Reincarnated as the Only Male in an All-Girls Magic Academy!-Chapter 18: So Troublesome!

When Ren opened his eyes, his first impression was shock.

The world around him was white. Sterile, bright, and spotless. The kind of white that made you feel like your existence might leave a stain.

There were no windows, no openings, no shadows. Just a smooth floor, white walls, and a glowing ceiling that radiated soft light like an eternal morning sun.

But then he recognized the surroundings.

"Oh wow," he whispered.

Then louder, and with a tired, almost broken chuckle: "Oh Wow."

He sat up with a groan and looked around the Evolution Forge's lounge room; the same one from before.

The same pristine coffee table. The same crystal doors in the distance with one leading to the evolution chamber.

The same oddly cozy silence, like the entire world was holding its breath just for him. Ren blinked twice. Rubbed his face. Then laughed.

Not only out of joy. Not only out of relief. But a half-crazy, half-defeated kind of laugh you make when the universe plays a joke on you and you are the punchline.

And indeed, he had been.

After attempting everything from self-inversion, controlled head trauma, waterboarding via upside-down bucket balancing, rotational nausea, and even light oxygen deprivation using a damp cloth and stubborn optimism, he had finally thrown in the towel.

Lia had nearly reported him to the dorm warden. The chair had never recovered. And the wall still had a dent shaped exactly like his forehead.

Defeated, Ren had promised himself he would start from the beginning—real research, historical texts, old cultivation manuals.

Surely someone, somewhere, had figured out how to safely knock themselves unconscious in a mystical world without advanced equipment.

He even had a list forming in his mind: herbal sedatives, ritualistic sleep patterns, perhaps even energy redirection techniques.

The plan had clarity. Structure. It felt scientific.

Then he had laid down, still fully clothed, and... fallen asleep. frёeωebɳovel.com

Just like that.

He hadn't even tried to enter the Evolution Forge. No focus. No trauma. No prayers.

And yet here he was.

Why now? Why this sleep and not the last one? Ren sat cross-legged in the center of the white floor, rubbing his temples as his mind spun.

It had to be some condition that had been fulfilled—something that had changed from yesterday.

The most obvious guess was the unlocking of his mental sea. That alone had been a major breakthrough.

Maybe the Forge only fully activated when a cultivator possessed an awakened mental sea. Or... maybe it followed some hidden timing cycle.

Or worse: maybe it was just completely random. That idea bothered him more than anything. A system that didn't follow logic? The very thought made him itch.

"I'll need more data," he muttered, standing up. "Always more data."

Despite his frustration, he couldn't deny that the room felt... comforting. Familiar. In fact, with its sterile brightness and clinical cleanliness, it reminded him of his old laboratory from his past life.

That place of cold precision, of humming machines and the sharp tang of disinfectant. He half-expected to turn around and find a whiteboard covered in formulas behind him.

He didn't.

But what he did find brought a small smile to his face; a coffee machine on the table, just like last time.

"Now that's a divine blessing," he said.

He made himself a strong cup, black and bitter, the kind that could wake the dead and make them sprint a mile.

He sipped it slowly, savoring the taste, letting it sharpen the edge of his thoughts. Whatever this place was, at least it understood the importance of caffeine.

Once finished, he stepped toward the familiar glowing doorway of the Evolution Room.

His heartbeat picked up as he passed through the threshold and spotted the single red evolution crystal on the pedestal.

It gleamed like a ruby in a sea of white. Ren felt the pull immediately, the instinctual itch to touch it.

But he didn't rush.

He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and slowly reached out.

Just like before, he channeled his mental sea forward, willing it to connect with the crystal.

That strange liquid sensation moved from his thoughts into his hand. There was a brief moment of resistance, like pushing water through a fine filter, then the connection clicked.

DING!

His watch lit up.

[Common Grade Standard Mental Sea Added to Red Evolution Crystal

Time for Evolution: 2400 hours 00 minutes (Real Time) → 24 Hours (Chamber Time)]

Ren smiled faintly. He'd seen this before. He knew what it meant. One full day in the real world would pass while his mental sea evolved in this chamber.

This was time dilation at its finest.

It was a brilliant system. A cheat code. The equivalent of putting a cake in the oven and somehow it finished baking instantly inside a bubble of accelerated time.

Still, there were risks.

What would happen if he left the forge while his mental sea was still evolving? Would he lose connection to it? Would it freeze in place? Could it be damaged?

He had no way of knowing. And worse, he wasn't even sure if he could still use his mental sea while it was undergoing evolution.

But... it was a risk he was willing to take. That's what science was, wasn't it? Hypothesis. Experimentation. Risk. Discovery. If he never tried, he'd never know.

Then another ping echoed from his watch.

[Evolution Paths Detected.

Does Host Wish to View Them?]

"Yes," Ren said instantly, without hesitation.

A list unfurled across the air before him like a scroll of shimmering light.

[Superior Grade: Fire Mental Sea

Superior Grade: Water Mental Sea

Superior Grade: Lightning Mental Sea

Superior Grade: Earth Mental Sea

Superior Grade: Ice Mental Sea

Superior Grade: Metal Mental Sea]

...

[Uncommon Grade: Standard Mental Sea

Uncommon Grade: Ethereal Soul Mental Sea

Uncommon Grade: Seeker Mental Sea]

...

[Common Grade: Unseen Mental Sea

Common Grade: Chaos Mental Sea]

Ren's eyes danced across the options. This time, things were different. He wasn't clueless.

Thanks to his late-night binge-reading in the academy's library, he'd finally learned what these names meant.

The superior elemental paths—while sounding flashy—were ironically the most common among cultivators who pushed their Mental sea to the next tier.

They were direct upgrades that amplified his elemental affinity, his sensing range, and thread manipulation potential. Great for general improvement. But also generic. Safe. Boring.

The uncommon grade evolutions, on the other hand, were special. They came with unique traits, special abilities—some passive, some active—but still relatively known among elite circles.

The Ethereal Soul path was rumored to grant one the ability to take out the mental sea, which would drastically increase the sensitivity range.

The Seeker path worked like a beacon that automatically gathered the threads one had affinity with without the user's conscious effort.

They were definitely impressive. Still, nothing world-shattering.

But the two at the bottom that were still listed as common were the true monsters.

"Unseen Mental Sea," Ren whispered. "Chaos Mental Sea..."

Paths that were unheard of even in the deepest layers of the Surface. Paths considered myth or mistake.

No known Weaver had ever admitted to having them. And yet here they were. Listed. Offered.

So the question was simple, yet heavy:

Which evolution path should he choose?

.....

Ren woke up at dawn with the kind of quiet satisfaction that only came from knowing you were smarter than the most—at least at night.

His eyes snapped open, and instead of the typical groggy stare or a dramatic gasp, he simply blinked twice and stretched his neck like someone preparing for a calm morning jog.

There was a faint glimmer of triumph in his gaze, and despite the fact that he'd tried to knock himself unconscious the night before with the ferocity of a desperate lunatic, he now carried himself like a man who had just sipped enlightenment for breakfast.

Lia, sitting on the edge of her bed with her back turned, didn't say a word.

She had been doing everything possible to avoid eye contact since last night's... incident. Understandable, really.

After all, she had watched this absolute stranger that was her new roommate ram his head against a wall, try to drown himself in a bucket of water, and almost choke on his own collar while muttering calculations about oxygen flow to the brain.

Now, this same man was humming softly while making his bed like nothing happened.

She didn't know if he was brilliant, insane, or some strange mixture of both. But one thing was certain: she was staying on her side of the room until she figured it out.

Ren, of course, noticed the way she flinched every time he moved, but he didn't mind. In fact, he preferred it this way for now.

Less small talk. Fewer questions. More time to think. And thinking was his happy place. After he settled down and developed his foundations in this world, the girls would naturally follow.

After finishing his morning routine with military speed, he buttoned his collar, smoothed out his sleeves, and gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror.

His eyes were sharp. His thoughts were sharper. And his pace as he stepped out of the room was almost surgical.

He had work to do.

The walk through the corridors of the dorm was brisk. He was headed straight for the library, not only because he needed more books, but because he had deliverables.

Twenty-six riddles. Solved. Overnight!

While most of the academy's prospectives were still drooling into their pillows or stumbling into the mess hall like zombies, Ren was on a mission.

Each of these riddles had been labeled complex, and each promised a decent amount of achievement points.

1. [∞x] Riddle Solver

Solve a complex magical riddle.

Points: 10

According to the difficulty, even the top students would usually take hours or even days to solve one or two.

Ren had solved 26 of them. In three hours.

The secret? Evolution Forge.

While everyone else was limited by their raw talent and untrained minds, Ren had spent the night in that sterile white lab-like dimension, sitting with his legs crossed, his thoughts weaving through transparent evolution crystals like lightning dancing across glass.

His already scientific, analytical brain had become a monster of calculation and deduction.

It wasn't just thinking anymore, it was evolving thought. Every riddle, no matter how convoluted or riddled with trick logic, unraveled before him like thread from a spool. It was almost too easy!

He had ten transparent crystals, and each one helped him approach problems from angles he hadn't even considered before.

Like turning up the brightness on a blurry photo and realizing the answer had always been there and he just wasn't seeing it clearly before.

The riddles, now reduced to chicken scratch in his notebook, were nothing but trophies.

He was already imagining the possibilities. If he could do this every night... if he could farm complex tasks at midnight and solve them while the rest of the academy slept, he could rack up achievement points like a madman.

He would have more chance of making it into the Supreme Class despite the ridiculous conversion rates.

That thought made him grin.

But then, just as he turned a corner on his way to the library, his mind still dancing through probability trees and theoretical farming schedules, a strange shiver ran down his spine.

It was like being splashed with cold water. Every instinct in his body screamed danger, and without even thinking, he took a step backward.

WHOOSH!

A glowing hand, shimmering with red and gold runes, punched through the air where his head had been just a moment ago.

The force behind it was so intense that the stone wall beside him creaked, tiny particles fluttering through the air like confetti.

Ren's body tensed immediately, but his face remained unreadable. His brain? That was a different story. It went into overdrive.

From the shadows stepped the attacker. A girl with sharp eyes and a sneer so deep it might as well have been carved.

Three more girls followed behind her like lionesses circling a very confused, very bookish gazelle.

All four were beautiful, yes, but it was the kind of beauty that made you uncomfortable. Dangerous. Sharp-edged.

They all looked at him with the same expression: disgust.

"You've got a lot of nerve," the lead girl said, her voice sweet like honey but her aura screaming 'murder.' "A man, trying to become a Weaver? Disgusting."

Ren's eyebrow twitched. Not from fear, but mild surprise.

Ah. So this was that kind of bullying.

He didn't speak. Not yet. His brain was already compiling everything it could and speedily coming up with multiple theories.

Another girl stepped forward, crossing her arms. "Don't pretend like you're special. The Loom isn't for freaks with testosterone. Go play with swords or something."

Ren still said nothing.

Internally, he had already marked three possible escape routes and calculated the time it would take for someone to respond to an emergency alert in this part of the side block (twelve seconds minimum).

Externally? He gave them a small, calm smile.

He didn't mind their hatred. He didn't care about their opinions. But what did surprise him was the timing.

This was only the third day. And he was already being targeted?

He sighed inwardly. So troublesome!

He was about to get his ass whooped!