Mixed Blessing System

The next day...

After the previous day's incident, Lothur continued with his routine of training his professions and his body. But since he had no soul cultivation, he had finally reached a bottleneck in two of his professions.

Lothur needed the spiritual part of cultivation necessary to develop his skills and products to elevate his characteristics regarding inscriptions and tailoring. Because of this limit that he would eventually feel in his poison art, medicine and alchemy, he would not be able to continue evolving in these areas.

At least not until he had solved the problem concerning his soul.

Since he had already learned as much theory as he could without knowing what it felt like to use his soul for these activities, he would not be able to learn more. Even if he continued to read the theory and had the understanding necessary to learn, it would not be enough.

It was like learning to swim from a book without having the chance to enter the water.

So without being able to experience the practice of adjusting his theoretical knowledge with the reality of his body in practice, Lothur had reached these bottlenecks.

Now he would have to put his studies of these professions on temporary hiatus and naturally focus more of his time on other activities.

And with that, he was already beginning to train more with his wife to try to raise his other physical characteristics besides Constitution.

He had already done this the night before and felt that his progress was becoming faster.

His progress was only not faster than his wives,' as they experienced much more significant improvements than he did on a daily basis...

Anyway, when he woke up in the morning, Lothur took care of his wife before the two of them went to get ready to go to the academy together, something Viktoria had promised she would do today.

As they dressed in their room, Lothur asked. "How is your progress with the crystals I gave you?"

Hearing this, Viktoria turned back as she buttoned her shirt. "Very well. I have already absorbed two of them."

Lothur was pleased by this information, imagining that she would improve her powers quickly because of these crystals.

'Very good!'

'That will bring her pretty close to level 14...'

With that, it did not take long for the two to leave for the academy, soon meeting Annaliese and going on together under the eyes of the students who envied or hated them somehow.

...

After the morning classes, it was the noon break at this educational institution. With that, Lothur and Elke set off toward Sector 6.

The Academy Morning Star was huge, similar to a town, with buildings for teaching, training, stores, etc. There was a little bit of everything there, including areas for the factions in this institution.

Since this place was subdivided into six large sections, and the leaders of each of these sections were students from Sector 6, the headquarters of these subdivisions were precisely in this area of the academy.

Sector 6 was in the center of this building complex, between the first five sections around this place, positioned as if they were the points of a pentagram.

Each tip of the pentagram had its areas of influence, where the necessary structures for local living were, such as stores, classrooms, libraries, cafeterias, bathrooms, and squares.

That could be seen in all sectors, as one would see in a town where stores and services could be found all over the city. But just as in such cities, the best services were in the center, in the noble part of the area.

That was where the academy's management was, as well as where the most talented and powerful students were taught.

The academy dormitory was not far away either since it was a sizeable triangle-shaped building, between Sector 1 and Sector 5, with one of its entrances in Sector 6.

Lothur already knew this area because he had to fulfill his current responsibilities in this sector. Because of that, he quickly made his way to the Faction Village in that central area of the academy.

This place was not far from the dormitory, between there, Sector 5, Sector 4, and the core of this area.

These were where most of the students involved in factions were, so it made sense that the village was in this position.

With that, Lothur and Elke were soon in this place that looked like a condominium of houses usually seen in cities in that earthling's homeland.

There were several trees in the streets there. They were so tall and leafy that someone walking down the street would think this was a village, not the interior of an academy within a city of over half a million inhabitants.

Lothur saw the symbols on houses that looked like mansions, some better than others, with more or less movement, and heard Elke talking about those places to him.

"Lothur, that's the headquarters of the Draconic Feathers faction." She pointed in the direction of one of the largest buildings on that street, the faction led by members of the Waldeaur family.

Lothur saw some familiar faces in the vicinity of that place, but he did not stop on that account. Instead, realizing the reality of that place, he became somewhat curious. "Elke, are there more than just factions here? Why do I get the impression that some of these subdivisions are here to serve the others."

He had just seen people from different factions coming and going from other buildings in the surrounding area. Some places even looked more like stores than faction headquarters.

Elke then explained to her man. "Some factions are tiny. So they provide services to other factions to get more missions and resources."

"On the other hand, there are those factions that specialize in spiritual professions. For example, Green Feathers is a faction of alchemists and poison masters. Thus, they provide their service to factions that need help from the items of these professionals in exchange for participation in missions."

He then asked her. "And why don't these professionals join those factions that can do this? Wouldn't it be simpler for them?"

That red-headed woman replied. "In a sense, yes. But it's not so simple. These factions are not just groups of people who do missions together and earn merit points. They are groups with similar affinities, who often have ambitions that only in such factions someone could achieve those cravings."

"For example, Green Feathers enables its members to learn advanced points of alchemy and poison art, stimulating the development of these professions in its members. That is something that doesn't happen in other common factions. At the same time, this faction would go to great lengths for something related to these two professions, while others would not go that far for similar things."

"So an alchemist or poison master could have many advantages in that faction, while they would just be a cultivator with different skills in others." She finished explaining.

"I see..." Lothur muttered, realizing the logic behind these micro-organisms within this institution.

Then, the two passed in front of the headquarters of the largest faction of this academy, Angelic Feathers!

...