The Over-Break System

Two weeks had passed since the brutal slaying of the Bralley Family Patriarch, yet time moved on as if nothing had happened. In those days, the members of MyrkLys set about their new schedules, attending lessons like good students and acing any tests or quizzes given.

This was to be expected, however, as nothing on the tests was something they hadn't already learned.

During their time in lockdown at the Pinhurst Mansion, the joint lessons they were forced to endure by Cinyah, Maeve, and Jessup had exponentially pushed them far ahead of their peers in the same School Year, and to date, not a single class had taught them something they hadn't known.

Classes during the Fourth Year and previous ones were, for lack of a better word, meaningless for the members of MyrkLys, as the primary objective for years One to Four was to nurture and mold students into beings able to break through to Tier-4.

Having reached the Peak of Tier-3 by the time they had settled into the lockdown on Valor City, Cynrik, Selene, and Brance had nothing further to do; thus, they worked to increase their proficiencies on Skills and abilities and bolster their foundation.

By the time Year Two began, the three set about power-leveling the rest of the group to the same point, and from there on, it was just a matter of getting everyone's Stats capped and turning Gabby, Benny, Kurza, and Melody into monsters, which had been achieved by the end of Year Two at the Academy.

Speaking on the purpose of years One through Four, Brance had been the one to devise a comparison to those four years. As he put it, "Year one is like the equivalent of American 5th grade, where you are adapted to changing classes and having multiple teachers for the first time."

"Year Two is like Middle School, serving the purpose of getting you acclimated and ready for higher forms of learning, IE, High School."

"And years Three and Four are basically a combination of all four years of American High School, where you are driven to prepare for college, only in this case it was all for the Tier-4 evolution."

At first, Selene was pretty surprised that it was Brance coming up with these comparisons, but upon further introspection, she realized that Cynrik simply didn't give a flying fuck about school.

To him, he would much rather lock himself in his workshop for hours on end since classes at VSFA were useless and, as such, ignored by him because they did practically nothing to curb his boredom anymore.

The Fifth Year at VSFA was generally the most difficult to reach as if you hadn't progressed to the Peak of Tier-3, you would be recycled back a year and forced to begin Year 4 all over again.

Even that had a limit, as someone could only repeat Year Four a total of 5 times before earning a Separation Diploma, which in the eyes of Cynrik, Brance, and Selene was nothing more than a Participation trophy.

When it came time for them to finish Year Four, the Members of MyrkLys hit a slight snag in the road, as they were almost forcefully given Separation Diplomas due to not having evolved to Tier-4.

Luckily for them, and unluckily for the VSFA Board of Directors, MyrkLys was subjected to a battery of exams and practical tests, which, after proving multiple times over that they held a strength higher than Tier-4, were begrudgingly allowed to progress to Year Five.

In the previous two weeks of Class, Cynrik had high expectations only to come up empty-handed as he could not learn anything he hadn't devised on his own or had been taught by Jessup.

The first two classes he attended were an Introduction to Divine Particles and the second was another Advanced Affinity Manipulation Class, so both were written off as useless.

Thankfully, there was a loophole offered by VSFA: special tests given by the Academy that, if passed, allowed someone to earn the potential credit they would have otherwise earned by taking the class all year.

Recognizing these tests as similar to Clep Tests on Earth, *A comprehensive college test that if passed goes down on paper as if you took the class and passed,* Cynrik greedily "Clepped" his way through all but a few classes, and apart from practical combat classes, and some other ones that piqued his interest, he was the only member of MyrkLys who no longer needed to attend daily lessons.

When Cynrik went on his spree, Selene had wanted to join her husband on his "Clepping"; however, when she failed two consecutive tests, she was barred from taking more, and as such, she ended up stuck going to class every day.

Apart from them, no other member of the Faction wanted to skip out on lessons, and after four years at VSFA, they had somewhat become social butterflies. They were wholly integrated into the Campus Society by hanging with friends during and after classes, going to lunch together, etc.

So, since Brance, Gabby, Benny, and Melody were happy with their School life, they went about things as usual: interacting with other students and experiencing everything VSFA had to offer.

The only exception was Kurza, who, having already passed the battery of tests before the other group members, had advanced through Year six and, although not Evolving to Tier-4 since he was a prominent member of the Academy Medical Students, still Graduated.

Upon completion of his courses and his unique position as a core member of MyrkLys, Kurza had been offered a teaching assistant position directly by Geralt and was supposed to be joining the staff as a member of the Medical Department before getting derailed by injuries.

As it turns out, those injuries were significantly more difficult to heal than Brance had first expected.

Although Kurza could no longer be teased with cringe-worthy nicknames by Cynrik since he had all his lopped-off limbs back, the damage to his Mana Circuits, Mana Body, and Codex were so extreme that for the time being, Brance could only take it slow in hopes that the damage could be fixed over time.

For now, all Brance, or Cynrik for that matter, could do is theorize and work to find a solution, so in the meantime, with his access to Mana completely cut off and stuck in a Coma, Kurza was down for the count, as waking him up would be seen as a form of torture for the young man due to the intense amount of pain his body and mind would be subjected to.

But all of that was now in the past, as today was the first day in years Cynrik had been excited for Class. Waking up early, having some fun with his wife, then waking up Sie and Vii, Cynrik appeared in the kitchen of the MyrkLys dorm, dressed and ready for school before cooking up a hearty breakfast for everyone.

"Well, this is surprising. Do my eyes betray me? Is that my lazy older brother cooking Breakfast for us with a chipper attitude?" Brance, dragging along a half-asleep Gabby, stated after greeting Selene, Sie, and Vii before sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee for himself and his fiancé.