Chapter 15: The Academy III
It had been over 2 months since Magnus had joined the Academy. Even though Magnus was initially planning on staying there for a couple of months before leaving, he realized a while ago how naive he was. There were so many aspects to getting stronger than he had never even thought about, before this. He had realized how weak he was.
Compared to the powerhouses and important people in the Academy, he was nothing, not to mention the wolves in sheep's clothing like Jin. He still had so much to learn and do, that's the main thing he realized after coming to the Academy.
Currently, it was Sunday.
Sundays were holidays, where students could go do small missions, explore the campus, do certain activities, work in the many student-run firms, or go learn and discuss with the teachers.
Magnus however, never did any of those things. Every day, for the past almost 5 weeks, Jin took Magnus to a training ground you could rent for Crowns, and he taught Magnus all sorts of combat tips and pointers that were overlooked or not known by the actual professors.
Magnus felt like the amount he learned from Jin could be equated to having 2 extra classes a day. Every day, when he was walking around the campus for whatever reason, Jin explained all sorts of concepts to him. In this way, Magnus had grown more in these weeks in the Academy, than he had for most of his life.
As a result of constant practice with Jin, Magnus was slowly growing, both physically, and mentally.
"Ah Magnus, that reminds me, I haven't quite explained the history of the tower and 'the First Generation' to you yet, have I?"
"Nope, would you please?"
Over the course of the two months, Magnus had started to respect Jin, not only for his strength, but for his attitude, as well as everything he had done for Magnus so far.
"Of course, hmm, where do I start? Oh, got it, alright, think of it like this, I'm sure you've heard of the Incursion, right?"
Seeing Magnus nod his head, he continued,
"This is important information, so if anyone ever asks you about this, you are not allowed to disclose most of this information, you could get in major trouble. Think of it in this way, on a select day, for a special reason that you wouldn't understand even if I told you, a wave of energy passed through Earth.
This wave of energy wouldn't be visible by human standards, even with the technology of that time.
That energy was absorbed by Humans all over the world and eventually was called mana.
However, humans weren't the only people who could absorb mana. All the animals around the world had also absorbed the mana to a certain extent. And the animals who were able to absorb a great amount of mana were able to mutate into much stronger creatures and were able to use mana to a more practical extent, even more so than humans, but over time, we humans have learned how to perfectly control mana, which gave us the advantage.
And yet, even so, we humans would have had a very hard time fending across all these animals all over the world.
However, then came the existence of the towers. I'm going to assume you know little to nothing actual information about the towers too.
There are 10 Towers in total, all of which cannot be explained using human standards.
Of course, humanity became curious, and so, to investigate the towers, humanity sent 10,000 separate individuals, all of whom were the top of the top in the country's forces, in special and secret forces, representing all the countries of the world.
All 10,000 people of different nationalities were informed to work together and to bring back as much information as possible. And yet, even after months, there was no response from them, after which humanity had tried sending other scouting forces, which were even larger in number, and yet, there had been no response from them as well.
And for the following months, the wild beasts first made their appearance onto Earth, and even though at first it was an easy win for humanity, their numbers drastically increased even by the second.
Humanity struggled for a while but was eventually able to come out on top, eventually resorting to high scale explosives.
And yet, after all, that, as if mocking the efforts of humanity, the [Gates] first made their appearance, and that was the start of a dark age.
The so-called 'Gates', were in fact rifts in space leading to who-knows-where. They weren't the problem though, the real problem was the creatures coming out of them.
There were hundreds of thousands of different species humanity had never seen before. Many of them bore a resemblance to animals that were present on Earth at one point, and yet a huge number were completely new.
However, all those 'creatures' had one thing in common, they were much, much stronger than the animals on Earth. All of them, including the herbivorous ones, had a thirst and basic instinct for blood, and were very violent creatures that seemed they only existed to kill the humans."
Jin looked behind him to see Magnus listening eagerly with complete attention to him, and he smiled as he continued.
"Needless to say, humanity suffered a severe loss. Billions, yes billions, Magnus, not millions, of people from places all over the planet had perished, and it looked like the rest of them were going to die too.
Anyway, the future looked bleak for humanity, there was nothing they could do as the creatures they started to call 'Monsters' started to surround them in all directions,
Just as people were holding ceremonies for their deaths, and as religious lunatics took over the world with their cultist bullshit, and as everyone believed that there was no hope, hope had finally appeared, from the most unexpected source.
Humanity's first heroes had appeared. Remember the thousands of people deployed to investigate the tower? They had finally come back.
Now, of course, that alone wouldn't be that much of a cause of celebration since they would be coming back just to die.
However, there was a huge difference between their numbers before and after.
Out of the total of around 30,000 people, all of whom were highly trained individuals, only around a third of a percent remained. That's right, only around 100 people came back, that's around 0.33 percent of the initial force.
And yet, those 100 weren't to be underestimated whatsoever, after all, humanity was restored to a stable condition, with just those 100 people.
This was because, even though there wasn't quantity, there was quality.
Each one of the hundred was able to exert a fighting force stronger than dozens of thousands of unarmed soldiers.
And that wasn't the limit, those hundred were somehow even stronger when put against monsters. It was like they were trained for years to fight against these monsters.
And that's exactly what the tower is, it is a path. A path that anyone can take, but it is also a path the only the dedicated can walk.
Surviving in the tower is more due to luck rather than skill, and yet luck is a part of your skillset.
The Towers are a magnificent place, in which you could find thousands of species all living together in harmony, or you could find a battlefield filled with chaos and death. It is practically a world of its own, a world that connects every other world.
And of course, humanity wasn't the only race in all those worlds, there were countless worlds with their own respective flourishing races.
Some of those people may seem way too overpowered when compared to humanity, having incredible strength from birth or have special characteristics, such as, for example, a race with lifespans lasting thousands of years.
However, when there is always a cause for an effect. Those races must have had to undergo countless trials against other strong beings since their beginning of creation, meanwhile, other others may have been in relatively weak worlds, and may not have had combat potential, but may have had an affinity for things like healing.
The Towers are a place that welcomes all of those people, of all races, in fact, if even a bug were to somehow ascend a tower, it would become emperor amongst weaklings."
Magnus listened eagerly to Jin, while a small thought in his mind started increasing the more Jin talked, 'How does Jin know so much about the tower?'
They had stopped to get some food along the way, and Jin continued explaining to Magnus, who was still listening with vigor.
"Well, anyway, coming back to the story, those 100 people became the lanterns of humanity, and were regarded as, 'Heros' and were treated with the utmost respect.
After all, each one had instantly become the national treasures of countries. They were the ultimate defense and offense against the threat to humanity.
Over time, people started regarding climbing the tower as a natural thing, an occupation, the best one, but also the hardest.
And that's what everyone is trained for at a young age these days, it all revolves around either climbing the tower or defending against the gates. The other professions barely make up 40% of all occupations, while the combat-related ones are the other 60%.
And coming to the original question you had asked me, the first group of heroes to exist, the ones that had saved humanity. They are the people that are known as, 「The First Generation 」.
Jin saw Magnus processing all this information in his head and decided to speak no further.
He and Magnus were walking home after an incredibly long and tiring training session when he had told Magnus all of this.
For the past 2 months, he and Magnus had worked really hard on pushing him to his limits, and he was proud of how far Magnus had come so soon.
Magnus's progress in mana especially surprised him, due to the help of Professor Lilith's techniques, which were executed by Jin, Magnus was now able to unblock his Mana circuits through his Lungs, Pericardium, Heart, all the way to his Arms and Hands.
That meant he was able to use an elementary level of mana, and although he wouldn't be able to cast spells until mana flowed freely throughout his entire body, the amount of mana he had, with just the basic circuit, actually intimidated Jin quite a bit.
And even though Magnus was unable to cast spells yet, Magnus seemed to be innately talented in controlling his mana to do so. In the 'Magic Spell Comprehension' class, Magnus did really well in the comprehension aspect, even somewhat replicating minor versions of magic spells, without fully being able to use his mana circuit.
Although Jin attributed this to Magnus having an insane talent for Magic, in reality, it was Magnus's 'Mana Mastery' that allowed him to use a very elementary form of mana to cause changes to the elements, even without full control.
Even not considering Mana, Magnus's physical fighting strength had increased by a lot just by training with Jin and with the instructions of the professors.
And yet, the amount of time Jin trained all of this was comparatively low, compared to what they really trained.
Every day, for as much time as possible, Magnus worked with Jin to try and improve the control of his [Wrath of the Berserker].
{Two Months Ago}
"Alright, so you're telling me that you have an ability that makes you much better in battle, but you lose complete control? Are there any other downsides or advantages?"
"Yeah, it only appears I seem to get in large battles, or when I seem to be in trouble, but I can control it to also occur whenever I want it to. Unfortunately, though, it's like I fall unconscious, as I don't even know what I'm doing until I finally wake up, a while after the battle is over."
"Alright, so that means you can't control when to stop it? I see how that can be a problem."
"Yeah, the memories of the battle all come to me after I wake up, until then, it's like I'm not even there."
Jin had Magnus go berserk, since he seemed to have no problem doing so at will, and then he fought Magnus. Well-, rather than fighting, he was just dodging and defending, trying to probe Magnus's maximum force.
Jin paid full attention to Magnus and tried to see if anything else changed with him, and Magnus was right, it was like someone else took over, he fought like a wild beast, and yet, each blow was performed with perfect control.
He even noticed that Magnus was fighting flawlessly, there was nothing he could suggest for Magnus to do in that state, every move was perfect, and that surprised him.
'Magnus was right, it'd be hard to reach this level of combat just by training.''
Jin didn't focus on the fact that Magnus acted like an animal, even though it looked funny at first if one were to calculate it, Magnus was always making incredibly smart decisions in the fight and even was able to predict moves that even he made.
In fact, Magnus seemed to fight better and had more opportunities this way, and Jin was all for it, in combat, there was no right and wrong, only the strong and the weak, the victors, and the losers.
A slight grin appeared on his face, he wondered what would happen if he could make Magnus gain control of this 'form' of him.
Magnus was already a smart fighter, paired with the full control of his body he currently had, he would genuinely make a great fighter, even without learning any techniques or skills.
----
(Author's Note: 22nd Jan Note:
Hey guys, I've just finished editing the novel, and I would advise you guys to re-read the first 10 chapters, along with this one, since the entire thing has been restructured and remade for the most part, and the novel might get confusing with different things popping up.
Thanks for your support! <3)
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Arm7
Arm7 Sorry for the setting dump, that was some pretty important stuff that would become relevant in the near future, so I decided to release it in that way.
Don't worry, the next few chapters are gonna be a lot more fun and interesting.
Thank you for your patience and for reading this novel!
P.S, the power stone issue has been resolved, and you should be able to vote with them again. Thanks a lot for your support!
It means a lot <3
20th Jan Note:
Hey guys, sorry, but there won't be any chapter today, and quite possibly tomorrow as well, I'll work on fitting in an extra 2 chapters when the schedule is back on track.
A good friend recommended a few changes and suggestions to the novel and I will work on the first 15 chapters for the next 2 days, as I feel I can easily do much better on them, to make it a much better experience for you readers!
After that, the release schedule should be back to normal for a while.
22nd Jan Note:
Hey guys, I've just finished editing the novel, and I would advise you guys to re-read the first 10 chapters, along with this one, since the entire thing has been restructured and remade for the most part, and it wouldn't make much sense.
Thanks for your continuous support!
<3
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