Ari gazed at the students seated in front of her. When she noticed that there was an empty seat, she could not help but furrow her brows and feel a little displeased.

However, upon realizing that it was Arlo, her master's son who was absent, the emotion she felt immediately disappeared without a trace.

Well, since the main student was absent, she couldn't start her lessons. Making use of this opportunity, she decided to give some pointers to those present.

…

A few minutes later….

The door of the main hall of the training center was swung open with force.

Shifting her attention over to the door, Ari was left surprised.

Looking at the sweat-soaked figure of Arlo who had to lean on his knees for support as he gasped for breath, she couldn't help but ask a bit befuddled:

"What happened to you?"

"Mo-Mon, monster."

Even though Arlo's words were a bit incoherent, she still caught onto what he was trying to convey.

'A monster? Impossible. How did it bypass the barrier erected by the master? Besides, a monster could enter deep into the village filled with so many masters?'

With her mind now a bit shocked, she could not help but spread out her senses to cover the village.

However, her senses barely covered a large distance past the training center when she sensed a person, an obese woman with make-up on and on high heels seemingly searching around for something.

When her thoughts arrived at this point, realization dawned on her.

She looked at the still-panting Arlo with a wry smile and shook her head slightly.

'Indeed. Like father like son.'

….

"Please take your seat."

Immediately after Arlo settled down, Ari commenced her lesson.

"Today, we are going to talk about general information on cultivation, traits, and the dark universe"

"Honestly, I do not know whether your era is lucky or not. It wasn't until the recent great war that most of the information we have on hand was found. As for the unlucky part, you will find that out by yourself later."

She paused for a moment as she looked at the nearly thirty faces in front of her.

"Let's start from the basics. For a person to become a mage, they must first awaken an 'innate trait', something unique to them across the universe. A person's trait determines two things: Elemental affinity and natural talent.

"When an innate trait awakens, simultaneously the mana core also becomes awakened. Then, they gain the ability to control mana and wield a specific element; that is what I mean by elemental affinity.

"Regarding natural talent, innate traits are graded into different tiers, and the higher a person's tier, the farther they could go in cultivating their mana core. Even though I know all that I just said is general knowledge, if you have questions, please ask. I will be sure to answer to the best of my abilities."

Getting no response after waiting for a while, she continued with her lesson.

"Now, let's move to 'cultivation'. A newly awakened mana core is colored black. The black color depicts impurities. To remove said impurities, one needs to absorb the surrounding mana and use it to slowly cleanse the core."

"This brings us to the three grand stages of cultivation. The Preliminary stages, the intermediate stage, and the true stages of cultivation."

"In the preliminary stages, all a mage has to do is to rid the mana core entirely of its impurities and turn it colorless. This stage is divided into three great realms, which are the beginner, advanced, and master realms. These realms are divided into four levels; early, mid, late, and peak."

"In the intermediate stage which consists of only one great realm, the grandmaster realm, mages must divide their now colorless mana core into twelve parts. Each successive formation of three parts forms the early, mid, late, and peak grandmaster realm."

"After dividing the mana core into twelve parts, you then enter the real stages of cultivation. Here, you absorb the atmospheric mana to improve the quality and quantity of your mana, causing your core to progressively gain the color red, orange, and yellow."

"Therefore, in the real stages of cultivation, we have the red core realm, orange core realm, and yellow realm. Needless to say, these realms are divided into twelve levels corresponding to the dividing parts of the core. For instance, for a person to break into the red core realm, one part of their mana core must be dyed red confirming their cultivation as a first-level red mage; when two are dyed red, they become a second-level red mage, and so on."

Before she could continue though, a young boy sitting at the very end of the hall raised his hand.

"Yes, go on."

"I would like to ask why an awakened mana core is black from the start."