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nJason´s inner clock woke him up at 5 am, which he was already used to after the strenuous week he had gone through.

nThat was because he wanted to practice the Heaven's Hell technique as early as possible before reading some more.

nAfter everything was finished, he would eat breakfast and go into school for his first day.

nWith his soul energy reaching 6.5 units, Jason was satisfied as it was increasing faster and faster with each day passing.

nGreg had already told him about Vanguard´s affiliated school's average strength some time ago but rather than fully trusting him, Jason decided to make his own research in the morning.

nThis was only possible because Jason received permission to enter the school website this morning where he could access the student's basic profiles.

nEach student could enter the school website and set their profile to private causing their Mana core rank, age, and so on to be hidden but Jason would be able to see at least the average strength from some of his future classmates and seniors.

nAfter looking at the profiles of his future classmates, Jason began to frown deeply.

nEach of Vanguard´s six affiliated schools accepted more than 15.000 Students each year while the Vanguard school accepted at least 10.000 students.

nThis meant the Vanguard school with its branches accepted 100.000 students which astonished Jason a lot.

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nBut after thinking for a while, Jason understood that each of Cyro's schools accepted only the best students inside Astrix island except the ones who got accepted because of nobility rights or other hidden doors.

nAstrix Inhabitat around 300 million humans and each year around 10 million babies are born in the last few years.

nConsidering the fact that most of them are born into poor families, their education is rather poor and they can´t be provided with decent resources to rank up their mana core or at least contract a good soulbond.

nThese poor youths can be deducted from the 10 million due to their low chance to enter one of the big three schools in Cyro-City or their affiliated schools.

nThere were always exceptions who fought against their forecast fate and demonstrated incredible results in their exams or awaken a unique soul with 3 stars or more.

nWhile there are many poor people out there, this was not everything as many youths can be raised with high-quality resources in order to establish an extremely high qualitative foundation.

nJason was one of the lucky ones who entered one of the six affiliated schools through a hidden door but it looked like he wasn't the only one.

nThere were a few who looked like they didn´t meet the requirement even if Jason couldn't see their soul-awakening.

nit looked like they got either a scholarship because of their soul-awakening or thanks to a noble who decided to support these kids due to whatever possible reason.

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nSome nobles take in innocent children with great soul-awakenings to nurture them and make them into their slaves with a soul contract.

nA soul contract was a tricky subject within society.

nOnce a soul contract is formed one cannot break it.

nIf one were to break a soul contract, his

/her soul will immediately shatter and one will lose the soul world, soulbonds, and each benefit from it.

nAfter that, you´ll be only left with your mana core, without the ability to use affinities every again.

nIt would be fortunate if one is able to defeat a beast on the same rank as them because the gap between beast and human strength increases once higher ranks are reached,

nOnly soulbonds could shorten these gaps partially.

nWith the amplification from soulbonds and the shared affinity, mankind was barely able to fight these beasts head-on.

nOnly due to the soul-awakening and soulbonds, humanity could survive their whole annihilation more than 300 years ago.

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nNevertheless, Jason was still lamenting…

nThese hidden door students had stronger cultivation than him, even though the gap was not that much apart from him.

nHe continued to look through the profiles, trying to find someone at his combat power.

nAfter skipping through a few hundred or maybe over thousand profiles later Jason concluded that the average strength was at the 4th or 5th Adept- rank which was the Intermediate-stage for the Adept rank, without anyone weaker than him.

nThere were still many Adepts at the beginner stage but somehow they were admitted into the 6th affiliated school which was thick underlined by the school forum.

nAt the Adept rank 1st to 3rd level is the beginner stage, 4th to 6th the Intermediate stage and 7th to 9th the advanced stage which would continue for the following ranks like Beginner Expert, Intermediate Expert and so on, while the smaller hurdles were called 1st Expert rank, 2nd Expert rank and so on.

nWhile most students were at the Intermediate-Adept rank, Jason was still at the 5th-Novice rank, even if he was infinitely close to the 6th Novice rank.

nThis gap was extremely big and Jason wondered if someone would try to bully him because of that.

nHe was determined to endure it for the time being because he was sure that there was no way for him to beat Intermediate-Adept ranks with the addition of their soulbonds shared strength.

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nThis frustrated him and Jason pondered if he should use the Holy white baruci fruit for himself or not, which he disregarded after some thought.

nLooking at the clock, he noticed that it was already 6:30 am and Jason jumped out of the bed to make a wake-up workout for 20 minutes.

nAfter that, Jason went into the bathroom to take a shower before he changed into his new prescribed school uniform which consisted of a white shirt, a dark blue blazer, a black tie, and dark blue trousers.

nThe dark blue blazer was outlined with black color and one could see a golden brocaded open book, representing the vanguard symbol, embedded on his right chest.

nAbove the book were small letters and weapons floating, symbolizing the power of knowledge and its equality to strength, which most schools and people were criticizing.

nEven though it was the vanguard school´s motto, Jason was sure that most students didn´t really care about it, as learning for theoretical things was not something many would want to do in their free time if one could absorb mana, hone martial art skills, or do other more important things at the same time.

nJason wore the perfectly fitting uniform and it was hardly possible to say that he looked hideous, rather than that he looked incredibly handsome right now.

nHis black hair had grown a little bit longer and he wanted to trim them on the sides a little bit while his hair in the front was already covering his eyes at some spots.

nBut these golden eyes couldn't really be covered as they shone through the thin hair.

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nIn the end, Jason received his haircut from Gabriella who did it for all her family members as she liked to do it.

nBecause Gabriella did it, instead of Jason himself, he received a decent haircut and could be shown to the public once again.

nLooking into the mirror, Jason himself didn't know what to say and Gabriella shrieked like a little girl seeing Jason.

nMark and Greg were looking at him weirdly while Malia scanned Jason from head to toe thinking in her mind

n`Hehe...Finally, I have a handsome brother….Am I allowed to boast with his looks? Kekeke`

nOver the last week, Malia had accepted Jason as her family member or rather as her brother.

nShe completely threw away her fluttering heart, with the chance of getting such a cute and handsome brother.

nShe found him handsome and all that... But he was too young for her and after making up her mind, she noticed that the incidents that occurred in the past were obviously embarrassing and not only because Jason was it.

nMalia convinced herself that she would react like that to every stranger and decided to cut the possibility to catch feelings for Jason completely.

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nBut it was easier said than done, as Jason was not only hardworking but also extremely handsome and smart.

nHe was younger than her and she would at most generate feelings for him as she had for her brother, at least that was what she told herself.

nAfter eating breakfast everyone went for their own path, while Greg and Malia went to the central district to the Vanguard school, Jason took the path to the 6th affiliated school which was also seen as the weakest.

nEven the affiliated schools were classified among each other because there was a way to enter the main school while attending the affiliated schools.

nEveryone tried to enter the main school because of various reasons like the yearly tournament among the big three schools which awarded the best 100 with specific treasures.

nBut that wasn't all, the instructors of the affiliated schools were definitely good, but still a whole level below the ones of the main school, and the whole teaching was also build up differently.

nAt least that was, what Jason had heard and some even called it

"The difference between heaven and earth

" which Jason found quite amusing.

nBut he didn´t care about that at all, as the resources in terms of techniques he would receive in addition to knowledge were, what Jason really wanted to receive.

nHe was additionally already fond of attending the worst affiliated school because it was probably a few million times better than the best C-grade high-schools and probably even B-grade high-schools

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