Whittaker slept while Shadow studied. In the entire Academy, he was the only student awake at this time of the night. He was the only one that had decided to work hard from the very first day.
Sitting in the chair placed in front of the table, he intently gazed at the postures drawn on his A-ranked (5-star) skill book.
In the awakened continent, skill and spell books were divided into seven different ranks. They are F, E, D, C, B, A, and S. These ranks could also be further divided into 9 different levels, 1-star to 9-star. 1-star being the weakest and 9-star being the strongest. F-ranked (1-star) book was of the lowest level and S-ranked (9-star) was the highest level of any skill or spellbook.
Generally, the merchants and even stores registered under the awakened hall only sell spell or skill books up to C-rank (9-star). Higher-level books on spell and skill books aren't for sale in the land of water as it's forbidden by the Water kingdoms itself. It's because of the Royals, Nobles, Guild, and the military. They hog all books that are ranked higher than C-rank(9-star). Their purpose is to force others to make a choice–If a person wants to become powerful and learn higher-level spells or skill–they must enlist into the military or join under one of the above-mentioned groups. Otherwise, they won't be able to grow stronger safely and will have to take extreme risks to become stronger.
The reason why Shadow, an apprentice assassin, managed to get his hand on this high ranked book was his unusual and influential background. He had taken this book from Shen Ze Yi Guild library that's why it was so high-ranked!
Different postures were demonstrated on the very first page of the A-ranked (5-star) book.
Each of these postures emitted a mysterious aura that distracted Shadow from concentrating but he fought back this mysterious aura and tried his best to memorize even one of the postures demonstrated on the first page by gazing at them with wide-open eyes.
All this hard work was in vain, three hours passed by and he didn't even manage to memorize even a single posture. However, he didn't give up learning even one posture will become his ticket to becoming powerful with ease. Since performing these postures will increase his battle energy in the shortest time possible.
In this world, all non-magic related class uses battle energy to fight while magic-related class uses mana to fight.
When mana merges with the body a special type of energy called battle energy is formed.
There existed different types of ways to merge mana with the body. The first one is to undergo hardcore physical training that lasts for hours every day while breathing in mana.
The second one was the method in front of his eyes.
He had tried the first method and it was very taxing on his time. Since he wanted to become powerful, he trained six+ hours every day and that puts a strain on his body. While performing these postures demonstrated in the book can lower the time taken to form battle energy and will also not put strains on his body.
Tonight, Shadow was intent on learning at least one posture from the book and so, he kept on trying to memorize a posture from the book. He didn't give up as the first posture was already somewhat clear in his eyes. One more hour passed by and a smile formed on his face, he has memorized the first posture!
His eyes blurred due to dizziness. He had exhausted all brain cells to memorize a posture from the A-ranked (5-star) book. Realizing that he was tired, he closed the book.
He stored the book in the spatial wristband that he wore and decreased the intensity of light of the Light Orb to 0.
He looked at the time. It was already 4:45 am.
Like a responsible adult, he gazed at Whittaker. His roommate was a mage and classes for mage will begin after 2 hours 25 minutes. Whittaker had slept late, so he probably won't be able to wake up by himself.
While he was going to sleep as he also had to attend his classes that begin after 9, so he won't be able to wake him up, either.
Shadow was worried that his new roommate will miss the first day of the Academy and the teachers will perceive him like a rotten apple. More specifically, a bad student.
He decided to lend a helping hand to his sleeping roommate. He walked towards the windows above the Snowy-haired boy bed and opened them wide.
When the Sun rises at 6 am, rays of light will surely be drawn on Whittaker's face as the windows were no longer closed. This way, he is bound to be shaken up from his sleep!
Even the Academy teacher would be amazed at the cleverness of this child but no one was around to witness his action.
Shadow turned around and laid on his bed placed on the left side of the room. Just like Whittaker, the moment his head hit the mellow pillow he fell into a deep sleep.