Chapter 6
After Nicks's announcement, the air grew tense, and though Max didn't exactly want to fight a part of him took it as a challenge and a long silence went by
"You guys have to fight me. It's necessary to find out how strong you are, and don't worry you can't hurt almost nothing can anymore and I'll restrict my power so I'll get hurt more, so fight me. Go come at me!"
He yelled with excitement in his voice and changed his stance, some of the kids rushed at him at that.
Though Max wanted to fight he stopped himself looking at the amount of people he decided to wait and observe.
The first one to almost hit Nick was Zen who went for a terrible straight punch that Nick dodged by flicking his head to the side and brushing Zen aside next he lightly tapped Alex's foot ducking under his right hook and lightly pushing his stomach making him stumble back and then looked at the others and made a hand gesture telling them to come at him and Max observed on how he avoided every hit and lightly punched and tapped them to not hurt but immobilize them and then there where three and max walked forward waiting for Nick to focus on him for he believed in honor
After Nick acknowledged him he took an inconspicuous fighting pose it looked almost completely natural he stood upright with one of his legs slightly crooked forward and Max also posed lightly close to a boxing stance and waited for a second to make sure Nick was good and walked forward slightly shifted his pose and when Nick slowly punched and Max shifted his weight down and hit Nick in the stomach and half a second later Max comprehended that it did nothing.
So he stepped back and kicked the inside of Nick's knee in and took another step back
Max punched Nick hitting him on his left chest and then right with two quick jabs, Nick wasn't affected and shifted his weight down and kicked him not with striking force but to push him down. Max flowed with it, and he got back up and got ready to fight.
John approached Nick from behind but before he could reach around Nick noticed that Max's posture changed so he turned around tripping John, who used the force from that to back away stumbling, and then rushed Nick kicking him multiple times in the leg aiming for soft spots and nerve clusters with precision
Nick stumbled, he was slightly affected by this, he shifted his form and adapted and when John stepped forward Nick lowered putting his weight on one of his arms and a leg using the other to trip John after he dispatched John he followed up by launching Max with a light kick to the chest sending him flying back
The time in which Max used fighting was long enough that the other students recovered somewhat and twice as fast were they were put down slightly less gently
Max got back up and looked around for advantages and saw John lying down slightly tired but okay. They locked eyes and for a second they understood each other. Max circled Nick and John moved closer to Nick and Nick reacted to Max by circling as well Max walked forward slowly and as soon as he was in Nick's range Nick lightly threw a punch.
Max dodged it and dived pushing his teacher back, where John was 'positioned like a lamb' to trip him. Nick fell and rolled back, physically unhurt but his pride was slightly damaged.
Nick continued fighting the student and when it started to slow down, he showed them something he let Alex tackle him then he showed something to them magic, wind magic to be specific he used it to pull the bench at Alex thwacking him to the side it was a big table going slow so Alex didn't receive much damage but it did push him hard as Nick straighten himself up and relaxed he said, "Well that wasn't that bad though it kinda sucked the only persons who punch felt almost sharp enough was…" He pointed to Amary
" her ,but they lacked force and Max was hesitating too much and being too gentle also his eyes didn't focus right ,nice dodges though, but you also waited like we were playing turns ,and ate some of my punches. Zen was fast but his punches felt like feathers touching me.
John that was impressive nerve tapping though you can't dodge at all, good for something like an assassin. You were disturbingly quiet, Max gave you away, and as for the rest of you."
Nick pointed at each of the students individually ", kinda bad, above average and Alex you don't have any snap to your hurts though footwork is not bad average even."
And then a strange white-haired husky-like breed walked it It looked strong and cool "Oh I see Mr. … doggo? has come this is one of your instructors. As soon as Nick closed his mouth Max and Amary along with some others behind them approached the dog.
Max crouched down and slowly reached out his hand and started talking "Hello Mr. Doggo you're a good boy aren't you."
He said as he slowly petted his head along with Amary and many of the students where watching the dog looked happy for a second then his eyes sharpened and he backed away
" What's wrong bud?" Max asked in a gentle voice
"Ahahahahaha" Nick started laughing "He's ahah "The dog morphed into a tall roughly 6 foot 1 individual with white hair and an extremely muscular figure "I'm Mr. Dracco your sword instructor and please do not mention this… ever."
Everyone was in shock and many backed away, severely confused " He's a hybrid or a beast person no offense. " Nick said
"None took it's not bad and sorry for that previous thing I… let's just not mention that at all… but I'm here to teach you guys swordsmanship or just weaponry if you have any type that aligns with swordsmanship. I'll also help you guys with exploring monster areas and whatnot."
After a small pause " The rest of the instructors aren't here yet but there is one that helps with magic and stuff I guess and one that helps with… well I'm not sure oh and you'll meet your assistants in a few days or a month we weren't told when"
'Assistants?' Max thought "Assistants?" another person asked
"Oh yeah basically you guys can choose some teammates to help you turn dungeons but first you guys will explore them together… Oh and you might be hunting normal animals and monsters first and of course after training."
Then a woman walked in somewhat panting she was short and had brown hair.
"Sorry I'm late" Nick pointed using both of his hands "Here's your magic teacher she will teach you magic and how to use it."
She then went on to a quick lesson explaining the basics of magic.
Free magic is using a certain type of energy to manipulate the element it's specific to and she went on to explain
"Each person has a different amount of mana on each thing and plenty of people don't even have those, there's light, darkness, fire, earth, wind, and water along with variants."
She also went on to explain white mana and black mana
"White mana is pure mana it can be turned into a specific type of mana, elemental mana, and the conversion power is relative to your affinity to the element or you could use it to power magic circles and circuits or use a mana crystal or converted to transfer it into mana as well."
She further went on to explain how magic crystals could be found in nature created though rarely and magic converters are nearly always found in magic creatures bodies.
the difference between the magic crystals and converters is that the crystals are basically condensed mana and usually don't have a good conversion rate. They can be used in magic tools, artifacts, circuits, circles, and weapons basically explaining that they functioned as batteries.
She also went into further depths about variants the rarest ones being
"Space and time they can manipulate reality itself even people who have it rarely can use it, and if they tried they wouldn't be able to maintain it because white mana can't be converted to those variants, and if people have them it's usually extremely small pools of that type.
Using them can be extremely exhausting and have killed and knocked out many people, though when utilized properly can be extremely useful."
She rambled on for what felt like hours seconds minutes the entirety of time seemed to bend for Max until he snapped back when she said "But we will get into details and how to manipulate it more"
'Oh. There's more.'
"but to use magic at the basic degree just raise your hands and kind of focus your energy and manipulate just you the strongest one you have"
The students each tried, producing a small amount and if they had difficulties she helped them out
"Don't worry it takes tons of practice to actually be able to manipulate it accurately but I will teach you spells later which should be easy…er later."
Max stood they for a few seconds feeling slightly off due to using magic as a beginner it was different than when he had scanned earlier it wasn't too bad though, kind of like cardio to him.
He thought for a bit and asked nervously "How do we get mana or regenerate it?" The teacher looked ecstatic "You will get more mana by leveling up or getting stronger and you can regenerate it by eating and resting or absorbing magic crystals though that can be tiring" 'leveling up?' "What is leveling up miss?"
Max asked and the women looked at Nick who was surprisingly still there despite having extensive knowledge about the subject "It's like when you kill enough things you take their energy and absorb it, it builds up your core and you get stronger overall but you should be able to use some type of stat points for a portion of energy.."
Max waited for more information along with the rest of the class
"Well it should pop up like a status window when you take out your weapons and when you reach a certain level like every three levels or five ten you get a break through and get a lot of extra stat points though where I'm from we cultivate and we call them breakthroughs of course"
'Weapons, stat windows? I feel like I missing something John said something about that earlier and did anyone mention it around the magic testing? am I supposed to have a weapon is it like a soul weapon I'm supposed to manifest? They said something about how before I got here, maybe the god was supposed to tell me something?'
After a moment, Nick said "Well, It's getting late we'll show you to your rooms, come on" He started walking out slowly
They stopped in a room with a table, seven doors in the walls and a woman in the corner "You guys can check the rooms just choose one from there and Max we have an extra room for you, I'll show you" Nick turned to face the woman "Can you watch them? I'll be back in a moment." Though the woman did not speak she nodded and Nick guided Max to his room it wasn't that far just half a hallway down.
"Here. It might be a bit dusty though." Nick said as he opened the door and looked around, it was bigger than expected and a bit dark with a few cobwebs Max seemed confused.
"Sorry if it's a bit small," Nick said. Max turned to him "No I'm just wondering how the light bulbs work. I've seen no candles and it's usually pretty bright do they turn on when people go by them or are they always on? " Nick stood there for a second "It's magic fire or light works well, we will have your room cleaned"
"What do you mean? It's just like two webs and this room is pretty large."
"Oh yeah well I'll just get it cleaned while we check out the other people" Max nodded "Yeah cool let's go then"
They walked back and Max dusted off his shirt and pants and noticed something "Oh shoot I forgot" He reached into his pocket and pulled out something. "Your ring" Max handed it to Nick, and he accepted putting it in his pants pocket because he didn't want to lose it "Thanks"
They arrived and saw everyone had chosen a room Nick stated" It is best to get rest it's a bit early to sleep but often when people are reborn they are more sleepy, goodnight."
They all went to their rooms to sleep
*plop
Max lay on his bed thinking ' Life is poi- perfect life is great.' He shifted in his bed 'This bed feels weird maybe I should lay on the floor. I'm not even that tired.. yet'
He shifted once again. The bed was strangely large enough to fit four to six people it had a nice dark wooden headboard and footboard it had clear curtains on the edges of it and took up most of the room
'How did they clean it so fast, magic? I feel like a royal in a crappy movie. This is awesome!' He thought letting out a sigh of satisfaction and rested, sleeping for about five maybe less, then waking up feeling refreshed 'Uh what time is it ' He
looked around and opened the door using his great senses had realized something 'It's the same oh'
He remembered something 'The god said something about sleeping faster damn maybe I could have wished for more intelligence. How could I forget that?' The dark-haired human sighed
'What to do know I can't interrupt everyone that would be rude I should ask them about gods later damn I should have asked them earlier so I guess I could lift… but I have no weights so maybe squats and calisthenics cool or I could practice magic that made me tired and it's good to practice maybe both working out and wizardry.'
Max sat down on the ground and crossed his legs 'magic, magic, magic' breathed in and focused on 'magic' he thought of energy and put his hands on his knees, palms facing up, and forced out a small amount of magic 'Focus it, condense it' He stared at it as if he was going to intimidate it into working and moved the energy, though tiring he managed to make a line out of it and focused on maintaining it for a few seconds.
Then it dissipated and he did it, again and again, focusing the energy into lines and shapes 'Lets fucking GOooo I'm awesome' after tiring himself he got up and laid down, and realized 'im mentally tired not physically tired I can't sleep well without both can't I.' and he got up and started doing push-ups and calf raises then he started stretching and doing light forearm and finger work out by placing a portion of his weight on his fingers and wrist.
After a few minutes at most twenty, he rested then woke up 11 minutes later blinked then thought 'Goddamn rinse and repeat huh.' and got up to do stuff over and over again mainly magic since he realized he didn't have enough protein and calories to do it for long and after focusing fire magic into a near perfect triangle and
Doing more and more magic he didn't let himself sleep because he thought ' I should get really tired so I can sleep for like thirty minutes and after it felt like he was about to fall sitting down he crawled up and made a strange noise "awalgaee" as went up and laid down he thought ' Uughhh' and slept for several... Minutes almost waking up once but forcing himself back to sleep and waking up to a strange feeling on his phallus and woke up to a woman sucking his penis 'What in the goddamn hell is this dream' and jolted up realizing that it wasn't a dream.
"Who in the...Who are you?!"
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Fun fact Max sometimes takes almost everything as a challenge to his power even breathing to loud or in a funny way.