Once I can't eat another bite I spend a little more time with Kechara before I pick up Asuna and head to bed. As I carry her I realize Asuna has gotten quite a bit bigger, the unlimited food seems to agree with her. Just before I leave the dining room I feed most of my power to Kechara's core, as I do I realize she is getting close to ranking up.

Her progress has improved, at this rate even if I don't feed her more power she should reach rank four. I think from now on I should leave her alone and focus on my own development. After all she has sacred power too and can feed her own core, she doesn't really need my help anymore.

Asuna on the other hand still does, it will take a lot of work to get her to the point she can be Kechara's equal. By the time I reach my room she is already fast asleep in my arms, so I gently lay her on the bed. Then I take a look at her core, not only is it full sized now but she is already rank two.

Since her mother's core was rank seven this isn't too surprising, but it does show how much my help has affected her. Now that her core is fully developed I don't have to worry about hurting her so I feed the rest of my power into her core. From now on I will share my power with her so that she progresses constantly, thinking of that I decide to check my own progress.

Core Upgrade Progress: 17%

'That's even better than I expected! If I had focused on it more I might have ranked up by now. From now on I will split my power between myself and Asuna.'

With these pleasant thoughts of ranking up I fall asleep and have pleasant dreams. Until my last dream of being suffocated by a furry pillow, which is explained when I wake up to find Asuna laying across my face. How she moved from her side of the bed to laying across my face, while asleep, I will never know.

Since she woke me up, I think it is only fair to return the favor, so I start tickling her. When she wakes up she immediately attacks my hand and we start wrestling. We end up playing until Yui notifies us that breakfast is ready, I quickly get dressed and pisk Asuna up.

We join the others for breakfast and then we all head up to the library together. Before letting her follow Kechara I feed most of my power into Asuna's core. Then I head into the reading room to continue reading, I enchanted all the outfits yesterday.

Now that I am fully focused on reading I am able to make much better progress. At my current rate I should be able to finish reading all of the knight mage books by dinner time. When I start reading the sixth book it switches from instructions to history, starting with the creation of the mage knights.

They were created after a number of mages that were sent out to deal with a monster died. When the mage tower investigated they found that this specific monster was completely immune to magic. While one monster wouldn't be a big deal, when they found out that it wasn't unique the archmages started looking for options.

While this wasn't the first time they encountered monsters with magic resistance it was the first one to be completely immune. The archmage council, after much debate, decided to create their own knight order. At that time there were thousands of supplicants who had failed the test to become a mage, so they looked amongst them for those with good physical qualities.

These failed supplicants became the first mage knights, combining physical skills with limited magical power. Of course at first they weren't much more than normal knights, their magic was very limited. After all, the mages of the tower had never bothered to research spells for use with such limited power.

These original mage knights were the ones who started researching more ways for them to use their limited power. At the same time they collected the existing knowledge of all the knight orders that existed in the empire. By combining this knowledge they came up with much better training methods to pass down to their successors.

My interest peaks as they start talking about the creation of the magical tests, this was done by the third generation of knights. The tests are not only meant to weed out those that are too weak but to strengthen those that are worthy. Turns out they made three tests, one for beginners, one for captains, and the last for the commander of the knights.

They did this to ensure that whoever was to lead a generation of knights was strong enough. From this I am guessing that Yui only plans to have me take the test for beginners. However, this comment about the knights coming out of the test stronger is very interesting.

If it turns out to be true I might just be interested in taking at least the captain test as well. The commander test is probably something I should try later, after all I am not really a knight. Then again if the tests don't require too much magical ability I am probably strong enough.

After all the knights were all humans, even though my strength is still limited a little by my rank I am far stronger than a human. Wait, that might not be entirely true, I almost forgot that back then humans still had the ability to gain levels. So these knights were probably much stronger than a normal human, still I should be stronger than they were.

"Yui, there are three knight tests right?"

Yui says "Affirmative."

"Can you tell me the average level the knights were when taking the tests?"

Yui says "Level one for the beginners test, level ten for captains, and level twenty to twenty-five for commanders."

'Hm, even going by D&D standards it would be almost impossible for a human to reach one hundred strength by level twenty-five. Maybe I can do the commander test.'

Letting that thought float around the back of my mind I continue reading. Maybe somewhere they make mention of the difficulties inside the test so I can better judge my chances. Even though I manage to finish the rest of the books, there is no further mention of the tests.

As I put down the last book and get up to head for dinner I can't stop thinking about the tests. My curiosity about the comment that the test strengthens people just won't go away. I still need to go to the temple but I have decided that I can at least do the beginner test first.

"Yui, tomorrow after breakfast I want to take the mage knight test."

Yui says "Affirmative."