At the training ground of Minion City, a teleportation circle around two meters in diameter opened up. Out of it came Mr Fredrick followed by the rest of the kids. Alice closed the circle as soon as she crossed over.

Fredrick took a few seconds so that everyone could settle down. It was normal for the travellers to get dizzy the first few times when they use teleportation circles due to the sudden change in surroundings. Seeing that the kids were alright, he cleared his throat, gaining the attention of everyone.

"We are now at the Minion City training grounds. In two days, all schools of the kingdom will send their representatives over to recruit talented juniors. Take this opportunity to train. The schools usually give out scholarships to the ones that show good promise. Perform well during the exhibition matches in two days and you will be able to enter one of the top schools. If not you will be allotted to the other schools depending on your rankings. Get to the registration area if you intend to compete within two days. Good luck." Fredrick said a few words and then walked away towards the gates out of the training grounds.

Minion City was one of the biggest in the kingdom as it was a frontier city that focussed more on army training. With a smile, Alice walked back to the kids and then gave a little advice.

"It might be a little scary to fight at this young age. You don't have to worry. The exhibition match doesn't allow heavily injuring the opponents. You should all join the match. It will at least show that you aren't scared to put up a fight." Then, with the flick of her wrist, she produced a few identity cards from thin air and passed them around. "This should help you out here in the city. Try not to get into any trouble." Saying that Alice too followed Fredrick out the training ground.

Henry decided to check out the city since he had never explored one. To him, this was a good opportunity to pick up some extra spells and element droplets. The bigger the crowd, the better were his rewards. He and a few other kids with similar ideas walked out of the training grounds to the crowded city streets.

Minion City was massive. The training ground which was situated to the corner of the city only barely covered one-tenth of the city. Most of the shops in the city were catered for the soldiers. Being a frontier city, there was no toll to enter. Apart from a few army residents and a palace that lays mostly unused, there were rarely other houses within sight as Henry walked observing his surroundings.

'Looks like it would be difficult to find any mages just roaming like this.' Seeing that he hadn't picked up anything at all along the way Henry had to look for places with mages. The best would be to find magic items shops but with the measly 24 gold coins that he had, it was barely enough to cover the rent for the night let alone to pay the entry fee of a high-end shop. After racking his brain a little, he decided to try and find a library. It wouldn't cost too much to enter one and he was confident he would find a few mages inside.

The city's library was much larger compared to the town library that Henry was used to. His father, Flamel used to bring Henry to the town library every month so that he could go learn. It was the best his father could do considering how little he earned from his job at the village office. Their entire household income was barely 40 gold coins annually. Hiring a tutor would have helped Henry better, but the cost was just something a common household like them couldn't afford.

After paying a massive 1 gold coin entrance fee Henry was at last able to enter the massive library. There were countless books and manuals regarding the different magic spells but Henry was more focused on finding the high-level mages inside. He was hoping to pick up some flashy new spells or receive a few elemental droplets. Although Henry was a grade 2 mortal mage, he didn't have a single grade 1 or 2 mortal spells. No matter how big his magic drop became, without the appropriate spells at his disposal it was meaningless.

Henry climbed the stairs admiring the building and the countless books inside only to suddenly receive a notification from the system that made him smile.

'''Ding! You picked up residue fire element vapour. Merging the vapour with the fire element drop complete. Fire element drop expanded by 0.4.

Nature elements: Earth (2.1/9), Fire (3.1/9), Water (2.2/9), Wind (2.2/9)

Body: Mortal (2/9)'''

'''Ding! You picked up residue fire element moisture. Merging the moisture with the water element drop complete. Water element drop expanded by 0.3.

Nature elements: Earth (2.1/9), Fire (3.1/9), Water (2.5/9), Wind (2.2/9)

Body: Mortal (2/9)'''

'''Ding! You picked up a grade 2 mortal fire spell 'flame blast'. Would you like to learn it?'''

'''Ding! You picked up a grade 1 mortal water spell 'water bullet'. Would you like to learn it?'''

'Learn them both.' Henry commanded the system pleased with his find. 'At this rate, there is a high chance I will reach the prophet state.'

Henry had already reached grade 3 mortal fire mage ability thanks to his system absorbing fire element droplets. As long as there was a higher fire mage around him he was confident to absorb a lot more fire droplets in the future.

'I need to get into a strong school.' The stronger the school he went to the stronger the droplets he could absorb. He kept climbing the stairs and soon found himself being suppressed by the elements. 'Looks like this is the maximum I could get to.'

He turned around and peeked into the library floor. This floor had the highest level mortal magic spells that one could learn. 'Looks like I will have to become a prophet before I can climb further up.' The library's logic was perfect. There was no point for a mortal mage to enter the prophet tier floors since there wasn't anything they could learn from those floors.

Inside Henry found a few high-grade mages and from the amount of magic elements they absorbed, they should have been at least grade 5 or above.

'Looks like I can make a decent harvest.' He entered the hall trying not to disturb anyone. As he walked in, he picked up a manual about fire element absorption and walked towards the middle of the hall and looked for a decent spot to settle down. Before he could sit down, his system started ringing again.

He sat there and slowly went through the system messages with a creepy smile on his face. To the outsiders, it seemed like a crazy bookworm who found something world breaking in the book he was going down on.

In a short time, he had absorbed a total of 3.2 droplets worth of fire element, 3 droplets worth of water elements, 2 droplets worth of wind element and 0.7 droplets worth of earth element.

His eyes kept shining as he went through the spells that he just gained.

A grade 5 fire spell 'immolate'.

A grade 2 earth spell 'rock wall'.

A grade 3 wind spell 'violent breeze'.

Congratulating himself for his great achievement, Henry decided to leave the library. He still sat there a few extra minutes going through the manual to make others not eye him suspiciously before he got up to leave.

As Henry got up to leave, a new person walked into the hall which gave Henry a shock.

'''Ding! You received an elemental crystal.'''

'A god! It must be a god.' He was stunned. For a person to be able to perspire elemental crystals, he had to be someone at a much higher tier than a prophet. To think that a god-tier powerhouse was present in the city wasn't something that Henry had expected. Although he couldn't use the elemental crystal, he could still sell it at the magic shops for a hefty sum. From what he knew, elemental crystals were only mined at the God Mountains at the kingdom's borders. It should be able to make him enough money to last a long time.

Although the crustal was as tiny as a pebble, it would still sell for at least a couple of thousand gold coins. He was desperately in need of money as he didn't have a spatial ring. Even the smallest of the rings cost a couple of hundred gold coins. Where was Henry supposed to get that many coins?. At least he had a way now.

'I don't think I can sell it in the city. I should just wait to get into a school first.' There was a higher chance he would get cheated out of all the coins. It was already late and he had to get back to the training grounds to get a bed. All the ranked kids were allowed a bed in the training ground as they waited for the exhibition matches. He planned to train the few spells he gained as soon as the sun broke through the next day. He had become a grade 6 fire mage. He was confident that with a little practice he could easily catch the eyes of a few great schools.

Henry had a very bad night's sleep. The training ground's beds were rough making his back hurt very bad. Due to the exhaustion from the stress and travel, he still fell asleep. When he woke up he felt more tired than before he went to sleep.

He had shared a common room with the rest of the kids from his town region. Most of the kids had already woken up and started busying themselves. There was a massive queue forming in front of the washroom making Henry hesitant to walk over. Instead, he went towards the registration area for the exhibition matches. As time went by, more and more instructors started teleporting over with the kids for enrollment from all across the kingdom.

Henry had just learned a few spells the previous day and after registering his participation, he walked out to a secluded area to train. Anna, who saw Henry coming out from the registration area, walked over to him. She had a puzzled look on her face.

"Did you really register for the exhibition matches?" Had anyone from Horned Dog Village saw Henry register they too would have been confused. Anna had known Henry the most amongst all the participants present. The Henry she knew wasn't strong enough to fight against the geniuses from the cities of the kingdom. To Anna, it felt like Henry was acting desperately to show some valour.

With a scornful look, she warned Henry before walking toward the cafeteria inside the training grounds, "you should go and withdraw that spot. Most of the kids participating would be at least grade 4 mages. They will definitely crush you badly. If you are just trying to seem brave, what you are doing now isn't bravery. Don't end up proving your stupidity instead."

Henry waited and watched her back as she walked back indoors. There was a small smile on his face. The Henry Anna knew was very weak. True. But the current Henry wasn't someone she could look down on. The kid inside him wanted to show off his power while the adult in him became the voice of reason calming his toddler blood rage.

Seeing that the ground was becoming more and more crowded, Henry was forced to move before he could try out the 'immolate' spell. Henry had already learned how to cast the lower grade spells that he had received yesterday. So, he walked outside the training grounds and decided to visit the city arena. They usually have secluded spaces for rent as the fighters preferred to train their trump card moves in secret.

Henry was forced to hand over a few gold coins as rent for the room. As he walked past the different rented rooms, his system kept picking up various skills, spells and materials from the people inside. Indeed the arena had a lot more experts compared to a library, but most of them were fighters making the drops less rewarding.

'''Ding! You found a body enhancement crystal. Would you like to use it?'''

Since Henry didn't have spatial storage, it wasn't easy for him to carry materials around. He usually discarded the items that he found, but this time, Henry felt as if he gained a windfall. Enhancing the physical body was the hardest process for any mage due to a lack of time, but with enhancement stones, this wasn't the case. The only issue was that they were extremely hard to come by.

"Yes," Henry whispered.

'''Ding! Your body constitution increased by 3 grades.

Body: Mortal(5/9)'''

Henry felt strength suddenly emerge from deep within him as his body underwent drastic changes. With a grade 5 body, Henry became immune to most of the grade four and below skills as well as all grade three skills apart from a few strong control skills. To him, this could be considered a gift from heaven.

"This is your room, Sir." The servant who was tasked to escort Henry stopped at a smaller room. Seeing the sudden changes in Henry she felt a little confused. Although her expression relaxed a little, she was able to return back to her indistinct look within moments.

"Thank you." Henry walked in and proceeded to close the door before which the girl reminded him one last time. "Your allotted time is 20 minutes. I will return to pick you back up." With that, she walked back through the narrow corridor back to the arena office. Henry slammed the door shut with a smile as there was no one to interrupt him anymore.

The seclusion rooms' walls were reinforced to withstand a great deal of damage. There were even a few training dummies inside which looked all worn out. Shallow and deep blade marks were etched on the wood which proved the sturdiness of those dummies. Henry felt that the room was more designed towards physical cultivators rather than mages. There were magic arrays inside that helps to assess the power output of the trainees.

Henry was finally able to unleash the grade 5 spell 'immolate'. The fire elements in the air compressed together into a very small cine in front of him that lasted for a short five meters. The brick floor started burning with flames rising high.

'It's quite powerful.' Henry looked at power output and was pleased with the results.

'Power output: 620'

The spell was quite powerful. Combined with his grade 6 fire mage abilities, the power of the spell had raised even higher.

While casting spells it was important to concentrate on collecting the elements in the air. Thanks to Henry's system, the element concentration around him had always been higher making it easy for him to cast spells at a faster pace.

He tried casting immolate twice and his power output kept rising. After a few more practices he was able to fund the right concentration maximizing the power output at around 800. This was massive damage if someone with a lower-body constitution were to be hit by it. Seeing his power output, Henry's confidence rose even higher. When the servant came to pick him up, Henry was standing outside with a creepy smile on his face. This she could relate to as most of the monsters in the arena all had that same smile. The only issue was that this monster was only at most an eight-year-old.

After spending the rest of the day outside, Henry went back to his empty barrack to get some sleep. Before he could enter his bed a servant girl approached him with a few scrolls in her hand.

"Are you Henry from Horned Dog Village?" She asked, taking out a scroll. "Yes." She extended the scroll handing it over. "It's your match details for tomorrow. Please be on time or you will be disqualified." Saying that she went out looking for the other contestants.

The scroll simply had a number on it and the instructor's name whom he had to report to before the match began. He was given number 17 and his instructor was Alice. Henry tucked the scroll under the bed and laid down to get some rest. He was already exhausted from the training he underwent the whole day.

The barracks became extremely busy as everyone rushed to enter the training ground as early as possible to watch the matches. Henry was provided with a seat next to the fighting arena with him being a contestant. Alice was sitting right next to him along with the other kids she was in charge of. Alice had noticed Henry's growth but had bothered not to ask at least until the matches were over. She sensed that the kid might have broken through in the past few days. Although someone with higher cultivation could notice the changes in the body of another person it was hard to pinpoint how much difference there was without using the proper tools.

By 10, the arena attached to the training ground opened and allowed everyone to enter. A few podiums were raised around for the representatives from various schools to watch the kids perform. Alice took the kids under here and walked off towards the contestant's allocated area.

"Aren't there too many people?" Henry asked Alice seeing the crowd of contestants.

"The first rounds will all be battle royals with 20 people. The last 5 standing atop the podium will advance to the next stage." Alice explained which Henry already concurred seeing the arena set up.

"Welcome to the Fire Canyon Kingdom's annual enrolment exhibition match. I, Fredrick, will be the host for the event today." He paused to receive a huge ovation from the crowd and then continued. "Before we start I invite the honourable Chief Minister of the kingdom to announce the prize for the winners."

Following Fredrick's words, an elder stood up from behind one of the top podiums. Cheers emitted from the crowd welcoming the chief minister on the stage. In just a single second before anyone could even blink, he appeared on the stage gracefully. "Seeing all these brave young kids I must say, the kingdom is indeed blessed. May you all perform to the peak of your abilities and let it grow to a height no one could look down on." He paused again to receive another round of cheers.

"All contestants in the match are to be awarded 100 gold coins for their show of valour and bravery." A dead silence spread all over the arena. When Henry peaked across to Anna, he saw regret on her face. He let out a smirk and went back to listen to the minister's speech.

"The top 100 will be allowed an elemental crystal and a seat in the top 20 schools. The top 10 will receive five elemental crystals and a seat in the royal academy. The third will receive a high-grade mana crystal of their choice, five elemental crystals and one body enhancing crystal of lower quality. The second place will receive two high-grade mana crystals of their choice, ten elemental crystals and two body enhancing crystals of lower quality."

"The first place holder will receive one mana stone of medium quality, thirty elemental crystals, a superior grade body enhancing crystal and the honorary title of kingdom knight." Hearing the rewards the crowd went into huge deafening applause. Straining himself a little, the chief minister's voice broke through as he ended after wishing everyone good luck. "Let me wish all the brave contestants good luck. May the best ones win."

Fredrick got back on stage and took control of the crowd explaining the order of the matches. Each battle would have 20 people and the arena planned to handle ten matches simultaneously. A battle assessment magic array was set up across the arena while the contestants were split onto the ten raised grounds. Henry was allotted the 7th stage. Looking around he noticed most of the kids had a grade two or three mortal bodies. 'This should be easy.'

While Henry was checking out his opponents, the others were eying Henry too. When all of them saw how better defined his body was compared to them, most of them mentally noted not to make an enemy of Henry. Some of the kids from a better family background who had trained towards a grade 4 body eyed him which Henry too became aware of. Henry's lips crooked a little, understanding their desires. 'Using me to show off? Good luck with that.'

"Begin!" A loud voice resounded across the arena flaming of the elimination round of the match.

Two kids, who looked sturdy enough, attacked Henry, pinning him in the middle. Had it not been for his grade 5 body, he would have fallen off the stage instantly. Henry stretched his hands and blocked the two fists that flew towards him. Stretching out his foot, he kicked the two off the stage and walked away from the corner of the stage.

Within a few minutes, the contestants on the stage were reduced to 8. Looking around, apart from the two weaker looking kids the rest all had a grade five body and decent martial arts skills to boost the power.

'Looks like I'll have to kick off with a few spells.' Henry shot a few flame blasts at the two grade four bodied fighters. The kids were completely caught off guard. The sudden blast from the tier two spells made them lose their footing. Taking advantage of the situation, the two next to them kicked them off the stage.

Another two had ganged up and knocked one ending the match with five remaining on top. The stage referee declared the end of the match letting them finally return to their seats. Alice welcomed Henry with a hug and whispered.

"Get knocked out in the next round. All the other contestants seem to be from noble families. They might ruin your family if they get pissed at you for knocking their kids off." Henry was confident he could knock out the others and reach at least the top twenty. He wasn't confident in entering the top ten even if he tried his best and used his grade five spell. The remaining kids seemed that strong. Seeing the logic behind Alice's words, Henry nodded his head acknowledging her words. "Ok. I don't think I can enter the top ten anyways." Alice smiled looking at the kid. She felt like he would have understood the situation even if she didn't say a thing.

The second round started soon and as Henry expected everyone on the stage had a grade five mortal body. He was confident he could knock out a few kids but it seemed like the kids had already reached a mutual consensus as they all targeted him instantly. Although Henry was knocked out, there was still a smile on his face as he walked back to his seat. He ranked 82nd and was the 18th person to get knocked out off the stage.

"Look at him, he still has a smile on his face even though he got knocked out." One of the representatives who sat on the podium noticed Henry.

"I feel like he hadn't shown us his full strength yet. It seems like he was unlucky to get matched against all those noble kids."

"Right! Had it not been for the other nine teaming up, he should be a lot higher on the rank list." The representatives discussed Henry's performance.

'Looks like I have caught their attention.' As he took his seat, Henry still had his warm smile. 'Looks like this will all end soon.'

The second round too ended fast. Some of the stages saw intense fights as only one was selected from each stage to advance. Soon the final contestants were all matched and the fight for the noble rank started. Becoming a noble was the dream of all kids in the Fire Canyon Kingdom since the titles weren't hereditary. The kids needed to fight and earn their right to inherit their family lands and title. Although the commoners too could compete, due to a lack of resources, it wasn't easy for kids of the common households to compete for land with the nobles. This made it seem like the nobility was simply a hereditary title. The schools were established by the royalty to give the commoners kids a fighting chance against these noble households.

While they thought of which school he would join, the exhibition match came to an end with Gregory from Han dukedom claiming the first place. Stella, a grade 7 ice mage took second place, while Trevor, a half-giant took third place. The top ten contestants received their prize from the chief minister while Henry and the rest received theirs from their respective instructors ending the exhibition match.

The match took the entire day and the representatives dispersed to establish various counters to recruit their prized juniors. Alice invited Henry to join her Flowing Water Covenant. She even promised Henry a stipend of 2 elemental crystals per month. The flowing water covenant was a small-time school that ranked 31st and was closer to the Horned Dog Village. Henry agreed. He felt it was better to lay low till he was confident in his power. The incident from the library reminded him that there were many more hidden tigers amongst the denizens of the kingdom.

By the time Henry left with Alice to get enrolled, he had already picked up all the spells up to grade 5 for his four elements. The exhibition match had increased his strength by a lot higher.