Although Max was shocked by what the system said, he didn't stay and question it.
Whoosh!
Orange-colored Mana burst out of him and covered his feet as he dashed through the forest like a streak of lightning. However, he still felt a predator was watching him, causing his soul to shiver.
Therefore, he took out an escaping talisman and crushed it in hopes of increasing his speed. However, it didn't increase by much.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Just then, he noticed two figures shooting through the sky toward the black figure.
"It seems they are here for that 'person.'" Max was relieved. Now he could get away without any problem. At the same time, he was astonished to see that they could fly.
From what he knew, only those who have transcended the 'mortal boundary' could learn to fly. This meant the black figure and these two people were the five-star mages, at the very least. Realizing this, he shivered before and poured all his Mana into increasing his speed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
When he had traveled only a mile, he heard explosions from where the black figure was.
...
After three days, in the afternoon, when the sun was shining brightly in the sky, Max arrived at Belsh town and entered the inn he had stayed in.
The innkeeper respectfully showed him to the room and prepared a warm bath for him.
While lying comfortably in the bathtub, Max opened his status screen.
[Name: Maxwell Garfield]
[Age: 18 years]
[Strength: 100]
[Agility: 100]
[Stamina: 100]
[Vitality: 100]
[Intelligence: 100]
[Mana: 9995 (2295 units three-star level)]
[Element: Fire (Concentration: 70%)]
[Lust points: 200,000]
Shop...
In these three days, he had used two more units of his enhanced Mana and strengthened his core even more. Apart from this, he had raised his agility and strength to 100 points which were at 80 points previously.
Because he was on the move at all times and had to fight the beast on the way, he integrated with his enhanced stats quite quickly.
'I still have 200,000 LPs left. I can enhance two thousand units more.' He thought with a smile on his face.
Without delay, he tapped on the Mana enhancement and chose to enhance two thousand more units.
Weng!
Like usual, nascent energy appeared inside his core and started merging with his Mana, causing him to grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out.
Several minutes later, the enhancement process was completed. Max focused inside his core and could see a little more than 2/5th of his Mana had turned faint orange. Thanks to his already strengthened Mana core, there was only negligible pain this time.
Seeing this, the corners of his lips curled up into a smile. In normal cases, one had to spend months, if not years, to enhance this much Mana to the three-star level and had to use many precious resources to prevent the core from crumbling as more and more units were enhanced.
However, he did it in less than a week and didn't have to worry too much about his core becoming weak since he could use his enhanced Mana to strengthen it without any worry.
'I wonder what Leticia and others' reaction will be when they find this out.' He chuckled as he imagined it.
'But I should be careful too. After seeing my improvement speed, others might try to find out my secret.' He thought. Of course, 'others' here represented the academy's disciples and even Elders, not Leticia and others.
Max rested for the day in the Belsh town and used two more Mana units to consolidate his Mana core.
The following day, he departed from there and headed toward the academy.
...
Whoosh!
An eagle landed in front of the Cloud academy's gate, and a few disciples who had turned after completing their mission jumped down. Max was among them.
"Brother Max. We are going to report the success of the mission to the mission hall. Do you want to come with us?" A strong-looking man asked. He was Tylor, the crystal man Max met at the end of their outing period. Behind him stood the girl Max had saved from the fiery wolf, looking at him shyly.
"Okay, let's go then." Max nodded. Although he had already received his reward for the mission and the Elder should have reported it, he needed to go himself in person to report so that the academy would know that he had returned.
Therefore, the group of three headed toward the mission hall.
Inside the hall, the Elder assigned the mission to Max was sitting with a gloomy expression. A few days ago, he had received the news that the mission assigned to Max had been completed even after its difficulty had been increased for some reason.
'Those bastards. They couldn't even kill a newbie inner disciple. Now, I won't get the promised reward.' He thought in anger.
Moreover, after seeing that Max was able to get rid of three people at the peak of two-star and then complete the mission alone, he knew Max had the potential to reach higher heights.
This caused him to be worried about him exacting revenge on him since he intentionally assigned him a suicide mission. 'Sigh! I shouldn't have become greedy and done what young master Dalton wanted. Hopefully, that Max guy would die-'
"Hello, Elder. We are here to report the completion of our mission." Just as he was regretting doing what he did and hoping that Max wouldn't return, he heard a disciple's voice which caused him to stiffen slightly.
Phew!
As he raised his head to look at the disciple in front, he let out a breath of relief since it wasn't that blue-haired youth but a bulky man. He extended his hand and said indifferently, "Give the mission parchment and proof that you've completed the mission."
Tylor nodded, took out the mission parchment and a few herbs from his spatial bag, and gave them to him. After that, the girl behind Tylor did the same, but she had some beast cores instead of herbs.
The Elder noted their mission and gave them two spatial bags, "Here is your reward. Return the empty bags."
Tylor and the girl hurriedly finished storing the Mana stones in their bags and returned the empty ones to the Elder. After that, they stepped to the side.
As they moved aside, a blue-haired youth, who the Elder didn't want to see, appeared in his sight. The youth then chuckled playfully, "Hehe, Elder. I'm sure you haven't forgotten me, right?"
