His Magus robe flared as the space around him ruptured, and time itself seemed to flow erratically. To an outside observer, moments may have stretched into hours — or hours collapsed into moments. Within that chaos, Victor remained still as stone.
An unknown amount of time passed before Victor slowly opened his eyes, showing purple irises containing esoteric power. He reached into his interspatial ring and retrieved the Cosmic Rubik’s Cube. The artifact pulsed faintly in his hand as though reacting to the elemental energy in the air. Only a single piece was missing now, yet its mana fluctuation had already surpassed the threshold of a low-grade magic artifact and was closing in on a mid-grade magic artifact.
“Time to make a connection to the Primordial Nexus,” Victor murmured in affirmation.
He let the magic artifact hover in the air before him and sent his infused mana into it. He then activated the spell formation he had prepared, causing both Chrono and Cosmo runes to form. The lake’s water around him began to rise and swirl upward like a spiral galaxy, forming a mirrored dome of starlit currents.
The surface of the Cosmic Rubik began to rotate. The runes on its shifting faces aligned with the sigil pattern on Victor’s chest. Then, faintly at first but growing steadily, a rift of light opened above him, becoming a thread connecting his core to something far beyond the mortal plane.
The Primordial Nexus had heard his call.
As it happened, potent mana appeared around Victor, compressing inward like collapsing stars. His body trembled, not from weakness, but from transformation. One by one, his seven sigils flared brilliantly, syncing in perfect harmony. Then came the convergence. A brilliant burst of light erupted from his core as a deep purple symbol appeared and burned into existence above his heart.
The breakthrough was complete.
Victor gasped, his aura erupting outward like a reversed supernova. Time buckled for a brief instant, freezing droplets mid-air before releasing them in slow, radiant motion. Space itself folded slightly around him, warping with each breath he took.
He had become a Nexus Temporal Magus.
“I have advanced…?”
Victor stared at his palms as if seeing them for the first time. Slowly, he rose to his feet, hovering inches above the stone surface.
He could feel that his infused mana reserves had nearly quadrupled. His senses were sharper, more refined, as though every ripple in the ambient mana and every flicker of light responded to his will. There was incredible power coursing through him now, and a faint sense that he could connect to a higher plane to borrow its power.
To confirm it wasn’t just a sensation or illusion playing tricks in his mind, Victor activated his Master Shadowlink Mark to check his status screen.
Victor Asteriscus
HP: 100%
MP: 9883/9883
Power Rank: Primal-stage Nexus Temporal Magus | Ki Sentinel
Elemental Affinity: Cosmo (98% → 99%) | Chrono (95% → 96%) | Anemo (82%) | Pyro (57%)
Dreamforce Affinity: 12%
Mana Aptitude: Inferior shining grade
Meditation Technique: Omni-Elemental Fusion Method (second level, first sub-level, 0%)
Breathing Technique: Harmonic Resonance Art (second level)
Status: Normal
Strength: (48 → 60)
Agility: (48 → 61)
Vitality: (48 → 60)
Magical Power: (60 → 74)
Infused Mana (total): (2746 → 9883)
Spell Repertoire:
- Aleph: {Blink Step}, {Spatial Mirage}, {Slicing Wind}, {Zephyr Dash}, {Tempest Burst}, {Wind Guard}, {Flame Whip}, {Flame Dart}, {Flame Prison}, {Ember Shield}, {Heat Wave}, {Demonic Eye}, {Mind Programming}
- Bet: {Warpblade}, {Prism Divide}, {Blink}, {Gap Hole}, {Ethereal State}, {Nova}, {Space Fold}, {Gravity Hammer}, {Time Reversal}, {Time Prison}, {Eyes of Space-Time}, {Volcanic Spear}, {Tempest Gale}, {Blazing Burst}, {Curse of Dreamland}, {Curse of Nightmare}, {Indomitable Will}
“Holy smoke! My affinity with the Cosmo element is now at 99 percent?!” Victor yelped.
Victor could hardly believe what he was seeing. He had never heard of any Magus achieving such a staggering level of elemental affinity. The only beings that might reach such a threshold were elemental entities — creatures born attuned to their respective elements. But Victor was just an ordinary human, or at least that was what he was supposed to be.
But then… was he really just a human anymore?
He recalled that the first time he found the Nexus Beacon, he had been on the verge of death. So, something must have transformed within him back then, like he previously suspected.
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Regardless, the numbers didn’t lie. Not only had his mana reserves nearly quadrupled, but his physical attributes had undergone a dramatic transformation. He could feel the strength coursing through every limb, his body now three times more powerful than it had been before. He was fairly certain he could tank a Gimmel-rank spell head-on using nothing but his physical body. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if he could survive a full barrage of modern missiles.
No wonder defeating Alphonse had proven so damn difficult…
It was important to note that the Nexus Temporal rank was divided into three stages: Primal, Attuned, and Anchored. A newly ascended Nexus Temporal Magus like him — who had just formed a connection with the Primordial Nexus — was considered at the Primal stage. Even Alphonse, despite having been in this rank for a long time, was still within this stage, but he was already impossibly stronger compared to a peak Elemental Adept Magus.
As Victor inspected his status screen again, he noticed something even more dumbfounding. “Wait, did I read that right? My mana aptitude has surpassed the threshold of the bright grade!”
Inferior shining grade. That meant Victor was now officially classified as a once-in-a-century genius. Even within the prestigious Arcane Radiance College, almost no Magus had ever been born with shining-grade mana aptitude. The only person Victor had met who possessed greater innate talent was his own apprentice, Lillie.
With this level of aptitude, Victor’s cultivation speed would now be at least twice as fast compared to when he was at the superior bright grade. Progress that once required grueling effort could now be achieved with half the strain. If he had possessed this kind of mana aptitude from the very beginning, he might’ve reached the Nexus Temporal rank even sooner—
No… wait. My progress is already impossibly fast. Advancing to the Nexus Temporal rank in less than a year shouldn’t have been possible without the aid of the System… Victor thought.
Still, rather than dwelling on it too much, it was better to test his new power in real time. With this thought in mind, Victor slowly descended and landed on the solid ground beside the subterranean lake. The thick ambient mana still lingered in the air, despite much of it having been absorbed during his breakthrough. It was clear that this cavern remained the perfect place for meditation for its rich and quickly regenerating mana and elemental particles.
Victor had taken great care to ensure that his breakthrough wouldn’t alert the Abyssal Myrmidon beneath the lake, using a series of formations he had set up beforehand. Thankfully, everything had worked perfectly.
He turned his gaze toward the entrance — a narrow passageway that wound through jagged stone and opened into the wildlands beyond. With a flick of his hand, runes began to glow on the rocky surface. The entire entrance began to shift, the stone folding in on itself until a seamless wall sealed the way. He pressed his palm against it once more, embedding powerful concealment and locking spells into place.
“I’ve sealed the natural passage,” Victor murmured to himself. “The only way in or out now is through the teleportation formation.”
He raised his hand, and with a twist of his wrist, a simple yet stable teleportation spell formation appeared. Beside it stood the Teleportation Waypoint he had set up earlier — an anchor that would allow him to return here and to the academy instantly, and one that only those with proper authorization could access.
In the future, he planned to open this place to trusted players as a high-tier meditation ground, accessible only through the merit point system.
With a final glance at the shimmering lake behind him, Victor stepped into the formation and vanished, teleporting out to the wildlands.
The wildlands were empty as far as the eye could see. Winds swept across the open terrain, rustling the tall grass and stirring the dust, but there were no creatures, no structures — nothing but the untouched face of nature. Even if Victor went wild here, there would be no witnesses, let alone any interruptions. It was the perfect place to test his new limits.
But since he didn’t have a Gimmel-tier spell prepared yet, he had to approach this in a more traditional way.
“Well, I do have that {Cosmo Lock} grimoire, but… it’s not an offensive spell.” Victor sighed, shaking his head. Still useful, though. I’ll figure out its real value later.
With a breath, he bent his knees slightly and then launched upward.
Infused mana surged through his legs and back as he propelled himself into the sky, a shockwave bursting outward from where he stood. In an instant, he pierced through the clouds. The air thinned rapidly, but his reinforced physique and ambient mana shield protected him from the crushing pressure and frigid temperatures.
Compared to when he was an Elemental Adept Magus, Victor’s flying speed had at least quadrupled. If he had once moved like a slightly faster zeppelin balloon, then now he streaked through the sky like a high-speed aircraft. Although he couldn’t yet break the sound barrier, his velocity was nothing short of staggering.
I need to go higher!
As the minutes ticked by, the land beneath him grew smaller — vast wildlands reduced to mere brown smudges on the canvas of the world. He closed his eyes, pressing onward, pushing himself faster, climbing ever higher. He relied not on spells, but on pure propulsion, mastery over his mana flow, and the full force of the Cosmo element. It was a feat that would have torn his body apart just days ago.
The clouds were far behind now. The blue of the sky began to fade, replaced by the deepening hues of violet and black. A faint, deep-purple light wrapped around him, his protective mana cocoon stabilizing as he broke through the upper atmosphere.
Victor closed his eyes momentarily before opening them again. And then he saw stars. Thousands of them. No longer blurred by the atmosphere, they gleamed with sharp clarity, unmarred by distortion. He had reached the astral space — a void that only the powerful beings at the Nexus Temporal rank and above had ever touched.
His breathing slowed in awe… though there was no air for him to breathe. Still, it didn’t matter for an extraordinary being like him.
“So this is what it’s like… above Seraphia,” he whispered, his voice muffled in the mana cocoon.
The sensation was surreal. As someone from Earth, he was familiar with space, but this was the first time he had ever gone beyond the world.
Looking back, Seraphia loomed large beneath him… Its shape was unlike the planets he was familiar with. It wasn’t a perfect sphere — it extended outward like a vast, layered disc, with shimmering atmospheric rings and glowing ley lines that pulsed faintly in the darkness.
He floated in silence, watching the boundless world below, realizing that, despite everything, he had stepped where most people could only dream.
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