Alexander The Great Mage

Aleyria chuckled at Shira\'s over-enthusiastic show of enjoying her plain pastry which was supposed to be dipped in a special sauce which had yet to arrive.

She glanced at Kan-Dari who was staring at Shira and her pastry like a tiger staring at its prey before pouncing on it. She was biting her lip. Apparently she had noticed the absence of the sauce as well and was thinking of something sarcastic to say.

Alas! Liz\'An, who was rather oblivious to Kan-Dar\'s nefarious intent to embarrass Shira, beat her to the punch. "What about your magic Shira? When did you start your training? You\'re only 19 yet you\'re already a Red Robe! That\'s unbelievably fast!"

Shira looked up from her pastry and smiled gratefully at Liz\'An before launching into the story of her magical journey with gusto. Next to her, Kan-Dari sighed ruefully at her missed opportunity.

"Well, soon after I entered the palace, I remember starting my dual training in physical combat and magic. Somehow I found learning magic extremely simple. It felt like I was learning something that I was supposed to know. Everything made so much sense. And when I reached out to the elements, they responded almost immediately. It felt like I was meeting a group of old friends!" Shira\'s eyes shined brightly as she spoke about her past passionately.

"What? They responded almost immediately??" Kan-Dari almost shouted with surprise. "It took me three full years before I managed to harness a single wisp of Earth energy!"

Shira grinned widely. She lifted her hand and wisps of metal, wood, ice, fire, earth, and wind energy appeared above her upturned palm and began to swirl around. Each wisp moved with great agility, indicating Shira\'s great level of control and affinity with them. The wisp of fire energy was slightly bigger and moved more energetically compared to the other five wisps, but not by much.

Kan-Dari\'s jaw dropped open in surprise. High affinity with 6 elements?? At almost equal strengths?? She looked at Shira\'s smugly smiling face in absolute disbelief. What a monster!

"Wow! Shira, you are so talented!" Liz\'An exclaimed.

"Yes, I was there when we first tested her on the Testing Pillar. Shira is a once-in-a-millenium talent that would certainly reach the very apex of power in this world. I can assure you everyone present then had the exact same response as Kan-Dari." Aleyria grinned and pointed at Kan-Dari who still had her mouth wide open.

Kan-Dari immediately snapped her mouth shut as Shira and Liz\'An laughed.

"Now you know how powerful I am right? You better treat me better from now on! In fact, you can even start calling me Mistress Shira! Considering that I will eventually surpass the red and reach yellow robes!" Shira poked Kan-Dari and smiled evilly.

"Hmph! You may have affinity with 6 elements, but you\'re not the only one who is special!" Kan-Dari retorted.

"That\'s true." Aleyria nodded in agreement. "All three of you here are actually extremely unique in your own way. Shira\'s high affinity with her elements grants her unparalleled skills in weaving magic. Additionally, having such a high affinity with so many elements will allow her to access a huge number of spell combinations. That would certainly make Shira an extremely versatile mage, at a level surpassing every other mage in this world, including me. However, Kan-Dari and Liz\'An are extremely powerful too. Why don\'t you two demonstrate a little bit of your power?"

"Sure!" Liz\'An agreed. "I don\'t have great affinity with many elements like Shira, in fact my strongest affinity with wind is probably still weaker than Shira\'s affinity with her secondary elements., so I probably would not be able to cast the highest and most powerful wind spells. My only strength is in capacity."

"Capacity?" Shira asked with slight confusion.

"Yes." Liz\'An said. "How many consecutive fireballs can you cast Shira?"

"Well, at normal strength, probably around a thousand? At maximum compression maybe a hundred." Shira replied.

Liz\'An\'s eyes widened in surprise. "You\'re able to compress fireballs at 10x compression? With almost no energy loss??"

"Hehehe, yeah." Shira scratched her head in mild embarrassment. She decided not to say that she could do the same with all the other five elements.

Compressing magical energy to create highly condensed spells was something only talented mages could do. It involved increasing the volume of magical energy weaved into the spell being cast. However, to achieve 2x compression, most mages would require increasing the volume of magical energy by more than two times because with so much more energy involved, they would inadvertently be less skillful in weaving the spell and lose some energy in the process.

10x compression with almost no energy loss was simply... gobsmackingly astounding.

"Ehm. Well, very good. In terms of capacity, a thousand normal fireballs are actually pretty good too. Your magical capacity is probably larger than 90% of all the mages out there." Liz\'An commented.

Aleyria nodded in agreement. Shira was an all-round talent in magic. Paired with her swordsmanship, she had no weaknesses at all. But then again, her other two bodyguards were monsters as well too.

"The wind spell equivalent of fireball is tornado. How many can you cast consecutively?" Kan-Dari asked Liz\'An very curiously.

"Well, I can only give you a theoretical answer because I\'ve never actually managed to spend all my magical power before. But if I estimate it conservatively, at least a hundred thousand." Liz\'An said frankly.

"WHAT?" Shira and Kan-Dari shouted in unison.

"A hundred thousand? What kind of number is that? AND it\'s a conservative estimate?" Shira cried out.

"It\'s conservative because Liz\'An does not take into account magical recovery. Because her main element is wind, she is able to absorb wind energy from anywhere. And if we take magical recovery into account..." Aleyria didn\'t finish her statement. There was no need.

Near infinite mana.

Shira and Kan-Dari remained silent for a moment to process the information. Incredible.

Shira reached out to Liz\'An and patted her shoulder affectionately. "I\'m glad we\'re friends." She said while nodding in satisfaction.

Liz\'An gave her a terrifying yet affectionate smile and said, "Me too!"

"Me three!" Kan-Dari chirped.

"No no Kan-Dari, this is a monster\'s only club. It\'s your turn to show us your specialty! If it\'s not special enough then you can\'t join our monster club! Right, Liz\'An?" Shira looked at Liz\'An with round eyes and an innocent face.

"Errr.." Liz\'An stammered.

"Hmph! Who wants to join your monster club! I\'m making a new club right here! Liz\'An, come join my elegant and beautiful club! I\'ll make you vice president. Remember, ugly monsters like that girl over there are not allowed to join!" Kan-Dari shot back.

Aleyria laughed. These girls were really very cute and childish.

"Show us your power, Dari." Aleyria said with a smile.

Kan-Dari snorted at Shira and then said to Aleyria sweetly, "Yes, Mistress."

She pointed at a spot next to her and an earth golem rose up into existence.

Shira and Liz\'An stared at it curiously.

Within seconds, both of their jaws dropped as well.

Next to Kan-Dari stood another Kan-Dari. She looked exactly the same, giving off the same aura and vibe and vitality. It was not an earth golem, it was the legendary energy clone! It was something only very, very few people could do even in the long history of the world.

An energy clone simply meant one thing.

Maximum affinity.