Max's training got even more intense as the month went on, however, he was annoyed at the fact that his road to the university became much more difficult without his team by his side.
Although his reputation as the hound made it so that some small groups let him slide, on average he needed to engage with at least 3-5 groups a day on his way to university and while he did manage to defeat a few of them, he had to flee 9/10 times in order to not be killed.
Eventually things became so bad for Max that he had to actually actively seek the shuttle service to go back and forth from university and stay awake for an extra two hours a day to farm points late at night so that he could pay for lecture and training the next day.
However in Max's eyes all this struggle was worth it as he could see much more tangible results in his training now.
Inside the gravity chamber, Max trained under an intense 17 G force and with the tournament rolling around and the strongest of the university busy with gathering merit points he was the only person to train in that room.
In the library Max had read over 200 books and solved over 50 puzzles to become the only non nerd student in the university to be issued a library card that allowed him to take 1 book/ week back to his dorm.
In the strength training, Max now actually used a heavy 150 kg sword during his training routine and managed to land a correct strike 8/10 times.
His form, posture and muscle imbalances were all corrected as Max's training even left the trainers impressed at his accomplishments.
In the endurance training department Max could now run up a hill with more than 60° inclination for upto one mile.
It was an incredibly difficult feat as the principal himself joined Max on his run one day and while it was his warm up run and Max's highest level of training, the fact that Max had caught up to his warm up run had incredibly impressed the principal who kept an special eye out on Max, the only student to have diligently followed his stat maximisation programme this year uptil now.
In the constitution department, Max was now having the university incur losses as the potency of the medicine used to increase his constitution cost a whopping 10,000 gold coins a session, with Max undertaking 5 sessions a month it was close to a 50,000 gold expenditure on a single student.
However, the filthy rich University did not mind, if the student needed it they were ready to bear the costs.
Max's weakest department continued to be dexterity, as while he tried his hands in all fields he turned out to not be talented in any except alchemy, but the fact of the matter was that the field he hated the most was also alchemy.
From Blacksmithing to Tailorship to even carpentry, Max caused work place hazards in every lab he stepped into and every lab master making him quit with their two hands joined in a namaste.
In the end Max showed uncanny talent in recognising herbs once he was shown them and had a knack for understanding when to add new ingredients during a brewing process.
In 6 months that he worked in the lab he was promoted to head disciple and was even taught many invaluable alchemy formulas like basic strength potion, basic mana potion and basic love potion, but while Max was good at alchemy his mind felt incredibly bored when he stirred and mixed chemicals.
Even in the lectures Max learnt a lot, as he understood many fundamental things about being a warrior and the secrets of the universe that he did not know before, with the most important concept that he learnt undoubtedly being how weapons were important to a class.
There was a very logical reason as to why mages carried staffs while swordsmen carried swords and lumberjacks carried axes.
The shape and type of weapon and why a class used them all had a clear correlation and logic behind them according to which logic Max understood that in future if his class remained the same he would need to find a bone staff for himself, because using a bone staff would see the potency of his spells as a blood shaman be increased by 15-25 %.
As a kid growing up watching his brother slay everyone with his dual wielding technique, Max never imagined himself as a staff wielding backliner. However, the practicality of the weapon was undeniable.
Staffs were basically amplification devices. They were natural conductors of mana and when a spell passed through them, it resonated and amplified to give better results.
Bone staffs were even more special as they were made from species who were once conductors of mana, hence they had even higher quality. This made it so that even Max's spells that were not based on mana but rather blood, could gain an aspect of mana by passing through them and be amplified.
For example in theory brainwash could become a group brainwash skill if used via a staff.
Unfortunately, for the time being Max did not have a bone staff and with the item not having much use for any light faction professions it was seldom sold and found in the light faction market.
On his mercenary side, Max was successfully promoted to an E ranked adventurer and the difficulty of the missions he could take on increased a little. But the main advantage was that he connected and networked with a lot of mercenaries over the last few months and was well liked by everyone in the organisation since he never asked for promotion letters or befriended any higher up just to suck up to them for benefits.
This saw Max being invited to parties and celebrations he would never be invited to even if he was a C ranked adventurer and in those parties he got information about high level events.
But the most interesting piece of news that he obtained was shockingly related to the same topic he had seen back in school.
The red hand group paid a whopping 2.4 billion gold coins to secure 12 seats for the ' Dragon's Paradise ' dungeon, which had a Max cap of tier 2 adventurers being able to enter.
It had a powerful barrier that did not allow any powerful creatures above tier 2 to enter, however, weaklings could bypass that security measure and still enter through special means.
The dungeon had a serious time limit of just 7 days, and one had to leave the place by hook or by crook under 7 days time because missing the time limit meant being stuck inside the dungeon for 3 more years with no communication to the outside world whatsoever and with the dungeon being a Battle-Zone in those 3 years, deaths inside were permanent.
Only for 7 days was the dungeon a part of a wild zone and every three years a total of 10,000 individuals could enter and while the danger of death was very high, with only 1% individuals ever surviving the place. During the 7 days that it was part of a wild-zone, one was just teleported outside the dungeon and their deaths were not permanent.
The dungeon fell under the control of the kingdom of thunder, and it sold the entry tickets to the dungeon at astronomical prices every three years, with all 10,000 spots being heavily contested.
The reason behind the high price was simple - Dragons.
A dragon was considered to be one of the topmost battle pets to have ever existed and even though the entry price was astronomical, if one could loot a dragon's nest their returns would be several times doubled.
Gathering all this information Max felt like he had truly lost an opportunity of a lifetime by not seriously preparing for the upcoming tournament, because despite the astronomical price his university seemed to have secured 16 spots.
Eventhough he had lost out on the opportunity, Max was not selfish at all and he wholeheartedly shared all the information that he had gained with Asiva and others, wishing them the best in their endeavours as he focused on his training.
Little did Max know, that Sebastian/ Asmodeus had long known this secret of the dungeon and it was the only reason why he was still a part of this university.