Varian woke up with a delighted expression.
The System prompts sounded heavenly.
[+10 Xp]
[+40 Xp]
[+15 Xp]
[+20 Xp]
[+0 Xp]
Varian was about to pump his fist when he realized he was holding the Suicide Jacket.
His body stiffened and he hurriedly put it inside the space ring. While he didn't like it much, there was no denying that it helped his Space Path tremendously.
'Status.' He muttered
[Body Path (Enhanced) Level 5: 10/2000
Space Path Level 3: 80/400
Lightning Path Level 4: 15/1000
Morpher Path Level 3: 100/400
Mind Path Level 1: 100/100]
It was clear at a glance that the most progress was observed in Level 3, followed by Level 4 and then Level 5.
Barring Mind Path which reached the bottleneck, the other paths followed the pattern.
This was common for every awakener across all divine paths. The higher the level, the slower the progress.
The awakeners had a famous line for this experience. 'Progressing in Divine Path is like swimming up a waterfall. It is impossible for mortals. Even for awakeners, the higher you go, the slower it gets. The scariest thing is we can't see the end.'
Varian agreed with them wholeheartedly, but decided not to share his experience.
He was only practicing for a few hours and he made great progress. If he practiced all day, his progress would at least double.
Omitting bottlenecks, with +20 Xp every day, he'd only need a 100 days to reach the peak of Level 5.
Of course, including bottlenecks, he'd take at most 120 days to reach peak of Level 5.
Even geniuses take over 500 days. Even that included the treasures, battle experiences, guidances and more.
However, Varian's plain practice threw them miles behind.
The most important thing, however, was this—practicing actually slowed him down.
Fighting was the best vehicle to his progress.
{Varian
First Year
Merit Points: 2410
Cumulative Points: 2810
Recent Transactions:
Entry Fee: 200 mp deducted for Tower of Trials
Healing Fee: 200 mp deducted by Tower of Trials
Honor Rank: 300mp deposited by Tower of Trials}
Even though Varian's heart ached at losing 200mp for healing, he consoled himself with the 300 merit points.
Why do cadets go to Tower of Trials?
Honor? Yes!
But to spend 200 merit points just for honor was a stretch.
Unless it was someone like Narcis, but that was another issue.
Usually, once a cadet enters the Honor Ranking, they'd be given merit points every month.
401-500 Ranking: 300 merit points
301-400 Ranking: 500 merit points
…
Ranking 1: 10,000 merit points.
'If I have the first rank, just two months and I'll have enough mp to check Sia's information.' Varian sighed.
Soon, he shook his head.
There was still a tremendous gap between him and peak of Level 6.
"My growth rate surpasses everyone here. I just need to make sure I don't get killed by some stupid System." Varian had a profound realization in the shower.
System: [ "...." ]
After cursing the system as usual, Varian went to the second Sovereign Treasure.
Aura Well.
Like Tower of Trials, it too needed an entree fee. At the same time, there were restrictions on the times of usage.
Once per month.
Of course, if one was about to advance to the next level, they could get the permission for extra use. Their permission for next month would be used up.
Varian's arrival caught the attention of the cadets.
But unlike Tower of Trials, Aura Well had no ranking list. There was also a much smaller crowd.
He ignored their approaches and paid the entree fee.
As he moved forward, Varian saw the entry point. An underground tunnel.
"Let's see what's so good about this." He jumped in.
Thud.
The frist thing he felt was the slightly higher aura concentration. It was around 2% higher than normal. Much less than his own dorm.
Varian's eyes took a moment before they adjusted to the darkness. He noticed the obvious feature— the central part of the well was hollow.
He moved towards the center and gazed down. White fog, presumably aura, clouded his vision.
"So much aura." Varian smiled.
After a few glances, he understood the well's shape.
It was a dark red metallic structure that spiralled down. It resembled a huge spring that was forcibly drilled into the ground. To make the analogy accurate, a hollow spring in soil.
Even though the area he was standing on was miniscule compared to the vast hollowness at the center, it too was at least half a mile wide.
All in all, if Varian continued to move forward, he'd descend and reach lower floors.
So he did.
There was no one in the way.
That was not surprising since any cadet who could pay 200 merit points could reach way below.
He reached the second floor.
The aura concentration was 5% higher than normal.
Third. 7.5% higher.
Fourth seemed to be step up.
Fourth. 15% higher.
Fifth. 25% higher.
Sixth. 35% higher.
Varian encountered a cadet in the sixth floor. A boy was sitting cross legged.
His age was too young to be a cadet. He looked only to be around 16. He was a mid level 1.
The initial progress in Divine Paths was slow.
This boy was definitely a genius in his school.
Apparently, since Aura Well was one of the kind treasures, the Academy decided to conduct competitions in high schools.
The few lucky winners across the Earth were given the opportunity to practice in the Aura Well.
These kids couldn't go deeper than a few floors. So no one had any objection.
"I remember no one was selected in my school." Varian quickly passed through the seventh, eighth and ninth floor.
It was a lie to say Varian didn't feel jealous. He trained like a madman for almost a decade.
He didn't even get the fruits of his labor. Yet here was another boy who was getting a head start.
"Forget it. If I awakened like everyone, I wouldn't be where I am today." Varian took a deep breath and pushed down the memories that threatened to flood his mind.
The memories of those bitter sweet training were imprinted into every inch of his body. Even if he wanted to, his body couldn't forget it.
That was the main reason Varian was able to take so many injuries and still fight.
Perhaps he was not the most talented person in battle, but he sure was the one who could take the most hits.
Shaking his head, Varian passed by several cadets.
Tenth floor had almost 70% higher aura than outside.
There were around ten cadets. They were all at the peak of Level 2 and were hitting the bottleneck.
They were among the top of ordinary cadets.
Discounting Narcis and Ryan, who were at the top of genius category, most geniuses advanced to Level 3 in the first month.
The real deal breaker wa breaking the bottleneck and advancing to level 4.
Depending on talent and diligence, this bottleneck could take from three weeks to even months.
'After reaching level 5, none of first years are my opponents.' Varian continued to descend down.
Eleventh floor. Twelfth floor. Thirteenth floor…
The aura went from invisible to light smog.
With the floors, the aura concentration also continued to increase.
100%. 125%. 150%.
The cadets also continued to increase.
Varian saw the second years. There were quite a few of them hitting the bottleneck to Level 5.
There were a few Level 4 third years but no peak Level 5.
Varian knew that in the near two thousand third year cadets, there only around forty peak Level 5s.
Advancing to Level 6 was much harder and was said to take longer. Even for a genius, taking a year to break the bottleneck was 'normal'.
That only highlighted Sarah's and Charles' strength. They were both Level 6.
'I have to reach that level, soon.' Varian vowed to himself and pushed himself to the twentieth floor.
Aura condensed into white fog and overwhelmed his senses.
Even his Enhanced vision couldn't see through it.
Moreover, the high concentration of aura was making him dizzy.
Varian had to force himself to stay awake.
Without proper strength, too much aura was harmful. Thankfully, aura increased gradually with each floor and Varian found just the right spot.
Twentieth floor's aura was 300% higher than normal.
That meant, the aura here was four times higher than outside.
Varian sat down cross legged and began his first practice in aura well.
Whoosh!
Like a whale swallowed water, he swallowed aura.
"Huh?" Willaimson was returning from the thirtieth floor when he sensed a terrifying suction force in the air.
"Is anyone advancing to Level 6?" He guessed. Even then, the amount of aura was a bit high.
"We have too few at level 6. Is it Mia or Sofia?" He wondered and spread his mental sense.
"This…what the heck?" Williamson couldn't help but swear.
A cadet in first year uniform sat cross legged.
The thick, almost invisible fog around him was thinning at a visible rate.
"This…he's just a Low Level 5?!"