Michael didn't even realize how much time had passed until Kaleb's War Rune manifested.
At one point, Kaleb rushed over to visit Alice during her individual teaching session with Michael.
Kaleb walked over to his sister, grinning from ear to ear as the War Rune formed on the back of his right hand.
His Soultrait had not yet awakened since he had yet to enter the Origin Expanse, but he came over to retrieve Tigerfang from Alice.
"You know what you have to do when you finish binding Tigerfang, right?" Alice asked both excitedly and worriedly.
Even if Kaleb worked hard for this moment for his whole life, the Origin Expanse was unpredictable. That was also why Alice was happy to see that Kaleb's expression turned more serious.
"I know what to do, sister. I'll bind Tigerfang, and spend the rest of the day practicing the Chilling Phoenix energy absorption technique," Kaleb said in a serious tone while retrieving a small pouch from his belt. A handful of marble-sized pills entered Michael's view as Kaleb opened the pouch.
"High-Purity Energy Pills…" Michael mumbled and understanding dawned upon him.
Instead of entering the Origin Expanse immediately, Kaleb would spend the next 23 hours preparing himself for the start of his journey inside the Origin Expanse.
"Take this as well," Alice said, retrieving a small vial from her War Rune, "It's an Origin Elixir."
Michae had heard about Origin Elixirs from Alice before. They were upgraded versions of energy pills and had a medicinal effect that helped in the absorption of raw energy.
Even the lowest-grade Origin Elixir was tens of times better than a High-Purity Energy Pill. It was quite amazing. But so was the price. It was extremely expensive due to the medicinal effect that guided the raw origin energy through the body.
Kaleb took the Origin Elixir from Alice and downed it immediately. Afterward, he sat down cross-legged. He closed his eyes and started executing the Chilling Phoenix energy absorption technique.
Kaleb's body exuded frigid air over the course of the next four hours. Once he was done digesting the potent effect of the Origin Elixir, Kaleb received Tigerfang from Alice. Kaleb bound Tigerfang to his War Rune in the next ten minutes, and a vivid smile blossomed on his face once he was done.
While feeling the surge of energy and power from binding a powerful Artifact to his War Rune for the first time in his life, Kaleb was overwhelmed. He looked over to Michael, who nodded subconsciously. Michael could fully understand how Kaleb felt. It had been the same for him, after all.
"Even after refining my War Rune a bit, I could barely bind Tigerfang," Kaleb murmured, only to look Michael straight in the eyes with a bit of confusion, "Didn't you feel like bursting apart when you first bound Tigerfang?"
"It was uncomfortable, but that was it. I have yet to get to know how it feels when Artifacts are too potent and powerful," Michael responded lightly.
That was enough of an explanation for Kaleb.
He spent the next 19 hours refining his War Rune using the remaining High-Purity Energy Pills. Kaleb immediately advanced to Low Tier–0, which was enough to expand his War Rune's storage space quite a bit.
By the time Kaleb reached the Low-stage, Alice retrieved a platinum coin from her War Rune.
"Use the Storage Expansion Token."
Kaleb did as was told. He accepted the platinum coin from Alice, which led to a drastic reaction of his War Rune. Several tentacle-like streams of white energy shot out of Kaleb's War Rune. They coiled around the platinum coin and pulled it inside the War Rune, without giving Kaleb enough time to react.
The next moment, the War Rune began to shine faintly.
Once she realized that everything went according to plan, Alice began to retrieve a bunch of things. First, she retrieved more than 100 Mythic Summoning Scrolls, followed by 1000 Named Combat Summoning Scrolls, hundreds of blueprints, and countless necessities that ensured survivability in any territory, no matter how dangerous it may be.
At that point, Michael couldn't control his eyes from widening.
'Is every descendant of big families given that much? 100 Mythic Summoning Scrolls right off the bat, and 1000 Named Combat Summoning Scrolls…blueprints, a higher degree of refinement, a powerful Artifact…' Michael ticked off the items in his mind, shocked to the core.
'It makes so much sense that these descendants are usually arrogant jerks. I would feel like the king of the world with all those benefits as well!'
Michael was shocked, but he wasn't jealous of the things Kaleb had been given. In fact, Michael was happy that Kaleb received so many things.
Finally, his friend would enter the Origin Expanse. Kaleb would grow quickly given the enormous investment he had received from his family. There was the Zenovia family's Inheritance technique as well.
It was a nice challenge to see how long Kaleb would take to catch up to him since Michael was certain that Kaleb would give his utmost to charge up to Michael and overtake him as quickly as possible.
Michael was certain that Kaleb would catch up to him. The only questions were how long Kaleb would take to overtake Michael, and how long Kaleb could keep the lead.
'Rivalry, it is? Well, I like it!!' Michael thought without an ounce of jealousy.
Earlier, Michael often felt envious when he saw how much most families spoiled their descendants, and how many great opportunities they'd been given. The young men his age who had to do nothing to receive what he strived for months to lay his hands on would often make him jealous.
However, that wasn't the case anymore.
The day Alice told him about the purity of Soultraits, Michael's views changed drastically.
He realized that the investments from their families came with a heavy price and many responsibilities.
Michael wouldn't want to carry their responsibilities, nor did he desire the same kind of investment the big families provided.
Michael would rather strive hard and give his utmost effort every single day, instead of having it easier by allowing his family to turn him into their marionette.
Thus, Michael's focus returned to his training when Kaleb disappeared through the Runic Gate.
It was hard to speak to Alice for the next two days. She was too busy thinking about her brother, wondering how Kaleb was doing and when he would come back.
Michael tried to ease her worries by distracting her, but his attempts were hardly of any help. At the end of the day, Michael had to spend the next two days focusing on his Limit Breaker training session, and the study of the Caesurium Menta mind refining technique.
His progress was slow, but he was slowly getting more adept at refining his mind. It was incomparably harder to refine his mind than the refinement of his body. Michael had to follow a more complex thought process to understand how the refinement of his mind worked.
Not only was it necessary that Michael understood the anatomy of the brain, but he had to comprehend how the mind worked. A low understanding of the mind was not enough to practice Caesurium Menta. The higher the comprehension the easier it was to refine the mind. That was also why Michael was so slow right now.
He was not bad at multitasking thanks to his constant training with multiple Soultraits, and his control of origin energy was already precise enough to use the third stage of the Caesurium Menta. The only missing factors were a better understanding of the mind and brain, and more origin energy.
Michael fixed his lacking understanding of the mind and brain by studying a lot. Most others didn't like studying, but Michael felt great knowing that he could broaden his horizon. He spent only two months in the Saphirelake Military Academy, yet his knowledge and understanding of the Origin Expanse improved exponentially.
Before, he had been a newborn, who had little to no knowledge about the Origin Expanse. Michael had been taught a lot in school, but it was easy to tell the difference between an Academy focusing on Awakened and the Origin Expanse, and the curriculum of an Elite High School.
The Elite High School was exceptional compared to other high schools, but it taught only little about the Origin Expanse and the various problems one faced as a Lord of a rapidly growing territory.
The curriculum in Elite High Schools focused more on training with all types of weapons, the study of the Origin Language, and less on minor subjects such as psychology, basic territory development, how to survive in the wilderness, and so on.
Combat was the most important.
One way or another, Michael was happy. His life both inside the Origin Expanse and outside could hardly be better.
There was hardly anything that irked him. His peers grew stronger by the day, but Michael didn't grow weaker.
It may look like he was hanging behind because his War Rune's refinement degree didn't improve as quickly as everyone else, but that made sense.
Michael didn't focus on the refinement of his War Rune at this point in his studies. His approach to a perfect foundation was different.
Furthermore, he couldn't keep up with the refinement degree of others even if he wanted to. That was why he chose an approach that allowed him to grow stronger and keep up with others without mindlessly improving the refinement degree of his War Rune!
Thinking about his life in the Saphirelake Military Academy and home, Michael felt that there was only one thing bothering him; he missed his brother.
It looked like Danny had not set foot outside the Origin Expanse for the past three months. In the past, Danny spent several months in the Origin Expanse without leaving it even for a second.
However, at that time, Danny's territory had been on the verge of destruction. Recalling this event in the past, and the fact that his brother had looked like he was on the brink of starvation when he stepped out of the Origin Expanse for the first time after months, Michael was worried and a little frightened.
His worry wasn't eased at the sight of Alice tiptoeing in the large training hall. It caused the opposite effect.
Fortunately, one of the two worrywarts didn't have to keep worrying anymore.
Two days after Kaleb stepped through the Runic Gate to enter the Origin Expanse for the first time in his life he returned.
The moment the young man with blue hair and ocean-blue eyes stepped out of the Runic Gate, Alice rushed over to hug him tightly.
Kaleb's hair was disheveled, and his clothes were frozen, but his eyes screamed in excitement, and a vibrant smile blossomed on his face.
He allowed his sister to hug him, and looked at Michael, unable to control his emotions anymore.
Kaleb showed Michael the peace sign before he dropped the bomb.
"I awakened a 7-Star Soultrait!"
