CHAPTER 156: SKILLS.

(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power stones and Golden tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don’t hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)

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The hallway leading to the A1 teleportation nexus hummed with soft mana currents, faint ripples of spatial energy brushing against Orion’s senses as he walked. It was Thursday—fourth lecture of the day fast approaching—Skill Efficiency and Integration, a class every student claimed to hate but never dared skip.

He paused beside one of the reflective mana panels embedded in the wall, catching sight of himself the way the academy liked to present its top students: clean lines, glowing surfaces, crystalline sharpness.

He stood straighter.

Four years had changed him.

The boy who once struggled to reach the table in the family mansion library now stared back nearly 5’9, shoulders broadened and posture refined from countless training sessions. His hair—silver to the root—fell to his shoulders in sleek strands, catching the hallway light with a faint sheen. And then there were his eyes... sharp golden irises that always seemed to be measuring something, even when he wasn’t trying.

He tilted his head slightly.

’Still handsome.’ He thought.

He smirked at his reflection.

Weird or not, he liked how he looked. Confidence wasn’t arrogance—it was truth. And his truth had earned him far more admiration than he cared to deal with.

He sighed.

The attention wasn’t the problem.

The kind of attention was.

It brought complications. Unwanted confessions. Offers. Challenges. Flirting disguised as alliances, he couldn’t blame them though, they were all getting into that age. And then there was the occasional, a jealous senior looking to test the "pretty boy Chronos." He had shut down each one effortlessly, but annoyance was annoyance.

He straightened his collar and flicked a stray strand of silver hair behind his ear.

Back to class.

He stepped into the teleportation circle, his bracelet glowing softly as the enchantment identified him. A pulse of energy surged—and the world folded.

A heartbeat later, Orion materialized inside the Skill Efficiency and Integration Hall.

The room was empty.

Not unusual. The graduating batch had been granted leniency. One month left, after all, and they had already covered nearly everything. Attendance wasn’t strict anymore, especially for this course. Most students spent these sessions in the library or practice yards, trying to refine the last of their skills before stepping into the real world.

The hall itself was a peculiar blend of academia and battlefield—a wide, reinforced floor for physical demonstrations, enclosed by towering shelves arranged in concentric circles. Hundreds of books lined them: thick tomes describing skill pathways, scrolls detailing ancient combat styles, diagrams showing mana channels, breathing patterns, posture breakdowns.

Knowledge. Pure, overwhelming knowledge.

Orion inhaled quietly.

He still remembered the first time they had entered this room as first-years. Instructor Farin had stood at the centre of the hall, saying:

"A skill is useless if you cannot merge it with another. A technique is incomplete if it cannot be adapted mid-use."

He remembered the first class they had when the instructor explained the basis of skills and how they learn them, unlike him, who had a system to show him his skills and his level of mastery in a subtle game format. For the rest, they had to learn it from a book, and discern their level of understanding through instructions and guiding processes; of course, it had regulations and limits.

He walked past one of the shelves, brushing a finger over the spines of familiar books.

Skill acquisition in this world followed strict rules:

First were Affinity-based skills—the most common type. A student’s elemental or conceptual affinity determined what skills they could learn. Anything incompatible simply wouldn’t respond, no matter how gifted the student was.

Second were Racial Skills—far more primal, far more instinctive. Elves didn’t call them skills, nor did demons. These abilities were woven into their mana veins and bodies. Elven spirit-walks, demonic blood-surge, dwarven forging resonance—none required a "skill book." They were inherited. For humans, they didn’t have what was classified as a racial skill. In a sense they had numerous racial skills, classified as familial skills.

Third were Familial Skills, unique to bloodlines.

Chronos skills fell under this category.

Orion paused.

Chronos skills weren’t just techniques. They were legacies—carefully refined abilities passed down generations. They were influenced by time and space affinities, yes, but mostly by pure lineage. Each skill had to be learned in a certain order... each piece building upon the last.

Most descendants only mastered them up to an extent, the level to which their talent can carry them.

Some with diluted blood barely managed one.

Others developed variations—modified versions of their ancestor’s techniques, still recognized but marked as unique.

And a rare few created entirely new skills. Those were rare enough to become part of the family’s recorded heritage.

He touched a shelf containing the Chronos skill archives.

He was more than capable of expanding the Chronos set of skills.

That much he knew.

Fourth were Miscellaneous Skills—the largest category. Minor supportive techniques, movement skills, mana amplification sequences, physical enhancement flows. Many looked trivial but combined into devastating synergy. Some were designed to sync with major family skills. Others were group-based, requiring synchronized execution between team members.

Skill Efficiency and Integration studied all categories, breaking down how to layer them, merge them, or support major techniques with lesser ones.

It was one of the most technically demanding courses in the curriculum.

Orion stepped deeper into the hall.

Even after four years, he found himself appreciating how complicated Chronos skills truly were. Spatial manipulation often had to be integrated into them before execution—calculations, distances, curves, anchors, momentum. More than once, they’d had joint classes with both their skill instructor and one of the spatial manipulation professors.

Seeing two experts break down a Chronos technique together had been nothing short of majestic.

His gaze drifted briefly to the training floor.

They had learned so much here.

And yet somehow... it wasn’t enough.

There was always more.

Orion took a seat near the center platform, letting the calm stillness of the room settle around him. He could almost feel the echo of past lectures, the rhythm of pages turning, the hushed concentration of twenty determined first-years.

Now the hall was silent—peaceful, almost nostalgic.

He leaned back, breathing out softly.

One month left.

Not nearly enough.

He closed his eyes.

And then—

A ripple crossed the air.

Subtle. Sharp. Familiar.

A spatial fluctuation.

Someone was teleporting in.

Orion’s eyes snapped open—