Six months passed since Brian and Yuno received their Grimoires, which was also the amount of time that had gone by since Brian obtained his second four-leaf clover Grimoire.
During this half-year period, the two of them constantly spent time practicing magic and training themselves before they both set out to participate in the Magic Knights Entrance Exam of the Clover Kingdom.
First, one must mention Brian, who had undergone developmental changes far exceeding his own expectations since receiving the second four-leaf clover Grimoire and the immense benefits that came with it.
Acquiring the new Grimoire allowed Brian to possess an extremely powerful type of magic: Sword Magic, the magic once held by the leader of the Elf tribe five hundred years ago, Licht.
Sword Magic is a type of magic that allows the user to create and control swords made of mana. Unlike Earth Magic, which leans toward defensive capabilities, this magic is powerful and holds an advantage in offensive potential.
If developed and trained properly, this magic would become an incredibly potent tool for Brian in combat.
Unfortunately, over the past six months, Brian did not focus on practicing Sword Magic to its fullest extent. Instead, he chose Earth Magic as the magic he would prioritize developing and perfecting during that time.
To explain this, there were two main reasons that caused Brian to consider carefully before making a decision that many might judge as a waste of potential.
First, possessing two magic attributes simultaneously is an undeniable advantage.
However, that also meant that if Brian wanted to develop both types of magic equally and powerfully, he would be forced to dedicate twice the time of an ordinary person—even compared to a genius like Yuno, it would still take twice as much time, with no difference or exception.
Brian had only received his Grimoire six months ago; that period was too short for him to develop the full potential of one type of magic, let alone two.
Deliberately spending extra effort to develop the second type of magic would inevitably lead to more harm than good.
Brian would either have to reduce the time spent on Earth Magic to train Sword Magic, or increase the time and effort for Sword Magic while maintaining the same training intensity for Earth Magic.
The first action would make both Brian's Earth Magic and Sword Magic mediocre, failing to reach their full potential. The second action would cause his body to be overworked, leading to the risk of unnecessary injuries during overtraining.
The second reason was that Sword Magic is a type of magic whose power depends heavily on the special magic swords contained within the Grimoire.
Brian had thought about this even before reincarnating into the Black Clover world: whether Sword Magic was a type of magic that functioned by creating special swords, or if it was a magic capable of granting special abilities to ordinary swords.
In the original work, before Asta received Yami's sword (a Katana), it was just an ordinary sword. But once it was taken in by his Grimoire, that sword gained a special ability: the power to choose targets for attack, or in other words, the ability to attack and deal damage selectively according to the owner's will.
Based on this evidence, Brian could be certain of one thing: Anti-Magic did not have the ability to grant Yami's Katana such a special power; rather, it was the Sword Magic—the original magic of the Grimoire—that did so.
Sword Magic is not a magic of superior strength without special magic swords; more accurately, it is not a powerful magic unless it grants special abilities to the swords it contains within the Grimoire.
Before finding swords like the Demon-Dweller Sword or the Demon-Destroyer Sword, Brian would not need to worry too much about developing Sword Magic properly like Earth Magic.
He only needed to practice this magic at a functional level, combined with learning how to use a sword. The Demon-Slayer Sword was also mastered by him relatively well, enough to be used for flying in the air and reflecting basic attacks.
In contrast to the unremarkable achievements in Sword Magic, Brian's Earth Magic reached an exceptionally good level of development.
Thanks to his unusually abundant mana, Brian was able to use all sorts of spells with extremely powerful effects. Offense, defense, reinforcement, battlefield control, raids... Everything that could be done with Earth Magic had been learned and developed by him to the highest possible level achievable at this initial stage.
Brian could cast all sorts of spells for every purpose, at every distance, while still ensuring the practicality and actual effectiveness of the cast magic.
Aside from the powerfully and outstandingly developed spells, Brian's combat ability and combat style were also improved, maximizing him strengths.
With mana that was almost impossible to exhaust if used correctly, Brian often used reinforcement spells to bolster himself, then wrapped his body and his attacks in mana before charging at his enemies to engage them in close combat.
Possessing a defensive capability that was nearly impenetrable when using spells and reinforcing his body with mana, Brian's somewhat "brutish" fighting style could overwhelm most mages—those who were not skilled in close combat and would be easily defeated as soon as he approached them.
With just a single punch, Brian could destroy an extremely thick wall that he himself had erected. Except for mages with a combat style similar to his own, he was confident that no one could continue fighting if they took a direct punch from him.
When even someone like Yuno chose to prioritize dodging when Brian closed in, then others certainly wouldn't be able to defend against it.
Speaking of Yuno, he had also achieved a powerful development no less than Brian with his Wind Magic.
Although Brian's strength had moved ahead of Yuno by a distance thanks to the special enhancement from the second four-leaf clover Grimoire, Yuno at this point was also a mage who could not be underestimated.
Yuno always viewed Brian as his best friend and also his greatest rival; therefore, when Brian's strength grew by leaps and bounds, he also practiced magic and developed himself even more powerfully, with many times more effort than before.
Every type of spell that could be cast with Wind Magic was recorded in the Grimoire by Yuno, just as Brian had done with his Earth Magic.
Except for recovery spells (due to the unsuitable nature of the magic attribute), neither Yuno nor Brian ignored any type of spell.
The number of pages used to store spells for both Yuno and Brian had increased significantly over the past six months.
Learning new spells, developing and optimizing old ones—Yuno performed all of these just as well as Brian.
Because he had Brian as a competitor to compete with and learn from, Yuno's strength had surpassed his own self in the original work by a wide margin.
With Yuno's current strength, he could defeat even Magic Knights who had been established for many years without much difficulty.
The upcoming Magic Knights Entrance Exam was not a challenge for Yuno and Brian at all. The two of them would surely succeed in joining a Magic Knight Squad.