With that, Theo was done with his first two classes, and before he knew it, the next one had begun.

Having only three classes a day meant nine hours to get through, and that was when Theo had initially thought it would be difficult to take as many classes as he did before.

Before, each class had lasted only an hour, sometimes a little longer, and within just six to seven hours, he was able to cover a lot of things.

But now, with each class stretching to three hours, he was forced to stop the madness.

Then, the next day, Theo was informed that he could take three additional classes.

And the day after that, three more were added, which brought the total number of classes he could take to twelve. That change brought him a sense of relief.

So within three days, his routing had already taken shape: practicing swordsmanship one day and proper beast taming training on another.

The moment the professor saw the mantis, however, he had to take quite a few medicines to help him withstand the pressure the beast exuded.

Theo hadn’t even known that there were artificial methods or medicines to control this pressure. It felt like cheating, especially since the mantis’s suppression stopped affecting the man entirely.

That only made Theo more determined to help the mantis strengthen the mantis’s suppression ability.

He quickly realized he had far more to learn in beast control classes than in swordmanship, where he already held an upper hand. His control over the mantis, in contrast, was as bad as a first-year academy student.

The professor also dared to compare him to someone who had tamed a dragon fledgling—naturally stronger than any average beast but far harder to control.

The mantis seemed the same in that regard.

Fifteen days passed in a blur, leaving Theo barely with any time to breathe.

The classes took all his time, and soon enough, exams arrived.

Clara and Elias, who were attending their own classes too, felt bad for Theo. Even some of the professors pitied him; Theo was living more like a slave to time and the academy than a normal student.

But he didn’t care; all that mattered was for him to complete his goals.

And when the results of the exams came out, everyone was shocked.

Theo had performed average across all of them, scoring a total of 55% after calculating all the results, which meant he had barely made it to pass.

In that moment, Theo realized he needed to adjust his approach a little if he wanted to reach the top of his classes.

The professors, on the other hand, were pleased with the results. Soon enough, Theo’s name had already begun circulating among the faculty, even among the professors who didn’t teach him.

With no real student to compete with, Theo continued at his own pace.

Another fifteen days passed, and when the next round of exams came, Theo had improved and was able to score a 68%.

That was when many truly started seeing Theo as a monster.

But Theo knew better. With the mindset of someone who had lived nearly forty years now, he could tackle mental pressure a lot better than the child others believed and called him to be.

Over the following month, Theo sat for two more rounds of exams for all the subjects, and his results remained consistent.

He never scored above 75% in any of the exams—except for the aura training, where he consistently achieved around 99% all the time.

Now, Theo was closing in on the main final exam, where everything he had learned so far would be put to the test.

He didn’t feel ready at all, but from the very beginning, his mindset toward learning had been mature.

Theo never crammed anything just so that he would forget everything the moment the exams were over. Instead, he learned and tied every concept with real-life examples, etching his knowledge with memories.

Whenever a concept resurfaced, Theo would instinctively recall the moments—that memory of some near-death fights in the forest fight—and instantly remember everything.

It wasn’t perfect, but it somehow worked.

The lowest marks he ever received came from beast control, specifically when he had to control the mantis.

And that was deliberate.

Theo didn’t want to strip the mantis of its freedom in the decision-making process.

He had seen its efficiency firsthand when the mantis used to travel alone to the Whispering Forest and hunt its own food.

Or how it used the tunnels made by the gigantic crawlers to track and kill them in the crawler gate.

But the professor who taught beast control was repulsed by this idea.

For the first time, Theo understood where Lucien’s philosophy about making the beasts robot members instead of them having individual personalities came from.

The professor treated his own beast the same way, and Theo couldn’t help but notice how lifeless and monotone it had become.

The professor wasn’t the only one repulsed by Theo’s approach. But now, Theo felt the same way toward them.

Still, he was fine with being able to secure 40% in that course. He had eleven others to make up for it, including one of the courses where he was near almost 100%.

But during the second-to-last exam, that professor showed his true colors for the first time. He wasn’t satisfied with just being repulsed by Theo’s ideas—he wanted to downright reject them.

For the first time, Theo failed a course.

And it couldn’t have come at a worse time—only fifteen days remained before the main exams were going to happen.

Theo spoke with a few other professors; while they were supportive, none were able to help him fully.

Still, they all agreed on the same plan: for Theo to make up for it by scoring more marks in the other ten courses, especially in the hybrid swordsmanship, where he was among the best.

From that moment on, Theo pushed himself harder.

During the finals, backed by the quiet support of all the professors who were rooting for him, he gave everything he had, especially in his swordmanship exam.

In the end, Theo was able to achieve an overall score of 80%.

Unfortunately, there was one particular exam where he only scored 20%.

The mantis itself was so pissed due to Theo’s state of mind that for the first time, it tried to sever a human’s head, but Theo did his best to control it despite his own grievances.

With that, the first year, compressed into just three months, came to an end. Now it was time for the next batch of students to enter the academy.

And for the first time in a long while, Theo finally got a break.

However, he had no idea what to do with it.

He had become someone who didn’t know how to live without constant pressure—a freak who had no idea how to use his free time.

Seeing this, the other professors couldn’t help but step in, trying to show him how to live that vacation, even if only for a short while.