Hurdle: Preparing for higher level education

What Xander needed to do now was fortify his foundation and not rush into magic cultivation, even if he had the help of time and space magic.

After all, so what if he reaches Divine realm, but he has little to none experience of battling, strategic mindset, and survival instinct? Is he just for decoration, then? Although he has in his heart that with absolute power, you can get rid of any obstacles, he currently has no absolute power.

So right now, cool, he has absolute control of space-time elements. Dang, he can't apply it on the outside environment unlimitedly without facing a constitution/power check from the universal will.

But there's no rush. After all, he's just 2 years old. He has plenty of time to explore his new chance in life.

Eteria, the Year 2056.

Time passed by.

For the past 4 years, Xander was making his foundation more and more stable and firm, while expanding his knowledge of the magic systems and professions in this planet.

At age 3, he stepped into the Mundane class, as well as began his homeschooling. After all, with the progression of his growth, normal preschools and daycares would not be enough, nor would the robot tutors available.

At age 4, he was cited as a co-author of his dad's colleague, who came at their house to talk.

It was actually an accidental meeting; that colleague of his dad came with his research papers just scattered on the desk table, and Xander was curious what the papers were about. He saw that it was a paper on the idea of Elemental hierarchy but it was, for Xander, a total mess of things. It didn't follow the idea of "1 begets 2, 2 begets 3, 3 begets all things" perspective!

Why were the 5-elements at the same level as Life-Death elements? Don't they know it is a twin element above the 5-elements? What's more weird is this world's scientific progression; they already had quantum supercomputers for heaven's sake, but they have no idea of the existence of space-time elements, which were on the same rank as Life-Death elements? These super quantum computers actually function in that level, yet they still haven't realized its existence?

Xander thought for a bit, and using the system to access historical records publicly available, he came to a conclusion: They couldn't develop space-time elements and incorporate it to scientific development because there were no cases of magicians holding the capability of controlling or sensing the element!

He began to add his own scribbles on the paper, crossing out figures and drawing his own. Xander's father, Majes, wanted to stop and berate Xander, but his colleague stopped him. The latter began observing the figures and the notes that Xander had been adding and he kept raising his eyebrows and widen his eyes, until the point he could only open his mouth, obviously agape.

After Xander edited and added his own scribbles, he then looked at his father's colleague and said, "There you go, corrected your paper. It was viewing the issue wrong in the first place, so no wonder you can't proceed with it. Anyhow, this also proves the idea of Elemental Suppression by hierarchy and Supplementation by same-level elements."

Xander then hopped of the chair and said, "Dad, I'm going to study. Call me when it's time for lunch!"

Both Majes Cloverfield and his colleague were dumbfounded with what they just heard coming from the child's mouth.

When Majes took a look at the things his son wrote on the paper, he first frowned, but as he continued to read on, his face became paler and his expression shocked.

"This...I knew my son was talented, but I didn't know it was to this extent..." Majes mumbled.

"Haha, old friend, your son helped a lot in completing this paper. I'll be sure to cite him as my main co-author!" His colleague laughed, yet at the same time, he couldn't help but tear inside. Almost 80% of the paper was completely revised by Xander.

In fact, there were puzzling hierarchies that Xander rearranged, but as he delved deeper, he realized the magical profundity of the arrangement and the systematic arrangement… making sense.

"Huh? Are you sure Therault? This is a very important matter for you. Are you sure you want to add my son's name as one of the authors, specifically, your main co-author?" Majes was dumbfounded, since he knew what kind of person his friend was. Not only was he very proud, he rarely named other researchers as a co-author in the papers he published.

Therault nodded before responding, "Yes. His contribution this time was truly too high, and too revolutionary. Just see it as a way to kick start Xander's future career? Haha!"

After speaking he sighed a bit, taking a sip of the coffee that had long gone cold on his hands. Although he looked calm, his mind was long in shock, his heart a bit rattled, confused, and a bit saddened by his own incompetence.

"Truly, one should not be underestimated due to their age. I feel like the future generation would bring a tremendous change!" Majes raised his eyebrows in surprise after hearing those words from Therault. After all, he knew his friend's disposition and attitude. A sudden change could only indicate that he was truly surprised with what Xander had demonstrated, and conquered by the latter's ability.

This was just a momentary stop in Xander's life. Time continued on, and Xander continued to amass knowledge, from books, to research papers, and to news reports. By age 5, his current knowledge of this world could rival that of a supercomputer.

…It wasn't completely from reading alone, though. His experience at his mother's laboratory helped him, amassing a large database in his mind managed by his system.

He had used his system to access the government private servers and databases, unknown to them and leaving no trace behind. Ironically, the loopholes created by both the country and other countries allowed a reverse tracking, allowing the system to access these secure bases in a single moment without alerting anyone.

It simply looked like Xander momentarily touched the surface of the server and his eyes flickered imperceptibly to others before he let go of his hand. After all, no one was guarded against a child, and Xander took this to his advantage.

This also allowed the system to establish remote connection with their servers if he wanted to access them in the future, keeping track of the information that passed through, classified or not, private or public. It was also from this endeavor that his hypothesis was correct: There were no known records of space, time, or space-time magicians in the history of Eteria.

Spring once came, and he was now 6 years old.

Xander was currently being home-schooled, rather than being enrolled in primary school. Children are usually sent to school at the age of 6, and for the next 6-12 years of their lives, they go to school to make sure their knowledge foundation is stable, to earn experience, and to socialize with peers of their age.

But Xander Cloverfield was quite special. It can be said that the Cloverfield family can be classified as a well-off family, as well as a family of scholars and mages. However, according to Xander's understanding, his family is merely one of the many branches of the Cloverfield clan spread out all over the world.

From what Xander could perceive, both the parents of Xander were High Elite rank, able to cast intermediate spells and teach physics and biochemistry in the state university of Callows City, with his mother working in a government laboratory focused on medicinal research and his father, on materials sciences.

Of course, he had used his own abilities to realize this was a ruse of some sort; the energy they had within their bodies were shockingly higher hundreds of times compared to others who served in their household that had this ranking. He didn't know what purpose his parents had for lowering their magic ranks; In fact, he was sure they were beyond the Mythic realm, given that the magic levels they had surpassed that of those recorded in numerous research articles and textbooks.

As first-time parents, Faria and Majes wanted the best for their child which showed great potential in the fields of physics and magic, so they hired a special tutor just for Xander when he was just 3 years old.

The tutor's name was Helena, a previous student of the couple. Helena was considered a genius, with her rank being an Elite-8, and being well-versed in 3 primary elements, at the tender age of 15. She had already graduated and obtained her bachelors degree the year before.

What was common in this world was that one person could only have 1 or 2 elements that they can manipulate and control. Rarely would one see someone controlling 3, 4 or even 5 primary elements.

If one was known to control 3 elements, you would be a genius.

If one was known to control 4, you would be called heaven's child.

If one was known to control 5, you would be known as demonic prodigy.

There were historical records of magicians being able to control more than 5 elements proficiently, and there were those suspected to be one. Most of them, whoever, fade into the background, not receiving much recognition. Maybe they're still alive, moving along the starry skies, creating their own legends and forces, or maybe they have failed, returning to dust.

Xander was naturally inquisitive and continued to ask questions, which led to Helena being a bit flustered and were unable to answer some of the questions posed by Xander.

"Miss Helena, what about the algorithm of..."

"Miss Helena, should the placement of the x, y, z values be at least 2 degrees different from one another, or else the formula wouldn't work right?"

The speed in which Xander was accumulating knowledge was astonishing, all thanks to his photographic memory, and well, time manipulation.

With time in his hands, he was rapidly mulling over theories and questions that previous predecessors of his parents were stumped with and sometimes outright rejecting them.

Helena was astonished by the speed Xander was learning.

She was even more astonished with Xander's elemental affinities. It has just been 3 years, and from Mundane-1, she saw him rise to the rank of Mundane-7. It also seemed that the elemental affinity of Xander were the 5-elements of Water, Fire, Air, Earth/Metal, and Wood.

Xander didn't care correcting their conclusions because he knew where his true primary elements lie, and this was a form of removing attention from the things he would be doing.

Time and Space.

Two of the most abstract concepts in the Universe, just under Order and Chaos elements. Controlling both would mean to dominate the rest of the elements underneath it. All within his control. But not within his complete understanding.

Yep, there's a loophole that the god who transferred him to this universe did. He can completely control time and space, but his understanding will only be based on the understanding of his current body; when he was born, he almost lost control of time and space elements, which caused the phenomenon to occur in the first place.

This was why he was so focused on the study of physics and mathematics, as he believed these will help him in the near future to understand more about his power's applications.

His questions became more and more convoluted and abstract that even his parents and his parents' friends had begun to be intrigued and even be stumped with his reasoning capabilities. Some of them even had ideas for further research directions and some even planned to produce theories related to spatial and time elements.

His parents and their friends held a short meeting before coming to a consensus: Xander was extremely gifted in the field of science, specifically Biology, Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry. It would be a waste if his time was divided into learning magic and science.

Xander was greatly opposed to this idea of focusing in one field alone; he gave a total of 13 reasons why he can and should learn magic at the same time as science fields causing chaos to occur in the minds of the onlookers and his parents.

They couldn't help but be stumped by the eloquence as well as solid-proof statements Xander made, and made a 'concession':

Xander had to take the college examinations next year.

For this year, he needed to pass 3 tests, namely, the primary, secondary, and tertiary education tests, as he needed a certification proving that he had sufficient knowledge and capacity to study in college.

If he didn't pass, he had to choose between magic or science research.

Xander's parents and their colleagues thought that Xander wouldn't be able to do the challenge, but little did they know Xander had a surprise for them.