Waking up in the morning, Verso let out a long, groaning stretch that made his spine pop in several places.

He stared up at the high decorated ceiling of his new Star Complex suite, but unfortunately the luxuriousness of the room did little to mask the sour taste of frustration in his mouth.

"Not much progress today either..."

He ran a hand through his messy black hair, feeling the weight of the past week’s repetition.

On the surface, he was stronger than he had ever been but internally, he felt himself and his growth becoming stagnant.

The had finally hit a wall in the system’s grind as progress had started to slow down.

The first and most glaring issue was the drop rate. When it came to Elite tier creatures, the system was incredibly stingy.

Looking back, Verso realized it was nothing short of a miracle that he had secured the Sea Serpent’s beast soul on his very first kill.

Now that he was strong enough to hunt them regularly, the reality had finally set in. He could spend an entire night hunting Sea Serpents in the Land of Atlantis and come away with nothing but a few attribute crystals.

It was a tedious, mind numbing process.

He had spent the last seven nights in the Land of Atlantis, focused entirely on gathering the attribute crystals necessary to max out his Strength, Endurance, and Agility.

’I wish I could get a few more Sea Serpent beast souls before classes actually start...’ He mumbled the thought to the empty room.

Currently, the Sea Serpent was the strongest beast in his arsenal, which was its own kind of problem.

The Land of Atlantis was a goldmine when it came to stronger beasts, but if he ventured even a few miles from the starting point, he risked being ganged up on by multiple high end Elites, or worse, the Leviathans.

Meaning that, even though he was a shark in a pond, in the ocean he was still just bait.

’Hmm, after I get a few more fillers, I should try to synthesize it.’

Verso called up the status window of his most recent elite acquisition.

---

[✦Summon Window✦]

Name: Lost Siren

Title: -

Rank: Elite (0%)

Stats:

[Strength: 20]

[Agility: 18]

[Endurance: 19]

[Mana: 24]

Manifestation: [Hornshell]

Abilities: [Lullaby] [Screech]

---

The Siren had become an easy target once he understood how her mental traps functioned, but seeing the raw stat numbers only confirmed his suspicions. She was barely qualified to be called an elite monster.

Her physical stats were abysmal — barely higher than his own base stats — making her useless in a direct confrontation.

However, she was still an Elite soul, so in logic of how the synthesis menu worked, that made her a perfect high grade filler.

"No wonder the instructors made us hunt this trash during the exam," Verso muttered.

"She’s just a high rank paperweight."

He rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

As the warm water of the rainfall shower flowed over his shoulders, he let his mind drift to the other more concerning wall he had hit.

His passive mana cultivation rate.

During his week of grinding, he had monitored his core with obsessive detail and the result he found was depressing.

Over the course of last week, he had only been able to increase his core percentage by a single percent. This was all despite of him hunting Elite creatures which meant that his body most likely had enough mana to absorb, and it was the cultivation technique that completely slowed the process down.

At this rate, it wouldn’t just take months for him to rank up but rather years.

’Tch. I have to find a way to get a better cultivation technique...’ He clicked his tongue in irritation, the sound echoing off the marble tiles.

He knew exactly what he had to do to fix this, and that was the part he hated most.

In this world, the public mana techniques — such as the ones taught in high schools and basic training centers — were intentionally designed to be inefficient.

They were the equivalent of trying to fill a swimming pool with a spoon.

The major families and great clans monopolized the high yield techniques, guarding them like crown jewels.

It was their way of ensuring that even if a commoner awakened with a high tier talent, they would eventually have to bend the knee to a clan just to keep progressing.

Power in this world was a gated community and Verso was currently standing outside the fence.

Stepping out of the shower, he dried off and pulled on his hoodie which had a few small holes in it and a pair of trousers.

Although he needed a better technique as soon as possible, he was not ready to sell his soul to a clan just yet.

’I’ll wait until I can talk to Han.’ He decided.

Han was a ’friend’ — or as close to one as a clan noble could get — and he likely knew the loopholes in this system.

Verso also wanted to see if there was a way to acquire a technique through merit or the academy’s internal missions without having to sign a lifelong contract with a clan or some elite family.

He was a summoner with the power of a system that allowed him to reach endless heights, he refused to become anyone’s lapdog.

But for now, a more immediate, grounded problem required his attention. He picked up his phone and checked his balance one last time.

[Balance: 789,000 Credits]

He sighed, the number feeling smaller every time he looked at it.

If that twenty thousand credit ice cream was any indication of the city’s general cost of living, he was effectively walking around with pocket change.

’I have to go shopping for better clothes before my classes start.’ He thought, looking at his worn out hoodie in the mirror.

In a place like the Phoenix Academy, appearances were not just about aesthetics, they werealso about not looking like an easy target.

He didn’t want to stand out as an easy target to anyone at the academy as he knew that him not having a surname already put him at a massive disadvantage.

But all of that aside, it also had been quite some time since he had gone out and enjoyed his life a little.

’But... my money...’ He felt a tear well up in his eye, if there was something an orphan wanted more than his parents, it was money.

And he knew that entering a clothing shop in this city was going to be another massive financial pain that he had to endure.

With a final huff, Verso grabbed his key card and stepped out of his room, heading toward the commercial district to see if his bank account could survive a normal retail encounter in Phoenix City.