Bang! Bang! Bang!
The fire arrows shot toward a group of two-star beetles. As they collided with beetles' steel-like shells, dust and sparks flew around.
Krrr~~~
The beetles screeched in pain. When the dust cleared, the beetles that were hit on their shells, although alive, their shells were scorched and broken, while those hit in unguarded areas like the neck were killed.
Max smiled, seeing this, and once again cast [Death Rain], but this time he had to two-star Mana since the last attack had consumed thousand out of fifteen hundred Mana points.
Although this weakened his attack a few times, the already injured beetles were killed with ease. As for the others, Max didn't pursue them.
He quickly dug out their Mana cores, and his face blossomed with a smile.
"13 black beetle cores. Hehe, these will get me quite a few Mana stones." Max laughed. Black beetle cores were precious compared to other cores because they had pure dark elemental Mana and were helpful in making dark elemental artifacts and other things.
After storing the beast cores in his inventory, Max ran back to the hill to see how the fight between three-star beings had gone.
However, when he reached there, the hill was replaced by rubbles, and bodies of three-star black beetles were blasted into pieces. Eliana was sitting on a rock playing with her sparrow.
From the looks of it, she was unharmed, which was unusual since she fought two three-star beasts at once.
"Oh? You are back." Noticing his arrival, Eliana glanced at him with a smile on her face. When she saw his surprised expression, her smile widened, and she felt satisfied.
"Mm?" She paused for a moment when she saw that he was also unharmed and looked the same as before. 'Heh! He must have only run and didn't fight any.' She scoffed in her heart.
"Let's go back now. I'll drop you in the sun feather city. As for the payment for your help, I'll give it to you after returning to the academy." She said and climbed on the little purple.
"It's no problem." Max nodded and climbed up.
After flying for a while, Max looked at her and asked, "With your current strength, which rank do you think you can achieve in the inter-academy competition?"
Hearing his question, Eliana looked into the horizon and sighed, "I'm not sure if I can get in the top ten."
"Oh?" Max exclaimed and thought, 'It seems simply breaking through to the three-star realm won't be enough if I want to rank in the top three.'
Eliana turned to look at him and asked in a strange tone, "Are you also aiming to participate in the ranking competition?"
"That's right." Max nodded.
Hearing his confirmation, she didn't say anything and continued looking ahead.
...
Chu!
After three hours of continuous flying, they arrived above the sun feather city. Eliana directed her pet which then landed in front of the city's gate, causing the guards and other people patrolling the vicinity to become alert.
"You're on your own now," Eliana said.
"Thanks." Max nodded and jumped down.
"If you are aiming for the inter-academy competition, I advise you to stop playing around and put more effort into improving your strength. You should be at least a mid-stage three-star mage with above-average spells to rank in the top ten." Eliana suddenly said before flying away.
"Mid-stage, huh?" Max murmured as he watched her disappear on the horizon.
He then walked toward the city gate. His mission was to destroy a bandit group called one-eyed bandits.
This group was newly formed and had a dozen one-star mages, a middle-stage mage, and a high-stage two-star mage as their leader. He was to report to the city lord's mansion, which would tell him about their current location.
Guards didn't stop him after seeing that he was a disciple of the Cloud academy.
After entering the city, he realized that although there was a risk of getting robbed by bandits, the city was filled with merchants and other people who were there to trade.
The market here was a few times larger than that of Belsh town. Before going to the city lord's mansion, Max roamed around the market. He wanted to sell the things he got after killing the trio and didn't need, such as the green barbed whip, some pills, and the pet storage bag.
He found a shop set up by a group of merchants focused on buying, selling, and exchanging things.
"Welcome, dear customer. Are you here to buy or sell?" A middle-aged woman in leather clothing came forward and greeted. From her looks, she looked like a warrior, not some shopkeeper.
"I want to sell some things," Max said.
"Okay, please follow me." She then led him to a small room for privacy and asked him to take the things out that he wanted to sell.
Max was a bit surprised by this. He only wanted to sell some small things, and there wasn't any need for such secrecy.
Noticing his expression, the woman smiled and explained, "You should know that the sun feather city, although very prosperous, is filled with bandits that not only operate outside the city but also inside. They have people here who keep an eye on everyone, and if seen buying or selling some valuable things, you are sure to be robbed the moment you step out of the city."
Hearing this, Max nodded in understanding and realized that the bandit problem was indeed very severe. If not for the fact that Cloud academy provided protection inside the city and things produced in the city were valuable, the city would have become barren.
He then took out the things he wanted to sell and placed them in front of the lady.
"A high-tier grade two whip, grade two Mana replenishing pills, healing pills, poison pills...." The woman gave the things a cursory glance and recognized everything, showing her expertise.
"If you want to sell things, I can give you 700 Mana stones." She stated her price and looked at him.
"And what about this?" Max nodded and took out the pet storage bag.
"A pet storage bag? Are you sure you want to sell it too?" The shopkeeper's eyes twinkled.
