Affinity:Chaos

"Just as I thought, violet grade," Grey muttered when he saw the violet color on the region of the lightning element on the stone.

Grey currently had four different elemental grades for his seven elements, with the fire element supposedly being the highest with the cyan grade, lightning element follows being in the violet grade, the wind and water elements were blue grade, while earth, darkness, and space elements were all in the purple grade.

"Uh! What's this?"

A fascinated expression appeared on Grey's face when he looked at the water element, its grade for some reason had changed from purple to blue.

'How? I haven't even tried improving it in any way, nor have I absorbed any treasure that has to do with the water element.'

Grey found this discovery surprising. His elements had never increased without his knowledge, so he found this quite strange.

But he couldn't hide the fact that he was happy about it. The higher his elemental grades, the faster his cultivation was. This could be seen in how quickly he had been able to surpass his friends.

Yes, he was fortunate to encounter some treasures, but without his fast cultivation, he wouldn't have been able to improve this quickly. His ability to absorb treasures far surpasses others, this makes him absorb the treasures completely, not letting anything go to waste.

Even Overlord Plane experts wouldn't be able to do it that well.

Unknown to Grey, the drop of liquid Aetonth placed in his body when he was leaving the trial land was what caused the sudden increase in his water element elemental grade.

The water was slowly dissolving in his body, strengthening his ice ability, while also improving his grade.

Grey was the only one who could increase his elemental grade just by absorbing any special natural treasures that were affiliated with his elements.

For example, had he been the one to refine the elemental essence in the lightning tree, then there's a high probability that his lightning element's elemental grade might've seen an increase. But with Reynolds being the one to refine it, it only increased his strength, nothing more.

The grade of the treasures naturally has an impact on whether his elemental grade would increase or not, and the grade of his element before refining also determines if it's possible with that treasure, or not.

Let's take that Grey was to find a fire element natural treasure, due to the high grade of his fire element, if the treasure was not at least double the level of what the lightning orb he refined recently is, then there are no chances of his fire element's grade improving.

One has to remember that he still didn't know how high the cyan grade was. There's a chance that it's the grade above the violet grade, then there's also the chance of there being some elemental grades before it.

But in the history of the Azure continent, other than the violet grade which is just above the blue grade, Grey hadn't read or heard of there being a higher grade.

'I'll find out about it later, for now, improving is all that's important.'

After completing what he wanted to do in the Chaos space, he quickly left.

….

Grey opened his eyes, looking at the features of the majestic Frost City that could be seen even from this distance.

He planned to start his journey today, so after seeing Alice, he would immediately leave.

….

Frost City.

On getting to the gate, it was just as rowdy as the first time Grey visited the city. He didn't have a horse with him, and since he wanted to enjoy the view of the city, he decided to walk through the busy streets of the city, heading to the Reiss' family compound.

On his way there, he encountered some familiar faces, the Earl sisters. This time, the sisters were alone, with no one accompanying them.

"Hello," Grey waved as soon as he saw them.

He didn't really have anything against them, although it looked like he used them, he only took advantage of the opportunity they gave to him. He knew nothing of Gerald's birthday, nor the Lenz organization until meeting the girls.

"It's you!" Aldreda said in surprise when she heard Grey's voice.

Grey wore a hood to cover up his face, after all, he was still in danger. The Emperor hadn't stopped looking for him, it was just that he was fortunate enough not to have seen any of them all this while.

He was not only wary of the Emperor, but during his first trip to Frost City, he made an enemy of one of the big families here, so he couldn't afford to be seen by them.

What if they send a powerful Overlord Plane expert after him? He had used the Fusion State recently, and he could feel the energy hadn't died down. And even though he could still use it to escape, he didn't want to take such risks.

"It's been a while," Grey said coolly.

"Yeah, you disappeared after using us," Elda said coldly.

"Well, I can't really say I used you. But I just can't deny the fact that without your help, I wouldn't have gotten what I wanted." Grey said, making sure they heard the word 'help' in his statement.

"Well, that 'help' has placed our family in serious trouble. The Smith family are giving us troubles because we were the ones who brought you to the ceremony." Elda said in an annoyed tone.

Grey's expression changed when he heard this, he didn't expect the Smith family would actually place the Earl family in a difficult position just because he was acquainted with the girls.

"I'm sorry, that was never my intention," He apologized to the sisters.

"Your apology won't change anything, my family can't fight against the Smith family," Elda said, her body shuddering from frustration.

"What about the Reiss family, I thought they were fighting with the Smith family?" Grey couldn't help but ask.

"The Reiss family have their own troubles to deal with, they can't help us. According to what I heard, the Emperor summoned the head of the Reiss family for questioning," Aldreda was the one who spoke up this time.