Magnolia City, Celestial Gardens Complex, Building 13, Unit 1.
Following the Year Two Magic Awakening Ceremony, all students and instructors were granted a half-day off.
After parting ways with Luna, Asher followed his inherited memories back to his “luxury mansion.”
Looking up at the thirty-three-story high-rise, squished between neighboring buildings with barely fifty meters of clearance, Asher’s mouth twitched.
According to his memory, his family’s mansion was in Unit 1, Apartment 3302—a sprawling, single-floor estate of exactly 82.3 square meters.
And no, that wasn’t a sarcastic joke.
In this world, this was a genuine luxury apartment that cost tens of millions of Jewels!
The exorbitant price tag was entirely due to the materials.
The concrete used in this high-rise was laced with a specialized magic alloy, making it sturdy enough to withstand attacks from flying magical beasts below Tier Four.
During the Great Beast Invasion of Earthland, monsters had overrun the vast majority of human territories and homes.
The old social order had completely collapsed, and countless smaller nations had been wiped off the map.
Only the great superpowers had managed to survive relatively intact.
After years of migration, development, and brutal survival, the remnants of humanity had forged five major global coalitions: the Fiore Alliance, the Alvarez Empire, the Pergrande Kingdom, the Iceberg Alliance, and the Midi Alliance.
Outside of their respective central capital cities, these five great alliances possessed a total of twenty-three heavily fortified satellite cities.
Every surviving human on Earthland now lived within these safe zones.
The strongest coalition, the Fiore Alliance, controlled six of those satellite cities.
The weakest, the Midi Alliance, held a mere three.
Magnolia was one of Fiore’s six great satellite cities.
And yet, the population of Magnolia alone was approaching two hundred million!
With that many people crammed into a single walled city, land was unspeakably scarce.
A “low-rise” thirty-three-story building like the one Asher lived in was practically considered a villa.
Asher let out a long breath and started climbing the stairs.
Yes, climbing.
Even in this high-end district, there were no elevators.
It couldn’t be helped.
Satellite cities weren’t like the grand capitals; electricity was a precious, heavily rationed resource.
If you wanted to live in a complex with a working elevator, you had to buy a house in the Hakobe Hills on the southern outskirts.
But real estate in the Hakobe Hills wasn’t something you could buy just with Jewels.
That area was exclusively reserved for Magnolia’s top noble families and high-ranking magic officials.
Not that climbing the stairs was particularly difficult anymore.
In an era where everyone awakened magic, the average physical constitution of humanity had skyrocketed.
Even someone with the absolute lowest F-Class talent could jog up thirty-three flights without breaking a sweat.
As Asher trudged silently up the steps, several white-haired grandpas sprinted past him.
Every time one of them overtook him, they would shoot him a weird look—a look that practically screamed sheer disdain.
‘Ha, getting looked down on by a bunch of old men,’ Asher chuckled, shaking his head.
He tightened his muscles, channeling his magic power directly into his legs.
The next second, with a sharp *whoosh*, Asher blurred into a phantom, darting upward at breakneck speed!
Ten floors.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Thirty-three!
Hitting the top floor, Asher instinctively checked his watch.
Exactly one minute had passed.
‘My physical specs really did get a massive boost!’ His eyes lit up.
In the past, going all out, it would have taken him a solid two or three minutes to reach his apartment.
Now, it only took one, and that was factoring in his slow start.
Just judging by his speed alone, his physical strength had multiplied by at least two or three times.
‘Sure enough, my success is entirely due to my relentless, grueling hard work!’ he thought, a smug grin spreading across his face.
After taking a second to compose himself, he knocked on the door of 3302.
*Knock, knock, knock.* A wave of nervousness rippled through his chest.
Magic academies didn’t have summer or winter breaks, and instructors were provided with dedicated dorms on campus.
Because of that, he rarely came home—maybe twice or three times a year.
This was only his second visit this year.
“Coming, coming!”
A gruff voice echoed from inside, accompanied by the heavy thud of footsteps shaking the floorboards.
The custom alloy door was yanked open, revealing a man with thick eyebrows, large eyes, and a strong, square jaw peeking through the crack.
“Who is it…?”
“Son!” The man’s face instantly lit up with wild joy.
He lunged forward, sweeping Asher into a bone-crushing bear hug.
“Son, I missed you to death!”
Asher’s face instantly darkened.
He frantically glanced left and right down the hallway.
“Put me down!”
“No way!”
“I said put me down!”
“Not happening!”
“Arthur!
I’m going to count to three!”
Arthur flinched, his body instinctively recoiling as he quickly let go.
“Don’t say it, don’t say it!
I’m letting go, alright?
Geez, stop using your mother’s line to scare me.”
Pausing for a second, Arthur slapped his forehead.
“You must be starving!
Let me whip up something good.
Your favorite, spicy meat noodles!
Just wait right here!”
Without another word, he bolted toward the kitchen like a man on fire.
Asher walked inside in silence, pressing his lips together.
But as soon as he stepped through the entryway, he froze.
His gaze was immediately drawn to a spotlessly clean family portrait resting on the console table.
His eyes swept past Arthur on the left and a younger version of himself in the middle, settling on the elegant, short-haired woman on the right.
She had a beautiful, radiant smile, her eyes curving into warm crescents.
Her facial features were strikingly similar to Asher’s.
But unlike Asher, her eyes were a brilliant, striking blue.
That was his mother, Anna.
The mother who had passed away from a severe illness when he was only seven.
Asher silently adjusted the portrait, making sure it was perfectly centered before shifting his gaze toward the kitchen.
Watching this large, burly man expertly chopping vegetables with practiced ease, a sudden sting of emotion hit the back of his eyes.
After his mother died, his father had immediately resigned from his prestigious job as an academy instructor, taking on the heavy burden of raising him alone.
It wasn’t until Asher had grown up that Arthur finally started a business trading magical plants.
Because he was honest and fair with his prices, he had actually made a decent amount of money over the years.
But aside from buying this apartment, every single Jewel he earned had been poured entirely into Asher’s magical education.
He had bought Asher countless expensive cultivation potions from Magnolia Pharmaceuticals, barely managing to push him to Tier Three before he turned twenty-six.
Later, Arthur had practically emptied his savings to bribe the right officials and secure Asher a teaching position at the First Magic Academy.
Arthur had essentially sacrificed his entire life for his son.
“Here it comes!
Hot, fresh spicy meat noodles.
Eat it while it’s steaming!” Before long, a massive, mouthwatering bowl of noodles was slammed onto the dining table.
Taking the chopsticks, Asher took a small, hesitant bite.
He pressed his lips together in silence.
Then, like a hurricane tearing through a field, he inhaled the food.
Within minutes, the enormous bowl was scraped completely clean.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Leaving those words behind, Asher stood up and practically fled back to his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
Something as simple as a bowl of noodles had made him fully, unconditionally accept Arthur as his father.
Outside, Arthur stood frozen, a look of stunned disbelief on his face.
It took him a full dozen seconds to snap out of it.
He quietly picked up the empty bowl and walked into the kitchen.
The moment the kitchen door clicked shut, silent tears spilled down his weathered cheeks.
“Heh.
Must be some dust in the air today…”
…
The night passed without another word.
Early the next morning, Asher got out of bed before the sun was fully up.
Today was the official first day of the new semester, and he needed to head to the Logistics Department early to collect his class’s cultivation resources.
Opening his bedroom door, he found that breakfast had already been prepared and left on the table.
A warm smile tugged at Asher’s lips, but his attention was immediately drawn to a potted magical plant sitting in the center of the table.
It looked remarkably like a standard pothos vine, but to his alarm, its lush green leaves were covered in sickly black spots!
With a quick thought, he activated **[Insight]**.
**[Name]**: Fluorescent Vine
**[Grade]**: Tier 3, Mid-Grade
**[Effect]**: Steeping its roots in tea provides a minor boost to magic cultivation efficiency.
It is also one of the primary ingredients for brewing Tier Three Mana Potions.
**[Flaw]**: Severely lacking in sunlight exposure, resulting in an aphid infestation and leaf necrosis…
**[Solution]**: Expose to direct, intense sunlight for a cumulative total of eight hours…