"89th," Leo said. "Thanks for giving me permission. I will definitely use it well."
He quickly left the room. The reason he had asked for permission for something that was going to happen more than 3 months away was because he had things he needed to do in this one month.
The treasure was not a sure thing for him. It was only one of the things he was going to check out at that time. The other thing that he wanted to do which was more important for him was to train in magic. He would need to become a lot stronger if he was going to go to the Capital.
He went back to his dorm after meeting with Maria. He got on his bed and sat down in contemplation. He wanted to know what he was supposed to do for the next few months which led to the month he would have as a break.
It was a lot of time that he was not going to dedicate to Aura at all. The only thing he was going to train in was going to be magic. At the end of it, he would try to do something regarding his aura with a few pills. As long as he broke through to the Late Stage of the 2nd Circle, he would be fine in the Phoenix Trials.
As he was thinking, he remembered an item he had that he hadn't used yet. He took out a box from his dimensional ring and set it in front of him. He opened it to reveal a shiny pill inside the box.
It was a colorful pill that looked very much like the aura essence pill. The difference was that it was a lot more colorful. It was the Magic Essence Pill that he had gotten from Remus when he defeated him at the Gravity Steps. He had never tried the pill.
Leo picked up the pill with excitement. It was going to be his first time trying out a pill meant for magicians. He wished that he could buy magic pills like he could buy aura pills, but he knew that it would be a lot more suspicious to do that.
After all, only nobles were mages. If they found out that he wasn't a noble, they would start asking questions about who he was. Those were questions he didn't want to answer.
He put the pill in his mouth and waited to see the effects. Was he really missing out?
The pill melted in his mouth and a small amount of magic started flowing in his body. He quickly circulated the magic and brought it into his mind. He opened his eyes after it was done. His face showed his disappointment.
Compared to the Aura Essence Pill, the leaves of the Elderwood Tree in his mind were a better training resource. They would give him a lot more magic and they were free, unlike the pills. He sighed and took out a leaf.
Even if the pill was useless, he didn't care too much about it. It was a pill that he got for free anyway. He just needed to use the leaves to keep training and then replenish the leaves.
After freeing his mind from the disappointment of the pill, he got back to the optimal state for training. He sat in a comfortable position and started training. He started off with a single leaf, but that leaf turned into two. Two became three, and he eventually spent the rest of the day training.
He wanted to keep going, but the next day was the day of his class. He got up and got ready to attend it. He needed to stay in Maria's good books before leaving so that he would still go to the Phoenix Trials.
He walked out of his dorm to go to his class and warranted a lot of stares. He thought he had gotten used to it before when his challenge was made public, but it was somehow even more hardcore after he won.
He got to the class and sat in his usual spot. When he got there, Marcus and Lyra were both missing. Only Madison was sitting there.
"Where are they?" He asked her.
"Training. They said they also needed to get ready to challenge a senior," she said in response. "Are you fine?"
Leo was confused. "I am fine. Why are you asking?" He asked her.
"Well..." She looked around and saw all the students looking at Leo even though the class was going to start in 5 minutes.
"Oh, that," Leo said when he saw her look at the stares. "I will get used to it. Why is it this bad though?" He asked her.
"You jumped to the second most famous person in the academy. And it's mainly because every single first-year knows you. So if you are inside a class filled with first-years, then it makes sense that everyone is staring at you," she said.
"Well, I have to ignore it if I want to come to class," he said.
After the class, he went to 'complete a few missions' in the forest. He needed to give an excuse to Madison to go to the forest.
After his reward for doing nothing, he had no more need for points. He had already gotten an Aura Technique and more than enough points to go to the library to look for information about magic or aura if he needed to. If 100,000 points weren't enough for that, then it meant he was spending too much time in the library.
The only reason he went to the forest was to hunt Magical Beasts for their Beast Cores. He was going to use their Beast Cores to nourish his plant. He had been using it for so long without feeding it properly and needed to do that.
He was also planning on using it a lot for the next few months so he was preparing for that. But instead of hunting 2nd Circle Magical Beasts, he decided to hunt 3rd Circle Magical Beasts. He knew he had the power to do that. 3rd Circle Beast Cores were 10 times more potent than the 2nd Circle Beast Cores he would get.
And if he wanted to kill 30 Magical Beasts at once, it would make him spend too much time. He would also need to take out the Beast Core from each of those beasts. He just killed three 3rd Circle Magical Beasts and took their cores. After that, he got back to his dorm and went back to training.
The training lasted till the next class. He went to the class and the forest after. He hunted down three 3rd Circle Magical Beasts again and came back to his dorm.
This cycle persisted. All he was doing was going to class, hunting Magical Beasts, and training. His friends had all gotten used to the absurd routine because they thought it was preparation for the Phoenix Trial. In a way, it was.
Days became weeks. And weeks became months. The first time this routine stopped was two months after it started.
