This was a deliberate act by the royal family. If anyone wanted to breach the palace, they would first have to break through the defenses of the outer palace. With countless experts from the Institute of Arcane Arts and the Martial Arts Academy, breaking through the outer palace was as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

For this reason, to enter the Institute of Arcane Arts, one must first enter the imperial city. This waist token serves as the pass to enter the palace.

That booklet contains the institute’s rules. Grace Clark flipped through it; it was nothing more than prohibitions against students fighting each other, forbidding displays of bravado, and not allowing the harassment of female classmates, and so on.

None of these were a big deal. The only thing that required special attention was that one could not wander freely within the palace. It was one thing to visit the various official offices, but trespassing into the central or rear palaces was a serious offense.

Grace Clark took note of these, and after changing into the institute uniform, he eagerly left his home.

David Harris followed closely behind Grace Clark, step by step. Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought he was a truly dutiful bodyguard.

Wearing the institute uniform and holding the waist token, Grace Clark smoothly entered the imperial city and arrived at the Institute of Arcane Arts.

Within the Institute of Arcane Arts, there were four divisions: the Yellow Division, the Black Division, the Earth Division, and the Heaven Division. These were categorized according to the students’ arcane talents and potential.

The highest level was the Heaven Division, where Emily Turner was enrolled.

This was because the ability she awakened was extremely powerful, and she awakened it early. Her future prospects were limitless.

Although Grace Clark displayed abilities similar to hers, he could only be in the Yellow Division because he awakened his abilities too late and was deemed to have little cultivation value. If he hadn’t pulled some strings, he wouldn’t even have qualified to enter the Institute of Arcane Arts.

Students in the Heaven Division enjoyed many resources. Each of them had several teachers instructing them. Students in the Yellow Division, on the other hand, had to rely more on themselves. Most of the time, they cultivated on their own and only sought out teachers when they encountered problems.

Grace Clark was already quite satisfied with this. After arriving at the Institute of Arcane Arts, he headed straight for the library.

The library of the Institute of Arcane Arts was open to all students. Grace Clark was eager to learn more about arcane arts.

It was still the holiday period, so there were only a few people in the library. In a secluded corner, Grace Clark was fully absorbed, slowly turning the pages of a book.

The book said that ever since the dawn of recorded human civilization, the ancient ancestors had discovered the existence of arcane arts. At first, they only used these heaven-given abilities for hunting. Later, as history progressed and human civilization developed, people’s understanding of arcane arts deepened. By now, arcane arts had formed a complete system.

According to the power of the arcane arts, they were divided into four levels, from highest to lowest: Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow.

The most powerful abilities were classified as Heaven level, such as freezing, fire control, lightning summoning, and so on.

Abilities slightly weaker than these were classified as Earth level, such as strength, speed, and body hardening.

Weaker abilities were downgraded to Black and Yellow levels.

According to this classification, the three abilities Grace Clark possessed were: the Heaven-level Ice Arcane Art, the Earth-level Strength Arcane Art, and the ability to understand beast speech, which should only count as a Yellow-level ability.

Grace Clark roughly understood that Heaven-level abilities were all capable of causing large-scale AOE damage. A strong individual with a Heaven-level ability could rival an entire army, like a god.

Those who pushed their personal abilities to the limit—such as extreme strength, speed, or body toughness—still possessed impressive combat power, but were far inferior to Heaven-level abilities.

As for Black-level abilities, such as healing, passing through walls, invisibility, and flight, they were difficult to use in combat and served mainly as support.

The weakest Yellow-level abilities didn’t even have much support value, such as understanding animal speech or controlling the growth of one’s own hair. These were generally not valued, and the Institute of Arcane Arts wouldn’t even recruit such abilities.

Of course, possessing a Heaven-level ability didn’t necessarily mean having Heaven-level strength.

Take Grace Clark for example. Although he had a Heaven-level ability, he could only use it to cool himself off—truly a god’s body with a mortal’s power.

There was no shortage of people like him in the Institute of Arcane Arts: those with high-level abilities who only cultivated to the most basic stage and could only muddle along in the Yellow Division.

The book recorded all the arcane abilities discovered so far, but there was no mention of any ability that could copy others’ abilities. Grace Clark searched the entire book but found no such description.

This secret, Grace Clark decided to keep buried in his heart. If others found out, it would surely bring him endless trouble.

Grace Clark read a few more books and finally found what he was looking for.

The method of cultivating arcane arts.

Just like in a game, after first awakening his ability, he was just a level-one rookie with very low skill damage. As his level increased, his skill damage would gradually rise, and he would unlock more skills until he reached the max level.

Although arcane arts couldn’t be leveled up, they could be awakened repeatedly.

The first awakening was the process of going from nothing to something. Each subsequent awakening brought a significant increase in strength, but not all abilities could be awakened indefinitely.

Freezing, fire control, and lightning manipulation were considered Heaven-level abilities not only because of their great power, but also for another important reason: in recorded history, there had been powerful individuals with such arcane arts who had awakened more than seven times.