Ramon woke up in the academy's hospital that was located towards the side of the big Eastern gate.
The doctor, a manipulator on white robes stared at him as soon as he woke up. "Young man, you over-drafted your astral energy".
"Next time, be more cautious".
"It can be dangerous in battle".
"Huh?" Ramon stared, confused.
"Ahem," Shaggy coughed. "Don't worry doctor, thank you for everything, I'll explain everything to him".
Apparently, after dismissing the class, Mr. Patrick personally took him to the hospital for treatment, making sure that all the injuries he sustained from his gravity punishment were healed before leaving.
After Shaggy explained to him though, Ramon did not pay attention to it as all his attention was in that special moment towards the end of the class.
At that moment, Ramon felt in control of his astral energy for the first time since he opened his sea of consciousness after his awakening.
Shaggy understood what he was feeling as he smiled. "You've broken your starting limit, now you can cultivate as an astral warrior".
"Cultivate?"
"Yes," Shaggy stared at him. "The energy of nature is astral energy and astral practitioners and beasts absorb and store it to empower their bodies, prolong their lives, and use astral techniques that are only possible through astral energy".
"By breaking your starting limit, the flow of your sea of consciousness is now under your control".
"Most warriors only break it when their lives are threatened".
"By breaking it, you can now start absorbing more astral energy from nature to nourish your sea of consciousness".
"There are 4 levels which corresponds to the 4 tiers of each major realm that your astral energy needs to cross before your sea of consciousness is full, making you ready for a major realm breakthrough".
"To get stronger, your job now is to cultivate and absorb astral energy to nourish your sea of consciousness, and to attend lectures, rack up contribution points to purchase the special martial techniques of the academy".
By the time Shaggy was done explaining, Ramon felt like he was struck by lightning, his road forward became so much clearer to him.
Today was Shaggy's last day working as an escort.
By evening, Ramon was finally taken to his assigned school hostel. Normally, students, most especially freshers share a room between 3 of them but Ramon's late scholarship meant a new hostel had to be vacated for him.
And since there were no more freshers to pair up with him, Ramon got the golden privilege of staying alone in a room as a first-year student.
That night, Ramon slept late. This was because sitting alone in his room, like Shaggy instructed before leaving, he gave his all to absorbing the astral energy of nature into his body, nourishing his sea of consciousness.
As he breath in and out, drops of astral energy was absolved into his sea.
His concentration increased with every breath as he observed the gradually increasing sea amid the waves that made splashing sounds occasionally.
Cultivation felt magical.
…
Apart from cultivating, for the next few days, the only other thing in Ramon's schedule was attending lectures regularly to learn from his teachers.
Attending lectures gave contribution points which was the currency for students to access every privilege available in the academy.
Each class attended on time gave 2 contribution points.
Under the wildlife department, there were other classes custom made towards teaching the characteristics of winged astral beasts, land astral beasts, and even a special class oriented towards knowledge about Tiberia's famed forests.
In the history department classes, they learned about the history of the world, including how the 9 Emperors and Empresses dethroned the evil Fate Destroying Emperor who ruled the world through tyranny decades ago.
Ramon hated the history classes; they always painted his mentor in a bad light. 'I still want to become the new King of astral travelers!'
The weapon department was arguably the broadest department of the academy just beneath the wildlife department. Lots of classes under it were differentiated among the mages and warriors.
And under the warriors, for every weapon, there was a specific class for it.
Among the freshers who became warriors, Ramon and 74 others were the ones whose development made them choose sword as their main weapon.
Under their sword instructor, their sword skills grew with each passing class.
Despite all this that was under his table, and even as he kept on absorbing astral energy to nourish his sea of consciousness, Ramon kept his part of the bargain as 2 times a week, instructor Guendouzi taught him in secret.
This way, his power grew steadily within just weeks.
The education department was not idle either as they taught them all that they needed to know about the basic theories of astral energy that they needed to survive the astral world.
And finally, Ramon learned the realms of power and the last path of the astral world that instructor Guendouzi failed to tell them about previously.
"Apart from Evolvers, Warrior Transmutators, Manipulators, Warlocks, Mage Transmutators, there is another unique path called Specialists".
"In a world where there are hundreds of thousands of astral practitioners, there are only a few Specialists known to the world".
"Specialists are those astral practitioners who awaken strange astral energy types with unique effects that don't necessarily fall into the main astral paths".
"Specialists can be Transmutators or members of any of the other paths, but with unique effects that set them apart from others".
"A Specialist Fire Transmutator may have fire that burns hotter than any other Fire Transmutator, or may have fire that has unique and strange properties".
"Specialists are unique and every one of them is valued by the astral authorities".
"In this batch of freshers, there are 4 Specialists, Elmas, Aegon, Freya, and Ramon".
Hearing this, Ramon's eyes widened as he remembered something from 5 years ago. 'Does that make Augustus a Specialist?'
'He clearly amplified the defensive power of his skills then'.
After that, instructor Guendouzi went on to teach them about the official power system of astral travelers.
"There are 9 realms in the astral world, each realm is divided into 4 tiers, low, mid, high, and peak tiers".
"In your 1st year, only the first 3 realms are important to you".
"1st realm astral beasts are called Legionnaire Stage Beasts and their human equivalents are called Legionnaire Stage Warriors and Mages".
"In the legionnaire stage, like the beasts, human warriors grow stronger through the tiers by simply absolving the natural energy of the world to increase the power of our bodies".
"Each threshold passed in your sea of consciousness represents a tier".
"As for the mages, apart from absolving mana to empower their bodies, they are the first to develop their affinities through their higher mental power".
"Mages can already cast basic affinity spells at the Legionnaire stage".
"2nd realm astral beasts are called General Stage Beasts while their human equivalent warriors are called Knight Stage Warriors".
"Human mages in the 2nd realm are called Sage Stage Mages".
"In the General Stage, beasts can finally gain mana affinity to aid and amplify their overall power even further".
"As for human warriors in the 2nd realm, apart from increasing the power and resilience of their bodies even further, they also gain control over their affinities, gaining the ability to better manipulate it in battle".
"As for human mages, apart from absolving even more mana since they have more capacity for it than warriors and beasts, they gain the mental ability to formulate complicated spells, attaining sage state".
"3rd realm astral beasts are called Commander Stage Beasts. Humans are also called Commander Stage Warriors and Mages".
After this lecture, Ramon's respect and love for instructor Guendouzi increased.
With each passing lecture, his knowledge and power grew slowly.
Like this, in no time, 3 weeks already passed since Ramon made his way into the walls of Centerpoint Astral Academy and on this day, Ramon finally did it.
He finally gained 60 contribution points to purchase his first sword manual.