A handsome blue-haired youth in Cloud academy's uniform walked out of the city lord's mansion. The guards and the people roaming around the mansion looked in his direction with surprised looks.
The reason for their surprise wasn't because he was a disciple of Cloud academy, but the fact that two women, one mature and beautiful while another one petite and cute, came were there to see him off.
"Hey, isn't that the city lord? How come she is out to send a normal disciple away?" A handsome-looking middle-aged man muttered in surprise.
"Is he their relative or something?" Someone guessed.
"Relative, huh? I don't think city Lord would have enough time to see someone off even if it was her relative since there is always a lot to do in the office." A woman shook her head; her eyes gleamed as she looked at the youth.
Since they all lived and did business in the sun feather city, they knew how the city lord's mansion worked. Even the important guests had to wait long to meet the city lord. However, now she was out at the gate, sending a youth away.
Max felt many people looking at him and couldn't help but feel a bit awkward. "Okay, guys. It was nice spending some quality time with you. If there is a chance, I'll visit you again." Max said as he looked at the Elder and petite woman who were feeling down because of his departure.
"Hmm, don't forget what you said." The Elder smiled and nodded. She then looked at the petite woman who had an unwilling expression, and shook her head. She could understand her feelings since she was feeling the same.
Max glanced at her, took a step toward her, and whispered something in her ear, which caused the petite woman's face to turn red, and she nodded, "Un."
The Elder standing by her side looked at her and chuckled inwardly.
After bidding them farewell, Max gradually walked away and disappeared from their sight.
"You know he didn't have any feelings for us, right?" The Elder patted her shoulder and walked back inside.
The petite woman didn't say anything and stood there for a while in a daze.
Phew!
She exhaled deeply and murmured, "I know that. But he was the first man I had, and I don't think I will be able to find someone comparable to him."
…
After coming out of the city lord's mansion, Max went to the sun feather market. He wanted to see if he could buy the medicine to heal Flavia's scar. After all, he now had a total of 23,000 Mana stones, which should be enough since Belen had said it should cost around ten thousand.
"Hello, sir. What would you like to buy?" Max found the biggest medicine shop in sun feather city. The moment he stepped inside, a young girl greeted him.
"Yes. I want to buy medicine capable of healing bone-deep scars without leaving any mark." Max told her.
"Certainly, sir. Will you please tell me how that scar came to be? Was it by some magical beast or some other accident?" The girl led him into a small room and asked.
"Yes. It is from a beast, and most likely, it was a dark elemental beast." Max said after thinking for a moment. Although Flavia hadn't told him anything, when he met her, he had sensed some faint residue of the dark element from her scar.
After hearing him, the attendant thought for a while before saying, "I'm sorry, sir. According to your description, the medicine required should be the top-tier grade three appearance recovering pill. However, we don't have it because it's difficult to make, with a high price but low demand."
"I see." Max wasn't too disappointed since he had already expected this after knowing its grade. As she said, regular shops wouldn't have such high-graded stuff, especially when its demand is quite low.
"Do you know how many Mana stones should be enough to buy if it was available elsewhere?"
"Since it's a top-tier grade three medicine, you should have at least eighty thousand or more." The attendant replied after thinking for a while.
'Eighty thousand, huh?' Max was surprised but didn't show it on his face. At the same time, he was somewhat relieved that it wasn't available since he wouldn't have been able to buy it.
The attendant looked at him with twinkling eyes and asked, "Would you like to purchase something else, sir?"
"Yeah. I want some high-tier grade-two foundation strengthening liquid. Can you tell me what its price is?" He asked, remembering that he needed this liquid to consolidate his core since he would be enhancing more of his Mana during the trip back to the academy.
"That would cost 6000 low-grade Mana stones per bottle. How many do you want, sir?" She asked with a smile.
Hearing this, Max realized that it was a thousand Mana stones cheaper in the academy.
"Please bring me three bottles of middle-tier and three high-tier grade-two ones," Max said after thinking.
"Please wait for a minute, sir. I'll be right back with the requested things." The attendant said and went out of the room.
After a short while, she returned with a small box containing six bottles. She handed them to Max and said, "That will be 21600. However, since sir is from the Cloud academy, you only need to pay 21,000."
"Okay. Max took the bottles, stored them in the inventory, and paid for the required Mana stones. Afterward, he walked out of the shop and headed toward the city's exit.
The young attendant watched him leave and sighed inwardly, 'Such a handsome man. I wish I could have him.'
…
Whoosh!
A white and faint orange shadow whooshed past trees after trees in the forest. It was Max. Because the academy was quite far from the sun feather city, he needed to use his enhanced Mana if he wanted to return sooner. If not, then it would take around a week to return.
"Sigh! It would have been great if I had a flying pet." Max thought. He had been running for more than an hour at his highest possible speed, but he was still in the vicinity of the sun feather city.
When he sold the spear to the Elder, he had thought of this problem and inquired if he could buy a flying pet in those 23,000 Mana stones.
Unfortunately, Elder shook her head immediately and said, "You would need at least 50,000 Mana stones to buy an early-stage two-star flying beast. As for stronger ones, the amount would be even higher."
After hearing this, he had no choice but to drop the notion. He had thought of asking her, but she didn't have much herself.
After running for one more hour, his enhanced Mana had been exhausted, and he had traveled more than 200 Miles.
Now that his Mana was exhausted, he didn't continue running since there was a chance of encountering some powerful beast or bandits. So, he chose the safer option and found a place to rest.
He was currently in a barren mountainous region that stretched for a thousand miles.
After finding a relatively safe place between giant rocks, he took out some Mana stones to recover.
…
While Max was traveling back to the Cloud academy, in a forest close to the royal academy, Dalton and a few other people in golden-colored uniforms were fighting a green python.
Bang!
Dalton gave the finishing blow and killed it. However, his face didn't show any sign of happiness.
"Hey, Dalton. What's the matter with you? You took the finishing blow and still have such a gloomy expression. Is everything all right?" A curly-haired man who looked to be in his mid-twenties slapped his shoulder and asked.
"No. It's nothing important. Just a bug that I have been trying to get rid of, but he manages to live every time." Dalton said, killing intent flashing in his eyes.
It had been four days since he last talked with the people responsible for killing Max. He knew that they had also failed, just like Bartan. This surprised him.
He knew these people were at the peak of the two-star realm; moreover, one among them had enhanced some of his Mana to the three-star level. But even then, they died? How could he not be surprised?
He clearly remembered that a few days ago, it was reported that Max had reached the peak two-star realm, and the reason he was able to kill Bartan was also this. However, how could he have killed the people he sent now if that was the case?
Had he already enhanced his Mana? But how could that be possible? Even with the resources of the royal academy and his family's support, he had barely reached the peak two-star. As for starting to enhance his Mana, he needed a few more weeks at the very least to do that.
Did Max have a more formidable background, or was he more talented than him? No matter which was the case, this strengthened Dalton's determination even more.
