As this thought crossed his mind, he checked his system and saw:

  Footwork Mastery (on): Tier 0, Level 4 → 5 (MAX)

  [Your Tier 0, Level 5 skill - Footwork Mastery has reached all necessary ditions to evolve. The updated evolution path is:

  Explosive Steps (Unon)Description: A footwork teique that uses small explosioh the user to provide momentum, greatly increasing speed.]

  ‘Nice, I was expeg something like this, but seeing the firmation means what I’m doing is w. But Unon?’ A small mog smirk appeared on his face. ‘Nah, I’m aiming for something much higher—at least Rare or Epic, if I . I’m not sure if the rarity above Rare is Epic, but it probably is, right? Anyway, that’s my goal for now. This teique is still too basid has some fws, like the sound caused by all the explosions under me. For stealth, it’s a solid -10/10. I it up to the level.’

  Time passed as he refined his movement teique. First, he used wind mana to cut the air around his feet, pletely eliminating the sound created by the explosions. As a bonus, this also made his steps pletely silent when using the teique.

  But Mikael wasn’t satisfied with just that. His reasoning was simple: now that he had a w movement teique, he faced two options. The first was to ie wind mana into the teique to make it much faster.

  The sed path, however, was to enhahe teique by incorporating the explosions into his fighting style. This was the path he chose. His reasoning was that although the teique made him faster and quieter, it only enhanced his movement speed, not his attag speed. His arms were ued; only his legs beed.

  So, he wao ie the teique fully into his fighting style. After much thinking and even more training, several days ter, Mikael finally succeeded.

  [Your Tier 0, Level 5 skill - Footwork Mastery has reached all necessary ditions to evolve. The updated evolution paths are:

  Explosive Steps (Unon)Description: A footwork teique that uses small explosioh the user to provide momentum, greatly increasing speed.

  Explosive Style (Rare)Description: A fighting style that creates small explosions around the body to enhanentum, greatly increasing movement speed, attack speed, and slightly boosting attack power.]

  “Fug finally!” Mikael excimed, his voice weary, before he exited the training room for the first time in several days aered the bathroom.

  Onside, he began to remove his clothes, but he struggled with the plex design of his uniform. This irritated him as he was tired and just wao take a rexing shower befoing to bed, pletely drained from the st few days of training. Iy, it wasn’t physical exhaustion, but rather mental fatigue that weighed on him.

  After a moment, he mao strip off his uniform and stepped into the shower. The warm water casg over him brought a small smile to his face, and he closed his eyes, simply standing there for a while, rexing and sav the moment.

  Eventually, he opened his eyes. ‘Should get moving.’ With that thought, he stopped wasting time and washed himself, though he still took his time, not feeling rushed.

  Not long after, the gss shower door opened, aepped 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 wao sleep right there, but not being well-positioned, he forced himself to roll uhe b.

  Otled, he tried to think about his future pns but then said, “Fuck it, let’s just sleep!” With those words, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  An unknown time ter, a small movement was visible beh the b. A half-asleep sound emanated from uhe quilt, and the moment, 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 bees tiring after a while.’

  ‘Saying that I trained nonstop isly true. As I did take some breaks to meditate when my mana reserves were low, but it wasn’t that often, aating isly what I’d sider a break...’

  With that, he got up from the bed and was about to eat breakfast, but then he saw the time and stopped. ‘Ah, 8 PM... ly breakfast time...’ After realizing the actual hour, he ged his pns and sat down on the couch, where he began to think about his steps.

  He checked the time 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 iraining room, so the time I feel passing may be lohan it actually is.’

  ‘Anyway, that’s not the important part. Now, what should I do?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I could tio train my "movement teique," though the name doesn’t really fit anymore si’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 holy, 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 meditate, 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 thaher students. But holy, I’m not a fan of that idea.’

  ‘After all, I have average talent, and every breakthrough I make is less valuable pared to someoh genius talent, like Amelia. Right now, I’m stronger in base stats, mainly because of my spirit stat, which is currently limited at 100, meaning my aura and mana are 10 times strohan they should be pared to the natives of this world.’

  ‘But when it es to just aura and mana potency, without sidering the spirit stat, each breakthrough I make is actually making me weaker in a sense, and that’s something I really don’t like.’

  ‘I want to ge that, but in order to upgrade my talent, I’d o 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 something. ‘Where did this 800 e from?’ He thought for a moment, then realized. ‘Ah. It’s from the new month. Each month, I receive a thousand LP, which is pretty nice, but iurn, 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 some people would panic about that, but holy, I don’t really care. I’ll find a way to extend my lifespan. I’ll only start w when I’m down to, like, 20 years left. Then, I’ll have less than two years of actual life left, and by that time, I’ll begin to focus on finding ways to extend my lifespan, and I’m fident of succeeding’

  ‘After all, it’s only been, what, two months? A little less since I joihe Records, and I’m already this strong. Two years to find a solution? Not at all worrisome for me.’

  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 me. And even with my ret training, if he sends someoo, I won’t survive.’

  After arriving at this clusiohought for a few seds before deg on a pn of a. 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 o talk to somebody. 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 excimed, instantly more ied, 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 uedly mloomy.

  Oher side, Mikael, having just finished his call with Lyra, immediately called Amelia.

  Ring ring ring

  The vibrations of her phone buzzed in the pocket of her uniform. Amelia was iraining room of her dormitory, practig with her bow. Sweat trailed down her face, and strands of her hair stuck to her fwless 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, whistantly made her smile.

  But just as she was about to answer, she remembered their versation from nearly a week ago. She was still uain, indecisive, and the feelings were o her. Still, she steeled herself and answered the call.

  “Hello,” she heard, and as Mikael's voice came through the speaker, a strange feeling stirred iomach. She pushed it aside and replied, “Hello, how’s your training going?”

  Mikael answered, and after some 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.”

  Amelia hesitated before speaking with a ed 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 fidently.

  She wasirely vinced, but not knowing with the assassin atta him retly she decided to let it go. “Okay, but even without sidering the danger, why leave the Academy? If it’s to train, this is the best pce. It’s really a dream e true!” she excimed, expressing what she felt. After all, for someone like her, who focused on strength and had her own background, the Academy was the perfect pce.

  “Personal reasons,” Mikael replied, little expnation. He couldly say, “I’m leaving this world to farm LP,” could he? She’d either ugh it off as a joke or think he was rambling nonsense.

  When Amelia heard him say "personal reasons," a look of realization crossed her face. “Yoing to see Kiara?” she asked, her voice sharper than usual.

  She knew who Kiara was and her retionship with Mikael. During one of their sparring sessions, where they talked about them, Mikael had mentiohat he already had a girlfriend named Kiara, who en to him having a harem. It didn’t shock her because, in this world, it was retively on for a man to have a harem, as long as he had the value to support it.

  A petent man could have multiple women in his harem, but it depended oher he could ma, especially since a woman who was stronger or had a higher status than her boyfriend generally wouldn’t allow him to have other women.