Few days passed as Magnus explored the use of the training ground. The features were dope and sometimes it felt like a huge movie collection with the amount of legendary fights.
Most notable of all, the simulations were incredibly exciting. He could fight against beings that could squash him with a sneeze to gauge his progress.
Another part was his journey to combine his 'names' and achieve a shorter one. Though that was what the goblin teacher advised him.
He had given him another option, however, that was to get even more names and then see if he could use the simulations to smash them together.
According to Gobo, the goblin teacher, the first option would give him a chance to become the top 3000 in the inner academy with low odds of progressing even further.
The second path was a ride or die type of situation. Either he got into the top 100 or he failed. There was no in between.
In the end, Magnus chose the better way. He no doubt would get absolutely destroyed if he chose the easier way, especially still not knowing his reason for travelling through the River of Time.
Good odds that he was not a puppet did not sit well with him when there was a chance he was being monitored at all times.
Granted, the greatest confidence that brought him onto the second path was Sophia's Human System. If he got strong enough, stealing lower end systems around the academy and eventually from the academy itself would catapult him straight to the top.
Normal and weak systems were already heaven defying, and the powerful ones must be even more. Thus began his routine.
Some basics, Gobo would teach them about the world, were the only required curriculum. The rest was on the teachers tailoring a perfect training plan.
Which Gobo had a lot of time to do as he only had 2 students. For Magnus, he designed a 100 life trial, where he would live 100 lives.
He let the algorithm choose the lives he would lead and wished he could improve a lot. Of course, Magnus wished to keep his manhood in each life, no matter how miserable it may be.
[Mission Issued!]
[Goal: Live through 100 lives, the amount of progress will be counted in what you have gained in said 100 lives.]
[Reward: 1 000-100 000 Chrono Points]
Two weeks since he got to know Gobo was the time for his first mission. Although he would live a 100 lives, even when he did live an infinite amount of years, only 10 days at most would have passed on each mission.
This was not a problem as the semester usually lasted 6 years or more, depending on the type of students.
There was a system in place that would grant talented students the chance to attend higher years in advance, and it was very much common.
People who stayed until the actual semester ended were considered being less talented or driven overall.
Except the last year, no one in the right mind would willingly stay the entire semester as the whole academy functioned like a race.
One of its magical functions where people would feel driven even when there was no real strife amongst students.
As such, it became to norm to judge newbies outside top 10 based on the time they ranked up to a higher year.
First year became an exclusive for top 10 as no one outside of it had managed to skip it. Second was for the talented top 50.
Third was around talented top 300 and fourth and fifth years became wild cards with no real knowing, as even the last student could skip a grade by then.
This was the general trend, which excluded deviants that would burst out with potential once they arrived at the academy.
...
[Magnus]
Gobo bid him a goodbye as Magnus felt the surrounding surroundings change. His first life, to his surprise, became one very similar to Earth.
Except that mana was part of the history since the dawn of mankind. He was born to an affluent family which had its hands in the politics of the greatest country on the planet.
It was a smooth sailing first life where, thanks to his 'maturity,' was very easy. There was a clear martial art heritage which would combine magic at later stages of mastery.
This path was the most treaded and his family used it to establish an unshakable presence. At a young age, he began training and soon he turned 10.
From the outsider's point of view, he was very talented and humble. And yet, in Magnus' eyes, he became complacent. Of course, he just shrugged it off and thought that there was no need to train so hard and fight because there was no apocalypse.
This went on for years and he became somewhat of a playboy. In school, there was no one safe when he put his eyes on them. At first, he felt a bit disgusted by his nature, but he gradually accepted it.
He became a trash of a human being. It was then when he was in a mana martial school comparable to a college where he met 'them'.
People he heard about from time to time, but paid them no heed.
Heaven Mandates, they were called.
His power, which was comparable to his older siblings, was but a joke. They grew like crazy and when Magnus finally woke up and picked up his speed as well; they grew at even crazier speeds.
He clashed more and more with them, trying to overcome the ridiculous reality where they achieved everything they wanted, like he used to.
However, even his family didn't help him out much. It was simple: their family had one heaven mandate as well.
Therefore, his and others presence amounted to mere cannon fodder to make her shine even more, the future head of the family.
The support from his family even weakened when he repeatedly clashed against the Heaven Mandates too often and irked their ire.
Forget his pursuit of the princess of a different country who was a Heaven Mandate. Even the man from slums was something his own family didn't wish to offend.
And thus one day he was kicked out of the family. Even when he was considered a prodigy, second to Heaven Mandates. He was, in fact, nothing in the grand scheme of things.
The house of cards came crumbling and, to make amends with the heaven mandate from the slums, he had to disappear.
...
Magnus woke up in a separate space. There stood a screen saying that he lived one life out of a hundred.
Next to it was a clock telling him that an hour was left till the next life, which he could extend with up to a day.
He didn't, but he analysed his entire life. It was crazy and he couldn't comprehend it. The entire time it was he who did all of these actions and yet he did something he would normally despise.
A monster is what he became, a menace to everyone around him. Didn't matter if he had convictions the 'years' he lived changed him and worst of all, he let it.
Multiple times throughout his life he could have sobered up, put the greatest amount of work maybe to rival the weakest heaven mandates and make a name for himself in the history.
But he didn't do that, instead he revelled in the flesh and substances whilst putting minimal effort into staying a prodigy.
Moreover, when he 'woke up' during his trashing from a Heaven Mandate, it was nothing more than training for an hour more each day, which he stopped doing two or so weeks later.
Soon, the clock ran out as he was teleported once again. This time filled with conviction to become the greatest. Unbeknownst to him, a bunch of names appeared in his long name.
'Waste', 'Prodigy', 'Failure' etc.
...
His second life began in an entirely different world. A world of angels and demons where they fought since time immemorial.
He was born as an angel, from birth and an archangel destined to become at least a virtue and, with luck, perhaps a dominion.
The moment he was born, teachings and ways to fight like an angel were long imprinted in his mind.
A year later, he was already ready to battle. The battlefield was the plane sandwiched between hell and heaven.
Place where humans and dwarves lived in harmony until Demons and Angels brought in their destruction, evil and good.
When he descended, he expected to be welcomed by dwarves and humans, and yet he received a shock of his life.
Everywhere he went, they considered him a demon, or perhaps something even worse. Later on, he learned that Angels forcefully 'converted' humans and dwarves alike to join the good side.
With a wisp of holy power, mortals that have not grasped mana would be converted with ease. Demons on the other hand weren't that forceful.
They just extended their hand when Angels began their crazy takeover. Over the years, he travelled from battlefield to battlefield as he fought with the voices inside his head, telling him to convert and slaughter.
You resisted? Kill.
You wished to not join the cruel war? Blasphemy, kill.
In time, he became a principality level angel who could destroy mountains and cities with a few blows.
The voices were still bearable, but when he reached the Power, a baptizement was a must. To bathe in the pool granted by the God himself, the saviour of all.
His mind warned him of the potential danger, but in the end, he went. The result? A massive power boost and he became a Virtue level angel in one go.
And of course this power boost came at a cost. Once he stepped inside the pool, the quiet voices he suppressed overwhelmed his mind and in seconds, he welcomed them.
From then on, he became an angel, fully serving his God. Day by day, he would kill and slaughter a hundred times more than any demon on his level.
He rose through the ranks quickly too, Dominion and even to the highest tiers. Where he became a throne and gradually cherubim.
An attendant of God where his voice would command him to destroy every so often. Other times, he would just sit still like a dead statue, waiting for orders.
Years and even decades passed, as he was used like a tactical weapon. But throughout the years and battles, demons would make him fall into illusions about his past lives.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the illusion spell worked only on the lives he lived through so far. As such, he had seen his one life over and over again.
Cracks appeared in the invisible prison and boom. One day, when he fought a higher demon, it clicked.
Once it did, instead of dying, he fell and became the fallen angel. Before God managed to wipe him out of existence, he successfully converted one of the 7 seraphim.
He looked with a smile at the enraged God, who used to be stoic as his vision died.
A second life passed, and 98 more lives were left...