The Bland Two-Sided Grimoire

Max stood outside the building, leaning against the door pondering about the next step he should be taking.

While it was imperative that he recieve a grimoire from this world, it wasnt like he had to recieve one right this minute. However he was just dying to know what kind of magic he would receive, no doubt it would be something super OP like time magic or light magic. Well, maybe he was being too optimistic.

In the anime it showed various people that were able to use their magic without grimoires, the grimoires only serving to strengthen their magic. However, for some they needed their grimoires to activate it. It wasn't that they had weak magic but rather the nature of which their magic originated. Things like mirror magic (wielded by Gauche Adlai of The Black Bulls) and gem magic (wielded by Mars of The Diamond Kingdom) were key examples of this. Depending on the type of magic Max got would tell him if he needed to be able to use his grimoire or not to cast magic.

"Well, before I even think about that, I have to GET a grimoire first," Max said as he stood up straight and looked at the door. He couldnt just walk in, at least not in his current condition, wearing a Magic Knights uniform. He had to pay attention to the small details if he wanted to pass this off.

Max grabbed the hem of the magic knights robe and lifted off the top half, leaving him shirtless. He wasn't a huge narcissist that thought he was super hot stuff, but he did think that he wasn't bad looking. At the very least he had been able to retain his muscles and six pack that he had obtained from 4 years of regular workouts., so he was confident that not too many people would complain. If he was a fat guy then no doibt he would be forced out of the Acceptance Ceremony.

"Alright lets do this thing." Max said, carefully pushing open the door. Looking left and right at the crowd of people he made sure no one was looking, which was impossible, and affer finding that some people were, he just sighed and slid inside. He figured that as long as Mimosa didnt see him come in, then he'd be fine.

"Max? Is that you?" Asked a voice coming from his left. "Why are you in here?"

Max silently cursed his luck before turning to face his newest problem, which was Mimosa standing there with a questioning look on her face.

"Oh, Mimosa, I'm here to get my grimoire just like you." Max said with a small smile, shouting inwardly as she frowned even more. "I'm sorry for having lied to you, but I'm not a magic knight, I was just using borrowing one for the time being so please dont be mad."

He sighed inwardly as she nodded her head, seeming to think that this was a satisfactory answer and didnt continue to pry any further.

"Okay, then I have another question for you." Mimosa said lowering hed head, a small blush creeping across her face. "Why aren't you wearing a shirt? I mean I'm not saying that you look bad, I'm only saying that your kinda distracting."

Just as he was about to feed her another explanation, a flash of light brought both of them back to the present. The grimoire ceremony had begun as a old man who looked like a younger version of Dumbledore finished his speech and pointed towards upwards.

It wasnt until this moment that Max finally noticed the room he was standing in and was filled with complete awe at the layout of it. The room was just a large cylindrical area, but it was lined with nothing but books of various sizes and it lead far up into the ceiling, seemingly as if it had no end. Their wasnt even any stairs that led up, which was also made sense since in the anime the books floated down to the owners.

The room soon became filled with floating books as many of them began to come down and spread out to their owners. An orange red grimoire that was decorated with flowers and vines floated towards Mimosa and landed in har hands. There was a luminous flash of bright red light, brighter then anyone else in the room, which drew the attention of the surrounding crowd.

"Woah, who is she?" asked someone covering his eyes from the light.

"Dont you know, thats Mimosa Vermilion of the House Vermilion." Explained the person next to him.

"Then whose the shirtless guy next to her, whose he?" another guy asked.

Various voices muttered as the light died out, speaking loud enough for others to hear. They clearly didnt care about others hearing them, even the people they were talking about. The room kept flashing as more and more people recieved their grimoires, some seemed happy while others seemed a bit disappointed. However none of the grimoires had shined quite as bright as Mimosa's until the last grimoire came out. This grimoire was odd looking, glowing with two different colors instead instead of the usual one. One side was completely gold and the other side glowed a deep crimson red, but the thing that made it odd was the fact that there wasn't anything on it except a three leaf clover. Typically speaking each grimoire had a simple design at the very least, but this one was bare, apart from the clover there wasn't so much as a single line.

The grimoire slowly floated downwards before landing in Max's hands, and as soon as it did, it nearly blinded him completely as the light from the grimoire filled the entire tower, every nook and cranny filling with red and purple lights. The light lasted for a few seconds before diminishing into a soft glow, returning the room back to the way it was before, well almost to the way before. The room had turned completely silent, it was as if everyone was holding their breath, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

"Wow," Max said, breaking the silence and blinkimg the light out of his eyes. "That was totally unnecessary, probably just a bit TOO dramatic if you catch my drift."

Many people just stared, there minds still processing the information while others were gossiping amongst themselves, but Max decided to ignore them and instead turned his attention to Mimosa, who had been one of the people who'd been staring.

"Mimosa? You okay?" Asked Max with a bit of concern in his voice and a frown appearing on his face."You look like you seen a ghost. Is it the light? Its probably nothing, amount of ligjt differs for each one, mine was just vrighter then most."

"Brighter then most?" Mimosa asked incredulously as if not understanding what he was saying. The brighter the flash of one's grimoire, the better the sychronization of the connection between mage and grimoire. "Your writing off that huge flash of light as a simple coincidence or just simple luck? Max, answer me honestly, are you a noble? or maybe even a royal? Please dont lie to me."

Mimosa stared at him with her bright green eyes, a hint of expectancy hidden deep in her eyes. It was obvious that she thought that he was some sort of special person, and that made sense. In this world, the strongest ones usually were the nobles and royalty, with commoners normally only wielding average to slightly above average magic abilities. It was pretty rare for a commoner to obtain such great power but wasn't unheard of. However, most people tend to automatically think that if one had great natural magical talent then one was a noble or Royal.

Max tapped his chin, thinking about the question before thinking. To anyone else who couldn't read his thoughts, it would simply look like he was thinking about the question, when in actuality he was running over various scenarios and fabrications that he could tell her that wouldn't come back to bite him later. He went through about ten of them before landing on the best choice.

"I actually don't even know my parents, I've been alone since the beginning. I've survived this long by stealing and fending off others." He looked past her and a thoughtful and reminiscent look was clear in his gaze (one that he put there on purpose). "So I don't really know if I'm a royal or not, so I guess you can just call me a commoner. Well, actually I'm less then a commoner since I live on the streets."

Max wasn't even aware that their were people spying on them, but after he finished speaking three figures stepped forward, contempt and arrogance written over every part of their faces. It was clear how this would end from the moment they stepped forward. Max had read enough manga and watched enough anime that it wasn't too much trouble to guess that they simply wanted to bully him and to establish their dominance. Most likely these were nobles, ones whose magic pkwer was a cut above the rest of the commoners. However, instead if being intimidated of frightened, Max was excited.

"Well, well, apparently your not a big shot after all, just a lowly commoner with a pretty face." Said the girl to the left, venom dripping from each word. The other two guys simply laughed and just watched as the girl approached Max.

"Well, you can't be all bad if a member of House Vermilion is interested in you. So maybe I can pay you to be mine." the girls said with a smirk, causing Mimosa's face to turn red with anger and embarassment.

"Caitlin, we really should all try to get along." Mimosa muttered, her hands clenched into tight fists. "Otherwise you'll find your biting off more then you can chew. This guy may be a commoner but his power far surpasses yours."

Max, without taking his eyes off of Caitlin, stepped sideways and placed his hand over Mimosa's his intention being to calm her down, but of course, like all MC's in cliche animes, it was immediately misunderstood.

"Oh, so stepping up to protect your girl are we?" Asked Caitlin, who had picked up her grimoire from her side pocket. "I'll tell you what, if you can defeat all three of us at the same time, then we'll pay you 10,000 yul, how about that?"

Max let go of Mimosa's hand, which had loosened up to the point where he was holding her hand. He smiled and gestured with his head, and though the action was slight, it was easily understood by the three idiots...Umm nobles.

The three of them, followed by Max and then Mimosa, walked outside into the warm summer air. Suprisingly though about half of the other mages in the room followed them out, seemingly sensing the rising tension in the air.

They continued walking until they were 30 meters away from the tower until the finally stopped and activated their grimoires, the orange, blue, and green colors shining forth as the books floated midair in front of them.

"Okay, so in honor of your bravery," Idiot Male #1 said with a small smirk, "We'll let you have the first move." Caitlin and the other male simply nodded and each of them to a fighting stance.

"Okay, well, this is a good time to test my magic power since I dont even know its type." Max said with a smile and gripped his grimoire tightly, feeling nothing but immense excitement. Their was a cold, refreshing feeling flowing from his grimoire that filled his whole body, and something clicked in his brain. Like the ultimate cheat, a bunch of knowledge about the types of magic and his current magical abilites flowed into his brain. He didnt know how each of them worked but he did know the names of them, and it gave him an idea.

"Okay ya noobs," Max said confidently, "New plan. I'm going to beat three nobles at the same time without even opening my grimoire."