When the mana testing machine was finally imported to the castle, Max was shocked to see two church Cardinals carrying it as they politely greeted the queen.
Although they stole a few glances at Max, they were clearly not focused on his Identity at all as all they wanted to do was to establish better relations with the queen of the true Elites Kingdom and hence they did not miss a single opportunity to praise and flatter her.
After 5 minutes of pleasantries Ruby redirected their attention to testing Max and they instantly obeyed.
The church cardinal said " Alright, i will explain this to you once.
First you place your hands in the machine and steady your breathing , when you are ready to circulate mana give us the signal and we will begin with the mana flow.
Try and just not resist the mana because it may affect the reading by 2-5% if you do , it's best if you think about letting it flow freely.
You will feel a hot liquid move through unknown parts of your body but it will just make you aware of your mana pathway so don't worry about the strange sensation, and don't pull your hand out of the machine.
Got it? ".
Max nodded and the cardinal pointed to his friend and said " Cardinal Ferdinand will demonstrate for you first ".
Max watched carefully as Cardinal Ferdinand took a seat and calmly placed his hands in the opening of the machine. He took about five seconds to steady his mana flow and then nodded to his partner to begin the process.
A strang bluish glow started to be emitted from the machine where the hand opening was and after a while the glow stopped and a distinct reading could be seen on the top of the machine.
The reading said -
Mana capacity - 12,300/ 12,300 , maximum flow rate 130 units / second , flow obstruction 2%.
Max saw the whole process and the Cardinals looked at him to ask if he was ready to be tested the same way to which Max nodded affirmatively.
This was the surest way to learn about mana and nobody had ever failed this test before. It was the one process to which Max had attatched all his hopes to and he was confident of walking out with a success.
Max placed his hands into the machine and took a deep breath to steady his breathing. Although he was a little nervous, he got into his prime concentration zone and nodded towards the cardinal to begin the process.
The blue glow started to be emitted in the machine and Max felt as if his body was being injected by a syringe full of water boiling at a 100°C , but no matter how much water seemed to be injected into his body and how much heat he felt it was almost like the flow of water met an immovable dam and the mana would simply not move freely throughout his body.
After about 10 seconds the intensity of the blue light from the machine increased significantly and Max started to feel unbearable burning pain, he suppresed a scream to not embarass himself However the pain made him bite his own lips hard, so much so that a trickle of blood ran down his lips.
The intensity of the machine kept increasing and after a while even the Cardinals were shocked to see what was happening as nobody had ever undertaken the test for this long in the history of the machine.
In the end the glow slowly subsided and the test results were displayed on the surface.
Mana capacity - 0
Mana flow - 0
Obstruction - 100%
The Cardinals were dumbfounded to see the results and so was Max, for a moment nobody spoke a word but a while later Max broke the silence as he said " You've got to be kidding me right? This is not possible right? Nobody has zero mana everyone atleast has 10 mana points right? ".
Queen Ruby seemed to be extremely worried as a deep frown appeared on her face , seeing which the Cardinals scrambled for answers however after discussing amongst themselves for a long time they replied to Max in a sombre tone " Usually that is the case, we have never seen anyone with a 0 mana capacity and a 100% obstruction. It's almost like you have no mana circuit at all or your mana circuit Is completely destroyed.
We will talk to the archdukes about this but for now the only thing i can conclude is that you are 'manaless' , and won't be able to wield mana anytime soon unless you get your hands on some unbelievably precious treasure ".
It was like someone had passed the death verdict for Max as the Cardinals words sapped the last bit of strength out of his body.
Sitting down on the floor as he thought about all the media attention all the aspirations he had and the words of his girlfriend about how he was going to surpass his brother in the future , Max felt them all break down in an instant as he realised that without mana he would not even reach tier 3 in Omega.
It was a heavy blow to the prideful psyche of max and although he was a pretty mature kid with a good head on his shoulders , he was not used to dealing with setbacks in life like Rudra was which is why faced with such a harsh reality he silently shed a tear or two.
There was a fire inside him that said ' you all are wrong , I'm not manaless , your machines broken'
And another one that said ' Even if i am manaless i will find a way to cure myself no matter the cost '
However both those voices were overshadowed in general by the overwhelming dissapointment that he felt as for now the only thing he wanted to do was to log out of Omega and run back home to his girlfriend to cry in her comfort.
Avoiding the worrying glance of Ruby who wanted to offer him some words of comfort Max ran out of the palace like a coward and logged out of Omega soon after.
Max wept a lot when he logged out of Omega and trashed a few objects around the house, before washing his face and going downstairs to leave the house.
When he went down however he heard the crashing sounds of the battle as he glanced at the TV to realise that the climax of the war against Lucifer had started.
He saw a brief glance of his brother with his grey wings as he was being chased by Lucifer and the complicated feeling inside his heart increased tenfold.
Naomi, who was watching the TV looked at Max and brightly smiled and welcomed the kid to sit beside him and watch the war, however Max did not want to be near family at the moment.
Politely declining, Max made sure Naomi had everything she needed around her before he left the house and started jogging to her girlfriends , the only question in his mind being , ' Will i ever be able to fly and fight like big brother?'.
**********
( Meanwhile in hell )
Hades looked Lucifer grimly in the eyes for the first time in over two millenium as he said " You have ruled over my lands for long enough, time for you to leave my lands alone ".
Lucifer looked back at Hades with equal hate and said " I was living my best life until you woke back up from your slumber , why can't you just die you pathetic bit**? Why do you rise back up like the cockroach you are just for me to stomp you down once more".
" ENOUGH! ". Hades said in an angry roar as he stomped his foot to break a HUGE chunk of land from under his feet and then kicked that chunk of land towards Lucifer.
Lucifer slashed that incoming mass of land clean into two halves with his sword , however through that opening in the centre both Hades and Omar charged towards Lucifer as he immediately had to start flying backwards as he prepared to engage in combat.
Hades swung down his scythe and Omar his great-sword only to be blocked both at once by Lucifer's two swords as the collision created shockwaves so powerful that they destroyed the landscape underneath and pushed all dirt and debris in the air around them to create a clear mass of circular air.
What followed after the first collision was an insanely fast sequence of attacks and the devil was surely pushed onto the backfoot.
Although Lucifer was individually faster than both Omar and Hades , when facing two tier 6 opponents at once he did not find any openings to exploit his greater speed advantage as he was progressively being pushed back.
Every attack every strike carried the power to destroy mountains , yet none of the three were deterred and none injured.
It took 6 minutes for the duo of Hades and Omar to just land the first scratch onto Lucifer's body when the devil made a slip up and overextended his swing of the left arm by a hairs width , which was met with a cut from Hades's scythe drawing the first drop of the devil's blood.
/// We are only 80 tickets short of hitting the next GT target , let's get it soon for getting non-stop war action! ///