Elixir Potions

Inside the side mansion.

Hiro grouped up with Marcus who had disappeared for the entirety of the party, Vanti who was glued to him the whole time, and two other girls.

Many mini groups formed in the spacious hall, and under Rosaline's directives, each group had to focus on one of the four major subjects of math, physics, chemistry, and religion.

That was supposed to be the plan, but Hiro raised his hand and suggested that each group be comprised of five people—four of them proficient in one of the respective fields and the last member being a jack of all trades.

Then, after fifteen minutes of joint, closed study, each group would list down their confusions and questions in the form of notes before passing them to the nearby group.

Like this, the groups would alternately exchange notes that included diverse methods to approach different questions, and after the rotation was completed, everyone would have gained equally from one another.

Rosaline thought seriously about Hiro's suggestion and decided to make a vote for it.

Ultimately, everyone agreed, and that's how they split into over a dozen groups, each group with five members.

Then, everyone got handed a printed copy of past entrance exams to look into.

Hiro sighed in relief, glad that his last-minute suggestion wasn't turned down. Then, he closed his eyes to enter the system space as fast as possible while the exam papers were being arranged.

…

In the system space, Hiro brought the system shop window closer to himself.

With 1,430 points to his name, Hiro went for the consumables section.

"These items exist in every RPG game, the shop must have some of them…" Hiro muttered to himself while scrolling down to the elixir section.

It just occurred to him that while permanent skills were very expensive, almost all RPG games had temporary buffs.

He decided to make use of his current "fame hype" to set favorable conditions for his next step. Luckily, Hiro wasn't disappointed.

Hiro found potions that would temporarily boost the status of his character!

Although each potion cost 200 points, Hiro wasn't about to act stingy!

He directly brought a bottle of {Intelligence Potion}, which would increase focus and comprehension for 60 minutes.

Then, he spent another 200 points to buy a bottle of {Memory Potion}, which would give him a photographic memory buff for 60 minutes.

Those, together with his {Immersive Reading} skill, would allow Hiro to become a study god for the next one hour.

Although this time was enough for Hiro to rotate between only four groups, he decided that he would check the effects first.

If everything went well, he might spend another 400 points to give himself the necessary boost.

However, Hiro quickly remembered that his objective wasn't to ace the exam—he only needed to pass it!

With that in mind, he calmed down and decided to save the remaining 1,030 points.

Two bottles of purple potions appeared in front of Hiro, which he consumed immediately before opening his eyes.

The four around Hiro immediately noticed the change; he seemed more focused, serious, and scarily dedicated.

In this group, Hiro was the jack of all trades.

Marcus was the go-to when it came to math.

Vanti was the go-to when it came to religion.

The other two girls were responsible for the scientific fields respectively—physics and chemistry.

With a clap of her hands, Rosaline signaled everyone to start as she timed her stopwatch to 15 minutes!

Hiro didn't notice any of that because he was already in the zone. With his memory potion activated and granting him a temporary photographic memory, he spent the first five minutes flipping through the notes of his teammates.

Everyone was stunned to see Hiro's eyes scanning through their notebooks, mainly because they didn't think he was doing anything other than skimming through.

Feeling that his mind couldn't keep up with the intake of information despite his increased intelligence, Hiro gritted his teeth and activated another of his system's abilities.

{Synchronization}!

Although his in-game character wasn't a Golden Core cultivator, it was a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator!

The gap between ordinary people and the Foundation Establishment was massive, especially since there existed another major realm in between; the Qi Gathering realm.

Hiro's clothes gently fluttered despite the lack of wind in the closed room, and his temperament completely changed.

Marcus, Bella, and Rosaline had glints in their eyes as they looked over simultaneously, but that moment quickly passed as though it was an illusion.

Only Bella smiled as though she'd discovered another continent, muttering to herself.

Using 10 APs, Hiro became a powerful cultivator for a duration of 60 minutes!

His increased spirituality supplemented his increased intelligence, and he no longer felt burdened. As the jack of all trades in the team, his only mission was to review the notes and point out the relatively obvious inconsistencies.

Although he wasn't doing much on the surface, it was Hiro who glued the cohesion of the small study group, allowing everything to proceed smoothly.

Every 15 minutes, Hiro needed to skim through the exchanged notes, separate them based on the difficulty of the problems, and hand them out to the person responsible for each field.

Some mixed notes had both physics and math jumbled up, some had religion and irrelevant subjective opinions mixed up with worldwide views, and some had errors in their chemistry formats and components.

Hiro needed to fix all these minor problems to allow his teammates an easy time sorting out the problems, solving those they could solve, and pushing those beyond their level to someone else.

Time quickly passed, and as Hiro got more and more proficient in coordinating with his teammates, they started to gain surplus time to discuss among themselves on deeper levels, thus solving more problems.

Soon, some nearby groups began to skip turns and hand their research progress to Hiro's group directly.

Rosaline didn't say anything about these instances, as she wasn't a rigid person.

Things got more ridiculous around the 40-minute mark as the two nearby groups decided to merge with Hiro's group, forming a small network team with a clear hierarchy.

With two more assistants, Hiro's job got easier even when the volume of work increased, but he didn't mind.

This only meant that Hiro had the chance to read more ingenious research results from other groups.

Eventually, Hiro ended up spending another 410 points to get two more potions and another synchronization hour.

The only difference was that his little group had grown to host five mini-groups, and before it could get out of hand, Rosaline gathered the other mini-groups into another large group on the other side.

They followed the same format, and the two groups exchanged research notes every 20 minutes.

Hiro felt like an enlightened Supreme Buddha as he utilized his skills to the extreme, especially his calligraphy skills to dish out notes in a neat and organized manner.

Hiro didn't know that in these two hours, he captured the hearts of many maidens.

Soon, the clock his midnight sharp, and coincidentally, the temporary boosts also ran out.

Without the steam, exhaustion finally caught up to Hiro, and with countless formulas and numbers swimming in his mind, Hiro slowly stretched out, yawned, and flopped back while slipping into unconsciousness.

He could only recall that the back of his head landed onto something bouncy, soft, and supple—feeling extremely comfortable.

It felt so good, that he immediately fell asleep.

Rosaline, who had approached Hiro's group to commend them for their hard work, hadn't expected to come by and find Hiro falling back to drop on the hard floor.

She subconsciously moved forward and caught his falling body, only to realize her actions a beat later.

She didn't express a feeling of being embarrassed at all; rather, she calmly asked for a few buff guys to come over and carry Hiro back to the male's side mansion, her expression as calm and cold as usual.

Only she knew how furiously her heart was pounding, and she could feel the eyes of a certain pink-haired chibi poking holes into her back.