Cardinal: God Spell

At the moment Sora was all too aware that no one in his class or the Elite class would be his match for long at least cultivation-wise, the real problem was the fight he would have with Hei-Jin on graduation day; the man had all the schools resources at his beck and call and he already has A significant advantage cultivation wise, even though Sora was guaranteed to reach the Advanced level long before he graduated he was still worried about where a man like that would be when the time came.

In the 3 weeks he had to prepare for the tournament Sora cultivated madly, making sure to raise both his magic and elemental core stars as much as possible. Usually in 3 weeks, he would have made about 10 stars at best but in his state of extreme focus and determination, he increased his overall speed and quality of star creation, allowing him to make 12 stars in 3 weeks.

Sora started by fusing 4 stars to his Magic core, making him a late-stage Basic mage with 8 stars fused; he then added 1 star to his lightning element taking it up to the 2nd stage of its evolution the true basic level. Now Sora's spark should be at 15% of the spell's full power with every cast, he then did the same with his fire element leaving him with 2 true basic spells, a Late-stage Basic mage cultivation, and 2 unassigned stars.

Sora unhesitantly assigned both stars to his Magic core making him a perfected Basic Mage; With this, he had finally reached his first checkpoint, he now had 10% of his total mana reserve awakened. Before Sora had a limit of 30 basic spells with his skill, he would usually be able to cast 300 basic spells with his current cultivation; Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Every time Sora upgrades his Elemental core the mana requirement to cast basic spells goes up as well to match the amount of power it takes to cast the spells of that level. This way it is recommended to bring your elemental core up to the level of your cultivation so you balance your power out and not have unrealistic expectations of yourself when the time comes for you to grow your elemental core further.

As things stand now with the spell at 15% of its full power as opposed to 5% Sora would only be able to cast a 3rd of the basic spells he usually would be able to with the initial conversion rate and frankly this number will only continue to decrease with every upgrade of his Elemental cores. For now, though Sora assigned himself 25 casts of each spell at any given time, he would rather avoid having no mana in a genuinely lethal situation.

Now though, he had done everything he could do, he had no armor, no weapons, and was fighting for any resources he could get, After this, once he got into the Tower he would abuse the extra cultivation speed as much as possible and power level both of his elemental cores.

He would prioritize his lightning element and its chain paralysis effect first then he would develop his fireball and its incineration effect. He would then get the right resources and focus the rest of his time there breaking through to the Intermediate level and leave to awaken the next 2 elements on his list.

After that Sora could keep hiding his strength by using his time to power-level his new basic level elements to the perfected level; then and only then would he start pushing his elemental cores to the intermediate zones and awakening their intermediate spells. after which he would fully focus on the precise and quick casting of his basic and intermediate elements.

By the time he gets to this point, he should have concluded the duel he had with his classmates and would be looking toward his duel with Hei-Jin, The resources he would have from beating his peers at that time would be reflective of the effort he put into this whole plan and he would then be able to mostly breeze through the Intermediate ranks during the breaks and proceed to change elite squads to whichever one ends up being the strongest.

Right now Sora was meditating as he waited for the school day to start, he knew today would be a full display of his opponent's prowess, and only the top students would eventually become something. As far as he knew the tournaments would break up the total student body of 200 students into 4 groups of 50, completely at random.

The students would partake in a free-for-all brawl until only 5 members of each group remained; a student would be given an arm band and you could only be eliminated if that band came off; The band would only come off if your mana was depleted of the mage wielding it was unable to continue fighting. The spell being suppressed in the band would then be triggered and automatically teleport the student off of the fighting stage and to the assigned medical room.

This system was set up by Sister Ruth whose tertiary element was space, the same element Sora was gunning for at the Intermediate level awakening. Sora had an idea of how this would go but didn't dare assume without seeing it for himself; If he was right about the knowledge being used he would have to get closer to Sister Ruth and find out where she was getting her techniques.

Sora walked towards the row of mana-powered buses that were meant to take them to the Arena where the Divine Tower trial would be held. There were roughly 5, double-decker 50 seater, buses to allow for staff and students to partake alike. Hell, the Elite classes had their specialized bus which Sora went on. He was the first one and went to sit at the back of the upper deck; he noticed that these buses faintly leaked mana and decided to cultivate while he waited for the school to set off.

Not Long after the other 1st year's Elite students got onto the bus and sat on the upper deck in their respective squads, in front of Sora. it was the teachers at the front; Xiao Feifei's squad behind them; Chen Piso's squad behind them; Wei Mucheng's squad behind them and Li Yan's squad right in front of the cultivating Sora. Kun Qing, Li Yan, and Jun Quong sat directly in front of Sora while Ma Juri and Wei Xiren sat beside him. Xiren wasn't present when class 1E lied against Sora so she wasn't even remotely aware of the predicament between Sora and their former classmates.

"E-Excuse me", Juri tried calling out to Sora but was ignored entirely, Seeing that Sora wasn't interested in talking to her Juri was disheartened but wanted to get what she had to say off of her chest. "Stop wasting your breath, he can't even hear you right now", Li Yan pointed out without turning back, "I don't know how but he is fully immersed in cultivation right now, interrupting this would do more harm than good", Li Yan warned before returning to listening to music on his phone.

Ma Juri who didn't realize he was cultivating was suddenly embarrassed as she thought he was simply trying to sleep and didn't know the journey was about to start now. She was about to apologize but held herself, realizing that if she accidentally woke him from his cultivation she would likely make him destroy the mana star he was forming, which could potentially put him back weeks in cultivation.

Little did Juri know that she couldn't be further from the truth; Sora wasn't nearly naïve enough to believe he could form another star before the tournament started so that wasn't what he was doing anymore. Instead, Sora was trying to expand and develop his internal mana channels to increase the speed and control he had when creating his cultivation stars, he was trying to see if he could manually reduce the number of stars required to grow by creating a single star was had the power supply required to get to the next level.

If it isn't possible he will see what can do in terms of improving the natural cultivation process. If it simply is not possible he would throw himself into cultivating stars to tackle the Intermediate level. Although he could make stars much faster than most, he did need roughly 190 stars just to get to the intermediate level. and then he would have to do the same for all the other elements he would awaken at the intermediate level.

To improve his mana path, Sora is using his actual mana instead of cultivating it as mana around him is incapable of growing his internal mana veins and paths. Throughout the 2 hours journey to the school's Arena, he had improved his star-forming speed by 20% and had increased the quality of stars he would make from this point forward by 45%. He would be able to make it to the intermediate level in good time if he continued.

All in all the buses stopped at the final location and had the students get down so they could start and conclude the Divine Tower trial as soon as they could. While they did Sora got a good look at the year 3 and 4 students, and even his seniors in the Elite class. The one that caught his attention first though was the 2nd year's strongest student. Marcus Sterling.