(Well, this is an info dump chapter, you can skip to the end parts if you want)

Novice-rank, Intermediate-rank, Expert-rank, Master-rank, and International Master-rank.

The first 5 levels and the most populated rank category determine the standing of a champion, usually the higher the rank the higher someone's combat ability.

How do you know which rank someone belongs to?

Do you have to wait for them to fight and show them their power?

Or do you judge them from the magical aura that they emit?

While those are correct, those methods of analyzing someone's strength are just arbitrary judgments and are mostly unreliable.

There are some of those who can just retract the magical aura they emit and could simply hide their strength and waiting for someone to fight to know their champion rank is difficult and not feasible since they could just hold back and it is not like champions had to fight all the time.

To know which specific rank they belong to is simple.

It is determined by the development of their magic cores.

The Magic Core Method!

Spirit is an integral part of becoming a champion, not only does it form someone's foundation, but it also determines your mana sensitivity and capacity. Spirit power can also affect someone's mental strength and can also have the benefit of enhanced focus, illusion and mental attack resistance, increased perception, enhanced critical thinking, improved memory, speed casting, multi-casting, and a high comprehension.

Spirit power doesn't affect your basic combat ability unless a champion specializes in mental attacks, illusions, and magic arrays.

Spirit power also determines your future as a champion.

In layman's terms, if you have low spirit power then your chances at making it far as a champion is fucked.

Because of this, the level of spiritual power that you had at birth was how people in this world determined your level of talent.

Of course, with training, you can raise your spirit power but those with high starting points tend to have an easier time developing compared to others.

The record for the highest spirit power that someone had at birth was at expert rank. This includes from ancient times to now and across all species.

When the first time this revelation came to light, back then it had already broken everyone's worldview.

Having a novice-rank spirit power was already enough to classify someone as a genius with talent in magic.

You have to know that even though novice rank is the weakest rank, to normal people, they were already superhumans that can break or crush small to medium-sized boulders like butter.

Gaseous state, liquid state, solid state, and crystallization are kind of like unofficial ranks before the novice rank.

People regarded these 4 ranks as some sort of 'tutorial ranks', people who were in these 'ranks' were not recognized as champions yet but they can utilize mana.

To become a champion you have to form your magic core, this is the source of a champion's mana or their main energy source to cast magic.

Those 4 ranks mentioned earlier are like the steps or 'the tutorial' before you formed a magic core.

Gaseous state.

To reach this state, absorb the mana in the surroundings into your body with the spirit as your vessel to store your mana. The mana will gather together and if you gather just enough of it, mana gases called clumps are formed thus the name 'gaseous state'.

You still can't cast magic in the gaseous state but in the liquid state, you can.

Liquid state.

To reach this state, condense your mana clumps and make them denser and denser until it becomes a liquid, thus the name 'liquid state'. A single clump of mana gas can form a single drop of liquid mana.

Solid-state.

Solidifying your mana takes the longest, first of all, you need a lot more than a single drop of liquid mana to begin solidifying, in a sense, you had to keep repeating the steps of the gaseous state and liquid state over and over again to even begin the solidification.

To reach the solid-state, you have to freeze your liquid mana until it becomes a literal solid, even the process of freezing takes a long time, the moment you fail, you had to start all over again and I don't mean start from the liquid state, you had to start from the gaseous state, basically you had to go back at the very beginning.

This step frustrated a lot of aspiring champions and required an extreme amount of patience to do.

Crystallization.

If the solid-state takes the longest to reach then crystallization is the hardest and this is the step that most aspiring champions failed to take, most people called this the 'dividing line', which divides the people who are worthy to become a champion and those who are not.

To reach crystallization, you have to apply pressure to the solidified mana, you had to be very careful not to apply too much or too less force otherwise the solidified mana will either crack and be destroyed or the solidified mana will go back to the liquid state if you apply too less pressure.

(A/N: for those nerds out there, I know how crystals are formed, so don't even bother to comment on it, google is just 1 click away bruh, this is a magic world where some common sense won't apply, so just have fun reading)

If you fail too many times, your spirit, which is used as your vessel for your mana, will become damaged and you will become a cripple or developed mental illnesses and abnormalities.

Fine control, extreme patience, and a peace of mind are required to become a crystallized mana user. It sounds so taxing, demanding and so much effort just to reach that level and yet you're not even at the novice rank, even below it.

And these 4 steps were 'only' considered as 'tutorial ranks'.

This was the price to pay to gain strength, if it was so easy to become strong, then everyone would be crushing mountains and destroying entire kingdoms as easily as breathing.

Once you finished crystallization, you can begin making your magic core.

The higher the quality of the magic core, usually corresponds to higher the combat strength.

For example, if a novice-rank with a good quality magic core fought another novice-rank but has a bad quality magic core, the former would win 99% of the time.

The quality of your magic core is determined by the result of the 4 steps or the tutorial that you did.

Things like hardness, durability, the amount of mana it contains, and size are related to the quality of your magic core.

Once you made your magic core after finishing crystallization, you could now proudly say that you are now a champion.

A white magic core is a result you would get and a white one signifies a novice-rank champion.

You continue to develop that white magic core until it becomes a pink magic core, which signifies an intermediate-rank champion.

A pink magic core then becomes a red magic core after some development... expert-rank champion!

The red magic core becomes an orange magic core....master-rank champion

So in summary it is basically like this...

Yellow magic core .... international master-rank

Green magic core .... grandmaster-rank

Cyan magic core .... saint-rank

Blue magic core .... legendary-rank

Violet magic core .... mystic-rank

and as for world-class, it is a lot different but I'll explain it at another time.

You develop your magic core as a way to grow as a champion hence the name Magic Core Method.

Nevertheless, developing your magic core is not as easy as it sounds, if it is already arduous and demanding enough just at the tutorial stages, you can imagine just how hard it is in the actual gameplay.

The average age that someone can reach novice rank is around 13-14 years old, as most people would encourage their children to begin magic training at ages 5 or 6, which means in the tutorial stages or the 4 steps, it took most people at least 7 to 8 years just to reach novice-rank, in addition, 90% don't even pass the tutorial.

But the Fallen Spirit World has a population of over 100 Billion, which means that there are at least 10 billion champions in this world.

High spirit power means a tougher and bigger vessel to store mana which in turn less a chance for failure in the tutorial stages which is why people with high spirit power at birth are coveted no matter which parts of the world they are in.

Meaning that people who already had Novice-rank spirit power before they become champions are almost guaranteed to become champions themselves, hence the label of genius.

The only way they could possibly fail the tutorial is that they somehow kept failing crystallization on purpose.

Some may call this unfair with your fate decided at birth but life itself was never fair in the first place, that is a pill that most would find hard to swallow.

No matter the race, what kingdom you were born in, or what environment you grew up in, your status in this world is determined the moment you are born.

Revlo Mason, 9 years old...

Revlo speedran the tutorial and reached novice-rank at 5 years old because of his 'saint-rank' spirit power, despite the magic core method being exclusive to this world, his previous life's knowledge also played a part in his advancement speed.

In other words, he broke the world record as the youngest novice-rank champion in history.

But Revlo didn't give any special attention to this nor did he care and just completely focused on the 'Soul Strengthening Scripture' to nourish his soul and although there are no changes in his spirit power displayed on his system which is still [Mystic-rank (SSS+++)], Revlo can feel that his soul was getting stronger bit by bit.

He opened his eyes and as always he was in his usual spot where he would 'rest', the same grassy field that he had been lying down for the past 9 years minus the time he spent as an infant and couldn't go anywhere.

It was already night and the sun had just set and it was time to back home lest he makes his parents and little sister worried.

"Cancel Barrier type68" He said.

And like that, the invisible barrier that covered the entire area broke apart and started dissolving like ice in the middle of the summer heat.

He stretched his body, picked up several books on the ground, and looked in a certain direction.

"Physical Enhancement, Raise Agility, Raise Stamina, Raise Endurance"

He bolted off into the distance as the branches of the birch tree swayed.

He started running for a while until he saw a wooden house on the horizon, his speed didn't slow down at all but increased instead.

There on the porch, he saw his dad, Vorne, talking to several people and laughing while his little sister, Rena was sitting on his lap.

He scanned her up and down and said.

"She already reached liquid state and achieved it at 4 years old at that, isn't this a bit faster than father?" Revlo said.

Then his gaze changed to look at the several guests that were talking merrily with his father, they looked to be wearing fancy and expensive-looking clothes, a carriage was parked outside the house with a crown symbol with an eagle on it that shined in gold.

"The emperor of the Freedom Empire that rules the entire Southern Continent.. a legendary-ranked champion and several imperial knights... saint-rank champions... The Headmaster of Freedom Magic Academy.. legendary-rank champion and one unidentified person and a little kid.. saint-rank champion...novice-rank champion"

"This force is already enough to make even the various rulers of the five continents nervous.. since most mystic-ranked champions rarely show up in the world and are mostly reclusive, away from the mundane world"

"And as for World Class Champions, one hasn't appeared since the [Almighty Celestial] 10,000 years ago during the era of the gods, the only confirmed alive world-class champion that came from the mortals"

There are two types of gods that most people acknowledged, one is a natural-born god and the other is self-made that developed him/herself from the novice rank all the way to world-class and achieved godhood.

From the ancient times when magic was first discovered to the present, in history, there had only been 12 self-made gods!

They are known as the 12 transcendents and each of them is famous throughout history, no matter how many years have passed, how many eras have gone by, their legend never faded and their story is forever immortalized.

[The Almighty Celestial] was the title given to the current most powerful person in the mortal world and his/her last recorded activity was 10,000 years ago when he/she participated in the war of the gods in the divine realm that caused mayhem and widespread destruction in the Fallen Star World.

At that time, there were 5 world-class champions along with the [The Almighty Celestial] who lived but because of the war in the divine realm, the other 5 perished, leaving the [The Almighty Celestial] as the only self-made god left in the mortal world.

All this time, so many years have passed and currently, there are 10 billion active champions and counting but even after 10,000 years no one has reached World Class and achieved godhood yet, this is a testament to how difficult it is to become a god.

"Is it okay for an emperor to just go to a village like this? Isn't being an emperor that has achieved hegemony of an entire continent a hard job and would be busy? I know him and father used to be companions in the past but.."

Before Revlo could finish his monologue, his father saw him arriving and waved his arms at him.

"There he is" he said.