Chapter 561 I've been waiting for you
Hearing Emily trying to console him, Max came to his senses and felt warm in his heart. He placed his hands above hers on his cheeks and gave her a dazzling smile. "Yeah. You are right. This will be a new beginning for me."
Seeing he no longer looked 'worried', and was smiling, Emily secretly heaved a sigh of relief and also felt proud of herself that her words of comfort were powerful enough.
Max was stunned when he saw her grin, which enhanced her cold beauty by several folds. Unconsciously, his hands left hers and cupped her cheeks.
This made Emily snap out of her smug daze and she blinked her big, misty eyes, and gazed down at him, looking puzzled and asked. "What are you doing? Why are you touching my face like this?"
"Um..." Max was left speechless for a moment before he blushed and coughed. "Nothing. You looked just too adorable, so I couldn't stop myself. Why? You don't like it?"
"Oh..." Emily didn't say anything and kept staring at him for a while, causing him to become awkward and slowly lower his hands. But just then, grabbed his wrists, placed his palms on her cheeks and said, "It's okay. You can touch them for a while more since you like it."
Although she tried to look indifferent, her face still reddened and her black eyes became limpid like autumn dew, making her look enchanting. This made Max fall into a brief daze. Thump! Thump! When he recovered, he realized his heart was beating wildly, his breathing grew strained, and his blood flow had increased, which made a certain part of him hard and rise toward the sky.
"Hm? You alright, Max? Eh?!" Emily was startled when she noticed his breathing had slowed and his heart was beating loudly. But when she noticed a tent rising right below his stomach, she went still for a moment before her face blushed crimson and she cried out in alarm and surprise.
SIgh!
Max sighed and muttered as he glanced at the used up mana stones and muttered, "I wasted more than half mana in the stones. This efficiency... is just too poor."
He knew it wasn't only because he wasn't proficient in circulating his mana through his mana veins since he wasn't too familiar with them, but also because his cultivation technique's grade was too low for a peak three-star mage. Not to mention, he couldn't use it properly like before.
'I can slowly get used to using my mana veins, but I need a better cultivation technique as soon as possible.' He thought. Then suddenly, he recalled when he scolded Ellie, he counted giving Ella this cultivation technique as a favor. Thinking this, his face twitched. If it could be called a favor, what else couldn't?
"Let's try the spells now. Then I'll ask Emily to teach me her cultivation technique." Deciding this, he stood up and started to cast his spells one by one.
Before long, he confirmed... without system, his spells' might had reduced a lot and he needed to train in them again to achieve his former level. But what really made Max frown was the fact that he couldn't accumulate any spell without being noticed, unlike before. This meant he lost the element of surprise, which always gave him the upper hand when fighting stronger enemies. It was a huge blow, and he also realized, once more, how significant the system's assistance was.
"There is no use drowning in sorrow. I should go find Emily now." He muttered and stopped thinking about the things he lost since it would only worsen his mood. Stowing away the bedding in his spatial ring, he walked out of their temporary residence–the cave–to find Emily.
Just as he walked out, he heard a nonchalant voice.
"Oh? You've finally woken up. I've been waiting for you."