Fifth Floor, Surprise

"You..." Alexander turned around in disbelief. He couldn't believe this was his cowardly half-brother talking to him. "... W-what did you just say, you bastard?!"

He didn't whether he should be overwhelmed by terror or disbelief from those words. It was a mix of both.

Bruce simply smiled at him. He lightly patted Alex's shoulders, turning his attention to the beautiful, white-haired woman in front of them.

"Hi, nice to meet you. The name is Bruce Ryker, hopefully my dear brother isn't bothering you too much."

"Illyaestail Dubonnet." Illya replied coldly, giving a curt nod. "If you're genuine about it, then tell him to stop bothering me. I'm not interested in space monkeys."

'Space monkeys...?'

"Aw, too bad, brother." Bruce chuckled, smacking Alex's shoulders repeatedly and causing him to lurch forward. "It seems Ms. Illya isn't interested in you, eh?"

Boom!

"I... Insolence!!!" Alexander reddened in rage. He pushed away Bruce, looking at the man with pure, unadulterated anger in his eyes.

Without hesitation, Bruce used "Time Dilation" and avoided the man's hands by a slight margin. He looked into Alex's eyes emotionlessly.

At first, he didn't really care about Alex and his family. He only wants to practice his skills quietly and step into the path of evolution.

But seeing as there were still goons following him from his back, he quickly realized that ignoring it wouldn't do him any good.

In fact, the situation would only continue to worsen as time passes until he can no longer ignore it anymore.

That was the case for his past life, and Bruce was not dumb enough to commit the same mistake twice.

He's not going to trust something as fickle as "familial piety" anymore.

In his past life, his relatives tried their best to exclude and ostracize him to prevent him from succeeding in the family business.

He ignored them and went on with his life. Even though his family business was a huge pot of gold, he wasn't interested in managing it in the slightest.

... And before he knew it, they killed him in broad daylight.

Bruce had learned from that death. It didn't matter what you did, if you were seen as a threat by others, they wouldn't stop to make your life hell.

Woosh!

He lunged forward, grabbing Alex's right hand and putting it above his head. He whispered beside the man's ears: "Relax, we're in the Magic Tower. If you cause a commotion here, it could get both of us suspended."

"Take a good look at your surroundings. Do you want this incident to be spread around? It can just be a fight between us. No need to put it into the spotlight, wouldn't you agree?"

'... Huh?'

Alex was stunned, seeing himself be restrained by Bruce so easily. He froze in utter disbelief, unable to process the reality in front of him.

It was too fast—and too unbelievable. His cowardly half-brother who he always bullied and made fun of started fighting back against him.

Worse of all, the man had subdued him easily. It was as if the man wasn't even trying, treating him like some... idiot.

All of a sudden, he didn't know what to make of the absurdity occurring in front of him.

"Huh?" Bruce saw that Alex was in too much shock to reply. "That's it? I thought you were more than that. But that's for the best. Let's both hope that we won't meet each other again."

After saying that, he let go of Alex's wrist. Their brief confrontation attracted little attention, save for the beautiful spectator in front of them.

"It's running late." Bruce looked at his watch. He raised his head and gave a smile to Illya. "If you don't mind, Ms. Illya, I'll get going first. The two of you have fun."

Without waiting for her reply, he turned around and walked away.

Illya was silent, staring at him carefully. She crossed her arms under her chest, watching his back gradually disappear from her vision.

"Bruce Ryker... what an intriguing person. You have quite an interesting ability... slowing down time. I'd like to study it sometime given the opportunity."

***

Going up to the fifth floor of the Tower, a wide hall filled with people around his age greeted him.

Starting from the fifth floor and above, no tourists were allowed. Only students and teachers can step foot on the floor.

Scanning the entire room, he saw a lot of scrolls scattered around that were kept safely in a container.

It almost seemed like a library, but instead of books, the place had white, aged scrolls with mystic and archaic wonder.

Walking up to the nearest one from him, Bruce saw an illustration of a small, transcendent orb that seemed to emit limitless energy.

Referred to as "Central Core" by evolvers that walk on a magic-related pathway, it was used in the majority of their operations.

[Central Core: A sorcerer's core.]

The Magic Tower, to no one's surprise, is a facility provided for students who walk on a magic-related evolutionary pathway.

The so-called magic-related evolutionary pathways are pathways that deal with sorcery and magic primarily.

It included certain pathways like the Wizard, Dark Magician, Cursed Sorcerer, Invoker, and many more.

Bruce glanced at it before moving on to the next one. He needed an ability scroll to check if he had a hidden gift under the nature domain.

Soon enough, he found one.

"I suppose this will do."

Bruce muttered under his breath. There was a button right below the container of the scroll. He pressed it without hesitation.

Woosh!

Then, at that moment, a telekinetic energy burst out from the container and struck his mind. He was in a daze.

If one looked closely at everyone on the floor, most were in the same state as Bruce.

"..."

Bruce opened his eyes and saw that the world around him had changed. He was in a vast grassland, filled with vegetation and life.

In the middle of that grassland, there was a faceless figure that held a wand. The wand had a "Central Core" attached in its middle.

He watched the figure wave the wand in their hand and perform a skill. Suddenly, an enormous tree grew in the middle of the grass field.

Then, the tree grew long vines behind its branches. Its vines contained poisonous thorns, which in turn, had incomparable sharpness.

But that was not the end...

Like an endlessly multiplying field, the tree spurted out seeds, causing several smaller plants to erupt from the ground.

Compared to the tree, they were far smaller. But they had the same poisonous and sharp vines that could claim the life of a person with the slightest touch.

Despite the whole thing being an illusion, Bruce had a feeling that if he was struck by those thorns, he would die in under a second.

'Maybe two, since I have Lower Immunity...' He thought in amusement.

Watching the figure perform, his mind raced with thoughts and ideas. It was the benefit of Top-level comprehension.

'But this skill is very interesting. Using a certain type of energy to manipulate propagation, hm... interesting. So different energies have different traits and aspects, the poison and the thorns...'

Bruce's eyes flashed, feeling as if he understood something important. He suddenly understood why life force could protect him.

'Druids likely have access to a special type of energy that can manipulate life, thus causing propagation and such.'

This ability scroll was called "Propagating Death" a level-two skill acquired from the Druid of End evolutionary pathway.

The skills of magicians, druids, sorcerers, and wizards were often under the classification of the domain of nature.

Bruce wanted to check if he had any hidden gifts related to the nature domain, but seeing that he had no notification...

It was safe to say he didn't have one for now.

"Well, even though I can understand a lot from watching this, I can't use it anyway without access to the energy the Druids use."

Seeing no use watching the tutorial further, he returned to reality. But as soon as he did, a notification from the system caused his eyes to widen...