Antalia was standing motionless on the stage, looking at the closed door which connected the assembly hall with the first-grader building.

`Is it finally my time to shine as a teacher?` She asked herself when a creepy smile appeared on her face, scaring the two remaining men on the stage.

Both the blacksmith and the runemaster, were only Rank 3 Artisans, while Antalia was not only younger but also more talented in alchemy.

She had reached the 4th Rank and was said to be able to reach the 5th Rank within a few dozen years if she was able to reach certain requirements.

While Antalia was thinking about Jason, he was already allowed to go home, because today´s schedule was only consistent with the Artisan apprentice exams.

Passing them all, Jason had nothing else to do.

Suddenly he felt his mana core shaking and sensing his insides, Jason noticed that the mana inside his core was raging violently, trying to break out of the Novice-rank shackles.

It was uncomfortable and even hurt slightly, as the mana core resisted against the outburst of mana, forcing it to stay inside the core.

He had still some mana stones left for the current situation and he took some of them out while searching for a tranquil place with a decent mana current.

The pain inside his mana core intensified a little bit, however, it was still endurable and only five minutes passed when he had found the perfect place.

Jason was at the outskirts of the forest which he entered on his first day and he clearly remembered that Mr.Greil told him that he was not allowed to go inside.

He wasn't sure why this was the case but he didn't mind it.

Even if he was able to venture inside, he wouldn't as the mana flow he perceived was perfectly fit for his breakthrough.

Breaking through would probably take a few hours even with the support of a few mana stones as Jason took out more mana stones which placed closely around whim, while a few remained in his hands in order to receive the optimal mana supply from them.

If Jason was capable of creating an isolation mana circle, he wouldn't need to take mana stones into his hand, and placing them on the mana circle would be more than enough.

Everything could go smoother and faster but apparently, Jason wasn´t a runemaster and couldn´t inscribe mana circles or runes.

As such it had to be done the old-fashioned and less efficient way.

Jason relaxed his body and loosened up mana-threads from the mana stones in order to lead them into his body.

His pores opened up subconsciously, as he greedily absorbed the mana from his surroundings and the small grade-1 mana stones around him and inside his hands.

Doing a large circle with the gathered mana inside his channels, he absorbed them into his body, bringing his mana core almost to the brink of destruction.

At least that was what it looked like.

It didn't take long until the mana core began to crumble slightly but before it completely cracked open.

However before anything could happen, the mana inside his core filled up the gaps and caused the mana core to enlarge itself.

Jason was completely enveloped in mana while his body was shimmering lightly due to it, causing his appearance to look even more stunning.

Time passed slowly and cold sweat pearls drenched his back and forehead due to the excessive focus he endured.

It was not excessively taxing to absorb mana but filling the gaps of his mana core all the time was not as easy as he thought in the beginning.

More than four hours passed and it was already evening when Jason opened his eyes slowly.

His eyes shimmered vigorously, and it seemed like golden flames were flickering inside, while the depth of them could not be determined anymore.

This depth only appeared for a second before it vanished and Jason's whole body scrunched when he was about to stand up.

His clothes were dirtied with bloodstains, a black mass of reeking impurities and...skin??

When he broke through his old skin peeled off naturally, which was relatively uncommon but considering that his soulbond was a scorpion that also enhanced his skin by a considerable degree, it wouldn't be that abnormal to peel off his old and weaker skin once he broke into a new rank.

His new skin looked fair and one could see his veins without much difficulty.

Without activating his mana eyes, Jason was even able to see his mana veins, which were interconnected to his veins, shining brightly as if a stream of stars flowed through them.

Activating his mana eyes and using his senses at the same time, Jason carefully inspected his mana core rank at the Adept rank.

His core was around 50% larger compared to before and Jason felt much stronger in every possible way.

This feeling caused Jason to be overjoyed and he was now at the same mana core as the second weakest mana core rank in school, which would most likely cause an uproar the next time, anyone scanned through his mana core.

It only took him slightly more than a month to conquer five levels and a whole rank, causing Jason to be extremely proud of himself.

Not many could do that, even if he could only do so due to his teacher's help.

Jason changed his clothes inside a bush before rushing off to the school gates, with a happy smile on his face.

Suddenly a red-haired girl with a voluptuous chest, a brown-haired youth, and a small blue-haired girl walked out of the forest and they had a certain thing in common.

Their beed-red cheeks and gazes that followed the black-haired youth who looked somehow familiar to them

Clearing her throat, the red-haired girl was the first one to gather her senses

"Haven't we seen him before...a-at the lake?" she said and thinking about the naked boy jumping down into the lake in the middle of the forest, everyone's cheeks turned even redder if that was even possible.

"P-Probably?" The brown-haired youth said shyly… It had never been easy for him to talk to anyone except his two friends, and seeing a stranger naked, wasn't something one would normally see, but they had seen his thing two times at that.

Even if the blue-haired girl was tiny, her mind was shameless and she remembered the youth's lower body part, which was the cause for her to turn red.

Forcing her brain to change subjects, she stated.

"But wasn't that boy only at the 6th Novice rank previously? Hasn't it only been slightly more than a month? How can he break into the Adept rank so fast?!?"

Hearing that, her two pals were shocked as they hadn't thought of that.

This caused their minds to forget that the black-haired youth was naked a moment before and they began to wonder, how such a feat was even possible, as they could never do something like that.

They were already third grades and at the peak-Expert rank but considering the constant rise of more prodigious youths each year, their feat was, unfortunately, nothing to be proud of, even if it was considered above average amongst their classmates.

Jason didn´t know that the group of three saw him changing his clothes.

If he did, nobody could be sure, how he would react, not even Jason himself.

Meanwhile, Jason ran towards the gates and his speed seemed to have increased by at least 30%, probably even more.

Thinking about that, he wondered how his future spars with Greg would be.

Maye, he was even able to fight some awakened beasts head-on.

Jason noticed that he was relatively short on money, even if his money wrecker, Artemis was evolving.

After Artemis finished her evolution, she would demand even more food which would cause him to pay more credits to nurture her.

He had still a few thousand wild-ranked cores left and he would force her to eat them first, but they wouldn't be sufficient for a long time.

In addition to his awakened beast cores, Jason hoped that he could provide her with food for a month.

Thinking about credits, Jason was reminded about the magical treasure that emitted an light gray color.

He only knew that it was a Siphon-agnus-castus flower and he was still not sure what exactly its effects were, as this particular flower wasn´t described in the books provided by his teacher and the Artisan-tower´s for the alchemy exam.

Would Jason ever find out that his teacher was scolded for giving him the Siphon-agnus-castus flower?

Even though Till was from a high family, that wouldn´t mean he could do whatever he wanted on someone else's governed island and he had to reimburse them with something equally worthy.

Jason also didn´t know that the Siphon-agnus-castus was a magical treasure used by Beast creators to increase the potential of nature, healing, and holy attributed beasts in addition to a few other materials.

Something that could increase the potential of beasts was already rare but treasures that could increase the potential of rare and unique attributes like sentient plants, healing, and holy attributed beasts, was even more shocking.

The Siphon-agnus-castus was said to be even able to give half-sentient plants the opportunity to fully awaken their sentient, causing them to create their incomplete core which would be similar to an invitation to the path of cultivation and mana absorption

If Till would have known that before, he would have never allowed Jason to pick up such a precious treasure.

In the end, he could only lament, as it would hurt his pride to ask Jason to give the Siphon-agnus-castus back, considering the possibility that it was already used up or sold.