Asher was in a fantastic mood these days.
Since his power had spiked, his back didn’t ache, his legs weren’t sore, and he could casually sprint up a hundred flights of stairs without breaking a single sweat.
Naturally, he had heard bits and pieces of the wild rumors circulating around the academy.
But to him, those whispers meant absolutely nothing.
The gossip was all the same: he had completely given up on teaching, he never showed up to class, and his student had suffered a mental breakdown and abandoned her training.
But in reality?
Over the past few weeks, Luna’s power had been skyrocketing at a terrifying pace.
Asher didn’t even need to test her to know that.
He could feel it in his own cultivation.
Almost every single night, he fell asleep to the crisp, delightful chime of the system.
He had just broken into Tier Three, Level Four a few days after the semester began, and now, he was already hovering dangerously close to the Level Five threshold.
If breaking into Tier Three, Level Five was like filling a barrel with water, his barrel was already sixty percent full.
And that sixty percent was no joke.
If he had to rely solely on his own grueling meditation to fill that barrel, it would have taken him a year or two at the absolute minimum!
The Tier Three realm was divided into nine distinct levels.
Progressing through the first three levels was relatively fast.
But once a mage hit the middle three levels (Four, Five, and Six), the difficulty of advancement spiked exponentially.
As for the final three levels?
The amount of mana required just to break into Level Seven was equal to the total sum of Levels One through Six combined!
And Levels Eight and Nine were completely absurd!
That staggering difficulty curve was exactly why the vast majority of instructors were permanently stuck at Tier Three, Level Nine for their entire lives, never reaching the Transcendent Realm.
If Asher’s leveling speed was ever exposed to the public, it would shock the entire nation and draw the greedy, dangerous eyes of countless powerful factions.
And so, the days passed, one by one.
The countdown to the first monthly Combat Prep Assessment was ticking closer and closer.
…
On an otherwise perfectly ordinary night.
Asher sat cross-legged on his cheap iron bed, diligently circulating the Cosmic Breathing Technique.
It wasn’t that he desperately needed the tiny sliver of mana his own meditation provided—compared to the massive returns he got from Luna, his own efforts were literally a drop in the ocean.
He was meditating solely out of necessity.
Because his power had spiked so insanely fast over the past few weeks, his magic had become incredibly volatile.
If he didn’t relentlessly practice circulating it, he would lose his micro-control completely.
Phew…
After over half an hour of intense focus, Asher let out a long breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Finally.
I can exert one hundred percent of my power without losing control.”
Humanity’s struggles truly were diverse.
In his past life, he had never imagined a scenario where he would actually be stressed out because he was leveling up too fast.
He had spent the last several days entirely focused on taming his own surging mana.
However, just moments after Asher let out a sigh of relief, the system’s voice suddenly echoed in his ears.
“Ding!
Detected that Personal Disciple [Luna] has broken through from Tier 1, Level 4 to Tier 1, Level 5!
Cultivation Return triggered!
Drawing multiplier…”
“Ding!
Congratulations, Host!
You have drawn a 100x Return Multiplier!
Transferring cultivation…”
The exact second the system finished speaking, a catastrophic force—powerful enough to split mountains and shatter boulders—violently crashed into his system.
The terrifying energy flooded into his limbs and bones, stealing the breath from his lungs.
The magic he had just painstakingly tamed and turned as docile as a sheep suddenly roared back to life, transforming into a rabid, raging beast.
The turbulent energy accelerated wildly, violently washing through his mana veins and forcibly expanding them at a brutal speed.
Hiss…
Asher let out a sharp groan through gritted teeth.
A searing, burning pain tore through his chest, forcing his jaw to clench so hard his teeth ached.
It was agonizing, but the results were undeniable.
As his mana veins aggressively expanded, the sheer volume of his magical aura skyrocketed!
The peak of Tier Three, Level Four!
The threshold…
Tier Three, Level Five!
It wasn’t until he securely smashed through the Level Five barrier that the chaotic, surging energy finally settled down.
A few seconds later, the room returned to complete silence, as if nothing had ever happened.
But Asher knew exactly what had just occurred.
“A hundred-fold return?!” Asher muttered, caught between laughing and crying as he felt the terrifyingly dense magic coursing through his veins.
He had expected Luna to break through.
Even though the energy yielded from Tier Three monster meat was beginning to show diminishing returns for her, he had calculated she would hit Level Five within the next few days.
And true to his prediction, she had successfully broken through.
But what he absolutely did not expect was for the system to actually hit the jackpot and roll a 100x multiplier!
That single, massive burst had forcefully dragged him from the middle of Level Four all the way to Level Five!
A Tier Three, Level Five cultivation placed him firmly in the upper echelon of the academy’s Level Two Instructors!
The leveling speed was so absurdly fast it genuinely scared him for a second.
But very quickly, a smug, satisfied smirk spread across his face.
“Heh.
What am I worrying about?
I work so incredibly hard.
I deserve every single drop of this power.”
…
The next day.
Inside Year Two, Class 10.
Twenty students dressed in identical training uniforms sat cross-legged on the floor, diligently practicing their breathing techniques.
Instructor Drake paced back and forth at the front of the room, his narrow eyes constantly sweeping over them.
After several weeks, the grotesque swelling on Drake’s face had completely healed, and the bandages were finally gone.
But the psychological trauma Asher had inflicted on him was still a raw, bleeding wound.
Over the past few weeks, every time Asher’s face crossed his mind, Drake ground his teeth so hard he almost cracked them.
If he hadn’t realized that he was hopelessly outmatched in a straight fight, he would have tried to exact his revenge ages ago.
Now, all he could do was obsessively count down the days to the monthly assessment, praying for the moment he could finally humiliate Asher in front of the entire academy.
Boom!
Just as Drake was lost in his bitter fantasies, a sudden, fierce surge of magic within the classroom snapped him back to reality.
His eyes instinctively darted toward the source, and his face instantly lit up with wild joy.
“Pierce!
You broke through again!”
The impressive wave of magic that had just washed over the classroom belonged to Pierce.
“Yes, Instructor!
I just broke through to Tier One, Level Four!” Pierce answered, his voice trembling with barely contained excitement.
Because he had practiced his family’s secret techniques since childhood, Pierce had already been at Tier One, Level Two when he awakened his C-Class Enhancement Magic.
Under normal circumstances, advancing to Level Three within a single month would have been a phenomenal achievement for his talent level.
But thanks to Drake’s extreme favoritism and the fact that the entire class’s resources were funneled directly into him, Pierce had miraculously jumped two whole levels in less than a month!
With a Tier One, Level Four cultivation, he could actually go toe-to-toe with the rare geniuses who had awakened B-Class magic!
“Hahaha!
Excellent!” Drake threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
His foul mood evaporated instantly.
He felt like the gods of fortune were directly smiling down on him.
With a Level Four powerhouse like Pierce leading his roster, there was absolutely no way he could lose the monthly assessment!
But the good news wasn’t over yet.
Boom!
Boom!
Just moments after Pierce’s breakthrough, two more distinct waves of magic flared up in the room.
While they were nowhere near as powerful as Pierce’s, they were solidly at the Tier One, Level Two threshold.
“Instructor, I successfully broke through to Level Two!”
“Instructor, I did it too!
Level Two!”
Zane and Silas spoke up one after the other, their eyes shining with uncontainable thrill.
Sure, they had only reached Level Two, and the gap between them and Pierce was massive, but they were still ecstatic.
If Drake hadn’t funneled all the leftover resources directly to them after Pierce took his cut, their natural talent never would have allowed them to level up this fast.
There was still some time left before the assessment.
By the time the tournament arrived, they were confident they could push their power even further.
“Hahahaha!
Good!
Good!
Good!” Drake’s smile stretched so wide his cheeks hurt.
He repeated the word over and over, his lips trembling with sheer excitement.
After a few moments, he forced himself to calm down.
He turned to look out the classroom window, his chest swelling with boundless arrogance and triumph.
‘Asher…