@suden-lom : https://www.tumblr.com/suden-lom/764791462321881088/kaydens-age?source=share
By itself, only relative to Kayden's actions, I could see that argument. But I get caught up on relative ages. For example, if Kayden is 30, what age are Jiyoung, Jurion, Amyeong, and Roist?
I'll give all of them low and fairly generous numbers. Let's give Jiyoung 19. Jurion is a few years older, let's say 22. Then Amyeong and Roist are certainly a few years older than him. Let's say Amyeong is 25, and Roist is probably older too being in higher Top 100-50 ranks... so 28? But Roist being only two years younger than Kayden sounds too wild. Even if you boost up Kayden to 32, that's only four years. Especially when Duke was training with Schnauder for what, five years?
Likely Roist was still World Ranked within those years to be considered a proper apprentice during Duke's training, which means he's higher Top 100-50 at 23-25? Which would be same age as Kayden in Top 50s from your timeline, which implies Roist would be almost as good as Kayden? Roist calls Duke's five years of teaching 'short' (Chapter 222), so Roist must have been with Schnauder for a long-ish time, maybe a full decade? After he got rejected from Kayden. But if Roist was 18 that time, and Kayden was 20-22, that only barely adds up. The character ages are very wild like this.
But also factoring in that Kayden was unaffiliated and therefore had no connections, getting up to Top 50 likely took longer than affiliated people like Jurion having immediate connections to fights. So once I factor in relative ages to younger characters and time to rise without connections, it's very hard for me to think of Kayden as anything less than about 38, although I round up to 40 for ease and extra wiggle room.
Obviously, I really don't care what other people headcanon or use (as long as he's not fucking 25 in canon timeline), but I get very confused with your timeline once relative ages are factored.
At the same time, I know half the Eleceed fanbase are teens and 40+ is damn old bitch to teens, and this is a comic for teen-centric audience. So I admit your timeline could be right just on that point alone, regardless of relative ages being confusing. Even though 40s is chill and still an attractive age, in my opinion. Kayden can be hot and in his 40s, that's lower mid-life age for us normies, although probably 1/3rd age or so for Awakeners.
Important Edit: This is not meant to be a shitpost or anything as reply to suden, they're great and I like them. I think the timeline itself is a crapshot of info anyways, and trying logic like relative ages might breakdown anyways if the author compares it all to Kayden's own progress timeline like suden did. (And which might be the case if somehow Kayden-Seongik fight was only a few years ago and not like a decade ago).
Tbh I'm begging for writers to just give us canonical ages to help us.