College days off were much more productive for Lohan and Lisa.
Not having to waste more than half the day commuting to college, and being able to stay in Elysium from the moment they woke up until bedtime, allowed them to level up much faster than on normal days.
So much so that after a full day of grinding, looking at his own experience bar, Lohan had a huge, satisfied smile on his face.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythic)
Class: Devourer (Mythic)
Titles: Predator
Level: 11
Experience: 87,500 / 102,400
Mana: 152 / 220]
"Wow, in just one day of grinding we managed to get at least half the experience needed to level up to Level 12..." Lohan said in surprise. Adding today’s experience to what they’d earned from yesterday’s hunt, Lohan was shocked by how efficient a day of hunting like this could be.
Lisa also smiled as she looked at her own Status screen. "Yeah... honestly, looking at the difference in our gains from focusing the whole day on Elysium, I didn’t even remember how fast we could level up..."
As she said this, Lisa was lost in thought for a few moments.
Lohan looked at the cute, pensive fox and didn’t interrupt her thoughts, also focusing on his own status screen.
He was just under 15k experience points away from leveling up, which meant he would definitely level up tomorrow.
If it were a normal weekday, where they could only play for about 5 hours before having to sleep to go to college, the experience gains would be several times smaller.
Even with the higher experience gain rate after evolving, since they could now kill even more powerful monsters at an even faster pace, he knew other Players also received this advantage.
’Compared to the leveling speed of Players with weak Bases, my leveling speed is indeed higher, but it’s not just those Players who are "competing" with me...’
Thinking about this, Lohan grew a little concerned.
He wasn’t arrogant enough to think that only he and Lisa had very rare Bases; there were definitely other Players with Legendary Bases from Elysium growing at a dizzying speed, or perhaps even other Players with Mythic Bases like him.
’Maybe there are players who were born as dragons, demons, titans... the growth rate of creatures as powerful as those must be even more insane...’
These points made Lohan start to worry about how much time he was wasting in college.
’If I keep wasting half my day sitting in a classroom listening to the history of space colonization, while Players around the world grind 18 hours a day, I’ll end up losing my qualitative advantage.’ he pondered, feeling mana circulate restlessly through his internal channels.
He recalled the changes he was already feeling in the real world.
His human body now processed nutrients with insane digestive efficiency, his sensory perception was capable of filtering out toxins, and he could even "sense" the mana in the other students.
For someone who was unlocking the powers of a mythical creature in real life, a college degree, even from a prestigious one, seemed more and more like a useless piece of paper.
Lohan looked at Lisa.
The white fox sat elegantly on a root, her pure fur glistening in the light filtered through the leaves of the colossal tree.
He noticed that her two tails were motionless, a rare sign that she was deeply lost in thought.
"Lisa, I’ve been thinking about something serious regarding our routine in the other world..." Lohan spoke through the mental link, preparing to explain his plan to drop out of school. "To be honest, with the way things are going and the physical changes we’re undergoing..."
Lisa turned her head sharply, her golden eyes meeting Lohan’s artificial ones with an intensity that made him freeze for a millisecond.
"You’re going to say you want to drop out of college, right?" she interrupted, her mental voice sounding decisive and devoid of any hesitation.
Lohan "blinked" his jelly eyes, surprised. "Wait... how did you know?"
Lisa let out a sigh that made the mist around her shimmer. "Because I was about to tell you the same thing, Halon. To be honest, I’m already planning to have my assistant prepare to drop my enrollment."
She stood up, walking to the edge of the tree platform and gazing out at the vastness of the Mythlorien Forest.
"The Financial Groups have already realized that true power no longer lies in the accumulation of bank credits, but in the rate of synchronization with the power of Elysium," Lisa continued, her fox ears twitching alertly. "My mother always said that time is the elite’s scarcest resource. If we spend six to ten hours a day in a lab pretending to be normal students, we’re giving a six-to-ten-hour head start to all our competitors who are already injecting biomass and refining mana full-time."
Lohan felt immense relief. He’d feared she’d find him irresponsible or that the social class divide would prevent her from understanding his urgency. But Isabella Vance, the heiress to the most powerful empire on the planet, was seeing the same invisible wall he was.
"Exactly," Lohan said, thrilled. "At Level 11, we’re already stronger than 99% of the world’s population. Once we reach the qualitative leap of Level 21, the rules of human society may no longer apply to us, especially considering our growth rate and our greater synchronization due to our foundation. Staying in college now is like trying to learn how to use a pocket calculator when you already have a quantum supercomputer integrated into your nervous system."
Lisa laughed, a sweet sound that eased the tension of the day’s hunt. "Sure. But there’s a problem... if we both disappear at the same time, the coincidence will be glaring to anyone paying attention. Especially to the other students in the Upper Zone."
"All right, as long as we don’t do it at the same time, raising too much suspicion, it won’t be impossible to cover up." Lohan conveyed confidently. "In the worst-case scenario, we can forge a promising job opening at some Vance subsidiary for me, which will raise a little suspicion, but not enough for them to realize our connection."
Lisa smiled, her mind also buzzing with ideas for how they could pull this off, and excited at the thought of dropping out of school with her new friend.