The realm became their world. Daylight stretched long, then broke into endless cycles of sweat, mana, and the sound of bodies colliding against resistance. The first days were nothing but rhythm: Ciel pushing the edges of his will, Sora flaring chaos until it slipped through her fingers, Veldora hammering away with shield, sword and grit. The trio’s training regimen was something that not many can follow.

  They poured in 16 hours to training every day about six hours to sharpen their team work, nine to train their skills and final hour in sparring against each other pushing each other to their limits. Although this was a last-minute decision to include sparring into the schedule.

  They spent about 2 hours on various needs like eating, bathing etc. leaving only six hours for sleep.

  While the time of sleep needed for one to be at optimal condition only decreased as their levels increased, they once heard that people at sixth awakening and higher only slept once or twice a week, but this didn’t mean an average person can keep training for hours repeating same motions for thousands of times.

  To begin with they did not have the advantages Ciel and his team possessed, the huge amount of mana stones was not something anyone can have and even if they did how can they compete with time dilation and monument of training in play. Slowly but surely the trios power continued to grow with their skills breaking through to novice tier over the days.

  On the third day, something shifted. The pressure Ciel carried in his chest, that fragile sense of control, sharpened all at once. His Domain no longer wavered—it pressed steady and sure, a mantle of authority that made the air itself hum. Its range increased further a change had occurred.

  [Skill domain has crossed the threshold of beginner tier and has been promoted to novice tier lv.1.]

  He had finally done it his first skill in novice tier he hastily pulled up skill’s description.

  Basic Skill

  Domain (Novice Lv. 1)

  – Creates an 20m domain with the caster at the centre. Hostile or marked entities within suffer -2.5% to all stats.

  – Allies within domain gets +10% HP and MP regeneration.

  – Cost: 3 MP per second.

  The debuff percentage has increased by two and a half times and with a new additional effect of HP and MP regeneration increase the skill was simply many times more powerful compared to its beginner counterpart.

  It was more suitable for team oriented combat with ten percent higher regeneration they can take more hits and have more firepower compared to before. Only drawback is that mana cost has increased threefold but it is sustainable enough for the boosts it provides.

  But the hunger didn’t stop there. By the next morning, his focus turned inward, weaving strands of raw mana until his hands ached. Threads that once scattered now pulled together with clarity, forming shapes that held against the strain. When the crystal lattice hardened under his touch the quality was different from what he could achieve, he knew what it meant—Mana Craft had stepped into novice tier. His chest rose with something quieter than triumph, more like belonging. The following notification only increased his mood.

  [Skill mana craft has crossed the threshold of beginner tier and has been promoted to novice tier lv.1.]

  He pulled up the skill’s description.

  Normal Skill Mana Craft (novice Lv. 1)

  – Manipulates ambient mana into medium constructs with improved efficiency.

  – Able to maintain two constructs at a time.

  – Continuous mana drain increases with complexity.

  Another massive upgrade to his arsenal with 2 constructs at a time he had plenty of combat related ideas he can try. The main point of this upgrade was the ability to create bigger constructs while he had created a large sword in his battle with wolf king it had been nothing but inefficient in terms of mana cost but with that gone, he can easily create constructs about 10 kg in mass without the excessive drain and that meant more lethal firepower.

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  Their training grew heavier. Veldora pounded against Ciel and defending Sora’s chaos bolts until the shield bruised his arm and rattled his bones. Every strike rang hollow, until on the seventh day the sound cracked like thunder. His shield didn’t just block or strike—it carried weight, intention. Shield Bash erupted forward, solid and undeniable even pushing Ciel into using king of realm, but the echo left even Sora silent for a heartbeat. Veldora had done it, he finally reached novice tier on his skill shield bash.

  Sora broke that silence soon enough. Chaos surged in her palms, unruly and merciless, always one breath from consuming her. Bolts fizzled, flared, sputtered into nothing. She cursed, laughed, and tried again. By the tenth day, when the spell finally condensed into a spiralling dart of black fire, she didn’t ask for acknowledgement. She loosed it into the sky, watching it tears across the clouds until it burned itself out. Chaos Bolt had broken through the beginner tier to novice tier with an empowered chaos bolt which was rivalled by none at her level in terms of raw power.

  The days bled together. They sparred until the ground bore scars of their persistence, meditated beside wells that churned with raw mana, rebuilt what they broke only to shatter it again. Small habits formed: Sora’s laughter turning wilder with each spell, Veldora’s steady hum between bouts of training, Ciel’s quiet notes as he charted what changed in them and what stayed the same.

  On the fifteenth day, the air around him rippled. Ciel stepped, and the world refused to let him move the way he always had. He pressed harder, vision splitting, his breath dragging through clenched teeth as he tried to push shift to its utter limit. Then, all at once, space gave way. He shifted again and again not for three times but four times this time at one moment he was at one point at next moment he was eighty meters away from his initial position. Others froze, watching with wide eyes, as though they’d seen him cheat the system. This only meant one thing which the subsequent notification confirmed that his third main skill has reached novice tier.

  [Skill Shift has crossed the threshold of beginner tier and has been promoted to novice tier lv.1.]

  Basic Skill

  Shift (Novice Lv. 1)

  – Allows instant teleportation up to 20 meters.

  – 4 Charges, 8-second cooldown per charge.

  – Cost: 4 MP per meter

  Not only the range increased the number of times he could use them mattered a lot in battle each charge represented dodging an attack which otherwise he could not and potentially injure him, the decrease in cooldown and mana cost was cherry on top increasing skill’s usability.

  The sixteenth day passed in a hush. They all trained to control their newfound strength and how to use it better and how to work as a team. The trio have reached novice tier in their core skills which average people only does after reaching second awakening, their power unmatched by anyone of same level.

  Satisfied with their training they sat down and looked around the realm for the destruction they had caused Sora’s attacks had scorched the grounds while she had gotten somewhat control over her extra skill cataclysm ray levelling it up to beginner level three it still was not safe enough but it could qualify as her trump card in case of danger.

  Veldora and Ciel’s marks of sword slashes and cuts were all around the patch they were training on. The realm carried the marks of their training. Still, he needed to fix them and that was a task for later.

  Today was 13th of January, they had near two and half month before the entrance examinations for academies began that amount of time to reach second awakening while easy for lower rarity classes will be a tough goal for him. He thought if he kept going like this, he might just be able to achieve it.

  Then suddenly their gazes turned, almost in unison, toward the World Tree at the heart of the realm. Once no taller than a sapling, it had stretched and thickened over the days, now brushing close to a meter in height. Its leaves shimmered faintly, catching light that wasn’t there, each vein pulsing with a current of mana.

  They hadn’t noticed the change in the beginning, but the truth was impossible to miss now—the very air had grown heavier, richer. Mana clung to their skin, filled their lungs, hummed beneath their feet. Sixteen days of growth, and the realm itself was denser, more alive.

  Ciel opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came.

  The tree stirred.

  It wasn’t the wind—there was none here. Yet its leaves whispered against one another, and the trunk shivered as though something vast had just breathed into it. The ground gave a subtle, impossible thrum, and the flow of mana shifted, pulling them all to silence.

  And then—