The Real Awesome Life Has Only Just Begun!

Mo Fan had always spent more time in Meditation than anyone else. With the help of a Stardust Artifact, training for twelve straight hours a day was no problem whatsoever.

Even so, a person's time is ultimately finite. If a higher-grade Stardust Artifact merely extended how long one could sustain Meditation, its value wouldn't be particularly great — Mo Fan could hardly spend all twenty-four hours of every day in Meditation, after all.

Through the crucible of real combat, he had come to understand that a Mage relying on Meditation alone to grow stronger would never get far. What truly drove Stardust forward was something else — the desperate hunger to become stronger that blazed up in the heat of battle, when life was on the line, when a fearsome enemy stood before you. That hunger could push Stardust to advance by a meaningful degree.

So while Mo Fan kept up his long daily Meditation sessions, he made sure to keep joining the Demon-Hunting Squad's operations.

If a higher-grade Stardust Artifact did nothing more than add cultivation hours, it wouldn't be especially efficient for someone like him — someone already clocking over ten hours a day. But what the Spirit Grade Stardust Artifact actually gave him was something else entirely.

Not only did it allow him to Meditate without interruption — it could also directly nourish his Stardust to a certain degree.

Even when he wasn't Meditating, his Stardust grew slowly on its own.

And when he was Meditating, it grew at an efficiency far beyond what it had been before.

His Meditation sessions were already pushed to their maximum possible duration, and now the efficiency had increased on top of that. This wasn't steady progress anymore — this was improvement at rocket speed.

*Perfect. At this rate, I can push my Fire Element skills to the third tier before graduation and get my Lightning Element there too. If I push a little harder... there might even be a chance I can touch the threshold of Intermediate-Level Mage!!*

When his Star Motes reached the third tier, the transformation of his Stardust into a Star Nebula would not be far off.

Mo Fan had researched the subject of Intermediate-Level Mages extensively.

The elemental domain first formed within a Mage's Inner World was called Stardust.

When that Stardust transformed into a Star Nebula — a vast, breathtaking expanse of stellar radiance — it meant the Mage had reached Intermediate Level.

A Star Nebula dwarfed Stardust in every way. If Stardust was the faint, barely-visible specks of dust scattered across an infinite cosmos, then a Star Nebula was an entire sky's worth of starlight gathered into one luminous cloud — a grand congregation of countless stars. Within a Star Nebula dwelt far greater reserves of magical energy, and far more Star Motes drifted through its depths. When a Mage could arrange those innumerable Star Motes into a specific stellar pattern — a Star Chart — it meant that a devastating Intermediate-Level spell was about to tear across the heavens and shake the world with its arrival.

Star Motes joined into Star Trails within Stardust — that was Basic-Level Magic. Star Motes joined into Star Charts within a Star Nebula — that was Intermediate-Level Magic.

Mo Fan would never forget the breathtaking, impossibly ornate Star Chart that Yang Zuohe had woven at his feet when releasing those Intermediate-Level spells. Unlike a Star Trail — a brilliant flash gone in an instant — a Star Chart was something radiant and mysterious at a completely different order of magnitude. The power it contained was enough to make every Mage still fumbling at the Basic Level ache with longing.

Tidal Surge, the Intermediate-Level Water Element magic that had flooded an entire street. Wind Disk, the Intermediate-Level Wind Element magic that had hurled a One-Eyed Demon Wolf — a beast the weight of a car — spinning twenty meters into the sky before it plummeted to its death. Not only were they blindingly cool, their power was completely off the charts, on an entirely different plane from any Basic-Level skill.

And those were just Water and Wind at Intermediate Level. *Once I've mastered Intermediate Lightning and Intermediate Fire, what exactly would I have to fear from the Mu Clan??*

Train hard. Train relentlessly.

The truly legendary life of Mo Fan had only just begun!!

Winter winds had free reign in the north, stripping bare every tree they passed, leaving the branches naked and shivering in sullen welcome.

In the south, the trees couldn't care less about winter winds. Blow all you want, gust till you're breathless — a southern tree would stay vivid and carefree and evergreen regardless. Dropping a few leaves here and there was just a polite nod to the season. Staying crowned in full green all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year was perfectly routine.

Bo City was that kind of place — a city where the seasons weren't especially distinct. When the seasons did shift, they shifted within a single day, and that meant the mighty Typhoon had come to make its grand entrance.

It was typhoon season again. Mo Fan and his dormmates were holed up in the building, wrapped in its damp, faintly musty air. A deep hush had settled over the dormitory — most students were in full sprint mode, cramming for next year's Magic College Entrance Examination.

Everyone knew the stakes. A Mage who only finished high school would spend the rest of their life grinding at the bottom of society, unable to climb to higher positions or cultivate any real depth of magic. To truly rise above — to become a Mage others genuinely respected — you had to get into a Magic University. Only then did the path to Intermediate-Level Mage become a real possibility.

Becoming an Intermediate-Level Mage was every Mage's defining transformation. Every student was throwing everything they had at that single goal.

*"Big brother Mo Fan, I awakened the Healing Element and the Library Element. If big brother Mo Fan ever gets hurt from now on, I can use magic to heal you."* A message drifted in, accompanied by an adorable smiley face.

Mo Fan blinked.

...Since when?

"The Healing Element?? Why did you awaken the Healing Element? Everyone else awakens Elemental types — why did you end up with White Magic at the Basic Level?" He typed back in a rush.

"The vast majority of people do awaken an Elemental type as their first element, but there are always exceptions. I've also heard that if you use certain special materials to guide the awakening process, there's a chance of awakening a specific type of magic." Ye Xinxia replied.

"Guided awakening??? So if I want the Dark Element when I reach Intermediate Level, could I also use this guiding method to make it happen??" Mo Fan's spirits surged — it felt like an entire new world had cracked open before him.

"You can. The prerequisite is that you gather the required guiding materials."

"Xinxia, I love you — you just solved one of my biggest problems."

His mood soared.

He had always assumed awakening was entirely random: you got whatever element fate decided to hand you, and that was that. He had never imagined that guided awakening was a thing in this world. When he reached Intermediate Level and received his second awakening, he could attempt a guided awakening and obtain the Dark Element!!

One window into the world of magic after another kept opening itself to Mo Fan. Each one that swung open revealed a view that left him breathless with longing, stoking his drive and passion to push even harder.

Both his Lightning and Fire element Stardust were advancing smoothly — faster than he'd imagined. Especially since combining his daily Meditation sessions with real combat in the Demon-Hunting Squad's operations, he had long since left his classmates behind by a margin he couldn't begin to calculate.

Not that there was any need to make a show of it. Come the day of the Magic College Entrance Examination, his classmates' jaws would hit the concrete floor.