Greg's Training
Greg was dragged into the gaming club and put inside a thing that was called a capsule. He had no idea on what the fuck was going on. He only knew he needed to learn the nova skill and the flight skill at minimum and see how he does in fighting. He was pretty confident in himself in terms of fighting. As the vice president of the order hall, he was very strong in terms of fighting. He knew that below the level of a high mage there will be a very few people that could hold and candle to him. He was an earth element user, and it gave him a great defence and an ok offensive capability. He used the defence to win most of his fights. All the fire mages he met were crushed by his defence. The fire could not melt the earth and in the end of the day those people would get blasted with an earth attack to one of the body parts or Greg would just cover himself in earth and fight like a golem. Both tactics worked very well. Greg did have a problem with mobility, but after he will learn how to fly this problem will be solved.
After finishing the noob guide in the gaming club he got the general point. He had never seen such a space in his life. He had a big amount of questions to ask, but he knew that he will not see Max in the near future. He would have to get quite the achievement from what he understood from the system. He started his studies from the nova skill. For the earth element it was a huge amount of earth spikes getting off the land around you. He could also use this energy to create a huge boulder he could throw at his enemies, but it lacked efficiency and destructive power compared to the huge territory of spikes he could get and injure or kill huge amount of people with less effort. Because he had his education at a high-level empire the process went pretty quickly. It took him around two months to use the nova skill on a ten square kilometres territory at a time. It was not bad. It did not have the destructive after effect of Max's supernova of the fire element, but it was still very deadly. Because he got the nova skill learned quickly, he also took another skill which he though would be good at defence and offence. He learned the earth shield for high mages. The skill was simple, but the shield created would be so durable that it could be used as a shield and as a weapon at the same time. It was like creating a high-level alloy from the earth element in terms of mechanical capabilities but using only the earth element for that.
After that was the time to learn the flight skill. It also took the experienced martial artist around two months of study. Greg was pretty talented and got the hang of things quickly. After learning the skills, he wanted to finally fight Max's clone. He did not believe he could not beat Max in a fight. They were both high mages, but Max was just an alchemist.
A bot that looked like Max appear before Greg. It was a level one bot. Greg wanted to see to what level of a bot he could defeat. He was sure it was going to be a walk in the park. He saw a countdown before his eyes before the fight should have begun. When the countdown reached zero Max's bot teleported quickly with huge leaps in space and before Greg could even do anything he got stunned by a zap skill and then his head rolled of his shoulders. Greg did not know about a skill called shadow step and all the other movement techniques Max learned.
When Greg respawned, he still was in a daze. What the fuck has just happened? He had no clue. After fighting for a few more times and getting absolutely destroyed in different ways with attack from different elements he really was not sure how he should feel about all of this. He even was evaporated by Max with a supernova skill with no cast at all. It was not as powerful, but he was still caught off guard and just burned to crisp.
Greg got the sad reality that compared to the monster named Max he was just a novice. He had no idea on how to even start to process it, but he only knew one thing. He had to become better. Because of that he summoned his level one bot and hoped for the best. When the fight started, he saw his bot use his skills in an unorthodox way that got him a lot of guard. It felt like he was a novice earth mage fighting against a master. The bot did not let him chant anything. All the attacks of the bot were instant and came from angles that Greg did not even understand how to react to what he saw. Spikes got from under him every step he took. It was like the earth told the bot where he was located all the time. It was a horrible experience of constant death. After dying a lot of times Greg started to look at some skills that could give him the possibility to sense the attacks that would come at him. He saw a skill for high mages that was called an earth domain. These skills gave the mage the ability to feel and manipulate the elements of the earth element better at a certain distance of himself. He was very pleased to find this skill and started to learn it right away. After a few months of hard training, he tried to fight the bot again. Now the fight went differently. He could feel the earth element attacks being formed and he could either nullify them or just dodge or block. The fights with the level one bot became a lot more balanced. Greg also learned how to create a nova attack without chant. It did cause a loss of power, but it could get the person off guard and get him killed quickly. Greg felt this tragic nova attacks kill him over and over again until he learned how to cancel it in a small radius around himself with the earth domain skill. After a few years of fighting, he could finally kill the level one bot of himself, but he was not even close to kill Max's clone.
Max also came a few times and when he saw Greg getting a sufficient level of strength for now, he ordered Greg to go to the elemental dungeon and to get a staff for the earth element to get his attack and defence level to around the third level of the high mage rank. Max also told him to learn defensive skills on a solo object and on multiple people from the system. Max explained to Greg that he would defend, and Max will attack. Greg agreed, because he could not even beat the lowest level bot of Max. He did not ask a lot of questions anymore. A person that has affinity to all the elements had his own secrets for sure and Greg just got the point that Max was the real deal. He even sparred a few times with the real Max and got absolutely destroyed. It was not even close. When he heard that Max could fight around the level of a six-level bot of himself he did not have any more questions to ask. He knew he was a subordinate, and he was not so strong for his role. In such cases it was better to shut up and listen. Maybe he could grow and become more useful in the future. Greg also saw how Max did things and how people treated him in the few times he got for a stroll in Alexandria. It did convince him that Max could be trusted, and he generally did not mean to cause chaos on the continent. After a few years of training in the gaming club it was the time to come back and get with his duties as a defender. Max had his plans and Greg also wanted to get a few things done with his family. He wanted to give his family the skill of earth domain. It had levels according to the level of a mage. From an apprentice to a high mage. Gregs family was famous for its earth mages for generations. He had a simple family name. It was Rock and it well known around the continent. It was rare for a family member to have affinity with any other element than earth. As for the earth domain Greg wanted to get from Max. This skill could elevate their position and keep another layer of safety for his offsprings. After some deliberation Max agreed. He did not give the permission to give the high mage level skill, but did allow these skills to be given to the apprentices and mages of the clan with a pledge from the patriarch and from Greg that it could not be leaked outside. If someone will do it this person and the people that got this skill will have to die. After getting done with the agreement the duo got back to the Starlight academy.