The next day, after his first class, Linus sat again in the library but instead of reading the usual pet cultivation books, he was reading the information the old man had given him after his request for knowledge.
The previous evening after the sun went down, Ms Winter rode him out of the military camp and to his residence. While riding she also explained how she had observed him training every noon and afternoon at the school's training ground together with Nyx. His disciple and dedication had gratified her and were also the reason she paid attention to him and forced him into the Elite group while pitting him continuously against strong opponents.
At first, she didn't plan on recommending him to her grandfather as a disciple, but when she saw his rate of improvement and combined that with his diligence, she decided to do it to not waste his talent and let him rot away when he is as equally or even more talented than those with strong backgrounds, abilities and pets.
While Linus hadn't become her grandfather's disciple, in the end, the things he had gained would help his future a lot. The knowledge would make sure that he wasn't fooled by not knowing how the Global Federation worked. His future would be secured as long as his performance during the National examination was exemplary by surviving the entire test.
the previous day's guidance paved Linus's way to the king rank as long as he survived and kept the training up. It has to be known that a single day of training with her grandfather would be fought for by the top 10 corporations and dojos for scions and head disciples.
At last, there was the gold rank hunting suit that would help keep Linus safe against beasts under the gold rank. This suit costs more than a 100 million FD and can only be bought inside the army and top ten universities fully displaying its worth. This, however, didn't need to be known by Linus or he would be shocked and breathless.
Thus when she drove him home and explained her reasoning for recommending him to her grandfather, she also reminded Linus to keep on improving and working hard while his short term goal should be to survive 8 hours during the Federal examination. Linus agreed with her advice and reassured her that he would keep training and working hard.
When Linus thought back to yesterday, he couldn't forget yesterday's training session and the experience of seeing Nyx rapidly increasing her skill mastery while also learning to incorporate darkness energy in all her skills.
Within that single training session, Nyx had learned to incorporate darkness energy into all her skills while all of the reached proficient mastery with dark petal and sharp blossoming reaching the peak of proficient mastery only a step away from expert mastery.
Nyx's shadow avatar also improved all of its skills to perfect mastery and Linus and Nyx finally learned why the shadow avatar's skills are more powerful even though skill proficiency doesn't increase power directly except for the skill enhanced dark cells.
The reason was that it always used darkness energy in the execution of the skills like the old man had taught him, but they had never noticed it. Nyx could now fight and last much longer against her avatar increasing the speed she learned how to wield her skills and make fewer and fewer mistakes.
When Linus finished reading all the basic information about the Global Federation, top 10 taming universities and top 10 corporations and dojos, he had finally gotten a certain grasp on the power division of humanity in this world.
The current Global Federation is jointly overseen by the three pet associations of pet trainers, pet cultivators and pet teachers. It has a military filled with pet trainers, pet cultivators and pet teachers who have sworn loyalty to the Global Federation and their duty to defend the cities against the beasts.
Aside from the governing organisations and military, there are 10 independent corporations and dojos who have a lot of influence and they control a great deal of the Global Federation's economy with a monopoly over the most well known rare and special materials for strengthening and evolving pets due to their unique heritage and private recipes.
Those top 10 corporations and dojos were each founded by a legendary pet trainer and currently have at least several grandmaster rank pet trainers. Some even have a legendary pet trainer protecting them allowing them to be at the top of the top 10 and dominate the lower ranking corporations and dojos.
Those corporations and dojos are the Time tower ranked number one, Space consortium ranked number two, Yin Yang dojo ranked number 3, Storm dojo ranked number four, Ice Consortium ranked number five, Earth dojo ranked number six, Water shipments ranked number seven, Blitz dojo ranked number eight, Nature garden ranked number nine and Divine foundry ranked number ten.
The Global Federation is also under constant threat from the beasts and focuses on nurturing young pet trainers, pet cultivators and pet teachers every year in its established universities.
Each university in the Global Federation was at least founded by a master rank pet trainer and the top 10 were founded by at least a legendary pet trainer. Those are the holy grounds of the Global Federation and are funded the most besides the military.
The top 3 were even founded by mythical pet trainers. They are the number one ranked Supreme academy founded by humanities first mythical pet trainer, the number two ranked Deep Sea university founded by the mythical pet trainer who helped conquer the entire central continent and the number three ranked Military academy founded by two mythical pet trainers who have climbed the military from common soldiers to the absolute peak.
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The other seven universities are the Holy academy ranked number four, Skill university ranked number five, Darkness tower ranked number six, Five Elements academy ranked number seven, Nature University ranked number eight, Giant university ranked number nine and Hunter university ranked number ten.
All universities have their specialities except for the first three which are excellent in all three occupations. The Supreme academy is known as the greatest university and a cradle for geniuses to develop through competition. The Deep Sea university is located by the ocean and specializes in the nurturing of water elemental pets, fighting against sea beasts and teaching water elemental pets, it supports excellence through achievements in research or hunting.
The Military academy nurtures future soldiers and generals for the army and believes in nurturing excellent pet trainers using discipline, diligence and determination together with participating in the war at the frontline. The military doesn't only include the frontlines and city garrisons but also has some special departments which are mostly filled and joined by the graduates of the Military academy.
The other seven universities are divided into three groups with the Hunter university, Giant university and Darkness tower specialising in training pet trainers. Nature university and Five Elements academy specialise in nurturing pet cultivators and the Holy academy and Skill university specialise in guiding pet teachers.
Linus is currently most interested in the Supreme academy, Military academy, Five Elements academy and Nature university as all four could further his development as a pet cultivator while the first two would even help his development as a pet trainer.
Before he could enter a university though, he had to participate in the National examination. The requirements to enter a top 10 university are the following:
A person has to at least survive for six hours during the survival test while also earning at least 900 points of the maximum 1000. The theoretical exam has to also have at least 95 out of 100 marks and the practical portion requires also a minimum of 140 marks out of 150 total.
Those standards are incredibly high resulting in only 0.001% of all participants reaching this standard and then a person isn't guaranteed of entering their favourite university among the top 10. Only those with full marks or those who survive the total 8 hours on the survival test will be given a place in any of the top 10 universities.
The top 10 and top 3 scorers of the National examination will also be granted special privileges upon entering their chosen university like access to top tier materials, mentors and more.
Linus could have the same privileges as them if he were to survive 8 hours and use the old man's recommendation letter upon choosing a university. Now that Linus has started brushing up on his lack of knowledge, can he start making targeted choices during training and in the future walk the best path for him to reach his goal of becoming a powerhouse of humanity as a mythical pet trainer.
Linus then left the library and headed to the canteen where he ate a meal for six, before changing clothes and heading to the training ground where he and Nyx normally train. The two started training again with Nyx focussing on what she was taught by the old man and the mistakes she made against her shadow avatar. Linus on the other hand still focused on training his body.
During their training, something unexpected happened. A girl interrupted their training. The girl was Lana who had been their first sparring partner. When she found Linus and Nyx training, she first observed them before walking toward them and gaining their attention. When Linus focused his attention on her, she mustered up her courage and asked if she could join their training as she too had no classes in the afternoon due to her having passed the apprentice pet teacher exam.
After some consideration, Linus agreed as it wouldn't hurt or hinder his or Nyx's training. From then on Lana and her green silk bug which had already reached peak LVL 5 of the iron rank joined Linus and Nyx's hellish afternoon training session.
The week then slowly passed and Friday arrived together with the second survival test at school. During the test, Linus and Nyx were dropped not in a forest swamp but a desert without any water or food. Linus also detected many fire and earth elemental energies around them.
No traces of beasts could be found this time in the area around them, but staying was as good as a death sentence without any food or water. Their first goal to remain in top condition was to find an oasis. Nyx wasn't that much at a disadvantage as Linus's contract space provided enough dark shadow energy for her to fight and recover, but this came at the cost of Linus's physical state thus both needed to find water and food sources.
Both departed after five minutes of checking their surroundings and they started heading south as more plant traces could be found that way. During their journey south, they encountered 4 iron rank beasts ranging from LVL 3 to LVL 8 iron rank. Nyx had just reached LVL 5 the previous day and managed to defeat three beasts while they escaped from the LVL 8 iron rank desert scorpion.
No traces of beasts could be found due to the sand unlike when they were in the forest swamp and thus Linus couldn't avoid any beasts along his journey south. After one hour of travel, they finally found a small oasis for water and some wood. Linus had also skinned some beasts they had killed for meat and stored it in a backpack they had been provided upon transfer.
Linus then used Nyx to cut some trees, before using the wood to light a fire and cook the meat while also storing and drinking some water. He had become incredibly hungry after their last escape as Nyx had to return to his contract space and recover in the energy pool because she had sustained wounds that would affect her combat ability.
The two stayed at the oasis as it was the most perfect survival place as it was impossible to determine the territory of the beasts in the desert. As time slowly passed, iron rank beasts started attacking Linus and Nyx at the oasis. In the beginning, only some weaker beasts attacked, but they slowly became more numerous and stronger.
Luckily Nyx could swiftly recover in the energy pool after every fight while, Linus ate and drank large quantities of meat and water. Unfortunately at the fourth hour, a bronze rank desert cobra appeared and Linus and Nyx barely managed to escape alive.
The desert cobra then occupied the oasis forcing Linus and Nyx into the desert to recover and survive. Nyx managed to recover on time before she had to fight again but was wounded after every battle and Linus quickly became weak and exhausted before the two were killed by an LVL 8 iron rank sand fox. Their eventual survival time was 4 hours and 43 minutes while their final score was 51760 after taking into consideration his late awakening. Ms Winter also commented that such a score would place him among the top 10 000 students in the entire combat examination and qualify him for the top 20 universities.
This result changed Linus's classmates about him and they started bothering him during both theory lessons and practical combat classes where his battles against the top 10 became even more oppressive due to his survival test having eclipsed some of their results. As time crept closer to the National examination, the time arrived for another important event in Linus's schedule. It was time for Mr Wellington's experiment and research on the evolution of the iron rank dark rose to be tested.