The moment Kaleb entered the Runic Gate, everything around him turned pitch-black.
He couldn't see anything, and his other senses felt disoriented as well.
The only thing he could feel was a strong force pulling him somewhere. The pitch-black scenery around him began to change as time passed eerily slowly. Dazzling white points dotted the black scenery around him. Stars emerged all around him, but before Kaleb could focus on the scenery, space twisted and he had to close his eyes.
A bright light at the end of the Runic Gate dazzled him.
For a moment, his sense of time disappeared. Kaleb was not sure how much time had passed, but when he opened his eyes again, he felt great.
Finally, he had arrived in the Origin Expanse!
"I can catch up to you now, Michael!!" He shouted aloud as a strong gust of frigid air brushed past his face.
He felt like he was about to freeze to death and began to shiver uncontrollably.
Recalling what his sister told him, Kaleb accessed the storage space of his War Rune. He retrieved a coat that had been made out of monster fur. It blocked cold naturally and repelled it, ensuring the wearer stayed warm and cozy.
Once he wore the coat, Kaleb could finally take a look at his surroundings.
It was cold, and the first things that entered his sight were frozen trees, a white wooden manor, and the beautiful appearance of the Basic Summoning Gate.
It stood grandly in the midst of the small snowstorm with its simple yet imposing appearance. Kaleb stepped closer to the Summoning Gate, his eyes gleaming brightly. The Summoning Gate's metal ring looked ordinary from afar, but the various symbols inscribed on its surface showed the metal ring's true value. They allowed the Summoning Gate to work, and to manifest the shimmering pool of energy in the center of the Summoning Gate.
"So beautiful…"
Kaleb touched the cold metal and smiled foolishly.
Tens of minutes passed without him moving from the spot in which he stared blankly at the Summoning Gate.
He only regained his focus when he heard someone stepping through the snow behind him.
"My Lord, I've been waiting for you," A young man wearing a suit greeted him with a deep bow.
"I am the first resident of your glorious territory and your personal butler. My name is Killian, but feel free to call me whatever you like. My mission is to serve you until death, my lord."
Killian retrieved a tattered leather scroll and a fist-sized crystal from the inner pocket of his suit and held them out for Kaleb to take.
"My Fortune Summoning Scroll, and the Soultrait Awakening Crystal!" Kaleb exclaimed, his eyes gleaming in joy.
He has been waiting way too long for this moment!
Kaleb didn't want to wait any longer. His hands shot forward to take both items at once.
"Good job, Butler Killian. I'm Kaleb Zenovia, your Lord. Remember the start of our legend!" Kaleb said as the fist-sized crystal in his hand began to glow brightly.
The glow was extremely bright, dazzling Kaleb and Butler Killian.
The Soultrait Awakening Crystal had been triggered, and its miraculous power was unleashed!
Streams of information flooded Kaleb's mind, and he closed his eyes to enter his consciousness where a bright white light appeared in the deepest part of his being.
The white light shone brightly. It seemed to pulsate as a symbol with complex lines and overlapping patterns manifested inside it.
More information streamed inside his mind, as the symbol was being completed, revealing a glacier blue supernova.
The moment the symbol was completely formed, Kaleb's mind couldn't take the information anymore.
Blood gushed out of his pores and everything around him turned black.
Kaleb collapsed as his knees buckled under his weight.
The next thing Kaleb could remember was waking up surrounded by a fortress of ice.
His entire territory was covered in ice. The wooden manor collapsed, and the frozen trees crumbled.
Huge tree-sized ice spikes shot up the area around the protection barrier. Some of them were covered in blood, while others had impaled rabbits, white deer, and other monsters grazing next to Kaleb's territory while shooting up from the ground.
Only Butler Killian was unscathed. He was on the ground next to Kaleb, trying his utmost to help his lord.
"My Lord, please wake up!" He had been shouting repetitively, yet Kaleb couldn't move.
His entire body was drained of all its energy.
He just wanted to use his Soultrait to test out its prowess when his entire energy was drained in an instant.
"I am awake…" Kaleb said weakly while trying to not pass out.
After Kaleb took a few deep breaths, Butler Killian helped Kaleb up. Yet, Kaleb's mind was somewhere else.
He was confused and over the moon.
'Frozen Nova…a 7-Star Soultrait….'
Only his Soultrait was on his mind, nothing else. Kaleb wished to activate his Soultrait once again. He took a deep breath and began to utilize the Chilling Phoenix energy absorption technique right away.
In a cold environment, the energy absorption technique was exceedingly powerful. It allowed Kaleb to replenish his energy in less than half an hour.
Yet, using up the energy he had replenished over the course of half an hour didn't even require five seconds. Kaleb activated his Soultrait with the desire to destroy the ice he had manifested unintentionally.
Cracks formed all over the ice instantaneously and it burst apart the next moment, creating millions of tiny shards that shot in the same direction, where they compressed.
A small ball of ice was formed from millions of tiny ice shards.
Intrigued, Kaleb willed the ice ball to shoot toward the nearby mountain wall. It burst forth and crushed into the mountain wall, which froze at once. The next moment, Kaleb hoped that the ice ball would burst apart – and that was exactly what happened – destroying the mountain wall that was reduced to smithereens.
His Soultrait drained all of his energy once again, depriving him of his consciousness a second time.
But this time when Kaleb awoke, he was giddy with euphoria.
"Powerful!"
Controlling his Soultrait was extremely difficult, but that was only obvious. Even the lowest form of utility required a tremendous amount of energy. Kaleb hadn't amassed enough origin energy to utilize the lowest form of Frozen Nova's power. He had yet to learn how to further control his Soultrait to use only a portion of its weakest form, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to use Frozen Nova until he reached the 3rd or 4th Tier.
Frozen Nova was that powerful.
Practicing the Zenovia family's Inheritance technique would allow him to utilize Frozen Nova much easier, while certain techniques would give him clues and patterns that could be replicated to use the ice element of his Soultrait in a simple way.
As long as Kaleb worked hard enough, he would be able to create icicles, ice spikes, and other ordinary elemental attacks.
Creating ordinary elemental attacks would be much more difficult than creating a powerful attack that was strong enough to sweep through his enemies. This would change with increased proficiency and increase in strength, but that was not important for the time being.
What was important was only that he had awoken a 7-Star Soultrait; one of the rarest and strongest Soultraits in the entire human race!
It was exhilarating.
In excitement, Kaleb picked up the Fortune Summoning Scroll.
He looked at the golden seal with glimmering eyes and broke it.
No matter what kind of Summon he would obtain from the Fortune Summoning Scroll, Kaleb wouldn't complain.
With a Soultrait like Frozen Nova there was no reason to feel like complaining even if his summon would turn out to be Starless - which was highly unlikely.
Despite his low expectations, Kaleb was confused when nothing happened after he broke the seal of the tattered Fortune Summoning Scroll.
After one minute passed without anything happening, Kaleb began to wonder if Alice and everyone else lied to him about the usage of Summoning Scrolls. Maybe he did something wrong?
But just before he let irritation and confusion get to him, the Fortune Summoning Scroll unrolled itself and shot inside the Summoning Gate's shimmering pool of energy.
In response to the Fortune Summoning Scroll disappearing inside the shimmering pool of energy, the intricate engravings all over the Summoning Gate's surface began to shine brightly.
In an instant, eight out of ten stars etched on the Summoning Gate began to shine brightly as well.
A ninth star lit up a moment later. The star was bright golden, but something was wrong.
The golden star devoured the light of the other stars, which dimmed down slowly.
Only the golden star remained as the outlines of Kaleb's first summon appeared in the pool of energy.
The outlines showed a large bird standing tall and proud. Its body was several meters long and it looked sleek and muscular.
"A Greater Eagle?" Kaleb mumbled his thoughts aloud, but he shook his head.
The mythical aura that was seeping out of the pool of energy set the bird apart from any earthly creature.
Bathed in the dim light that penetrated the icy surroundings, an extraordinary sight unfolded in front of Kaleb as the creature emerged from the pool of energy.
The creature broke free, revealing its majestic figure. From the tip of its perfectly sculpted beak to the end of its long, slender tail, everything seemed otherworldly about his first summon.
Each individual feather appeared meticulously crafted, reflecting the utmost attention to detail of the creator. The edges were outlined in a shimmering hue, glimmering with shades of sapphire, giving the creature an ethereal glow.
Its feathers shimmered with a radiant blend of icy blues and ethereal whites, casting an otherworldly glow in the frozen surroundings.
With graceful movements, it stepped onto the frozen ground, its talons gripping the frozen surface. A cold breeze swept through the vicinity of the summoned monster, carrying a scent of the Eternal Ice and the winter in its wake.
The majestic creature spreads its wings widely, causing the sound of cracking ice to echo in the surroundings. It screeched out loudly while continuing to spread its wings, revealing intricate frost patterns etched onto the transparent membranes of the creature's wings.
The mythical creature surveyed its surroundings, its crystalline eyes gleaming with ancient and eternal wisdom.
It looked straight into Kaleb's ocean-blue eyes.
'Eternal Ice Phoenix…'
The Link of Loyalty formed as they looked into each other's eyes.
Time seemed to stop as Kaleb stared in awe at the Eternal Ice Phoenix that soon became Kaleb's second subject.
Kaleb's journey was just about to start, but he was already in possession of a mythical summon.
A Summon capable of growing infinitely.
