After leaving Milosh's office, Miles walked through the streets contemplatively. What Milosh said wasn’t to disparage him, he knew that too. But what he said once more reminded him once again that his path was harder than others and how unlucky he was. He always tried to keep his motivation up, but lately felt like life was making everything hard for him.
Miles already knew the way back home, so unknowingly he was standing in front of his villa. He stood there and looked at the adjoining mansion but in the end, shook his head and entered his own villa. He still had some merit points, enough to allow him to survive a few days more. He could survive a week without hunting, not that he wouldn’t but he could definitely skip a day.
As soon as Miles entered the villa, he realized someone had broken into his house. His enchanted mind allowed him to see the changes in the house. And the extra box on the table in the living room also was a big giveaway.
Miles approached it carefully while activating elemental vision to check if there was anything dangerous inside the box, he realized there was the only vial and some liquid inside. Miles opened the box and saw an IV titled S. Serum V and a note.
“Number 2, the academy will make an exception and will allow you to use the medicine first before demanding you to pay for it. This is not a normal practice, but your situation is rare. Study hard, and earn enough to pay your debt. Milosh.”
Miles looked at the note with a blank expression then laughed like a crazy person. “Why does Milosh look more and more like scrooge?” He was thankful that Milosh was willing to make exceptions for him. It wasn’t because of his last name but because he was trusting Miles to become stronger when given enough chance.
“Already better than Mercer.” Coin said with an imaginative shrug.
“Well said.” Miles smiled and took the IV to his room. This would be his first Strengthening Serum in Frenzy-Series. Miles was looking forward to it.
Unlike small increases in Grunt-Series, the effects of the Serums in F-Series were much more drastic.
The peak of human power before the invasion was 100 units. After the first Serum, the peak would be capped at 200 units, 400 for the second, 600 for the third, and 800 for the fourth. The first F-Series Serum would increase the cap to 1200 units. After peaking his power, he would be 12 times stronger than the strongest person on Earth before the invasion. Although others would start to use Strengthening Serum in Form-Rank too, their increase would be limited while Miles would have 400 units increase with every serum.
But F-Series Strengthening Serums were too expensive. In normal cases, only those at Extol-Rank or peak of Form-Rank would be using F-Series, making their price range between 500 million to a billion. Miles was already at the peak of the fourth serum even before he broke through, but he was too poor to afford the next serum and had to wait for the time being.
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‘Thankfully Milosh was benevolent enough to lend the medicine first before asking for the money. Otherwise, I don’t know how much time it would take me to save enough merit to buy the medicine.’
There were just too many ways to earn merits in the academy. Although most students were only exchanging cores and orbs they hunted in the valley, the city was filled with opportunities. Miles was a pretty decent Crafter himself, although he was rusty lately because of lack of funds, he still had hundreds of alloy formulas in his head.
The reason he wasted Elemental Minerals for lowest-tier crafts was that energy was essential in crafting. To melt the cores, elemental energy matching with the core was a must. And the crafter also had to use their energies to move the melted core.
But Elemental Minerals were valuable for a reason. Just like how each element had different sub-branches, cores had similar subdivisions as well. For example, to melt a core with a heal-fire element, a person with the same elemental ability must use energy to melt the core. But a fire Elemental Mineral can melt all the cores in the same element.
Miles had used most of his Elemental Minerals while he was preparing for grader competition. Unfortunately, one of the self-made dual elemental orbs got destroyed with the first dual elemental orb he found, the maroon armor. As of now, he only had a single dual elemental orb. He still had bits and pieces of minerals, but Miles wasn’t sure if they would be enough to merge Frenzy-Rank orbs or not. High likely not.
The Portal World was also a good way to earn merits. Since the academy had an active portal, students would enter from there and would stay in the nearest stronghold. The said stronghold was too far from any other in the F-Circle, disallowing students to communicate with other people, thus isolating them, so any cores and orbs acquired in Portal World could be exchanged, either killed or found.
After what had happened to Tian Ling, Miles was going inside the Portal World as himself and the Marooner never showed up again after he showed up once to help with the stampede. Firstly, because his armor got destroyed, secondly he wasn’t sure if General Tian had any plans for the Marooner.
While he was hunting, he was teaming with Zall and Xavic most of the time and their relationship improved drastically with life and death battles. When Miles met them, the duo was already the high-tier of Grace-Rank, later, both of them reached the peak of the rank. But couldn’t advance because of their rare powers. But while Miles was trying to awaken energy, they also learned how to breakthrough, and they too formed their seeds not long after.
After all of them created their seed, just before Miles came to the academy, the trio went to a stronghold in F-Circle and tried to create their own footing there. The stronghold was newly built and further away from any other. Luckily Miles could find time to go there as well. Both Xavic and Zall were good fellas, but had one major defect—
—they were too naive and inefficient when alone. Xavic couldn’t hurt anything seriously with his superpower, while Zall could make them mash but was too soft-hearted. Both needed Miles to do the damage, while Miles needed them to slow down or stop monsters. They were a perfect group.