The pellet entered his body and a burning sensation filled his stomach. James felt like he was on fire as beads of sweat poured down from every inch of his body.

His skin turned red from head to toe. His uniform became wet sticking to his skin as he sweated profusely.

The pellet dissolved into a black liquid which entered his bloodstream. He felt as if a layer of liquid spread across each and every part of his body inside and a huge amount of dense qi moved towards his core.

As the hours ticked by, the liquid mixed in completely with the blood and got absorbed by his body strengthening his bones, muscles and organs giving them a qualitative leap.

He could feel an increase in his strength and felt that his body was now even more resilient than before. Inside his core he felt the surging qi increasing his capacity as more and more qi collected.

The headmaster was right when he said that breaking through to the mid stages of the Azure realm would now be easier thought James, as he felt that he saved about 4 months of time that he would have had to spend in absorbing qi.

After a few hours James opened his eyes and checked his body. His uniform was drenched in sweat while his muscles looked even more firm. He took a quick shower and with a change of clothes he felt quite refreshed.

He was eager to test his improvements and decided to head to the training facility. It was dark outside, his watch showed 2 am as he got out of his room.

Seeing Gus's door shut, James thought he was still meditating or had gone off to sleep. He jumped on his hover disc and flew towards the facility.

The wind was slow and crickets could be heard singing. James looked up and saw the few stars in the sky. The moon a half crescent gave off a beautiful silver glow. James took a deep breath feeling the calm atmosphere of the night.

He reached the facility and went inside the gym. The lights were turned on which made James curious about the identity of the person inside.

He opened the door and saw a blonde girl with pale skin in a singlet and shorts testing her strength on the Strength machine. Her hair was tied neatly in a ponytail. James recognized her as she turned back, it was Kayla.

"I am guessing you are here to test your improvements as well" said James as he gave her smile.

She nodded and after she was done, she moved away giving him the spot and started to leave the room. Before she left she turned around and said,

"Thank you again for your help back there. Without you finding the letter, I might have failed the test. "

" Ah it's ok! Thanks for your help as well. I couldn't have cleared the partitions inside with carrying my friend with me. " replied James. Kayla left the room and James walked up to the machine.

As the cultivator progresses and raises his strength he can measure it on strength machines where the cultivator needed to throw a punch at it with all his power. The machine would calculate and give a result.

These machines were invented as cultivators had humongous amounts of strength at later stages which could not be measured by picking up a barbell as there was a limit to the amounts of weights that could be attached.

After being capable of lifting 400 kgs, cultivators used the strength machine instead. The barbells were used just as a training method to raise strength during early stages such as the Form realm.

James readied himself and threw a punch with all his power.

'443 kg' appeared on the screen.

James was surprised by the increase in his strength. A few days ago he was barely able to pick up a 380 kg barbell and now he was hitting near 450 kgs!

An idea appeared in his mind and he stepped back towards the opposite wall. He infused qi in his fist and applied Wind Enforcer and ran towards the machine throwing a punch at it.

'650 kg' read the machine.

James was taken aback as he never thought that by infusing qi in his fists and applying qi force to his punch resulted in over 200kgs of extra force. The Wind Enforcer at higher ranks will incease the strength of his attacks greatly thought James.

Next morning James met up with Gus. Gus had slept last night on his mat wearing his sweaty uniform as he felt tired after extracting the energy from the pellet. He too had a good increase in his overall strength.

They decided to visit the Sky Blaze Tower and check the missions list. Each year after the Virtual Test, the academy would open the option to the first year students to accept and complete missions.

Advancing and making breakthroughs in their cultivation, a cultivator required not only hard work and diligence but a huge amount of resources as well.

Weapons and techniques came at a price. The higher their quality the higher their price. Apart from this various pills to aid in advancing were needed and medicines to heal injuries. A cultivator would not be able to embark on dangerous journeys without proper supplies.

Through constant training a cultivator could advance but his pace would be too slow and he might not be able to break away barriers such as advancing to another realm. Hence, in a way a cultivator was required to be wealthy as well.

James and Gus reached the Tower and went straight to the second floor to accept missions. The floor looked quite similar to the first with a polished yellowish brown marble flooring and a wide open area.

There was just one difference which was that the floor had no furnishings apart from a counter and a chair unlike the first floor which had a reception and seating for guests.

The second floor was accessible only to students where they could come and accept missions and earn rewards. The reward for a mission could either be money or some item of equivalent value.

There were many students here who came to accept missions. Most seemed to be their seniors, however, a good number from their class had also turned up to check the missions.

They walked up to the counter which had a middle aged woman sitting behind it. She was attending to the students providing them with a list of missions and recording their completions.

When their turn came she asked for their comm watches. After determining their rank and year she gave them a list of missions available which appeared on a holographic screen in front of them.

The missions listed would either be given out by the academy or provided from outside. Many factions requested the aid of the academy in certain matters such as powerful beast hunts, finding a certain rare herb or capturing a certain prisoner.

The academy filtered through these requests and provided a set of these missions to the students for them to complete. Missions once accepted by a party could not be handed out to others until the concerned party failed.

Missions were graded in ranks according to their difficulty which ranged from rank S to rank D. Rank D missions were open to every student. It mainly consisted of gathering missions or academy related work that required their help.

To advance to take higher difficulty missions for greater rewards, the students would have to complete a certain criteria which consisted of completing a set number of missions of the current rank.

The student's mission history would be recorded automatically in their comm watches and ranks would be provided accordingly.

Currently James and Gus were only eligible to take up D rank missions. They looked at the list and saw that most of them were from the academy itself consisting of either hunting a specific monster for a required material or gathering a number of a certain plant.

After looking through the available missions for a while they decided to pick a hunting quest and a gathering quest. The hunting mission required them to hunt an early Azure realm beast named the Feral Wolf, while the gathering mission required them to collect 10 four petal lilies.

They decided to team up and complete the missions, distributing the reward amongst themselves equally. The reward for the missions were 10 gold coins for the Wolf and 1 gold for the lilies. It was a satisfactory amount considering it was their first missions.

A standard was maintained when it came to currency globally. The currency system considered of 3 denominations which were gold, silver and copper coins. 1 gold coin equalled a 100 silver coins and 1 silver coin equalled a 100 copper coins.

Mostly people used bank accounts to settle their debts or receive payments. They did not deal much in hard currency. The comm watches could be used a mode of payment. It was connected to the users account and could be used to pay for goods and services.

The lady recorded the missions in her database and it got simultaneously updated in their comm watches. They left the tower and headed for the teleportation gate.

The academy had a small teleportation gate which was used to teleport students to the Astia Mountains. A base of the academy was there outside the mountains where the student would be teleported to. From there the student could go or come back as he or she desired.

Most of the area of the kingdom was covered in forests and mountains and the Astia Mountains was the largest amongst these.

It spanned over a huge area of thousands of kilometers covered in mountains and trees. Most of the missions given by the academy required the student to visit this area to complete it.

The use of this teleportation gate was free and could be used anytime. It was located in the North western side of the academy towards the end.

James and Gus reached the facility and saw a huge circular structure in front of them. It was a hollow structure considering of only a circular metallic ring. A few students could be seen near it.

The hollow space in between glowed in white light and a gatekeeper stood beside it. They walked up to the gatekeeper and through their watches, the gatekeeper recorded their identities. The academy kept a record on the identity of the students leaving and entering from the gate.

James walked towards the light stepping inside and a new area appeared around him.

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I just completed this chapter so if you find any mistakes or have any suggestion please comment and let me know. I hope you all like the story progress. Enjoy! :)