Vice-headmaster Merkel's glare intensified. "Yes, Student Lone. That is so."

'Man, isn't this literally the perfect chance to learn some gravity magic? C'mon Lone, push her buttons, get her to attack you so you can steal all of them juicy, juicy skills.' Lone's greed for magic had flared up and was only amplified when he recalled his 1-year promise with the horrible old woman.

He outstretched one of his hands and flipped the woman off. "Fuck you. They're giving me their MP, or, what, do you wanna pay in their stead?"

Vice-headmaster Merkel sighed upon seeing Lone act and speak so rudely towards her when she was the person with the second-most authority in this institution of learning.

She very slowly glanced at everyone present then replied, "Hmm, roughly 13,000,000 Mana Points in total, yes?" She then walked up to Lone and softly placed her wrinkled hand on the Eternal Mana Crystal. "Here, have 15,000,000."

Lone's jaw almost hit the floor when he felt the utterly immense volume of MP flow out of the triple-X-ranker in front of himself and into his icosahedron.

With a satisfied grin, Vice-headmaster Merkel asked, "Well? Are we done here? You have all already missed 15-minutes of your second daily class, so leave now and continue your days. That is if the very unreasonable Student Lone is happy now?"

It would take a fool to not pick up the sarcasm in the woman's tone. Lone thought for a few seconds before he shrugged and cancelled his Ascending Aura. "I was hoping you'd attack me, to be honest. Another time, I suppose. And thanks for the MP."

She nodded smugly. "I have no idea where you obtained such an artefact, but use it wisely. I fear it is wasted in the hands of one such as yourself. Also, Student Lone, I would be more than a mere fool to so readily provide you with gravity magic, now wouldn't I?"

One of Lone's eyebrows shot up in momentary surprise. 'She knows I can learn almost anything that gets used on me... Damn. Well, I guess I just need to provoke another teacher of gravity magic or a student or something.'

Vice-headmaster Merkel smirked knowingly then walked away as her hands were clasped behind her back. Very quickly, everyone else left too, leaving only Lone in the hallway.

"Damn... She's not as much of an idiot as I first assumed... Still a total cunt though. But, yeah, 15,000,000 MP? Fuckin' Christ... Will Eolande have that much MP when she reaches triple-X-rank as well? What about Soph?" Lone wondered aloud.

Regardless, he shook his head and put his lexicon back in his pocket before he started juggling his Eternal Mana Crystal between his hands playfully.

As he made his way to his next class, Lone finally took a moment to inspect all of the new skills he had just learned as well as all of the many level-ups he'd gained.

First, naturally, he looked at the info of his new skills and ignored the notifications in the corner of his eye for right now.

Active Sand Magic Skill: Crude Sandy Snare

An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Sandy Snare] Sand Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 100 lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is substantially increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 5,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 1 Active Lava Magic Skill: Crude Lava Stream

An incredibly rudimentary application of the rare [Lava Stream] Lava Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 100 lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is substantially increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 25,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 1 Active Sand Magic Skill: Crude Dusty Breeze

An incredibly rudimentary application of the uncommon [Dusty Breeze] Dust Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 100 lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is substantially increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 10,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 1

"Oh, cool," Lone muttered. "I haven't read a crude skill's description in forever... I almost forgot how simplistic they are. They, like, tell you nothing about the skill... Still, an uncommon and a rare skill? That's pretty sweet."

He happily hummed a little bit before he said, "So, now I have all three earth magic school types with sand added to my affinities and I'm only missing temperature magic for the fire magic school. Hmm... If I recall correctly, I'm only missing ash magic for the air magic school too. There's still snow magic for the water magic school and a bunch more of the unique schools like time, gravity, space, contracting, and all of that cool shit, but I'm doing well thus far."

Lone was very happy with how much he'd progressed so far in only a day and a half of being at this academy. Headmaster Erion had really done him a solid by arranging these duels with himself and Soph.

"I do wish those assholes didn't mostly use spells I already know... Man, the number of people who were using Crude Fireball and Crude Lightning Bolt was a fuckin' joke. Also, the number of support mages... Everyone has to take at least one combat class, fuckin' use your spells from that, not ones I can't learn in such a short time frame," Lone complained as he began reading all of his notifications.

He had hoped that Basic Regeneration might have reached master-level-10 and evolved, but, unfortunately, while the effects of the magic skills used on him had looked horrific, they weren't enough to level up Basic Regeneration nor his Physical Pain Resistance, which was a bit of a bummer.

He suspected that nothing shy of practically dying like he had done when fighting Ythmaogbla would successful help him perfect those two skills.

On the bright side, he'd made a lot of progress in his magical resistances, both old and new ones. After having seen the final notification, Lone began looking at each of his updated and new resistances in detail one by one.

Passive Skill: Fire Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Fire Magic.

Fire Magic used on the host will be weakened by 30%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Advanced Level 8 [Up by 4 levels]

"Man, like, 15 of those fuckers used Crude Fireball and even a handful of them could use the evolved Fireball... Did, like, the beginner's fire magic class rally everyone together or something? That leader girl who said that they challenged me was the only one who knew and used lava magic, so maybe she's a genius of the fire school?" Lone wondered considering that his resistance to pure fire magic had gone up by 4 whole levels despite already being advanced rank.

Passive Skill: Lightning Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Lightning Magic.

Lightning Magic used on the host will be weakened by 30%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Advanced Level 9 [Up by 1 level]

"Four of 'em knew Crude Lightning Bolt... a clique of demi-haters from a beginner's lightning magic class or something?" he wondered as he held his chin and kept walking. He was almost at his next class now.

Passive Skill: Sand Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Sand Magic.

Sand Magic used on the host will be weakened by 5%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 8 [Up by 7 levels]

Lone sighed. "Again, 3 kids all using Crude Sand Snare... I guess they've been in the beginner class for over a year already, huh? That goes for all of them, really, except for maybe a handful of the older ones... How long is it normal to stay in the same class-level before getting put into a higher one?"

He got some funny looks for talking to himself from the few students he passed that were running errands or going to the toilet. He hardly cared about them and simply continued what he was doing.

Passive Skill: Lava Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Lava Magic.

Lava Magic used on the host will be weakened by 5%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 4 [Up by 3 levels] Passive Skill: Dust Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Dust Magic.

Dust Magic used on the host will be weakened by 5%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 3 [Up by 2 levels]

Only a single person used dust magic and another - the challenging girl - used lava magic. Judging by the extra level Lone had gained for the Lava Magic Resistance, clearly, the girl had more MP and was using her Crude Lava Stream more than the dust magic user had with his Dusty Breeze.

Passive Skill: Air Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Air Magic.

Air Magic used on the host will be weakened by 15%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 5 [Up by 1 level] Passive Skill: Earth Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Earth Magic.

Earth Magic used on the host will be weakened by 15%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 6 [Up by 2 levels]

Now, what was interesting about these two resistances was that not a single person had used a pure earth magic skill nor a pure air magic skill on him, meaning that Lone had gained the level-ups at the same time as he had gained the dust magic and the sand magic resistances.

"That certainly makes grinding these out much easier later on," Lone said to himself as he had finally reached the door that led to his second class of the day - The Theory of Sub-Skills.

The second that he had pushed the door to the classroom open, he was forced to quickly raise his hand and catch a book that had been sent hurtling towards his head.

"Ow! motherfucker..." Lone shook his hand as he held onto the book. His wrist was stinging and the flesh on his palm had been torn clean off. Thankfully, his Basic Regeneration healed the damage immediately.

Lone glanced at the person that had attacked him. Standing behind the lectern was perhaps the most muscular and tall being that Lone had ever seen before in his life. Even Sarah was a dwarf in comparison to this beast of a man.

He was easily 9-feet tall and perhaps 5-feet wide. Lone couldn't detect even a morsel of fat on him, and, not to mention, he was a very powerful double-X-ranker with a surprisingly robust soul.

"Uh..." Lone smiled awkwardly. "Hi?"

The teacher frowned. "That was supposed to knock you out."

"Sorry?" Lone replied to the giant of a man. "Also, sorry again if this sounds rude, but what are you? You are a human, aren't you?"

The teacher's frown deepened. "I'm a Lorian Giant. I'll forgive your ignorance since my people are reclusive and almost never walk around in our true forms. What you see before you is a compressed form of my true body, regardless, you're 20-minutes late, Student Lone."

Lone nodded and walked forwards and he then outstretched the book that had been thrown at him towards the man. "I got challenged by some idiots. You know, Erion's new rule to help with racial and interspecial tensions or whatever. There were over 30 of them, so it took a bit of time to beat the living shit out of them then heal them so that they were healthy enough to attend their next classes."

The teacher looked sceptical, but after a brief second of thought, he nodded. "Very well. Keep that," he said in reference to the tome held in Lone's hand. "It is your textbook for this lesson. Find a seat. As you should already know, I'm Professor Ruairidh."

'Ruairidh? Ain't that a Gaelic name? I had a ginger kid called that in my second-year history class, didn't I? Huh. Anyway, that's cool,' Lone commented internally before he smiled. "Okay, and it's nice to meet you, Professor Ruairidh."

"Ah, someone that says it correctly. Too many pronounce it 'Rury' and ignore the 'D' sound at the end." The professor seemed pleased that Lone was familiar with his name.

Lone smiled in response then found himself a seat amongst the 40 or so other students.

Seeing that, Professor Ruairidh continued his lesson, "Now, as I was saying, now that all of our basic introductions are over, I would like to ask everyone if any of you have a sub-skill of your own that you would like to display to the class."

Lone's eyebrows perked up. 'Straight on to show and tell, huh? This might be a very interesting theory class after all...'