24th of June, one day before the birthday of the princess.
Jax, as always, woke up early before going downstairs to start training along with Cana. During the last month, he had made a lot of progress in his magical training, especially in his sound magic.
Firstly, his fairy, light and dark magic reached the maximum and Jax installed a new pearl in those magics. With this, only his fire, earth and lightning magic still had only one pearl in the grooves. However, due to the training he had conducted, the next groove of those magic was already over 90% completed, and they had approximately the strength of an average A-rank mage.
As for the magic, which had a second pearl, they all had a slight boost except his sound magic which had a big boost. His air magic increased to 9%, his water magic increased to 13%, his fairy magic only increased to 4% due to having been raised not long ago. It was the same with light and dark magic who reached 5 and 6% respectively. His nature magic which had already been working on the third groove for a while, reached 10%, while his sound magic reached 37% due to his musical training, which helped him master the sounds more quickly.
Currently, his goal was to complete the second groove of the fire, earth and lightning magic to install the second pearl in those magics and reach the standard of the top of the A-class mage in all of his magic. After all, while he wanted to continue improving his magic as fast as he did when he just started, he could tell that it was becoming more arduous. Now, it was hard to improve his magic by more than 2 or 3% each week unless he put his mind to it as he did for his sound magic. And he was only working on his third groove currently.
Of course, he was aware that there were only five grooves and almost halfway there. However, currently, fulling the third groove of a particular magic was harder than fulling the first and second groove of the same magic. In other words, every time he promoted his magic, it became harder than filling all the previous grooves together. If completing the third level of his magic was this hard, he did not doubt that filling the fourth one would take at least a few years or more. However, there was time.
As Jax did the regular training of filling the bracelets with magic, he improved his concentration on this specific one. This bracelet was unique as it was made of a beautiful product. The bracelet was bright green, like Hisui's hair. It had small designs embroidered on it, such as mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes. Finally, the ten beads of the bracelet were interlaced directly in between the dragons and phoenixes. The bracelet material had been from a shadow Arachne silk. It was a rare material that Jax had managed to obtain from a mage who explored the devil's forest. This material was scarce, and it cost him five million Jewels to get it despite the small amount. Moreover, the only reason it was so cheap despite being such a rare material was that except for being soft, stretchable and beautiful, it didn't have any magical properties and could only be made into clothes for the noble ladies or queens of kingdoms. As such, Jax managed to get it for cheap.
The bracelet he was currently making was precisely for the gift of the princess. He had been waiting until the last moment to make it since his control over his magic power was constantly improved, and he would be able to get more magical energy inside of the beads, allowing the user of the bracelet to release the magic a few more times.
As he concentrated on the magic bracelet, he slowly infused his magic in the ten beads with as much control as he could as he compressed his magical power into them. As the bracelet accepted more and more magical energy, the beads started to change colours from the initially transparent to a different colour depending on the magical power infused in it.
With as much attention as he could, the bracelet's beads started to radiate more and more colours as the energy was getting more concentrated. As Jax used almost all of his magical power on the bracelet, he stopped infusing more energy and only concentrated on calming the bracelet's magic power. As he managed to calm it down, the bright colours dimmed slightly.
Looking at the now beautiful bracelet full of power, Jax searched the bracelet's power and was surprisingly happy when he saw that the bracelet's owner could use each magic a total of eight times. However, as he looked through the bracelet, he confirmed that the beads currently used for the bracelets he made could only hold for the equivalent of ten top A-rank spells or five S-rank spells in the future. It was due to the material itself, which wouldn't be able to hold more than that without exploding into pieces whenever he made it due to his magical strength. However, such a thing didn't bother him since he knew that if he ever sold the bracelet, he was only going to install about five average A-rank spells inside of it as it would allow him to make more of them and at the same time, there was no need for more potent spells in it.
Finishing the bracelet with happiness, Jax put the bracelet down in his shadow storage before training his physical skills with Cana, who had just started.
After all of his training and his tasty breakfast, thanks to Cana, Jax gave a last look at the egg that was currently absorbing the nine ghastly skin fruits and left the house for the guild. Since he was going to the princess's birthday, he had to let the master know.
Arriving at the rowdy guild, as usual, Jax saw some of the older members already drinking alcohol slightly after breakfast. Shaking his head, he greeted them before arriving near the master.
"Master, tomorrow is the birthday of the princess. I was invited a month ago so I'll be leaving today to go to Crocus. I'll be back in around a week." Said Jax to the small master who had a red face due to the alcohol he was drinking.
"Yesh, yesh, you can go. See ya!" Said the master loudly between two hiccups.
"Alright. I'll be leaving and do drink less. It's not good for your health to drink so much." Added Jax before turning around and walking to the exit of the guild.
"It doesn't matter. Anyway, you can heal me if there's something, can't you?" Answered the master before shaking his bottle of ale and drinking it all in one gulp.
Shaking his head, resigned at the attitude of the guild master, Jax said goodbye to Cana before using his air magic to go towards Crocus.
--- Princess POV
It had been over a month since the last time she had seen Jax due to the high-intensity training he had been doing. She had, of course, sent letters to Jax to keep in touch, but they hadn't seen each other since then. Of course, she had sent a few invitations to Jax to come and play in the castle since everyone else had a motive behind being with her. As such, Jax was her only 'real' friend due to the attitude of the others.
It would soon be her birthday. However, she hadn't sent him an invitation since those who could be invited were all influential people such as the head of prominent organizations such as the magic council or people like nobles, notable business people and other kingdom's royal families. However, since Jax was simply a mage from the Fairy Tail guild, he didn't have the proper identification to enter the day of her birthday party. She was almost sure that her father wouldn't let her invite Jax, so she hadn't asked him. Of course, Jax and her father hadn't told her that he had been invited over a month prior.
She was pretty reluctant for her birthday party since there would be countless people trying to pursue her, simply compliment her without end or follow her everywhere she goes to please her. Those people who would bother her were all children of influential people who would try to get her liking, try to create a relationship or try to pursue her due to her beauty and identity. As for the people who would do that, they were as young as five or six years old and as old as seventeen or eighteen years old. Because of those kinds of people, her birthday was now a week of getting bothered and trying to keep her calm.
Sighing as she left her room, knowing that the worst week of the year was coming, she arrived at the dining hall and sat down to eat with her father.
"Hisui, are you ready for your birthday party tomorrow? I have invited Rekea to come tomorrow for your birthday. She will sing a few songs." Added the king after seeing that her mood turned sour upon hearing about her birthday party the next day.
"Sister Rekea will come tomorrow?" Asked Hisui, excited about hearing the news.
"Yes, I have invited her for your birthday party tomorrow since I know all of those kids only want to become friends with you because of who you are, and at least Rekea can accompany you." Nodded the king as he had a gentle smile on his face.
Hearing this, Hisui's eyes lit up, thinking that she would be able to invite Jax as well since Rekea didn't have a significant identity despite being a star. However, in the end, she held back as while Rekea didn't have any background, she was still an extremely popular star and would be performing at her birthday party.
As for her father, Toma E. Fiore, he had a mysterious smile on his face as he could tell what her daughter was thinking. However, he didn't say anything as Jax's invitation was supposed to surprise his daughter. Sending her back to the study to learn after breakfast, he wondered when the silver-haired boy would be coming to the castle. He remembered telling him to go to the castle a day earlier in the letter he sent him a week before to be sure he would be able to arrive on time and to cheer up Hisui at the same time.