At noon, inside Nicholas's room

He was currently reading a book relating to elements and their applications; it was like a science and engineering book. He was reading this since he got bored filing paperwork for his new business. He looked around the room; a quarter of his room had been turned into a makeshift office.

Nicholas: "Documents and records are stacking up; I should get rid of these or store them in a decent place."

Nicholas: "Or, I should get a new office, maybe in another room or maybe in the city."

He was letting his thoughts loose, thinking of different ideas, while he waited for the two girls to arrive. He sent Maria just a while ago to fetch Clarice since today was the deadline for their 'decision'.

According to this world history, elements skills consist of four basic ones: earth, fire, water, and wind. When one awakens, it allows mana to circulate and manipulate mana in the awakener's body. This then allows your soul core to develop your base elements and weapons. The base element and weapon type an awakened person will unlock will depend on their affinity. This then dictates the type of skill an awakenee is allowed to use.

This might feel very restrictive; initially, it really was for people. But they learned that awakeners can promote at certain levels. It was discovered by early awakeners who experimented and learned they could promote at levels 20, 40, and each subsequent 10 levels after that.

When promoting, an awakener will use an elemental core; this elemental core is the primary and most crucial component that will help the awakener unlock new elements or strengthen their current ones.

This unlocked more possibilities for awakeners to power up. Mixing and strengthening elements through promotion paved the way for different types of skills like conjuring lightning, being able to manipulate nature, creating illusions, and a lot more.

This 'decision' asked of them was to choose between awakening another element or strengthening their current one.

Nicholas: "Well, that 'decision' was just an illusion."

Actually, Nicholas has obtained a secondary elemental core through the Gacha rewards. And he just wants to laze around for a bit before going to dungeon exploration again. This past month has been hectic for Nicholas, always training and exploring dungeons for a whole day.

He was slowly drifting toward his goal of a slow life in this world, so he made the excuse of letting them decide on their future while he just did paperwork in the meantime.

-----

Elemental cores, like most things in this world, also have tiers: elementary, secondary, tertiary, and the legendary quaternary.

The elementary elemental core, as described by the early records of promotion, can only upgrade your current element or learn a new element.

A secondary elemental core is different from an ordinary or elementary elemental core since it can both upgrade and learn a new element. It is a commodity in this current world, mostly sold in auctions and even in the black market. You cannot have this kind of element without proper backing or influence.

The tertiary elemental core effect is a step ahead of the secondary elemental core; it can upgrade your current element by two levels and teach you a new element. These are the cores that people started wars and genocides for. Rulers of the kingdom are even afraid of bragging; they have one of these cores since they are ultra rare, and once people hear a rumor about their existence, you will inevitably garner a lot of envy and hatred. Only a dozen records of tertiary core have been in public records, and all have resulted in a bloody battle.

Lastly, there is the legendary quaternary elemental core. It can upgrade your current element by three levels while still being able to learn a new element. The rumors say it can even be taken by a person who is crippled or by people with shattered souls and cure them. The only record that exists of this elemental core is that of Hero Paladius. Even though that was only hearsay, nobody is truly sure if this kind of elemental core exists.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

…

He was contemplating that promoting was a bit of a pay-to-win. Well, everything in life is a bit of a pay-to-win if you think about it, so he just shrugged off the idea.

Then Nicholas heard a knock from the door.

*knock**knock*

Maria: "Master, I have brought Clarice."

Nicholas: "Come on in."

A person opened the door to his room, and two girls came inside—Maria and Clarice. Nicholas instructed Maria to fetch Clarice from the training ground since Nicholas would be asking them about their decision.

Clarice: "Good morning, my love."

Nicholas: "Good morning to you too, Clarice. How was your daily training? How about you guys take a seat and let's talk about things?"

Clarice greeted Nicholas, then proceeded to sit on the nearby chair. Nicholas was about to ask about their decision on their new element when Clarice interrupted him.

Nicholas: "So, what are your decis-?"

Clarice: "My liege, I have decided, if possible, to get an elementary wind core to learn wind elements. With this, I will be able to learn and manipulate advanced lighting elements, just like my father did.".

Clarice had made her mind a long time ago; ever since she was young, she admired her father's quick and flashy lighting skills.

This is only one of the reasons; another is because she will be able to inherit his father's skills and blade style. But the most important one is that it can greatly improve her power since it matches really well with her combat style and will be able to help Nicholas and Maria more.

After Clarice spoke, Maria immediately followed up by saying

Maria: "Master, I have decided to strengthen my wind attribute or awaken the water element. This depends on what young master's arrangements are for me."

Maria hadn't been able to make a decision on what to do with her promotion, so she narrowed her options and interest to two options. Then she will let Nicholas decide which option would be better for her development.

After hearing their decision, Nicholas began to ponder something. Then, after a few seconds, he said.

Nicholas: "Okay, since you guys have finally decided, I will make arrangements for our promotion as soon as possible."

After he said those words, he then shifted the topic to a more casual one. He asked the girls how their week was since he was curious about their daily lives. Actually, he was more hopeful of Clarice sharing her experience since he and Maria are almost always together.

Time passed by as they conversed back and forth; topics changed from them to other people, to new things in the city, to Nicholas new business. It was a fun hangout for them, who usually train, level up, and explore dungeons to catch up on the daily lives of their friends and loved ones.

By dusk, Maria and Clarice left. Maria went to help the other maids with different tasks, like preparing the dining table for the Curtana family, while Clarice went home since the sun was already setting. Nicholas was left alone, pondering something.

…

At Night in Nicholas's Chamber

Nicholas, with his wet platinum-blond hair and a towel in his head, was currently drying his hair right after taking a bath.

Nicholas: "Taking a hot bath at night really hits differently."

Usually, Nicholas would just go straight to sleep after taking his nightly bath. But unfortunately, today, he had talked with Maria and Clarice for a bit, losing his time to complete his paperwork in the afternoon.

Nicholas: "I also should hire some people to do my grunt work when I get my new office."

He decided just then to get a new office in the city center where he could go to work.

Nicholas: "It would look like an office building for a corporation, and I would be on the top floor looking down on the city I built. Well, the highest building in Curtana is the mansion that has four stories."

Nicholas was again losing his focus, thinking of stupid stuff. So he slapped his cheeks to engage himself.

Nicholas: "Nicholas, focus."

He began to work on his remaining paperwork for an hour.

*stretch**stretch*

Nicholas: "That's the stuff."

He stretched his tired arms and back due to his looking down and writing for a long time. He decided to take a ten-minute break to get some tea and snacks in the kitchen. When he arrived in the kitchen, he saw milk, so he got some hot milk and some sweetened bread instead.

Afterwards, he got back to his quarters to continue writing, but on a different matter entirely. Since he will also be promoting, he needed to decide what element he should learn. So he read a lot of books about elements and learned about different elemental combinations (advanced elements) and their applications. With this knowledge, he studied each one that can be combined with the earth element. Their results were:

Earth + Water = Nature or Poison

Earth + Wind = Dust or Sound

Earth + Fire = Magna or Crystal

Earth Level 2 = Steel

He ranked each one of the possible advanced elements he could unlock based on what's most helpful for him at the moment. Each different combination has its own perks and applications. But alas, he cannot know what element he will unlock in his promotion slot scroll; he just needs to wait for his promotion so he can know what element he will unlock. At least he knew the possible combinations; he consoled himself with that fact.

Lastly, before he went to bed, he began to take note of what materials were needed during the promotion so he could prepare them tomorrow. As for the missing material, such as the conduit, which can only be bought in the church, it will be another day.