The day after the duel on the Challenge Stage, Kai showed up for class at the academic building as usual.
This time, when Kai claimed the prime spot—dead-center in the first row of the Fire Element Transformation class—none of the other apprentices dared to utter a word of complaint. Most of them had heard about the previous day's fight and knew who'd walked away victorious. Beyond the wariness they felt toward this suddenly emergent powerhouse of the academy, curiosity ran even deeper. Kai had once been like a ghost around the academy, and now he'd burst into the spotlight with such overwhelming strength.
Senior Apprentice Mark was also in class the next day, but unlike before, his arm was swathed in thick white bandages. When he caught sight of Kai, the arrogance that had oozed from him the day before was gone. Yet if you looked closely, you could still see a flicker of defiance in his eyes—he just wasn't foolish enough to challenge Kai again so soon. A single defeat meant nothing to Mark; he was convinced he'd get his chance to turn the tables someday.
What Mark didn't know was that after leaving the Challenge Stage, his grandmother, the official Mage Irene, had told him a crucial detail: besides the Flame Blade that Kai had used as a trump card, Kai had also been holding a top-tier magic staff capable of casting advanced spells instantly. If Irene hadn't stepped in just in time to make Kai put away that staff, Mark wouldn't have just been wounded by the Flame Blade—he would've been done in by the Acid Staff too.
Learning this secret left Mark both shocked and terrified of Kai, a senior apprentice he'd once dismissed as quiet and unremarkable. But surrender? Not a chance. Mark told himself the only gap between him and Kai was their gear. Both Kai's Earth Shield Ring and Acid Staff were rare treasures among advanced magic items. If he'd had time to plan around those tools, or if he could beg his family for a few artifacts that matched the Acid Staff's power, the outcome might've been entirely different.
But that was just Mark's delusion. There were no do-overs in life. He thought the gap was just gear, but Irene and the robed Mage who'd watched the duel knew better: what truly separated Mark from Kai was battle instinct and danger awareness. Even if Mark got a second chance, he'd still likely lose. The gear gap was trivial compared to this—would Mark have charged straight into the blast of a Chain Explosion spell like Kai did? That kind of reckless, fearless fighting style made Kai's gentle, handsome exterior feel like a mask, revealing the murderous aura and life-or-death resolve beneath.
When Mark saw Kai in "his" old seat, he just snorted, then headed for the second or third row with his two friends and sat down.
Not long after, Official Mage Irene glided into the classroom right as the bell for class rang. The striking female mage walked straight to the podium, never glancing at Kai or Mark—who were quietly the center of attention. It was as if the previous day's apprentice duel had already slipped her mind.
As Irene opened her magic tome, the Fire Element Transformation class began. Kai quickly pulled out his magic notes, tuning out the subtle stares from the others, and threw himself back into the pursuit of truth and knowledge.
Irene's Fire Element Transformation class wasn't held daily. Most of the time, apprentices had to work around their instructors' schedules. Luckily, every new apprentice received a crystal orb from the academy, which let them check one day in advance if their desired class would be taught by an official mage the next day.
By the time Irene's class ended, the month was drawing to a close—and with it came Kai's reward for holding his rank on the Challenge Stage: a high-grade energy crystal, a Mind-Clearing Potion, and two stalks of Elan Grass, which offered mild benefits for meditation.
For a typical senior apprentice, this reward would've been cause for celebration, but to Kai? It was barely worth a second thought. The Mind-Clearing Potion (which restored a small amount of mental energy) and the high-grade energy crystal were the least valuable of the bunch; the real prize was the Elan Grass, which could be burned to boost meditation. But Kai, heir to Moses' legacy, wasn't short on that either—he'd long been using pure Elan Grass powder, far more potent than the raw stalks.
"Monthly rewards might seem small on their own," Kai mused, "but over a year, they'd add up to a decent sum. And the rewards for the top ten—especially the top three—are even rarer. But right now, I can't afford to waste time chasing rankings. Temporary strength means nothing."
As Headmaster Johnny and Mage Irene had told him, the Regional Tower Academy War in eight years' time was when apprentices could truly make a name for themselves—gain access to higher-level networks and earn massive rewards. "Right now, my priority is learning and growing," Kai reminded himself. "I need to push my magic power and mental energy to the 准 - Mage threshold as soon as possible. And I should start learning and refining the Sun Eye and other spells too."
He hadn't forgotten he was also an Alchemy Apprentice, either. For his mentor Moses—and for himself—Kai would never give up on alchemy, even though it was notoriously difficult and time-consuming. On top of that, he'd been wanting to dip his toes into potionology.
There were so many fields of knowledge and skills he wanted to master that even a packed schedule felt too short. He'd have gladly split every minute into two if he could. No wonder apprentices like Mark wondered why Kai was always so quiet—and why he'd never been seen at any noble ball. Kai was too swamped with his own goals to waste time on parties.
He'd even made up his mind to give up his Challenge Stage ranking reward. He simply didn't have the time to fend off every apprentice who wanted to steal his spot. If they wanted the rank that badly, he'd just let them have it.
One could only imagine the blow it would've dealt Mark—who, since their duel, had been treating Kai as his archenemy, poring over Kai's fighting style to find a way to beat him—if he'd known Kai's thoughts.
Even though Kai had no plans to defend his rank, he ended up collecting the academy's monthly reward for three months straight. The reason? The apprentice rankings at Azure Source Tower Academy had long been set in stone. Only a handful of senior apprentices and - Mages were regulars on the Challenge Stage—no new faces just appeared out of nowhere. If two other new senior apprentices hadn't crashed into the top twenty in those two months, Kai might've kept collecting that reward for even longer.
Notably, three months later—once his injuries had fully healed—Mark clawed his way back into the top twenty, landing at nineteenth place. But this achievement brought him no joy. After spending over two months crafting strategies to take down Kai, he'd suddenly learned that Kai hadn't stepped foot in the Challenge Area since their duel. It was like throwing a punch with all his might… only to hit a cloud of cotton.
Ever since the duel, Mage Irene had kept a subtle eye on Kai. When she saw her grandson still fixated on getting revenge, she frowned and snapped at him: "Wasting time on this nonsense! Do you have any idea what Kai's been up to while you're fooling around?"
"Whathashe been doing?" Mark asked, sounding wronged.
"He's been hopping between classes taught by official mages. He went to the library twenty-seven times this month alone—and spends over six hours there studying every day!" Irene jabbed Mark's forehead with her sharp fingernail. "And what about you? I heard you got yourself a new girlfriend—some princess from the Kingdom of Malgeria?"
Mark didn't dare talk back to the furious Irene. He only mumbled weakly, "The Malgerian princess is way out of our league. If this works out, Father and Grandma would both praise me."
Irene just rolled her eyes.
His clash with Mark was no more than a blip in Kai's time at Azure Source Tower Academy. They were on completely different paths. As Kai soaked up more elemental knowledge and deepened his foundations, the gap between him and Mark would only widen once Kai climbed to higher realms.
Three years later.
Inside the Azure Source Tower Academy Library.
Kai had just found the magic book he'd been searching for in the left section of the seventh floor: an ancient tome titledSpectra of Light. He hugged the book to his chest and headed downstairs to process the checkout.
The academy library offered three ways to access its books:
Read the book on-site and return it afterward. This was the cheapest option— the academy only deducted a small amount of academy points based on how long you stayed.Check the book out at the first-floor lobby. This cost more points but let you take the book back to study at your leisure. Break it, though, and you'd have to pay full price to replace it.Buy a copied version of the book directly from the tower. This was the most expensive choice, as it involved purchasing knowledge—and few apprentices could afford it.
Most apprentices stuck to the first option, like the gray-haired apprentice sitting at the desk nearby, heads-down in a magic book. Only a handful—Kai included—chose to check books out. After all, apprentices as well-off as Kai were few and far between at the academy.
"Still digging into the annihilation of Fire and Ice magic, (Glen)?" Kai asked the gray-haired apprentice.
Ordinarily, disturbing someone while they studied in the library was considered extremely rude. But Glen had a gentle temperament—and he was the only person Kai could call a "friend" after five years at Azure Source Tower. So this small interruption didn't matter. Kai didn't mind, and Glen certainly didn't either.
"Yep," Glen replied. "I think the magical detonation from merging Water and Fire is way too powerful—its instability is way beyond what we apprentices can control. Fire and Ice fusion, though? It's way more flexible. Especially since I found a new book here yesterday—written by Master Brand, who's a total expert in this field. I've been reading his work, and I'm wondering if the library has any of his other books…"
Normally, Senior Apprentice Glen was quiet and reserved. But when it came to magic—especially his chosen field—he'd talk nonstop. It was no surprise he'd never been popular; bookworms like him rarely were. Even now, the only friends Glen had at the academy were a few other apprentices from his home human kingdom.
How had Kai ended up friends with him? For one thing, over a year ago, Glen had helped Kai find a rare magic book in the library. For another, their personalities and routines were eerily similar—both were the kind of "hardcores" who could hole up in the library for a whole year and never step foot in a noble ball. Maybe it was mutual understanding, or maybe it was the fact that they'd sat side-by-side studying so many times, but somehow, the two had become friends. When Glen's fellow countrymen heard about it, they couldn't believe it—until they learned more about Kai. Then they nodded in realization: of course the only person who could be friends with Glen was someone just like him.
Glen had arrived at Azure Source Tower nearly twenty years earlier than Kai, but they were around the same age—Kai was even a year or two older. Glen was undoubtedly a prodigy: at just thirty, he'd already made it to Senior Apprentice. What made this even more impressive was that, unlike Kai, Glen had no access to vast resources or a mentor's legacy of magic books. He'd built his skills from the ground up, one step at a time, since arriving at the academy. No shortcuts, no lucky breaks—just pure diligence and hard work.
Glen was a commoner apprentice, a rare sight not just at the academy, but in the entire wizarding world. Azure Source Tower was barely two hundred years old, so its heritage and the quality of its apprentices couldn't hold a candle to older, more established towers. When Kai first arrived, Headmaster Johnny had claimed Azure Source was "on par with Dawn Tower along the southern coast of the wizarding world"—but that was just boasting. The gap between the two was far wider than anyone let on. After finishing dead last in the Regional Tower Academy War three years in a row, the tower's lord and deans were humiliated. It was then that one dean proposed a bold idea: "Since all the top noble apprentices are snapped up by other towers, why not look for talent among the commoners in our territory?"
This dean was a Level 3 Grand Mage who'd traveled the wizarding world extensively—wise and experienced. Though he wasn't the strongest of the three deans, his seniority and insight commanded respect; even the mighty Lord of Azure Source Tower often sought his advice.
In the wizarding world, magic apprentices were almost always selected from noble families. The reason? Nobles could trace their lineage back to Level 1+ Knights or Mages. Thanks to biological evolution and genetic inheritance, noble children were far more likely to meet the academy's minimum mental energy requirements for enrollment. What's more, learning magic took far more time and resources than mastering battle qi. Knowledge wasn't something you could gain by sweating it out in a training yard—that only built muscle, not the elemental understanding mages needed. Poor commoners could never afford to support a child's journey to becoming a magic apprentice, let alone a full mage.
Even commoner knights struggled to make their mark. Unlike noble knights—who started with top-tier battle qi techniques, plus potions and magical beast meat to strengthen their bodies—commoner knights had to scrape and claw for every bit of progress. It was a harsh truth: your background determined at least 40% of your potential.
Azure Source Tower, however, was different. As a newly founded organization, its lord had taken out a low-interest loan from the Wizarding Alliance to fund its construction. Perhaps because the lord was a female mage, she was far more frugal and resourceful than most tower lords. Once the tower was built and running smoothly, she realized she still had a huge sum of magic coins left unused—a fortune even for a Level 4 Mage. Everyone expected her to pocket the money, but instead, she reinvested it into the tower's development. That's why Azure Source's library was so grand and well-stocked.
The dean's proposal to recruit commoner apprentices only came about because he knew the academy still had that extra funds. And his idea paid off: Glen was one of those commoner apprentices. Not only did he pay no tuition, but he also received an extra energy crystal from the academy every year.
In return, though, Glen and the other commoner apprentices signed a different enrollment contract than Kai. Kai would have to serve the academy for at least a hundred years after advancing to Level 1 Mage; the commoner apprentices' commitment was even longer. If they showed no potential to reach Level 1, they'd be dismissed early and assigned to work in the academy's outer industries.
(PS: Thanks to Mage Midici's letter of recommendation and Headmaster Johnny's referral, Kai also didn't pay tuition—though it's possible Johnny deducted the fee from his own salary.)
Commoner apprentices like Glen were few at Azure Source; the academy had only recruited two classes of them. Finding commoners with mental energy above 10 (the minimum for enrollment) was incredibly rare, even though the academy's official mages had scoured the human kingdoms bordering Azure Source.
(PS: Azure Source only recruited commoner apprentices from the human kingdoms adjacent to its territory, not as far as the Licia Alliance. For one thing, the cost in manpower and resources would've been too high for the small number of potential recruits. For another, mage organizations in distant kingdoms deliberately blocked Azure Source's efforts—they didn't want the tower to monopolize talent, even commoner talent they didn't care about.)
Kai saw something different in Glen—something he didn't see in most other commoner apprentices. Their friendship was rooted in shared personality, but there was also a subtle element of investment on Kai's part. Still, Kai was surprised that after over a year of friendship, Glen had never asked him for money—even though Glen must have noticed how often Kai checked out books (a clear sign of wealth). Their interactions were still simple: sitting in the same corner of the library, reading quietly. Since both were senior apprentices who studied Fire magic, their reading lists overlapped enough to spark conversation.
Kai listened patiently as Glen rambled about his Fire-Ice fusion theories. Kai had always been a good listener—whether it was official mages teaching in class or a senior apprentice sharing his insights into magic. And Glen's theories about Fire-Ice fusion actually had merit; even Kai, who hadn't dabbled in Ice magic yet, could tell Glen's ideas were growing more polished.
Glen might've been a bookworm, but he wasn't stupid. After talking for nearly half an hour, he finally noticed Kai was holding an old book and clearly preparing to leave. He cut himself off mid-sentence, a sheepish look crossing his face. "Sorry, I rambled on too long. You're leaving, right?"
Kai nodded. "Yeah—I'm gonna take this Light Magic book back to my dorm to study. Plus, my mental energy and magic power just broke through the 70 mark. I need to (solidify) that progress."
Glen's face lit up with envy. "You've already hit the 70+ mental energy threshold for - Mage?"
Kai nodded again. "Yep—broke through a few days ago."