"What?" Hearing his tone Max decided that maybe maybe a bit of dishonestly was the best policy or maybe just a website lie or a stretch. "Yeah I met him he changed my eye color" Max answered nonchalantly, slightly leaning to the side attempting to seem chill as he gestured to his eye.
"Really?" Nick asked Max smiled trying to time it perfectly with his words "Yeah, why?"
After that clean conversation, Nick said something about eye color being about royalty but Max was only half there as he was focused on seeing if Nick could see past his mild deception. Max then slyly crept out of the room.
A/n (you can skim past these next short chapters it's just talking about certain events that build up Max and show his progress)
After that, Max walked back to the dining hall, saw John, and struck up a conversation
"How are you doing?" Max asks "Good" "Great, it's pretty boring what did you guys do in that etiquette class?" Max questions
"They told us how to act in front of royalty, read some stuff for us, gave us homework then some of us went to train for stuff," John groaned exhausted his voice portrayed how much he ached.
Max smiled deviously "You get homework." John's face perfectly explained the depth of his despair "You don't?" He questioned looking Max deadpan in the face "Haha, No" Max said with a slight tease to his tone, it looked like John's soul crumpled at the moment. "Then what were you doing for the past few hours?"
"For about half nothing, the rest training and talking," Max says as John resists the urge to wring his neck "I'm just messing with you mostly when are going to meet the alchemist girl?" Max wonders
"I mean like taking classes." he further explains, "Soon?" John replied unsure " Is what I assume," Max thinks "Do they have any clocks they said the sun is different so is time shorter or longer."
"Maybe" "Cool" Max says and exits the conversation walking to his room to work on his magic.
This time playing with fire
Max sat ground and adjusted his posture, crossing his legs, he looked at the wall of his room and breathed in.
He was ready. He extended his hands palms up and focused tendrils of flame out of his hands taking shapes of whatever he felt like. Just moving in random forms sometimes flickering making an image.
He played with the fire for a bit longer thinking, and creating more shapes spending time creating little pictures.
He practiced his control, doing a few more exercises he made up like concentrating his mana in little balls and then letting them dissipate again and again.
Quite a time after the conversation with John
Max along with his classmates are summoned this time to a smaller room near the combat area and they see cauldrons, tools, and herbs. "This is the Alchemy area." They are told before they are dropped off to meet the teacher
She's dressed in purple clothes seeming to be a mix of robes and a dress. She starts talking about her craft stating. "Alchemy is one of the variants that can't be tested for by usual means, though in the underworld or inner world, they have a dark shade of green in their hair."
She continues
"It allows you to tell the properties of herbs and plants allowing you to make cleaner tonics and medicines along with some other things, but one way to find it out is by checking your reactions from touching certain herbs and seeing if you can find out how to make certain things,"
She mentioned while pushing a cauldron forward quietly groaning.
The students then looked at the herbs and were educated on the uses of certain parts of monsters how to harvest them and how to separate the valuable parts, along with how to keep certain materials pure.
Afterward, they went to the magic class unexhausted by the short lesson. They learned a bit about magic before the teacher instructed the students on how to manifest magic.
Something surprising to Max most of them didn't get it on the first few tries. He watched them disappointed, trying not to seem different or out of order Put his hands forward, the bottoms of his wrists touching
He thought about a special move found in video games and shows. He tried to suppress a smirk and after a few seconds the joy burned out and he got bored.
'Damn, I kinda thought it was easy just you know… how did I know it's just using some energy that you have.' Was his thought bubble not quite understanding their struggles with the simplicity of magic
After the rest of the students figured out how to the instructor told them how to do a simple spell fireball
"Since fire is one of the easiest to manifest you will use it For this one, you have to first you'll use free magic to get the hang of it," she said walking forward "To first start get into a somewhat comfortable position and put your hand in the front of you like jaws," she said as she put her plans facing each other "then focus the energy out of your palms and into it condensing it while focusing on a mental image of what you want it to be. Your beginners so the size doesn't matter"
The students mimicked her pose and each tried to do it. Max looked at them slightly happy because he knew when he played with magic he was better 'Okay let's try to make it small since we don't want to attract attention and we already have a fire affinity so it shouldn't seem too weird.' He thought and he bent one of his legs lightly and focused, forming the flames and wrapping them around each other while allowing them to get air from outside 'If I used some type of air or wind magic I could do better it'd use less mana maybe since I'd have to focus less on keeping it alive' he thought trying to keep it in form
The teacher looked at him impressed "What is your main affinity" she asked Max looked "Wind I think but I practiced earlier" She took a step back after looking him in the eye "You're Max right" she said somewhat scared, "Yes" Max confirms it and she acknowledges that and looks at the other students and their progress and after that lesson when the students are leaving she stopped him "you have a good talent magic and I heard you have more free time than the rest, yes?" She asks "Yes I do, Why do ask?" He wonders
"Do you want to learn magic?" She asks "Yeah I guess why?" Max scratches his head
"Because I want to tutor you, do you accept" she offers 'no not at all' Max almost says for no reason "Yeah of course," He says smiling lightly "Great meet me after hours, in thirty minutes," she says and sends him off.
Max leaves for his room to train more by playing with magic and waits half an hour before missing the woman in her classroom
"So what do we do" he asks and so she shows him how to do certain spells.
Max stood and took a breath and exerted energy out of his hand trying to get a constant flow them sputtering out small energy differences
She looked at him, his legs were in an archer's position, a habit he brought over from his old life, during the winter and sometimes during cool summer days he would shoot pieces of cardboard with small soft arrows.
"Your energy flow is good but,"
She helped him by fixing his posturing and critiquing it. "Your posture is a bit off your taking up a lot of room the magic should have much push back and that makes you a big target" she muttered adjusting his form
As she did this Max thought of which principles he should relate magic to he noticed it did have weight to a point and a physical form but after a while he thought of a way to think about it
He thought of it as something like a chemical energy but connected to the universe in a way, he decided not to overthink it and just do it the most efficient way.
Overall he didn't need many lessons and didn't visit her much but she did teach him plenty of new tricks for explosive power of magic rather than what he preferred, Control and delicacy, perfect precision but the power was useful and made him a bit more confident knowing he could destroy so much.
But she was very impressed and mainly I know to him she mentioned his power and the officials took note of it.
——-
Sorry if this story is weird. I know it needs a bit of polishing.