Matthew Atkinson
Oxford, United Kingdom
One month passed very quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it was April 1st.
A lot happened in the past month.
In addition to the release of Matthew's long-planned Harry Potter sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince, and Lord of the Rings second book, The Two Towers, his first technological product, Neuro Linker, was also released and sold approximately 30 million units in about ten days.
Frankly, these sales numbers exceeded Matthew's expectations, as Neuro Linker was only available in retail stores in the United Kingdom.
But it seems Matthew underestimated his fans a little, because the United Kingdom experienced its largest ever tourist influx in the last 10 days.
This even worried the government, leading to increased security measures nationwide.
Although Matthew hadn't yet established his own base stations in other countries to provide a 100% connection area for Neuro Linker, it could still be used normally via Wi-Fi and mobile internet.
And apparently, his fans didn't mind this at all.
When Matthew looked at the feedback on Neuro Linker, he saw that everyone was saying it was a groundbreaking, revolutionary device.
In the coming days, Matthew believed sales would increase further, and therefore Forge continued production at full capacity.
Inevitably, many organizations, companies, and individuals were trying to contact him about Neuro Linker. According to ROBIN's report, these included wholesale deals, retail store deals, technology partnership offers, offers to buy his company or Neuro Linker, and even threats.
But Matthew had no intention of dealing with these at the moment. So, Matthew instructed ROBIN to respond to serious offers, such as wholesale and retail store deals. He would deal with them after he returned from the Supernatural Realm.
As for the other offers... he told ROBIN to send them to the trash bin without even responding.
Another event that occurred this month was Grand Magister Russell contacting him, claiming to have found a solution to his problem with the tenth layer.
Grand Magister Russell didn't explain that topic on the phone and sent this solution to Matthew in a sealed packet, delivered by one of his men.
When Matthew opened the packet and took the card inside, a notification appeared in his left eye.
[Supernatural Item Detected: Result Concealment Card]
[Result Concealment Card: After using this card, the results of the next Supernatural Realm layer the user enters will be hidden from others. Even if the user allows others to view the results panel for that layer, they will not be able to see it.]
[Note: If the user achieves a feat that would trigger a Super Announcement while under the influence of this card, the Super Announcement will not occur.]
Matthew was quite surprised to see this supernatural item. He had never been aware of such a thing before.
Then Matthew noticed there was a piece of paper inside the packet. Grand Magister Russell wrote the note, and apparently, it contained information about this supernatural item.
Apparently, this supernatural item was one of the rewards frequently encountered centuries ago, when the Supernatural Realm first appeared and before Supernatural Universities were established.
Countries and supernatural individuals often used these cards to conceal their achievements.
But it seems that the need for this diminished over time, and the Supernatural Realm stopped distributing these rewards. Now, these cards were only found on the shelves of countries' secret warehouses.
Grand Magister Russell had acquired one of these under the pretext of a collection piece and warned Matthew not to tell anyone that he was using it.
Because in this day and age, using this card could raise more suspicion than usual.
He was also told not to discuss this matter with him over the phone.
The Grand Magister Russell advised using the item in secret to solve the Super Announcement problem. If possible, he should somehow prevent the university from accessing his results panel after the tenth layer. Otherwise, he would be forced to explain his situation.
Matthew used the item immediately after reading the paper containing the explanation.
As long as he solved the Super Announcement problem, he could somehow handle the rest.
In the early morning of April 1st, Matthew opened his eyes and, as usual, checked his attribute panel first.
.........
Race: Human
Trait: Ageless
Constitution: 3605 (↑435)
Mental: 4251 (↑945)
Strength: 3605 (↑435)
Agility: 3605 (↑435)
Ability: Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Kryptonian Bloodline [Steel Body (5), Super Strength (5), Super Speed (5), Super Mind (6), Super Flight (5), Super Sense, Heat Rays(1)]
Skills: [Fist/Galaxy Impact], [Haki (Supreme)], [Demon God's Descent], [Inventory], [Danger Sense]
Attribute Points: 0 (↓800)
.........
On Matthew's attribute panel under the "Ability" section, two things changed last month.
Under normal circumstances, Matthew's Constitution, Strength, and Agility attributes should have caught up with and surpassed his Mental attribute.
However, Matthew didn't want to create a weakness by leaving one attribute behind the others. Moreover, he now had skills based on mental power, such as Heat Rays, Observation Haki, and Conqueror's Haki.
Therefore, Matthew added the 800 expendable attribute points waiting in his panel to his Mental Attribute.
And with his Mental Attribute reaching 4000 points, the enhancement effect of the Super Mind skill on his Mental Attribute increased from 5 to 6.
Thanks to this, Matthew's Mental Attribute once again became his strongest attribute, this time far ahead, and this would remain so until the other attributes also surpassed the 4000-point threshold and gained a 6x enhancement effect.
But Matthew knew that with the current daily attribute increases, his other attributes would also surpass 4000 by the next Supernatural Realm.
And if Matthew didn't use his expendable attributes on his Mental attribute again, his other attributes would eventually overtake his Mental attribute once more.
Another change on his panel was the appearance of the number (1) next to the Heat Rays skill when it surpassed 4000 points.
When Matthew checked the skill description, he saw that the Heat Rays skill was now upgradeable.
[Heat Rays: One of the innate skills of the Kryptonian Bloodline. Once activated, the eyes emit high-temperature red beams of light converted from stored solar energy. The power and range are adjustable. Maximum power and temperature depend on mental attribute and skill level.]
When Matthew tried the Heat Rays skill in the past, he saw that its power was equal to his mental attribute value.
But now the skill description stated that the temperature depended on the mental attribute and skill level.
Although there was no change in the power of Heat Rays at level one, Matthew understood how it worked.
Currently, at level one, he had a mental attribute of 4251, so the maximum temperature of Heat Rays was also 4251 degrees Celsius.
But if Heat Rays reached level two, this temperature would be double his mental attribute.
Although this temperature seemed quite high by the standards of this world, Matthew knew this wasn't the case for the multiverse.
In a fantasy universe where the temperature of a star was used to melt and forge fantastical metals like Uru, Matthew's Heat Rays would still be at a low level.
Luckily, as the level of this skill increased, it would become stronger, and Matthew could then easily fight against those who used weapons made from these fantasy elements.
If it were an ordinary supernatural, obtaining such an ability would definitely be a jackpot. And they would most likely use this skill as their primary ability.
But for the current Matthew, the destructive power brought by Heat Rays was still a bit underwhelming. The destruction caused by a casual punch from the current Matthew was far greater than that of Heat Rays.
Furthermore, even after adding the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, the Heaty Rays still couldn't compete with his physical strength.
Moreover, the consumption of Heat Rays was not low, and continuous emissions put a significant strain on his eyes.
No wonder Superman didn't often use this ability.
To put it bluntly, Heat Rays wasn't a skill Matthew would use as his primary power.
However, this did not mean that this ability was useless. The current Heat Rays skill was weak because its rank was low.
As Matthew's mental attribute and Heat Rays ranked increased, the skill's destructiveness would naturally increase significantly.
One should know that Superman's Heat Rays skill, in its strongest form, possessed a terrifying temperature comparable to a star, capable of incinerating and melting all matter in the world.
Therefore, the Heat Rays skill had immense potential.
In addition, even the current Heat Rays skill was not useless to Matthew. It would certainly be very effective for clearing out small monsters and minions.
For example, in the tenth layer, there were a large number of zombies, and zombies had no consciousness, so Conqueror's Haki might not be useful, but Heat Rays was different. It would definitely clear a large area in a single sweep.
Furthermore, when Matthew needed to use a fast, single-target attack from a distance, Heat Rays was definitely the most effective skill in his arsenal.
He also didn't need to carry a lighter. That was a plus, wasn't it?
In short, there was no useless ability within the Kryptonian Bloodline, and Matthew still valued his Heat Rays skill very much.
He got up, washed, and then went to the cafeteria for breakfast.
After breakfast, Matthew returned to his dormitory.
He had told Professor Holland before that he wouldn't gather at the training ground this time when entering the Supernatural Realm. After all, the tenth layer was a solo layer that didn't require a team-up.
As for the university needing to record grades, Matthew planned to delay it.
He hoped it would be forgotten in time, but if it wasn't and the professors pressed him, Matthew was considering talking to the principal.
He believed the principal would understand if he explained that he hadn't achieved a good grade in the tenth layer of the supernatural realm and didn't want it revealed so as not to affect his prestige.
At least, after the gifts he'd given the principal, it would be normal for him to have at least that much "understanding", wouldn't it?
…
Around eleven in the morning, when Natalie arrived at the training ground alone, she immediately attracted everyone's attention.
Seeing that Matthew hadn't arrived with her, everyone couldn't help but wonder if there had been a fight between the two of them.
"Last minute. Everyone, be prepared." A university staff member reminded loudly.
Everyone heard this and quickly braced themselves, preparing for the teleportation.
One minute later, all the freshmen on the training ground disappeared, teleported into the tenth layer of the supernatural realm.
---------------
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.204: A Trap?
Ch.205: Showing Some Sincerity
Ch.206: Mutated Zombie