Chapter 95: Sub-Dragon God Level
On July 23rd, Kuoh Academy began its first semester final exams.
Haruto had taken a short leave earlier, but his foundation was still solid. Except for history, he safely passed all other subjects.
As for history...
He really had no choice. In this chaotic world, history was completely different from what he remembered.
Not only Japan's history but world history also had significant deviations. However, Haruto's historical knowledge was only average to begin with, so he couldn't quite pinpoint the specific differences.
After summer vacation arrived, Haruto fully digested all the talents and dual cultivation results he had previously obtained. Except for practical combat experience remaining at its original level, he made substantial progress in all aspects.
[Name: Haruto Seishu] ★
Talents: [Devil Bloodline (High-Class) · Incomplete] [Body Mastery (Beginner)] [Sword Heart (Beginner)] [Lightning Radiance · Incomplete] [Eye of Insight] [Mental Resistance] [Mirror Alice] [Perception] [Spirit Bond] [Tenacity] [Charm]
Skills: [Mana Extraction (Beginner)] [Close Combat (Beginner)] [Sword Meditation (Beginner)] [Lightning Spear] [Fireball] [Wind Blade] [Earth Spike] ...
Comprehensive Evaluation: Peak B-Rank
There was no final comprehensive evaluation on his personal panel, but Haruto found that no matter how much he dual cultivated, there wasn't the slightest improvement.
Puzzled, he specifically went to ask Rias. After her careful questioning and observation, he received this evaluation and learned more detailed classifications of the power system.
Intermediate Devils generally possess A-Rank strength, corresponding to mid-level magicians, mid-level fallen angels, four-winged angels, Martial Saints, and other experts of similar level.
High-Class Devils are S-Rank, corresponding to high-level magicians, high-level fallen angels, six-winged angels, Martial Gods, etc.
After that are the Ultimate-Class Devils, SS-Rank, corresponding to ultimate fallen angels, eight-winged angels.
As for magicians and martial arts experts reaching this level, it's comparatively more difficult.
Magicians need to find the "Origin," while martial arts experts must cross over into the "Immortal Path."
Rias didn't explain in detail what the so-called "Origin" and "Immortal Path" meant to Haruto, as she herself wasn't very clear about these two concepts.
It's said that once this threshold is crossed, the path ahead becomes smooth, but this threshold is thousands of times more difficult than other advancement methods.
In the past ten thousand years, there hasn't been any rumor of anyone finding the "Origin" or achieving the "Immortal Path."
After SS-class comes SSS-class, also known as Dragon King class.
Ten-winged angels and fallen angel executives are at this level.
The Devil King class is even above this, almost the strongest combat force in the three realms, referred to as EX-class.
The corresponding combat powers are twelve-winged angels and the Fallen Angel King.
Beings surpassing the Devil King class basically don't appear openly in the three realms, and there's no rating classification for them. However, under Haruto's persistent pestering, Rias still revealed some information.
Above Devil King class, there are Super Devil King class, Main God class, and Sub-Dragon God class.
During this, Rias told Haruto that advancing through each major realm is extremely difficult.
Among these, A-class and EX-class are the most difficult to break through, though of course the "Origin" and "Immortal Path" aren't included in this discussion.
These two cultivation methods have almost become legends, and the difficulty of breaking through them is probably even harder than surpassing the Devil King class.
Relatively speaking, once successful, one can advance directly to Main God class, and their combat power would absolutely be top-tier among peers.
The reason Haruto couldn't make any progress was because he was currently facing the bottleneck from B-class to A-class.
According to Rias, only A-class counts as truly supernatural, where the essence of life begins to transform.
After reaching A-class in strength, supernatural energies like magic power truly become the foundation of everything.
As long as one has magic power, they don't need to eat, drink, or sleep - there's never been any record of an A-class expert starving to death or suffering from overwork.
After reaching A-class, the increase in combat power with each realm is no longer additive, but exponential multiplication.
A-class might not be enough to completely overwhelm B-class, but S-class can easily crush B-class.
An Upper-class Devil's attack can make a mountain vanish into thin air, and the power difference between a Low-class Devil and an Upper-class Devil is like comparing an ant to an elephant.
Because of A-class's uniqueness, many people remain stuck here their entire lives.
Therefore, supernatural beings with the strength of upper-level magicians and martial saints are almost the top combat forces in the human world.
This was exactly the situation Haruto was facing - dual cultivation could only increase "quantity" and couldn't help him achieve qualitative transformation. So no matter how hard he worked at dual cultivation before breaking through his bottleneck, it wouldn't have any effect.
Excellent bloodlines make it easier to break through bottlenecks, but that doesn't mean bottlenecks don't exist.
Even Rias took several months to break through to A-class back then, let alone Haruto who only obtained an incomplete Upper-class Devil Bloodline.
After learning this information, Haruto felt somewhat overwhelmed.
Rias and others had told him that with his magic talent, he would naturally break through once he mastered intermediate magic extraction...
But he knew his own situation - what magic talent did Haruto even have?
Since he never managed to extract the intermediate magic extraction skill from Tsubaki, he could only try to learn it on his own.
However, after nearly a month of study, he saw no progress at all. He initially thought it was just a matter of spending more time, but now it seemed the issue wasn't time at all.
With his mediocre magical aptitude, it would take at least one or two years to master intermediate Magic Power extraction.
Haruto didn't have that much time to waste. Until he reached A-rank, he couldn't enjoy the doubled cultivation speed from the Dual Cultivation ability.
He had planned to reach the Maou level within a year, but now, let alone the Maou level, even breaking through to A-rank within a year was questionable.
On July 30th, Haruto successfully passed his history makeup exam and officially began his summer vacation.
Unable to break through to A-rank in Magic Power, he turned his focus to improving his martial arts and combat skills.
Compared to his illusory magical talent, Haruto's aptitude for martial arts and combat was genuine and remarkably high.
After acquiring Sakura's primary Sword Heart talent, it took him only a short time to grasp a trace of the true meaning of the sword path, which earned him the "Sword Meditation" skill in his skill bar.
Of course, another reason was Haruto's inherent strength, which saved him a lot of time honing his body and techniques, allowing him to progress extremely quickly.
According to Sakura, Haruto's current Sword Meditation was only at the beginner stage. If he continued to improve, his martial arts strength would keep growing.
For a martial arts master to reach the Martial Saint realm, equivalent to A-rank, they needed to unify their essence, energy, and spirit.
In the sword path, when Sword Meditation reaches its highest realm, it signifies the unification of essence, energy, and spirit, and the body's Qi naturally begins to generate, stepping into the Sword Saint realm.
The cultivation methods for the master realm and Sword Meditation were all told to Sakura by Miyajima Shihan, who in turn passed them on to Haruto.
Since starting Dual Cultivation with Haruto, Sakura's strength had skyrocketed, now surpassing Shihan.
An ancestor of the Miyajima family had once been a Sword Saint. To avoid hindering Sakura's cultivation, Shihan handed over all the family's inherited insights and notes to her.
The highest realm of Sword Meditation has many names, with the most widely known being "Unity of Human and Divine" and the "Nirvana Realm."
...
August 3rd.
As usual, Haruto came to the Miyajima Dojo to check in. Ignoring Miyuna's resentful gaze, he wrapped his arm around the blushing Sakura and entered the private training room in the backyard.
After a mutually beneficial and intense cultivation session, Haruto, naked, picked up the Miyajima family's ancestral weapon—the renowned sword "Spring Rain"—to practice Sword Meditation.
Meanwhile, Sakura didn't waste time either. Although her weapon was taken by Haruto, her Sword Meditation had already reached the third realm, allowing her to practice without a weapon.
Well, the only drawback was slightly reduced efficiency.
But the abundant essence in her lower abdomen more than made up for it.
The exceptionally talented sword prodigy, the beautiful girl, sat beside Haruto. Her purple hair cascaded loosely, her lovely eyes slightly closed, the blush on her fair skin gradually fading, and she exuded an aura of tranquility and peace.
If not for the fact that she was also naked, with white fluid occasionally trickling from between her thighs, anyone would have thought she was a dignified and holy sword master.
Half an hour later, Haruto opened his eyes. He glanced at the serene girl beside him, then at the [Sword Meditation (Intermediate)] in his skill bar, and decided to engage in another thorough Dual Cultivation session.
Since temporarily being unable to rapidly increase magical power through dual cultivation, Haruto instead discovered something that had long been overlooked.
The dual cultivation ability not only enhanced physical qualities and accelerated the training of supernatural powers, but also proved effective in spiritual or soul aspects.
However, compared to the other two aspects, the effect was minimal.
If the other two aspects hadn't stopped improving, Haruto wouldn't have noticed it at all, let alone the other young girls who could only occasionally practice dual cultivation.