Elder Jack raised his brows seeing their reactions and smiled lightly. He thought that they must be feeling shy upon being praised.
He then turned to Max and his expression became solemn as he said "Max, from your fight against the fiery wolf, I noticed that although you've become stronger, your mana core seems to have grown weaker."
"You should know that the mana core is the foundation of everything. If we use some external help to increase our strength in a short time, this foundation becomes unstable, and an unstable foundation causes some irreversible injuries to our mana core and body which hinder our future progress and in some cases leads to death."
"So, I advise you to focus on the consolidation of your foundation before pushing towards the higher realms."
When Max was casting his spell [Calidus Brachium] and after when he used [Death Rain], Elder Jack had noticed the slight change in his expression and guessed that he must be feeling pain in his mana core.
When Max heard this, his expression also become a bit serious.
He had noticed that his mana core would become a bit weaker every time he increased his mana by a large amount, although this won't be too obvious so, he hadn't paid much attention to it.
However, after using that pill to replenish his mana, when fighting against Bartan, his core showed signs of frailty.
Even after a week of strengthening, it wasn't fully recovered and needed some more time.
Therefore, whenever he used his spells, he would feel faint pain in his mana core. He hadn't expected Elder Jack to notice that small detail.
Initially, he had thought that the weakening of core was only due to the fact that he used that pill, but it seemed that the gradual weakening of mana core, due to him using system to increase his mana levels was also one of the reasons.
However, this made him frustrated. He couldn't cultivate like others and had to rely on the system to improve.
Which meant that he would have to waste time on consolidating his core every time he increased his mana.
Seeing his expression turning serious, Elder Jack smiled and said "You don't need to worry too much."
"After returning to the academy, you can just focus on consolidation of your mana core. It shouldn't take you more than a week. Oh, you can also use the 'Foundation strengthening Pill'. It is especially made for foundation consolidation."
"Thank you Elder." Max gratefully said and bowed his head. He felt a bit ashamed on himself that he thought that the Elder might have some other motive approaching him.
"It's okay. This is my duty as an Elder to guide disciples. However, if you are really grateful, how about you try your best in the upcoming inter-academy competition?" Elder Jack said as he went back to stand on hawk's head.
"Inter-academy competition?" Seeing him going away, Max murmured in confusion.
"You don't know?" Rima asked in surprise. Belen and others were also surprised.
Everyone who joined any of the academies would know about the major events, such as this Inter-academy competition. So, their surprise was logical.
"Nope." Max shook his head. He hadn't bothered to pay any attention to the academy stuff after joining.
Rima smilingly shook her head and explained
"The inter-academy competition is held every five years among the academies. Every academy in the Green Leaf Kingdom is eligible to participate in this.
Before the commencement of this competition, Every academy used to fight one another for resources since there are only limited amount of resources in the kingdom."
"Therefore, to prevent meaningless fights where countless people would die, under the leadership of the King, academies decided to hold a competition and then distribute the resources available according to the rankings they got in the competition.
The ranked first academy would get more resources while ranked last would get fewer resources. Therefore, some call it 'Rankings competition'. However, this competition is also a huge opportunity for disciples.
If they manage to perform well, not only would they get a lot of resources from their respective academies, they would be able to get the rewards that are especially prepared for the winners of the competition such as, grade three or grade four medicine, artefact or part of supreme tier spells."
As she finished speaking, her eyes were shining like stars. Belen and Leticia also felt the surge of excitement.
Haory clenched her fists and murmured "I have to work hard and be eligible to participate."
Hearing this, Max asked "Oh, does it any requirements that participating disciple has to fulfil?"
"The competition itself only has one requirement that is the age. The participant shouldn't be above the age of 25. However, since every academy wants to perform well, they only allow the best to participate."
"Therefore, almost every academy including our Cloud academy organise a small competition six month prior to the Inter-academy competition.
In this competition, only inner and core disciples that are 24 years old or younger can participate and only top ten disciples can participate in the Rankings competition." Rima explained.
"So, how much time is left until the academy organise this selection competition?" Max asked.
"Three months." Rima replied.
"Hmm, okay." Max nodded and sat there silently as he watched the scenery below.
Belen and Rima looked at each other before Rima asked "Um, so are you going to participate?"
Given his strength, he had a high chance to be the among these top ten participants.
As Rima asked this, Elder Jack's ears perked up.
"Maybe." Max replied curtly before focusing on enjoying the scenery.
Hearing this, Elder Jack felt like shouting at him and ask why the fuck he showed such lackluster interest to participate.
Any normal person would be excited and would work hard to be able to participate. Especially after hearing the lucrative rewards the might receive.
However, was Max like others, normal? No, he wasn't.
He didn't care about the rewards since he had better things waiting for him to unlock in his system.
The reason he didn't directly deny the possibility of him participating was because he needed a lot of mana stones.
Although, he couldn't cultivate and increase his strength using them like others, he still needed them to buy the stuff he needed or give them to his loved once to cultivate.
Rima, Belen and others smiled wryly and shook their heads. They weren't too suprised to hear this as they have grown familiar to him. Only Haory frowned her brows.
