Ascension: Strongest Fateless Mage

Soon, Raina saw the first student arriving with a food dish in twenty minutes and took a bite from a Veg-coated meatball from her dish. After a few seconds, she nodded, "Your dish is a successful tier-1 food dish, but its taste is not up to the mark. Try again."

"Try again? So do I have to do the push-ups?" the female student asked with slight confusion.

"No," Raina shook her head, "you pass, but your food didn't taste as good. So, try again."

"Listen! If your food is not delicious, then it can only be considered crap no matter what kind of buff it provides! It should be delicious on top of providing the benefits!" Raina snorted. "You have a maximum of five tries! After that, even if you have ingredients remaining, you may not cook. If your taste didn't reach the mark in five tries, do five hundred push-ups before asking me for the advice!"

Zevien wryly smiled while cooking, 'It seems that I will have to stay here longer.'

Soon, Zevien presented his first dish.

After taking a bite, Raina looked at Zevien indifferently and spoke, "try again."

Zevien nodded before returning.

'I fried it longer than it should have,' Zevien frowned as he knew his mistake. He once again started cooking and focused on each step, not letting anything overcooked or undercooked. Especially the meat. 'Hmm, I should add onion to make it more tender.'

Soon, he presented his second dish. By now, fifteen students had already left the class as they passed. No one was doing push-ups as everyone managed to cook a tier-1 food dish.

Raina looked at Zevien's dish and raised her eyebrows, "is that light yellow liquid sauce?"

"Yes. But even without that sauce, the veg-wrapped transforming meatballs will taste good," Zevien said with a confident smile. He had spent one hour on this dish and wasted two portions for the experiment before finally creating a perfect tier-1 food dish.

"Interesting name," Raina nodded as she looked at the meatballs wrapped in three layers of vegetables with tiny holes in them. She ate one without dipping it in the sauce and closed her eyes as she savored the taste, "that's good."

After that, she poked the toothpick in another ball and dipped it in the sauce. "Let's see the transformation." Raina guessed that the transforming part must have something to do with the sauce, and she was correct. The wrapped-veg layers started to open like a flower after she dipped the ball in the sauce. The sauce was absorbed in the meatball and coated the veg layers as well before a golden layer appeared over the entire flower-meat ball.

The golden layer was sparkling since the sauce was mixed with oil over the veg layer.

The remaining students were also surprised and some of them even gulped since it looked so delicious.

Raina put the whole meatball in her mouth before closing her eyes and chewing. After several seconds, she showed a smile for the first time after eating a student's dish.

"You pass."

"Glad you liked it," Zevien grinned before leaving the hall.

…

'Nailed it!' Zevien thought while grinning as he arrived at the reception hall and called Vernisia.

However, she didn't pick up the call.

*Ding…*

Zevien received a message, and when he saw the content, he stood up abruptly.

[help]

'What happened to her?' Zevien thought as he became anxious and quickly located her position through his Digi-watch. He looked at the radar-like display and saw that she was just a hundred and fifty meters away from him, in the north.

Zevien quickly dashed in that direction and left the reception hall before arriving outside. There was a big pond outside, and on the other side of the pond, he saw Vernisia's back as she was facing three guys. There was a group of students on the other side watching the show as the three guys were cornering Vernisia towards the pond, intending to force her to jump into it.

"Bastards!" Zevien shouted as he activated his shaman-seed but suppressed the transformation and limited it to just changing his eyes to vertical irises as she tightened his leg muscles and jumped.

The students saw someone jumping from the other side of the pond and explained.

"Someone is coming here!"

"Who is that?"

Zevien landed right beside Vernisia, but then his face changed, and understood why Vernisia couldn't retaliate! It was because those three guys were suppressing Vernisia with their high magic power by constantly using mana to create a pressurized atmosphere around her. All three of them were 4th-class magicians!

"Zevien," Vernisia spoke while gritting her teeth, "any way to get out of this situation?"

"Heh? Stop dreaming, bitch. Since you had the guts to slap me, then I am sure you can bear the consequences," the man with a slap mark on his cheek said. He had short red hair parted in the middle of his head.

"What did they do, Vernisia?" Zevien uttered coldly as he fully exerted the power of Shaman-seed. Since he had reached 5th class magician and evolved his magic core, his capacity to receive power from Shaman-seed had also increased significantly. Previously, he could reach 1300 magic power as a classless magician. But now, he could go way above that, but he didn't know what was his max since he didn't test it yet.

"He tried to grab my back from behind while I was walking, so I slapped him," Vernisia said with an angered expression.

Hearing that, Zevien's eyes became cold as a black sheen passed through them. "A slap is not enough!"

"Oh really? What are you doing to do? Tickle us with your meager strength? Hahaha."

Zevien waved his hand as he finally exuded his magic power and dissolved the pressure around them and his hands transformed as his nails became longer with a black aura burning on them. "Vernisia, you know what to do."

Vernisia looked at them with a pissed-off expression and anger visible in her eyes, "There is only one who can touch me however he wants in this world. So how dare you even try!"

The three men's faces changed after sensing Zevien's aura, but before they could escape, Zevien consumed his mana and created a barrier to trap them.