The day after his fight in the Colosseum, Max was visiting the Messiah.
The building in which they were established looked amazing.
As Max entered the building, he could see that everyone in the building was the best of the best.
Every single person he saw gave off an aura similar to the guildmaster, Ava.
But it was obvious that they were not as strong as her.
"You're here!" said Ava, excitedly as she started running toward Max.
"Well... you told me to meet you here yesterday at the Colosseum," replied Max
"Oh... That's right, now that you're here I will show you around the guild."
Ava started showing multiple rooms but the one which interested Max the most was the training ground.
Many people were practicing there, some were sparring, and some were completely silent concentrating on practicing skills.
"Wow, I guess you really like fighting," said Ava, looking at Max who was completely focused on the people practicing.
"Who is she?" said Max as he pointed toward a girl.
She was also a vampire, she looked magnificent while practicing at such speed and precision that Max couldn't even fathom what she was doing, she was executing skills perfectly and her movement was effortless.
"Oh, you have a good eye for people. She's the vice guildmaster," said Ava "Scar, come here and meet our recruit." shouted Ava.
Scar completely ignored Ava, continuing her training.
"Why are you ignoring me? I just want to show you the person which I will be training for a whole month," said Ava
"You are going to train someone? You?" finally responded Scar as if she couldn't believe what she had just heard.
"Yeah, of course. Look at how strong and amazing I am," responded Ava as she showed off her nonexistent muscles.
"Yeah, yeah you sure are amazing, so you finally decided to take on some responsibilities?"
"Stop trying to make me look bad in front of Max," said Ava "Don't listen to her, I'm the hardest working here," whispered Ava in the ear of Max.
"So, you're the one who will have the chance to train under... her," said Scar as she looked at Max in detail.
"Uhh... yeah that would be me, is she not great?"
"Great? Oh, she sure is. She is a maniac for combat, all she does is fight, fight, fight. It's as if she doesn't even have a brain." replied Scar.
"Well, doesn't that mean that she will be a good instructor for me if she is that great at fighting?" said Max
"Sure you can look at it that way if it comforts you. Well, it was nice to meet you, if you guys don't mind I'll go back to my training."
"Yeah, bye-bye go away," said Ava.
After this interaction with the vice guildmaster, Ava started talking to Max about the rules inside the guild.
"There are a couple of rules which you will have to respect even if you are the greatest member in the guild. The first one is that once a month, there is a tournament to determine who is the strongest in the guild, in which you will need to participate. The second is that you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't impact the guild negatively." said Ava
"Wait what's that about a tournament, why do I have to participate when I'm obviously one of the weakest inside the guild," asked Max
"Don't worry about the power you have right now, the competition is only there to look at the potential of each member because when you fight against stronger opponents they will have a magical artifact on them to restrict their strength,"
"Ok, fine but I have a question. How do I get skills or equipment from the guild treasury?"
"It's pretty simple, our guild functions on a merit system, meaning that what you can obtain from the guild depends solely on you. For example, you can equipment or skills depending on how you perform inside the tower. For each floor you complete, you will obtain one merit point which can be used to buy everything you want in the guild as long as you have enough of them." continued Ava.
"So, hypothetically if I clear 90 floors in the Tower of Nightmare, I would have 90 merit points right?"
"Well, yes if you only got points from the tower but there are other ways to get merit points. One of the best ways to get a lot of merit points is from the tournament I just talked about, the higher you place in it the more rewards you will receive from it. Another one is just by being nice to other members of the guild but you won't get much from this."
"Ok, I think I understand."
"Did I do a good job explaining?" asked Ava as she started looking at Max in a flirtatious manner.
"Umm... yes you did, but why are you looking at me like that," asked Max getting all red
"It's just that I think you look cute when you get flustered, hihi," said Ava acting all cute
"Can you please stop? It's making me feel uncomfortable," said Max trying not to look at her.
"You're no fun, how am I going to teach you for an entire month if we can't even have fun with each other."
"We can have fun without you needing to do all of that."
"Hmph, ok I'll stop. But be prepared for the training I will put you through," said Ava, completely changing her atmosphere looking at him as if she was going to devour him.
"Talking about the training you promised me, when are we starting?"
"Well, I was thinking of starting it right now to prepare you as much as possible for the tournament I just talked to you about," said Ava.
"Right now?" said Max, surprised by how suddenly she wanted to start the training.
"Yeah, follow me we're going back to the training ground, we'll spar against each other I want to see what it is you are lacking right now."
Arriving at the training ground, the appearance of the guildmaster started gathering attention
"Hey, why is the guildmaster coming into the training grounds?" asked someone
"I heard she recruited a human and promised to teach him for one whole month."
"How lucky"
"Yeah, but he's the first ranked in the human race. That's probably why the guildmaster proposed him that good of an offer."
"If anyone wants to come to see our fight, you can maybe you guys can learn a thing or two," said Ava to the people who were currently training.
The guild members were ecstatic.
"We can see the guildmaster fight, let's go see that."
Arriving at the arena, where guild members would spar, Max and Ava were looking at each other.
"Attack me with all you have," said Ava wanting to see just how strong Max really was.
Max activated Frenzy which increased all of his stats for a short duration of time.
He started attacking Ava as fast as he could but it didn't even make her break a sweat.
"What is the point of this, I mean you are obviously way stronger than I am," said Max
"Keep attacking me, I will decide when you stop."
As Ava said that, Max continued attacking and attacking with no success. It didn't matter what he did, he couldn't get through the defense of the vampire.
Suddenly, Ava made a move, she attacked Max when he was the least expecting it.
In the stands, they were reacting to every move made by their guildmaster.
"Did you see that?!"
"How can she be so beautiful."
Her attack made him take a step back.
"First lesson, always be careful around your enemy, you never know when he might attack you,"
"Come on! That's not fair you told me to attack you with all I had," said Max
"First rule, the teacher is always right," said Ava
The match continued for a few minutes still and nothing changed, it was like Max was hitting a wall.
"Alright, let's stop here for today," announced Ava.
"Why? I can still fight," said Max wanting to at least get a good hit on her once.
"No, I can see that you are already getting tired just from this much exercise, I have found what you will do for the first week of training with me. Physical exercise!"