After his defeat at the hands of Theresa, Grim understood that he had been to hasty in his thinking. Instead of charging in to battle the old hag after just receiving his grimoire, he should have gotten more acquainted with his swords and new spells before crushing her. This way he would have had more tricks up his sleeves during their battle.
Sitting on his bed above the restaurant, he looked over the spells in his grimoire and started studying up on them. The magic knight entrance exam was in 6 months, that meant that he had 6 months to get his magic combat ready.
"Okay, lets start."
After spending a couple of hours looking over the spells in his grimoire, he discovered that a new spell had appeared.
'What the hell?'
[Breath of flames- Ninth Form: Rengoku]
'Where did this come from? Did this spell manifest after I got hit by Theresa's fire spell?'
Confused by what he was seeing, he focused his attention on the spell and felt the mana in his body gather around his right hand. And just like with his Breath of the beast swords, a katana slowly formed in his hand. But unlike his Breath of the beast swords, he was only wielding one sword at the moment. And to push itself even further away from his Breath of the beast swords, this katana had a flame shaped handguard with a red core and golden border. Covered with a soft orange glow, Grim felt the blade hum in his hand.
Closing his eyes, he felt a gentle warmth spread from the hilt of the blade and into his body making him feel extremely relaxed.
"6 months..." He muttered.
---
Leaving the town of Nairn behind, Grim left the confines of the kingdom's safety to go train. While staying in Nairn would have been nice, it was not the most suitable place to practice fire based spells. Plus, he felt that the Rebecca and the boss would distract him if he stayed. He also thought about training with Theresa, but he didn't want to face her again until he felt like he could crush her.
Taking nothing but a backpacked filled with food, water and extra clothes with him, Grim left for the next 6 months.
---
-3 months later-
"300...301...302...303...304...305...FUCK!" Shouting loudly, Grim was forced to stop doing push ups as he could barely feel his arms. He'd been in this world for 5 years and 2 months now, and still this use body was giving him problems. He cursed that petty God for reincarnating him with a below average body.
Getting up from the rocky ground, he went to washing his sweat away a nearby lake that was surrounded by rocky terrain. Within the past 3 months here, he'd deepened his knowledge of Breath of the Beast and Breath of Flames. For Breath of the Beast, he discovered that besides being in that heightened state, the true benefit to using it was that besides the fact that his fighting style became much more barbaric and brutal, his swords could actually rip anything it came into contact with into shreds. This included magic.
Breath of Flames on the hand was quite different in comparison. One of the first things he quickly discovered about using this breath style was that his physical ability returned to normal unlike Breath of the Beast. So to compensate for this, he had to learn reinforcement magic. And while the physical enhancement wasn't as good as when he used Breath of the Beast, it was at least passable. But what really made him like this breath style, was the fact that it didn't matter whether or not he was using a spell or not, just a swing from his sword would produce flames.
"Hmm?" Feeling a mana signature approaching him, Grim activated Breath of Flames and summoned out his katana.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
Feeling the ground start to shake, he looked in the direction that the mana signature was coming from. Walking over with giant steps, a large amalgamation of rock with a humanoid shape approached the half dressed Grim.
'A magical lifeform...'
After having trained here for the past couple of months, he had already run into his fair share of earth elemental beings. At first they were quite a hassle to deal with, but to the current him they were not much of a threat. While some of their strengths differed from one another, they were practically all the same in Grim's eyes.
[Ninth Form: Rengoku]
Holding the sword up in a high stance, a torrent of flames emanated off the red blade as he performed a devastating downward slash that fired a concentrated beam of flames towards magical lifeform. Leaving behind a trail of flames and a deep impression in the ground. Grim watched as the beam of flames shot through the air and pierced the chest of its target and destroyed its core. Not even having the chance to scream, the lifeform crumbled to the ground after turning in a smoldering mess of rocks. Watching the outcome of his work first hand, Grim couldn't help but smirk and compliment himself.
"A bit wide, but not bad."
Turning his back on the smoking rock corpse, he submerged himself back inside the lake and let the water run over his body. Rinsing off all the sweat and grime that he had accumulated, he floated on the surface of the water and looked up at the sky.
"3 months..." Compared to when he had first arrived here, he was definitely much stronger and could utilize his power to a better degree. Closing his eyes, he simulated his last fight with Theresa but used the current him to replace his past self.
"Hmm..." He hummed.
Using the swordless version of breath of flames, a soft orange glow surrounded Grim's body and warmed the lake around him.