–––Night time–––
After Anna and Max returned to their room, Anna took a bath followed by Max. They then cultivated until night using mana stones. Although Max didn't want to do it as it won't provide him much benefit but Anna made him accompany her.
So he also tried but because he didn't have any cultivation technique, he wasn't able to cultivate. Therefore he only meditated.
After that Anna made dinner for them. They both ate while recounting their day to each other. Because Anna still haven't awakened her element, she is among the weaker outer disciples. So to increase her strength she has to focus on fighting skills.
She told him that, if any opponent in the same realm without using their elemental advantage were to fight her, she can easily defeat them in just a few moves because she has been focusing on skills rather than magic spells since young.
Skills and spells are often considered same but in reality they aren't. Skills are referred as the physical techniques which one can use without expanding their mana while magic spells use mana to operate.
Although magic spells are more powerful and destructive, physical skills are also considered an essential part of one's strength.
Physical skills are For example movement techniques, combat skils etc. When mastered to a certain level, they give an edge over your opponent in the same realm.
However due to the nature of magic, most people don't focus on these physical skills and only focus on magic spells as they gives their strength more boost than the skills where you need to train for extensive period of time.
However, after a long time, people realised that those who only rely on magic spells to get by are short lived compared those who have learnt physical skills.
For example if two One-star mages were to fight with same amount of Mana and similar magic spells, and if one among them has some physical skills, they would come out victorious.
Of course it was only true for mages weaker than three-star mage. However more than 80% people in this vast world, that is at least thousands of times bigger than earth, are weaker than three-star mages.
[ A/N: Imagine this world's size is comparable to Jupiter ]
After they ate dinner, both of them went and lay on the bed without any awkwardness unlike the day before.
Anna slept on other half of the bed but Max didn't sleep and instead opened his [ Magic Spells ] window and browsed through them.
He didn't look for any spell other than fire elemental spells. There were more than twenty fire elemental spells on the screen of different grades. There were 4 grade one spells, 3 grade two, 3 grade three and 2 grade four.
Surprisingly, the names of grade five, six, seven and eight spells were the same as those of lower graded spells however, there wasn't any grade nine fire elemental skill available.
"System, why are these lower grade spells are also in the higher grade and why isn't there a grade nine spell present?" Max asked the system.
[ Host, the lower grade spells are the weak versions of the higher grade spells present. As for grade nine fire elemental spell, it's because only a supreme mage can create one and they don't share it with anyone other than their offsprings. So the creater of System wasn't able to put a grade nine spell here. ] System replied in his mind.
"So if I unlock any one of these lower grade spells, I'll have to once again unlock their stronger versions when I need them to become stronger. If that's the case, shouldn't I directly unlock the higher grade ones?" Max asked.
[ That won't benefit host in any way because host can't use higher grade spells before reaching the corresponding realm of strength. ] System replied.
Hearing this, Max recalled that when Crimson monarch gave him his 'Crimson dragon spell', he also warned him not try to practice it before reaching at least four-star mage realm because he won't be able to use it and might explode.
"System, what do you mean by corresponding realm? What mage realm should I be in order to use a grade five spell?"
Although he asked this, he had a guess after seeing that there were one to grade nine and there were also nine mage realms, namely:
[ one-star, two-star, three-star, four-star( Mortal boundary), five-star ( marquis/Duke level), six-star (King mage), seven-star (Emperor mage), Monarch mage and finally Supreme mage. So these nine grade should corresponds to these nine mage realm.
[ These grades corresponds to the mage realms, host. ] System replied.
Max nodded, his conjecture was correct indeed. 'So these grades also should correspond to the current grades.'
After checking all spell names and unlocking prices, he sighed and closed the window. The cheapest spell that was a grade one, required ten thousand LPs to unlock.
'I won't be able to unlock any of them for a while. I should check out academy's library, they must have a decent fire elemental spell.' He decided.
Just as he wanted to sleep, Anna crawled toward him in her sleep and put her hand over his chest.
Max looked at her sleeping face and scooted closer to her and embraced her soft body.
"Un..." Anna made a light sound. Max thought she would wake up after feeling that he was hugging her and was about to let go. However, she put her head on his chest and continued sleeping peacefully.
Feeling her soft skin and smelling her enchanting scent, he was mesmerized. But he didn't do anything more and while hugging her, he also fell asleep.
–––Next morning–––
They both woke up in each other's embrace. Anna yawned and while rubbing her eyes, she looked up at him and said "Good morning Max."
"Good morning! How was your sleep?" He asked.
"Wonderful and yours?" Anna smiled.
"Mine too." As they had this small conversation, none of them felt awkward about the fact that they both were still in each other's embrace.
After a while, Anna finally said "You should get ready or you'll be for class."
"Yeah right." Then Max reluctantly stood up and went to freshen up and got ready. Meanwhile Anna prepared a breakfast for both of them. After Max came out, she also went and got ready before eating their breakfast together.
After that they went out. Anna once again headed toward the martial arena while Max headed toward the building where his class will be held.
When he reached the building, he was directed to an auditorium where many disciples were already sitting.
As he entered the auditorium, he instantly became focus of everyone's attention. After yesterday's performance where he easily beat Lacron who was as fast as lightening, most of them looked up to him while some wanted to surpass him.
However, Lacron flinched upon seeing him. He was afraid that Max would come after him. On the other hand, Bartan looked at him with a hint of murderous look in his eyes. Although he didn't have any personal enmity, his lord's enemy was his enemy.
Max wasn't bothered their gazes and scanned the auditorium from one end to another. When his gaze passed over the female disciples, many among would straighten their posture in order to look good. Haory looked at him with neutral gaze.
Flavia who was sitting in the back saw him looking around and when his eyes landed on her, she nodded at him. Max smiled and walked towards her and sat down beside her.
