After Ms Winter's lesson, Linus retreated to the library to read books. While he did this, Nyx was training her dark petal skill by continually releasing a storm of petals around and in front of her. This would help her improve efficiency, which needed time and control over her only skill while it also increased her absorption rate of the dark shadow energy around her which increased her growth rate.

At the current rate, she was absorbing the energy combined with the planned fifteen recoveries per day, she should be capable of reaching level 1 of the iron rank by Friday and afterwards improve a level per week. The same was true for Linus's contract space which should reach the peak of the apprentice rank right before the National examination.

When noon arrived, he went back to the canteen where ate four portions again to the astonishment of other students and kitchen personnel. Afterwards, he headed to the school's training field after changing into some sports clothes. He also released Nyx to let her train together with him.

While Linus started training his body with some exercises and running. Nyx trained her dark petal skill under Linus's instruction, before having her fight against the shadow avatar and recover 5 minutes and releasing her again. This repeated itself for four hours and Nyx had then fought all her scheduled 15 times.

She was every time defeated within one storm of dark petals, but some improvement could be seen as both her release and control had slightly improved. Aside from that, she went from being unable to resist the avatar's attack to resist for a second.

While they had been training, they had only focused on themselves resulting in him not noticing the figure who had witnessed his effort. After changing his workout clothes, he headed to his combat tactics class. There he learned knowledge he already knew, but a refreshment was welcome.

They had discussed the elemental restraints and compatibilities of different pets and beasts. Certain elements are the opposite of each other and will be suppressed if the other element is stronger. an example would be the fire element and the water element. Other elements are inherently restrained by other elements like wood to fire, and wind and lightning to earth.

Certain elements are also compatible and can increase the power of the other element. An example would be how the wind element can fuel the fire element, or the earth element can reinforce the metal element. The elements of life and wood can also synergize with each other as death and darkness do. Life and death are relatively special as they both suppress and fuel each other. Aside from them, there are two supreme elements which are space and time with space being the king and time the emperor.

After the combat tactics class, it was time for his last class of the day. The practical combat class taught by Ms Winter gathered the students who had already awakened during their entire senior year.

Upon arriving, he noticed that almost everyone was already present together with Ms Winter. A minute later everyone had arrived and Ms Winter took the word. She commanded everyone to summon their pets before she checked all of them. Sometimes she would pause slightly when looking at a certain pet and note something down.

After she finished doing that, she asked everyone to split into the casual and elite groups. When Linus started going towards the casual group, she interrupted him and said loudly: "Linus Black, you will be part of the elite group during practical combat classes. I expect you to work hard and improve as much as you can during the remaining three months before the National examination."

When she spoke, everyone's attention was attracted to Linus and his pet Nyx, a dark rose. First, they were intrigued but then found the situation hilarious. Some even started laughing. One person from the elite group even spoke up: "Ms Winter you may be mistaken as that person has contracted a useless dark rose whose petals can only be used to blow a breeze."

Linus became furious when those words were said, not because of their validity in them but because they were insulting Nyx. Admitting and recognising that her race belongs to the the weakest beast races isn't wrong, but condoning her for it isn't something he can tolerate when he knew how much effort she had put into her training today.

Before he could respond though Ms Winter already reacted by slapping that guy.

"Stop bullshitting about weak and strong pets and focus on improving your own. I have my reasons for putting him in the Elite group and that will be where he stays and that's all."

After reacting she turned her gaze towards him and said:

"Linus the same words are valid for you too, I don't want you questioning my decision to join the Elite group, so start training and sparring."

He then joined the Elite group in their warm-up where both he and Nyx were the slowest and weakest. Afterwards, they started sparring and Ms Winter paired him with a girl from another class who had contracted an iron rank green silk bug that could only spit silk threads through its racial silk skill. She was the previous weakest of the Elite group but compared to Linus she was different as she was training her pet to become a support type due to her ability-enhancing support skills like healing and replenishing energy.

Her pet was of a much higher level at level 4 of the iron rank due to her awakening two months before him. When they were paired together, she didn't speak with him nor held the same look of disdain as the others and only followed the instructions Ms Winter gave her.

When the sparring started, Nyx immediately summoned her dark petals as a defence in front of her. The green silk bug was slower and attacked with a silk thread which was obstructed by the dark petals after reaching three-quarters of the defence. Due to the slow speed of both pets, they both didn't move and started a game of silk thread versus dark petals.

This continued for 10 minutes before Nyx was exhausted and couldn't defend against the silk threads anymore. The two then retracted their pets to replenish their energy and started sparring again after 10 minutes. The second match was a repeat of the first and both started a repeat of fighting for ten minutes and resting for ten minutes until the class of two hours ended.

When they were done, the girl approached Linus and only exchanged the following words: "My name is Lana Moore, I will see you tomorrow then Linus Black."

Linus then headed to the canteen where he had dinner for four-man again, before heading back home where Nyx absorbed dark shadow energy and Linus first studied for another four hours before he meditated through the night.

In this world, meditation could replace sleep after awakening the contract space, but most people still slept due to the required discipline and boringness of meditating for extended periods.

When morning arrived, Linus ran back to school before having breakfast. After the first class, he went back to the library while Nyx trained her dark petal skill inside the contract space. At noon he ate four portions of lunch before heading to the same training field where both he and Nyx trained. After training, he had his combat tactics class where he noted everything down before ending the day with a practical combat class where he sparred with Lana and her green silk bug again. This time Nyx lasted slightly longer while the silk thread penetrated slightly less through her dark petals.

This was used by Linus to congratulate Nyx for her hard work while further encouraging her. This pumped her up and she kept up the tiring training for the rest of the week. By the end of Thursday's afternoon training, she had already reached LVL 1 of the iron rank and became a full-fledged pet. This advancement was slightly faster than expected and her power increased by a bit allowing her sparring with the green silk bug to both last longer while also allowing her to resist its silk thread until it only penetrated through half of the dark petals to Lana's shock.

When practical combat class ended that day, Linus didn't leave immediately as he was called by Ms Winter to the side. Most students thought that she would expel him from the Elite group except two persons, one being Linus himself as he slightly understood her character and Lana as she had seen Linus and Nyx's improvement over the last four days.

When Linus reached Ms Winter's side, she started speaking while looking through her papers:

"Linus, your rate of improvement has impressed me. Elevating your pet's level from being a cub to LVL 1 iron rank in only five days is extraordinary when taken into account that you don't have the resources to swiftly elevate your pet's level. Unfortunately, your awakening and birthday fell quite late in the school year which will slightly disadvantage you during the National examination even if a certain correction is applied.

For tomorrow's survival test, just give it your all as only a week has passed and this isn't sufficient for you to increase your rate of survival by a lot. You should primarily focus on the next survival test by further increasing your pet's defensive capabilities. An advice for you should be to try and teach your dark rose to learn another skill that will enhance its petals. You could either try it yourself by looking online or by paying an apprentice pet teacher who can teach your pet.

Not many people are willing to work as hard as you do to train both yourself and your pet. Don't stake everything on the path of pet cultivation as you are also gifted enough to become a high ranking pet trainer."

After her little speech, Linus left her office again with some thought but a small smile could be seen on his face. This was because his hard work had been recognised by not solely him but also by his teacher.

After having dinner at the canteen, he ran back home when Nyx started absorbing dark shadow energy again while he entered the digital world. This time, he didn't study but entered the White Bone City's Pet cultivator association branch. The previous day while searching the association for an assistant position to a professional pet cultivator, he found a low-rank professional pet cultivator who was looking for an apprentice pet cultivator with a darkness element pet.

He immediately sends his credentials and information about Nyx. He was then invited today for a meeting to determine if he were to become this person's assistant or not. Linus arrived five minutes before the schedule in the waiting room. After waiting for five minutes, the office door opened and he was invited inside by a silver rank vine spirit pet.

After entering, he met the professional pet cultivator who he called senior Wellington. Mr Wellington started the conversation by introducing himself and his upcoming research subject:

"Good evening, Mr Linus Black it is a delight to meet a young man like you who has passed the exam at your age and also wants to further his experience by becoming an assistant. I already know your capabilities as I was the exam marker of your bonus question during your exam. Your hypothesis and proposal on how to evolve a dark rose were ingenious to me and had me wanting to test it out. Now a week later when I send the request for an assistant to help me with this research, you appear before and guess what the pet that you have contracted is a dark rose. If this isn't fate then what is.

I want you as my assistant as it was both your idea and proposal. I would expect you to join me always for three hours on school days after your classes end, while I expect you for six hours per weekend day. I will pay you 5000 FD per month and a bonus of 10 000 FD if we succeed before the National examination.

One requirement I have for you though is that after we test the evolution concept on other peak iron rank dark roses and they successfully evolve, I want you to try and evolve your dark rose before the National examination as it would increase the popularity and reach of our research result if they successfully work.

I will personally pay for the evolution materials, but the training of skills and your pet to LVL 9 iron rank have to be done by yourself. Do you agree to this proposal?"

Linus was shocked by the man's offer and only after he recollected himself could he react, but nothing unexpected happened and Linus agreed in a heartbeat signing a document which mentioned his position as assistant and participant in the experiment to try and help evolve dark rose beasts and pets. Mr Wellington also informed him that he would be expected at the Pet cultivator association branch of White Bone City, in reality, the following day.