As this thought crossed his mind, he checked his system and saw:
Footwork Mastery (Common): Tier 0, Level 4 → 5 (MAX)
[Your Tier 0, Level 5 skill - Footwork Mastery has reached all necessary conditions to evolve. The updated evolution path is:
Explosive Steps (Uncommon)
Description: A footwork technique that uses small explosions beneath the user to provide montum, greatly increasing speed.]
'Nice, I was expecting sothing like this, but seeing the confirmation ans what I'm doing is working. But Uncommon?' A small mocking smirk appeared on his face. 'Nah, I'm aiming for sothing much higher—at least Rare or Epic, if I can. I'm not sure if the rarity above Rare is Epic, but it probably is, right? Anyway, that's my goal for now. This technique is still too basic and has so flaws, like the sound caused by all the explosions under . For stealth, it's a solid -10/10. I need to bring it up to the next level.'
Ti passed as he refined his movent technique. First, he used wind mana to cut the air around his feet, completely eliminating the sound created by the explosions. As a bonus, this also made his steps completely silent when using the technique.
But Mikael wasn't satisfied with just that. His reasoning was simple: now that he had a working movent technique, he faced two options. The first was to integrate wind mana into the technique to make it much faster.
The second path, however, was to enhance the technique by incorporating the explosions into his fighting style. This was the path he chose. His reasoning was that although the technique made him faster and quieter, it only enhanced his movent speed, not his attacking speed. His arms were unaffected; only his legs benefited.
So, he wanted to integrate the technique fully into his fighting style. After much thinking and even more training, several days later, Mikael finally succeeded.
[Your Tier 0, Level 5 skill - Footwork Mastery has reached all necessary conditions to evolve. The updated evolution paths are:
Explosive Steps (Uncommon)
Description: A footwork technique that uses small explosions beneath the user to provide montum, greatly increasing speed.
Explosive Style (Rare)
Description: A fighting style that creates small explosions around the body to enhance montum, greatly increasing movent speed, attack speed, and slightly boosting attack power.]
"Fucking finally!" Mikael exclaid, his voice weary, before he exited the training room for the first ti in several days and entered the bathroom.
Once inside, he began to remove his clothes, but he struggled with the complex design of his uniform. This irritated him as he was tired and just wanted to take a relaxing shower before going to bed, completely drained from the last few days of training. In reality, it wasn't physical exhaustion, but rather ntal fatigue that weighed on him.
After a mont, he managed to strip off his uniform and stepped into the shower. The warm water cascading over him brought a small smile to his face, and he closed his eyes, simply standing there for a while, relaxing and savoring the mont.
Eventually, he opened his eyes. 'Should get moving.' With that thought, he stopped wasting ti and washed himself, though he still took his ti, not feeling rushed.
Not long after, the glass shower door opened, and he stepped out. He struggled again with putting on his uniform but eventually managed. Once fully dressed, he left the bathroom and approached the bed.
"Thud." A muffled sound echoed as he let himself fall onto the bed. He wanted to sleep right there, but not being well-positioned, he forced himself to roll under the blanket.
Once settled, he tried to think about his future plans but then said, "Fuck it, let's just sleep!" With those words, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
***
An unknown ti later, a small movent was visible beneath the blanket. A half-asleep sound emanated from under the quilt, and the next mont, the bed covers were pushed away, revealing Mikael's well-defined body in his uniform.
He sat up and looked around. 'Oh yeah, I fell asleep. I was just really exhausted, even though I like to train, doing it nonstop for multiple days becos tiring after a while.'
'Saying that I trained nonstop isn't exactly true. As I did take so breaks to ditate when my mana reserves were low, but it wasn't that often, and ditating isn't exactly what I'd consider a break...'
With that, he got up from the bed and was about to eat breakfast, but then he saw the ti and stopped. 'Ah, 8 PM... not exactly breakfast ti...' After realizing the actual hour, he changed his plans and sat down on the couch, where he began to think about his next steps.
He checked the ti that had passed since he started training and was surprised to see it had been six days. 'I feel like I've only trained for three or maybe four days at most, but certainly not six. My perception might be off, though. After all, there are no windows in the training room, so the ti I feel passing may be longer than it actually is.'
'Anyway, that's not the important part. Now, what should I do?' He thought for a mont. 'I could continue to train my "movent technique," though the na doesn't really fit anymore since it's more than that now.'
'I've already evolved it from its initial stage and made upgrades, but its rarity is still only rare, and my goal is epic, so there's still progress to be made. But honestly, I'm not in the mood for more solitary training right now. So yeah, let's skip that for now.'
'With that out of the way, I could maybe focus on growing my cores? When I ditate, I recover my entire mana and aura in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, while the natives of this world would take about 4 hours regardless of their strength of talents. With that advantage, if I focused on this, I could grow my cores faster than the other students. But honestly, I'm not a fan of that idea.'
'After all, I have average talent, and every breakthrough I make is less valuable compared to soone with genius talent, like Alia. Right now, I'm stronger in base stats, mainly because of my spirit stat, which is currently limited at 100, aning my aura and mana are 10 tis stronger than they should be compared to the natives of this world.'
'But when it cos to just aura and mana potency, without considering the spirit stat, each breakthrough I make is actually making weaker in a sense, and that's sothing I really don't like.'
'I want to change that, but in order to upgrade my talent, I'd need to leave this world and gain the Advanced Race Gain System, which costs 50K LP. And right now...'
[Life Points (LP): (800) 5810]
'Yeah, 5810 out of 50K. I'm not there yet.' As that thought crossed his mind, he noticed sothing. 'Where did this 800 co from?' He thought for a mont, then realized. 'Ah. It's from the new month. Each month, I receive a thousand LP, which is pretty nice, but in return, I lose a year of lifespan—that's the price I'm paying to have access to the Records. I'm currently at 21/97 for years lived/remaining.'
'Maybe so people would panic about that, but honestly, I don't really care. I'll find a way to extend my lifespan. I'll only start worrying when I'm down to, like, 20 years left. Then, I'll have less than two years of actual life left, and by that ti, I'll begin to focus on finding ways to extend my lifespan, and I'm confident of succeeding'
'After all, it's only been, what, two months? A little less since I joined the Records, and I'm already this strong. Two years to find a solution? Not at all worriso for .'
He ran a hand through his hair. 'Now that I've decided to obtain the Advanced Race Gain System, the only real way to farm the necessary LP is to leave this world. If I try to leave the Academy to farm dungeons, Wernon will probably send another assassin after . And even with my recent training, if he sends soone too strong, I won't survive.'
After arriving at this conclusion, he thought for a few seconds before deciding on a plan of action. He pulled out his phone and called Lyra.
Ring ring ring
The ringtone echoed in the room. Lyra was lying on her bed, reading a book. "Haaah... I need to talk to sobody. Let's hope it's a pub so that it isn't too long." With those words, she grabbed her phone from the bedside table and checked who was calling.
"Mikael!" she exclaid, instantly more interested, before accepting the call.
The two of them talked for a few minutes before the call ended. By the end, Lyra wore a small frown. 'He's leaving the Academy for at most two weeks,' she thought, before returning to her book, her mood unexpectedly more gloomy.
On the other side, Mikael, having just finished his call with Lyra, imdiately called Alia.
Ring ring ring
The vibrations of her phone buzzed in the pocket of her uniform. Alia was in the training room of her dormitory, practicing with her bow. Sweat trailed down her face, and strands of her hair stuck to her flawless features. She was breathing heavily, her ample chest rising and falling with each breath. As she trained, she felt her phone vibrate and saw that it was Mikael, which instantly made her smile.
But just as she was about to answer, she rembered their conversation from nearly a week ago. She was still uncertain, indecisive, and the feelings were new to her. Still, she steeled herself and answered the call.
"Hello," she heard, and as Mikael's voice ca through the speaker, a strange feeling stirred in her stomach. She pushed it aside and replied, "Hello, how's your training going?"
Mikael answered, and after so small talk, he finally brought up the real reason for the call. "Actually, I'm calling because I'm going to leave the Academy for a while. I'm not sure for how long, but I'd say two weeks at most. I'm calling so you won't be worried."
Alia hesitated before speaking with a concerned tone. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea. With the difference you had with Lucas, you could be in danger outside..."
"Nah, don't worry. I've got it covered. I'll be safe," he said confidently.
She wasn't entirely convinced, but not knowing with the assassin attack on him recently she decided to let it go. "Okay, but even without considering the danger, why leave the Academy? If it's to train, this is the best place. It's really a dream co true!" she exclaid, expressing what she felt. After all, for soone like her, who focused on strength and had her own background, the Academy was the perfect place.
"Personal reasons," Mikael replied, offering little explanation. He couldn't exactly say, "I'm leaving this world to farm LP," could he? She'd either laugh it off as a joke or think he was rambling nonsense.
When Alia heard him say "personal reasons," a look of realization crossed her face. "You're going to see Kiara?" she asked, her voice sharper than usual.
She knew who Kiara was and her relationship with Mikael. During one of their sparring sessions, where they talked about them, Mikael had ntioned that he already had a girlfriend nad Kiara, who was open to him having a harem. It didn't shock her because, in this world, it was relatively common for a man to have a harem, as long as he had the value to support it.
A competent man could have multiple won in his harem, but it depended on whether he could manage it, especially since a woman who was stronger or had a higher status than her boyfriend generally wouldn't allow him to have other won.
Author Note:
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