Max continued his travels in the days to come. It was pretty refreshing experience. Max felt like he was finally a free man. It took him around a month of flight in full speed to see that he was getting in a higher and higher level empires. When he did get to a higher level empire he started to ask around and was dissapointed. It was a level four empire names Pandora empire.
Max did not like the name. It was like there was a pandora box inside that if he would open it something bad will happen. He did not linger around in this empire and left quickly. Relatively quickly. It took him around a week in a half to leave the empire. Max started to lose patience. The low level empires did not have teleportation gates. He was not sure that even the higher level have something like that. It was hard to get to a high level of a formation master. Max was not really strong in terms of formations compared to alchemy. Max learned formations to a pretty high level just to be able to teleport back to his gaming club. Around a few days after he left the Pandora empire he encountered a strange event. In a lot of places where he flew by during his adventures he saw a lot of demonic beasts roam around. They were in different levels of power. It showed just how much of the continent area was still not under the control of the humans.
Max flew over a mountain range and saw a lot of brats fight demonic beasts of different levels. It was a strange sight. There were no cities or villages near by. There was a huge aircraft floating in the air with a few people watching the show. They were strong but no one of them was a high mage. Most of them were at the eight or the nine mage levels. Some of them were even at the peak level of the mage ranks. There were a few peak grand knights as well on the flying ship. The brats were not weak. They were at the low levels of a mage or a grand knight, but they were having a hard time fighting the demonic beasts. Those brats did not have ample battle experience and it caused them to get injured and even killed. Max saw that a few unlucky mages were ambushed and killed by some kind of a big and agile cat like beast that was very agile. It was the bane of all mages. Some of the demonic beast were more humanoid and Max saw some kind of beast having an intercourse with a defenseless women mage. She was yelling and screaming, but no one helped her. Max saw that she would not survive. Even if she would it most likely would be worse then death. Max did not really like what was going on. It looked like a kind of a test, but it was cruel. The people on the ship did not care about the people that died.
Max saw all of this and just came down to help a group of youths that tried to fight a group of monsters one on one. He just threw a few fire balls to burn the different demon beasts to ashes and asked the different people present: "Are you tired of living? I see like its some kind of test, but if you fight alone you will just die? Are you retarded?"
The different youths looked at Max with varying types of gazes. No one really tried to rebuke him because he saved some of the lives here. Even if some of them will win the 1 v 1 fights they will be hurt for sure. After don't getting any answer Max just flew off to the ship. If those kids wanted to die he did not care. He even now regretted helping those people. At the deck of the ship the different figures looked at the flying Max with surprise. A high mage was a rare sight. They did not have one in their ranks and it made them be nervous. If this guy had bad intentions they will be doomed.
Max got closer to the ship and asked: "Hello there, my name is Max and I'm an alchemist. Is this some kind of test down there? Can you tell me what level of empire is this? I think I got a little lost during my travels. Do you maybe know where is an alchemist association near by where I can take the test for a master alchemist?"
The different people were surprised by the amount of questions asked, but after they heard Max was an alchemist they got a lot calmer. Most alchemists were not adept in fighting and were for making money and not killing people. They saw the badge which confirmed Max's identity. No mad man would steal or fake such thing. It would bring disaster for anyone. Even a high mage.
One of the peak level mages stepped forward and said: "Hello there mister Max. My name is Mark and I'm responsible for this test to enter our prestigious academy. What you see here is an admition test to one of the top ten academies on the entire continent named Starlight academy. We do have an alchemist accosiation in our academy and in the capital of our empire that can have you undergo the test up to a grand-master alchemist. This is a level eight empire named Noxus. Would you like to come with us? To accompany a potential master alchemist is an honor!"
Max gave it a little thought and agreed. He did not mind. He got tired of flying around and asking people left and right like a fucking idiot. Those people did have their ideas for sure but it was true for Max as well. After a few more hours the future student of the academy were brought up to the ship. A lot of the people in the test died. The death toll was around 50 percent. It was huge. Max thought it was a big loss for the academy and the empire, but it was not his academy so he did not care much. As for Mark. He did have his own plans. He was not sure about the ability level of Max so he just wanted to see what will happen and how Max will be evaluated in the alchemy association. After he will see the result he will continue with his plans forward. In Noxus an alchemist was still quiet rare. Alchemists were in the thousands around the continent. It looked a lot but it was not much. For master alchemists. It was near a hundred individuals. As for grand-masters. There were only six.