The 50 per cent bonus and gift she had given me was her way of showing goodwill.
There was no need to contact MistPrincess02 to see if she had any information for sell. In fact, if the plan worked out perfectly, I might be the one who would sell her some information.
Now, I was sure that Sarafina had no hand in this scheme. Only Fredric, Ivory and their pawns were involved.
I summoned my system’s interface.
A twenty-five per cent increase! I was halfway done completing the quest.
I accepted the reward from my last quest.
[ System Notification. ]
[ You have obtained +10 Windflare beads. ]
Ten smooth, transparent, marble-sized beads with a glowing, light azure hue shining within materialised on my hand.
They spilt from my hands and landed on my bed.
I opened my storage bag and quickly placed them in it.
I brought out two Cybernetic Sabre Tooth rabbits.
I didn’t need to give them any orders.
They were already accustomed to guarding me while I slept, so the moment they were summoned, they greeted in salutation and dived under the bed.
I looked forward to completing the quest as I drifted into dreamland.
As usual, I felt utterly exhausted as I returned to my dorm the morning after completing my nightly training.
I stepped into my room.
CR3 and CR4 jumped out from under the bed to greet me.
"Morning, Master. I hope you had a successful training today?" CR4 asked, her elongated limb placed on her forehead in salute.
"Would you like breakfast and a warm shower while you take the opportunity to rest for school?"
"Okay. We will be right back."
They turned and headed to the kitchen.
CR3 and CR4 were the household helpers who assisted me in cleaning my dorm room and laundry.
They didn’t know how to cook yet.
Most they could do was rewarm meals or a simple breakfast.
They had copied my actions and used my computer to surf the internet and learn all these things while I was away.
I had managed to pick up the clues by mistake when I witnessed the other Cybernetic Sabre Tooth rabbits acting strange while we were completing a task.
Then, Felix informed me that he was temporarily stepping down from his role as commander to learn under them.
They were like curious little children, but with a faster thinking capacity and reasoning ability. They were evolving with or without my contribution, so I decided to guide them in the right direction and teach them things I wanted them to learn.
Still, I might hesitate to fight back a cataclysm if it came in the form of two free full-time housekeepers.
My home also seemed more lively than usual, and I wasn’t too worried lately about making connections with others to uncover what was going on in the academy or if there was any new, terrible information concerning me.
However, I turned off the internet connection in my dorm room each time before leaving the house.
There were too many weird places on the internet, and I didn’t want them picking up any strange behaviour.
I took off my combat attire and lay on my bed tiredly.
Then, I summoned my system’s interface.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Name: Ezekiel Zahara ]
◆ Talent: Cybernetic Evolution (Semi-sealed)
┗ Path Traits: Beast Cybernetic Enhancement, Fusion Synchronisation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇ Primary Path: Beastmaster Path
┗ Path Traits: Beast Affinity, Beastmaster’s Contract.
┗ Rank: First Rank (1%)
◇ Secondary Path: Magical Swordsman Path
┗ Path Traits: Blade Synchronisation.
┗ Rank: First Rank (70%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Metal: Supreme-Tier
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Overclocked Mode - Active
┗ Aura Mastery: Apprentice(13%)
┗ Weapon Mastery - Sword: Adept(18%)
┗ Mountain Snow Dragon Art - Sky Grade - Beginner (20%)
┗ Fire Spark - Basic Spell (55%)
┗ Wind Rush - Basic Spell (76%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
┗ Swift-Horned Panther → [Cybernetic Swift-Horned Panther Form]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Every day, without fail, I dedicated five hours to training, earning 30 proficiency points.
My swordsmanship now surpassed that of my peers. Only the swordsmanship of people like Esther or Milas could be compared to it.
By the Academy’s progression standards, my swordsmanship now matched that of an average Second Year Student.
Due to many noble students being trained in the art of swordmanship at an early stage, even before awakening, it was common for many to be halfway through the beginner level before they awaken their Spirit Veins, and reach the adept level before entering into the Second Year.
This was because not only did they have to train their respective sacred arts, but also polish their spells and refine their spirit veins to grow stronger, among other demands.
The difference was stark when compared to commoners who lacked such resources and awakened much later.
Only raw talents like Ivory could bridge the gap and even surpass these noble descendants.
The academy didn’t fail or force students to repeat if they didn’t reach such a level. No matter how bad the skills of an Awakener were, an Awakener was still an Awakener.
If their strength wasn’t up to par, they could still serve as valuable canon fodder, thanks to the unique Paths’ traits of each Path.
Instead, as they continued to ascend, the gap widened until the difference between them became as clear as day and night.
My most shocking improvement came from training my spells.
I did nothing but continuously cast them until I was drained of mana.
I gained five proficiency points in an hour. It totalled twenty-five merit points over five hours.
I gained a total of 25 merit points.
It was nearly twice as fast as my swordsmanship training. I was unsure if it was due to my robust mana or because I was also an Awakener of the Beastmaster Path, which made the spells easier to train.
Regardless, I seized the opportunity and devoted the entire scheduled five hours to training.
I utilised my mana recovery pills to recover my mana and rested for five minutes before continuing. Otherwise, it would take me hours to recover and continue my training.
The only consequence was the side effects, which were constant strain coursing through my spirit veins whenever I tried to channel mana.
Due to my current situation, I pushed the training for another time.
My next training was the sacred art and aura.
Before the month ended, I would have gained a massive improvement in overall strength.
I was curious about what would happen once my spells reached 100%. Would they reach their limits or continuously evolve into intermediate spells?
I haven’t learnt any intermediate spells because doing so required expanding time and effort, neither of which I had to spare.
It was also one of the reasons I hadn’t gotten my hands on any since I entered the academy.
I had managed to complete tasks and received tremendous rewards during these four days.
I hadn’t encountered any of the Windcrest Clans or those within Class Three who were supposed to be patiently awaiting to eliminate me.
I realised that I had scared them off by defeating Jaran and the Windcrest descendants single-handedly.
"Breakfast is ready, master" CR4 jumped up into my line of sight and announced.
I unsummoned my system interface.
I stood up from my bed and walked to the kitchen.
After having breakfast and taking a bath, I put on my uniform and rushed to class.
Grand Avalon Academy Magical Swordsman Department, Class Three Lecture Hall..
"Two thousand years ago, a comet struck the Earth, impacting the Antarctica region, resulting in significant and catastrophic events. What were once nations, humanity’s former settlements collapsed, borders across the world were redrawn beyond recognition."
"The comet is known as the ’Judgment Comet’, and the catastrophe is referred to as ’the Purging’."
"After investigations were conducted, it was discovered that the Antarctica region, where this comet had struck, had transformed into a lush forest filled with bizarre and terrifying monsters never seen before on the Earth’s surface."
"Their investigations uncovered the truth of the mysterious landscape now known as a Dungeon, and Judgment Comet’s true nature- the Mother Dungeon Core."
"A dungeon is not just a cave or a landscape full of monsters. It’s a living semi-sentient environment created around a dungeon core. A dungeon core is the heart and brain of a dungeon."
"It created these monsters and other secrets within their environments. It possesses mana, which it uses to repair and rebuild its destroyed areas over time. If destroyed, the dungeon collapses permanently. If captured, the dungeon can be claimed and controlled by someone with enough strength or knowledge."
"However, what made the Mother Dungeon Core different from other dungeon cores was that it had vanished right after the appearance of the dungeon. And instead spread into all the monsters it had created, transforming their beast’s core into a potential dungeon core."
"As these monsters spread across the world, causing terror and horror in their wake, humanity fled to space, setting up settlements on other planets in the solar system. We fled Earth, which had been taken from us by forces we did not understand."