave anyone behind, I took on the role of helping out some students who haven't really found their place in D Class yet. People like John Fields and Shimizu Hoshimi still acted like outcasts and found it hard to fit in. I wanted to help them and show them that they absolutely have a place in our class.

Without much intervention, our class managed to self-automate and worked hard to level up their skills for the war. Soon enough, it came before we knew it, and D Class was standing on the grounds of Higashi Mall as our battles were to be broadcasted all over the academy.

As the leader of D Class, it's my responsibility to guide all of us to A Class! So come at us with everything you got, E Class!