AN:I spent the whole day studying yesterday, I didn't have time to launch caps , /:
3 months later, Kayden finally decided to go back to school. During this period, he faced a total of 10 life and death-struggles, and his wealth had already exceeded a hundred gold coins.
Now, he could buy a nice apartment in a posh area and support himself, but that was a headache that wasn't worth going through yet. All the money he reinvested in companies.
In his previous life, he had read enough books to know the value of compound interest. Currently, his monthly income is 1% per month, plus or minus one gold coin per month.
This was enough for him to retire and live a peaceful life. But what a joke! What would be the fun of that?
Currently, Kayden is trying to learn how to solidify his mana around his sword. This was what he saw and understood from Apollo's battle in the tournament, but unfortunately, he wasn't having any kind of success. Every time mana left his body, it would simply be contaminated by the world's will and become useless.
But his tests weren't completely bad. During this time, he learned to fill his blade with lightning continuously, at a low mana cost. When it met its opponents, its movements would slightly freeze.
The biggest problem was that it wasn't something strong or impactful if the boy wanted it to be. He couldn't keep the spell up for long.
This time he went back to school to see Astolfo. Studying wasn't something he cared about. As soon as he entered the elite students' area, he started looking for the boy. He saw his former teammates but didn't decide to go and greet them. Any bond they had was gone after the betrayal.
"Looking for me?" Astolfo called out to Kayden while lying on one of the sofas in the place. After exchanging some basic greetings, the boy asked his friend about the Sol Academy test.
"I only got to step 40 and in the first test, I was eliminated in the second hour by a wind wizard. I wasn't anything impressive like you. What a fuss you made there, Kayden", the boy smiled.
After talking a little more, Kayden decided to bring up the main topic.
"Are we going to put together a decent team this year? From the beginning of the year until the end, we train together and, ideally, we will catch people who will not betray us again." His proposal was easily accepted by Astolfo.
"We just have to get going soon. The championship was brought forward to the middle of the year, more or less in 3 months", Astolfo shared information that Kayden had no idea about. Luckily he decided to show up at school.
This time, they would screen the candidates and evaluate both their performance and their track record. After a few hours, they had about ten candidates in hand.
These ten were the best of the best and still had a certain background that would not make them weak in front of nobles.
"How are we going to divide them?" Astolfo didn't know who to choose, they were all good options.
"We will choose three mages this time, one or two healers and one attack. Our last team proved that having a bad composition was fatal in battles against strong opponents."
It didn't take long for Astolfo to make the selection based on his memories and the recruitment went smoothly. This time, it was two girls and a boy. The boy was the offensive mage, while the two were support mages.
The funny thing was that they were identical twins. The name of one was Lunar and the other was Solar. Kayden thought it was funny that his parents' broken mood put on this kind of combination.
The two were identical, having a medium height with golden hair reaching down to their waist. With white skin accompanying their coloring, they were spectacular. Kayden did not doubt that they would attract attention wherever they went.
The boy was called Klaus and his main characteristic was his immense body size. Kayden guessed he easily weighed 150 pounds and that was just fat. His other features were green hair and an obscene smile.
"Very well, let's start training", Kayden smiled, sending a shiver down Astolfo's spine and a bad feeling for the others.
*******
1 month later, Kayden consolidated his team's formation and easily reached the top 5 this time. It didn't take much effort, as the 3 new members had combat experience so they weren't dead weight.
And on top of that, Kayden and Astolfo were on a completely different level than the other students. In 90% of them, Kayden only had to use his low-concentration killing intent and they simply froze.
The boy avoided using any level beyond this minimum, as some adults were very sensitive to this and quickly identified it. His first use in total simply caused the five opponents to black out and him to receive a gigantic lecture from the teacher in charge of the elite team.
He also took another fight with Astolfo and managed to win 40% of them. It was imposing when his technique was only recently developed and not even for someone with extensive experience.
By giving it their all, Kayden lost every fight. Astolfo's family's secret technique was simply too bizarre for him to bear. No matter where he attacked or how Astolfo would simply return the blow in equal measure or stronger.
Meanwhile, he also continued fighting at the club and made a name for himself. He reached the incredible amount of 150 gold coins, but unfortunately, he had to pay 40 of them to a healer, as in one of his fights he came very close to going to his third life.
Fortunately, his contract with Shang obligated him to cover 60% of medical expenses, so it wasn't as much out of the boy's pocket as it could have been. His healing was only this high because one of his arms was destroyed by boulders.
At this moment, he was having to make a somewhat risky decision. Last week, Heimer sent him a letter telling him about a natural mana reservoir in a forest near the orphanage.
According to the boy, she still had 20% of her mana remaining and according to him, it was safe in a way since the only magical beasts in the region were at most at the 7th rank and apprentice. That's why he also made it clear to Kayden not to go there before reaching that rank.
The problem was that Kayden needed something to advance faster and he didn't want to wait that long. Considering all his battle experience, he believed he would be safe.
But why not inform the old man or an adult? This was also something that Heimer explained in the letter, most adults would immediately notify the government, as the government's reward was more tempting than just a cluster of neutral mana.
That's why Kayden had to go there alone, after a few days Kayden made a decision and it took him to a forest a few kilometers away from the orphanage, looking from the outside he simply couldn't differentiate it from a normal forest.