184 New Curriculum and New Objective

The news piqued Wallace's interest as he read the article.

Aside from the news that this rising star will be attending classes at the Leonhearts Academy, it also featured the other new curriculum and noted some famous individuals in the field that will be teaching in the academy this coming semester.

Celebrity Idol also has 3 years of training and studying at the academy, the same as the other curriculums.

After all, students being accepted in this program were those who have trained at an early age.

Although the curriculum itself helps in improving an individual's skills, before anyone can be accepted, the person must already possess the talent and dedication related to this path.

The Mana Affinity requirement wasn't strict as their path had a different method of mana development. They focus more on physical appearances, talents in singing, dancing, acting, and most of all, compatible with Soul Arts.

The other curriculum was Materia Medica. It mainly focuses on creating medicines for Magician's consumptions. After all, there are already medical schools that are only for non-magicians.

The study of concocting medicines, potions, or elixir takes a longer time, so this curriculum requires 5 years before being able to graduate.

'It would be lively at the academy... for sure.' Wallace thought as he realized that only a few days before the school starts.

"Oh right... Pathfinder? What should I do with the metal fragments?"

[ Nothing. Consumption of the cube fragments has already started. ]

"Is that so?"

[ 79:54:30 left before Cube's upgrade will be completed. ]

"Mhmm... That's good. I'll wait for it then."

He checked the time and after noticing that it was already late, he asked Avalon to take care of some things while he slept.

***

On the next day, Wallace wants it to be the Celestial Fragment day. He wanted to ensure that today, he will learn something from it even bit by bit.

He opened the small chest and marveled at the beauty of the fragment. The place's Mana Fluctuation was even affected due to the sudden suffocating amount of Mana that was released.

"This fragment can help in Astral Core Formulation and Chasm Trample. Haaa~ Let's do this..."

He touched the crystal-like fragment and felt it was similar to ice that was burning down the skin of people unprepared.

He sent his Divine Sense and found nothing from it, aside from the weird fluctuations of the fragment. Whenever he sent his powerful Divine Sense, the feedback wasn't good. The item was just like a bottomless pit. He was sure that the skill was passing through it but there was no way for it to stay and observe the item's structure.

"I can only try other means, huh. How about tasting this?" Wallace has some other method still but first thought of this. He quickly shook his head as it doesn't seem to be a good idea. He'll first cooperate with his A.I. to do some testings here.

***

The day before the first day of school.

"What happened to the Zen coins? Can you tell me more about its origin? Why is it together with the fragmented ancient relic? Right, do you think you can extract the energy within those coins?"

Wallace simply wanted to know all the progress about the work he dumped to his A.I. Of course, he wasn't idling as well since he was still trying to learn the 2nd Stage of AOTL, Lightning Break, and study the Celestial Fragment.

Unfortunately, the Lightning Break technique was a bit harder than he thought it was and the mission for the Celestial Fragment wasn't progressing faster as he predicted.

Checking the progress of his mission, he saw the 11/100 progression. It seems that it would take a while.

[ Unable to trace Zen Coins' origin as the surface was being diluted with this world's mana. ]

[ Energy extraction requires a piece of special machinery. ]

"Then you make it. What do you need? I'll buy it."

[ GH Drive ]

"Eh? What do you need that for? That's for Aether, isn't it?"

[ It has components that could harness dangerous energy like Aether. Similar to Zen Coins, it needed a technology that is unique to Trinity Realms. ]

Wallace paused for a bit remembering that the major force within the galaxy that created a technology to exploit the elusive Aether was the Trinity Realms.

They were the only ones capable of creating GH Drive, the original creators, and mysterious force within the Galactic Federation.

Although many copies of this technology came out, their original creations couldn't be compared to fake ones in terms of the operation time, durability, and speed of processing the Aether Force. They have their own trade secret so they never went out of business even though many tried to copy them. At most, they just lost some customers, but within the large galaxy, this kind of equipment would never lose its popularity. The demand was extremely high that they couldn't be bothered to fight against the small fries.

"Are you saying that the Corvette-class Spaceship we left in Araceli has an original GH Drive?"

[ Yes. ]

Wallace went silent and contemplated for a while.

He was fine at self-destructing the spaceship before since he emptied its contents or valuable resources within, or as he thought. He deemed that with Avalon on his side, it was only a matter of time before he can create something better, a larger, faster, powerful, and innovative spaceship using magic integration.

But the existence of genuine GH Drive was different that it made him rethink his decision. The engine was made of something that was definitely not existing on this planet.

If his memory was correct, the Trinity Realms can only produce 150-180 GH Drive each year. A very small amount but priced absurdly. This encouraged a lot of organization to find its secrets and learn it for their organization's benefit. These large organizations had a super A.I. like Avalon or something that might even be better.

They have unimaginable material and human resources and incredible wealth on their side. In short, with all the resources they possess, they tried to imitate the GH for so long and only managed to create a lower grade, lower efficiency GH Drive.

But this small success already made them happy since even if it only functions at least 28% of the original, it was already something commendable.

Wallace thought that it was also what his spaceship had since he never encountered a genuine GH Drive before. It has been common knowledge in space that the organization that purchases Trinity Realm's product would only be those royalties or the most powerful factions on their side. So this revelation was quite a surprise.

'So dad's business can actually afford this, huh.' Wallace thought before shaking his head. Anyway, his plans must be changed.

"Avalon, I know that I instructed you to self destruct once the Aether Force had reached the 1% mark. How many were left?"

[ 1.33% left. ]

"Abort self-destruction command."

[ Affirmative. ]

'Hmmm... This should be it for now. But I have to hurry, once the Aether protecting the spaceship was emptied, that organization will take it away.'

Wallace closed his eyes and after contemplating for a couple of minutes, he realized something.

"If I think about it, one of the perks from having a Knight Level was my 5 cubic meters Spatial Bag. With this as a reference, it can be said that once my access became higher, it has a good chance of increasing my perks as well..."

Wallace mumbled as he tries to plan his moves.

"I guess, I'll see for now."

If ever his Spatial Bag increased its capacity, then he might have a chance of taking away his spaceship.

***

The start of school wasn't very pleasing to some people, but being able to enter the Leonhearts Academy was different, every student here was excited to go to class and enjoy their youth.

Apparently, there's a group of five people that was actually not too happy at the start of their class.

[ Hilda? Are you going to the academy now? ] -Lina

[ We have a mission at 4 pm. Go home early, okay? ] - Shirley

[ Don't you have club activities, Shirley? Don't you miss your other friends? Haha! Right, Hilda, I heard that you will be a part of the student council, correct? ] - Ray

[ Yes. That was the plan. ] - Hilda

[ Let's make an after school club for virtual gaming activities. I think that the game must be introduced to a lot more people. ] - Escanor

The five of them made a group chat to discuss all things related to the virtual world. They had learned a lot of things inside the game and were even planning to try something in real life.

[ Wait... Have you finished your daily reports, suggestion, and others to the creator? ] - Hilda

[ Yes! I recommended to add leaderboards! ] - Escanor

[ Unlike other games, there is no leveling system here. There's not even an option to see the character status. The most that we can see was to the list of skills we learned or trying to learn. We only have very limited assistance from the game system and had to work hard in all of our missions. ] - Shirley

[ Well, I suggested it but it's up to the creator. I guess, they can use the highest number of Dorssian killed, influence ratings, or other statistics for the leaderboard. ]

Escanor suggested eager to make the virtual world more competitive.