Peak Mortal!

The news of the explosion spread like a wildfire. When people heard that a student had caused an explosion on the first night, they began to distrust Seth and Spencer. Nobody would trust someone that had shown their ability to easily kill someone, whether purposeful or not. To be doing something so dangerous next to tens of other students that could be harmed, even if they weren't. The boys' new dorm room was away from other used dorms, they were a full ten rooms away from any other living human.

The students weren't the only ones afraid of Seth and Spencer, the guards were too, just for a different reason. After hearing the boys' story, the guards felt that everything was too fishy. The guards felt that they had a different motive, that they were trying to bomb the school but got caught. The guards didn't have any say in kicking students out of the Royal Academy though, but they still warned all the teachers and staff of their suspicions.

Because of all of the distrust, Seth and Spencer were ostracized by the school. For the first month, all of the different levels of classes took the same lessons together. Seth and Spencer were always left alone for fear that they will blow someone up. The boys made sure to focus more on finely controlling elementals rather than controlling them en masse. They had no more incidents after the first explosion, causing the students to slowly accept them back.

Over the month, Spencer grew at a rate that was almost equal to Seth. He was able to keep up with Seth even though Seth had reached Peak Mortal. That's right, Seth reached Peak Mortal just months after he was born. On the day the classes would finally be split up, Seth checked his status for the first time in a month.

---

Seth Berner

Peak Mortal

(ascended strength soul)

total: 898,807,136

Intelligence [107,431]

Body Strength [1,097,320]

Vitality [160,397]

Soul Strength [772,447,347]

Luck [7,000]

Magic [108,287]

Magic Regeneration [107,695]

---

Seth remembered when he had reached Peak Mortal, he had felt something inside him crack. A black, tar-like substance flowed from his pores, he felt cleansed. His magic and strength were overflowing, his senses heightened dramatically and he felt his power increase tenfold. His stats didn't change much, but the quality was on a completely different level. He immediately used a Clean spell he learned in class and washed all the black substance away.

What surprised Seth was that his stats were much lower than he thought they would be. It had been almost a week since he had become a Peak Mortal, he should have 10000 more base stats. When he checked his Growth, his heart dropped. All of his Growth Speeds were just a tenth of what they were before. Seth felt like he had been growing at the same rate though, he didn't know why his Growth Speeds were so low.

Seth came up with a few ideas about his Growth Speeds. He used up a lot of his Growth Speed to power his breakthrough, the change in stat strength also changed the Growth Speed strength, or that his breakthrough process was not smooth and he had to sacrifice his potential to fix it. Seth felt most confident in his second idea because he was still growing at the exact same rate, his stats' numbers had just been divided by ten.

The change in the Growth Speeds also gave Seth an idea, if there was a maximum for the Growth Speeds, he could get ten times the Growth Speed if his second idea was correct. If the others were correct, he would only be a failure. If he had wasted all of his potential to break through, he would become a waste and would have to rely even more heavily on the system and heavenly treasures to regain his Growth Speeds.

Seth was shaken from his thoughts when a loud bell sounded. It was time for school. Seth a Spencer grabbed their bags and ran out the door, they made their way to their new class in under a minute. When they reached the large stone building, they met their new classmates. The class was bigger than Seth had expected, he had only seen three diamond badges given out, after all. When Seth inspected his other classmates, he could tell why. This class was a single class for all grades and ages, Seth even saw a Peak Mortal in his scan.

When Seth Inspected the Peak Mortal, he locked eyes with him. The two remained deadlocked for almost a minute, trying to stare each other down. Seth lost the staring contest when Spencer nudged him and told him to stop getting distracted. The other Peak Mortal only gave Seth a side glance before looking away. The Peak Mortal was nine, and he was the strongest student in the group. Seth now knew for a fact that he would be the most talented person in his generation. If anybody could do it, he would be the one to fight off the Divinities.

As Seth delved into his delusions of being the one true hero to rid the poor Mortals of their Divine oppressors, Spencer looked over at him with worry in his eyes. Spencer felt a strong urge to kick Seth in the shin as hard as he could, he couldn't control himself and he kicked Seth's shin with all the strength he could muster. He sent Seth flying, just a second later, a bird dropped out of the sky and hit Seth in the head.

The bird was crushed on impact, but both Spencer kicking him and the bird hitting him allowed Seth to come back to his senses and stop daydreaming. Spencer sighed, even luck itself hated chuunis. Seth used Clean and walked back to Spencer with his head down. Seth felt that he had been having too many episodes of reveling in his talent too. It was just something he couldn't really control.

Seth knew he had problems, but he felt that it was justified. His past life was full of horrible shit for no reason, he had a right to have problems. Over the past month, Seth had talked to Spencer a lot and had even started reaching out to other students as well. Spencer had become Seth's first friend, in both his first life and his new one. Spencer tried to help Seth gain more mental stability by acting as a crutch and someone to talk to.

With his long life on Earth, Spencer had a lot more experience than Seth did in almost everything. Spencer didn't have Seth's combat experience, but he knew a lot more about life and he actually got an education. He knew how to help someone that was traumatized from his experiences in World War II. A few of his friends that fought on the front lines had gone crazy and he had helped them through rough times.

Spencer liked Seth a lot, he reminded him of one of his friends from his childhood. That friend had gotten into trouble after stealing a car and almost killing a pedestrian with his drunk driving. Spencer visited him a lot, only to find out on one of his regular visits that his friend had been found dead in his cell. Spencer didn't want to see another person die by their own hands like that, so he kept on helping Seth in any way he could. He could sense that Seth's mental state was slowly degrading though, he couldn't help him alone.

The classroom doors opened and the class shuffled in, there were large tables set in a semicircle around a lectern and a large blackboard. The setup wasn't all that much different from the normal classes.

"Sit wherever you want. Class starts in two minutes, get out your notebooks." A tall man stood at the lectern, not even looking at the students to speak. Seth and Spencer both sat at a table and took out their notebooks and pens. The man looked at them for a second before looking down at the lectern and speaking once more.

"Since today is the first day of diamond class for the new students, we will be teaching them the basics in person. The older students may work on their own." Most of the students took out other books and started reading and taking notes, only a few new students waited for the man to start speaking.

The class lasted for a few hours, the man taught them a few new concepts, and their magic class was finished. This would be one of the few lectures for the year, most of the class was self-study. After the class, the group ate lunch and went to a large arena outside the castle. It was time for physical education. The first part of PE was setting the standard for the class so it can be taught more effectively.

The students had to punch the teacher, the teacher was a Peak Mortal so there was no way to kill them. When Seth Inspected the teacher, his eyes almost flew out of his head. The teacher had over 500000 strength! This was the strongest person Seth had been able to Inspect so far. Seth learned more about his Inspect over the past month, he was only able to Inspect people his level or below. Seth still wanted to Inspect his master because he felt that his master was much stronger than the teacher.

Seth watched the Peak Mortal student punch the teacher, the teacher didn't even flinch.

The Peak Mortal's face was flooded with shock, he had punched with all of his strength and it felt like he had hit a wall.

"Peak strength, next!" The teacher didn't say anything different from the other students, only noting the strength he was punched with. The Peak Mortal left with a bewildered expression on his face, he had thought that his great increase in strength would be something the teacher at least talked about. Seth was also confused, this was the first time he had seen someone react and care so little about a Peak Mortal. A Peak Mortal was exactly what it was called, the peak.

There were a few more people to go before it was Seth and Spencer's turns to go, nothing spectacular happened as they were all just Higher Mortals. When it was time for Spencer to go, he walked up to the teacher and punched. The teacher did the same to Spencer as he had the other Peak Mortal, not even blinking as he was punched. Seth went up next, he knew what his result would be before he did anything. Seth punched the teacher, same as Spencer and the other Peak Mortal. His speculations were correct, the teacher acted like he hadn't even been touched as he spoke.

"Peak strength, next!" There were only a few students left, all of which were Higher Mortals.

After all of the students had been tested, Seth, Spencer, and the other Peak Mortal were grouped up and sent to a different area of the arena. The Peak Mortal's name was Jack, but Seth forgot it the moment he Inspected him. For Seth, Jack was just another arrogant sectmate that would be walloped by him in the first few chapters. After really meeting with him, Seth rid himself of that notion as Jack was actually a nice guy. The staring contest from before was due to Seth looking at him like he was a disgusting peasant.

Hearing that he had looked at Jack with such an expression, Seth did a double-take. He felt that he was looking at Jack with a normal expression, maybe he would have to check his expressions in a mirror. It had been years since Seth had really interacted with normal people. Seth hadn't been able to get used to socializing after he had reborn because he had basically been avoiding contact with people.