At the end of the day, Mr. Klein was not a great combatant. He might be a Tier-3 Adventurer, but it was quite obvious that he hadn't been fighting in the Origin Expanse for years. He was rusty and his movements were sluggish. Lords like Taros and Tac Lec would have an easy time dealing with Mr. Klein – if not for his Armored Knight.
The Armored Knight was extremely strong at combat, and if not for 6-Star Extraction enhanced sixfold with 5-Star Enhancement, Michael would have had a much harder time dealing with the Manifestation-type Soultrait. Its combat prowess was at the Peak of the 2nd Tier, and on the verge of breaking to the 3rd Tier, after all!
Michael turned the tides of the battle against the Armored Knight after he inflicted a shallow injury to it with several enhanced Qi Sword blades. He overwhelmed its faint self-consciousness and drained its entire energy, pushing both the Armored Knight and Mr. Klein into a tricky position.
Being weak in real combat, Mr. Klein could only rely on the Armored Knight to clash with Michael head-on. However, the Armored Knight drained most of its energy after fighting Michael for a few minutes. This put Mr. Klein in a bad position, which could only be solved by retracting the Armored Knight and attacking on his own.
Unfortunately, being a prideful person, the Barbaric Couple's shouts had distracted Mr. Klein. He wouldn't have minded being naked in front of his enemy. Defeating his enemy would have been more than enough to cover up for being naked. But the video recording of the bystanders was not something Mr. Klein could accept. And that was when Mr. Klein's loss was determined.
Being rusty didn't cause his defeat. Mr. Klein would have been able to fight head-on against Michael. Using some tricks he had learned over the course of the years, Mr. Klein should have easily defeated Michael. But his pride and clear underestimation of his opponents' powers and trickery led to his defeat.
Mr. Klein fell hard onto the ground when Michael's Extraction tapped into his Lifeforce. A wisp of fear emerged in his heart, and a trace of confusion plastered his face.
Michael's eyes glowed in a golden sheen that ought to spread warmth and comfort. Yet, to Mr. Klein, the warm golden hue felt as cold as ice. He saw fury and hatred in Michael's eyes…and the intention to kill.
'Is he really going to kill me? This kid is insane!' Mr. Klein screamed in his mind.
They were in the Saphirelake Military Academy, and he was a teacher. How dare a student attempt to kill him?! It didn't matter that Mr. Klein was not a well-known teacher and that his combat prowess ranked the lowest, just like his Tier. He was still a teacher and ought to be respected, no matter what he said or did!
But being a faculty was not going to be of much help to him. The moment Mr. Klein mentioned the Primedival Pyramid, he invited trouble and ridicule for himself. Michael didn't even think about holding back anymore. In fact, he wouldn't give up until he obtained the information he desired – even if that meant he had to torture and humiliate a teacher in the middle of the academy's grounds, making a public spectacle of him.
Staring blankly at Michael's crazed expression, Mr. Klein finally realized that they made a big mistake. He had already gotten a bad feeling when the Zan Twins were attacked mercilessly. Michael might have said that the twins could be healed easily – which was true –, but Michael broke the sacred rules of the military academy, nonetheless.
Was he not afraid of the aftermath of his actions?
At this point in time, Mr. Klein could clearly tell that Michael did not care. He might have been holding back before but that was a thing of the past.
'Who the hell said that Alice's student is a naive weakling? What kind of dumb idiot gave us this order?!?' Mr Klein screamed in his heart all while watching Michael retrieving the Wyverntooth Spear.
He twisted the spear blade in Mr. Klein's shoulder to inflict more damage before pulling it out. He then stored the weapon artifact back into the War Rune while unleashing Mind Reader enhanced with the Power of Enhancement that had been stored in the Legendary Ring Artifact.
Simultaneously, he unleashed the ring artifact's full dragon might. The dragon might fused with Michael's fury and killing intent, impacting heavily on Mr. Klein. A seed of fear and despair had long since been planted in Mr. Klein's heart, but it blossomed into a huge, thorny plant that wanted to tear him from the inside out. Staring at Michael felt like staring at a ferocious monster that was about to tear him apart.
For the first time in the last decade, Mr. Klein felt the Grim Reaper slowly creeping closer. His body was twitching horribly, but Michael was merciless. His left hand shot forward and clutched Mr. Klein's head tightly.
"Now tell me everything you know about the Primedival Pyramid and how my brother died. If I sense that you are lying to me, I will kill you and get everything I want from your memories, you fucking bastard!" Michael growled, continuing to unleash both Extraction and Mind Reader simultaneously.
Mr. Klein's mental defense was already weak. However, Michael did not hesitate to further attack his defenses and removed the last remaining layers of Mr. Klein's mental resistance before he started to read his mind – every single thought that flashed through it!
[I don't want to die!]
[Please, just let the teachers arrive. PLEASE COME!!]
[I shouldn't have listened to their orders. Why would anyone want to scheme against Alice by using such a monster as a target!?]
[Easier target? That guy is a monster!!!! Hiro…I hope your sons will never be able to reattach their arms ever again!!!!]
Michael's expression worsened as he kept listening to the nonsense flashing through Mr. Klein's mind. His grip around Mr. Klein's neck tightened and his right hand pierced into the teacher's abdomen, inflicting tremendous pain.
The enhanced Qi Sword shrouding his right hand could easily cut through Mr. Klein's skin and flesh. However, to inflict pain, Michael mostly released small waves of Sword Qi inside Mr. Klein's body after he cut inside his flesh.
Mr. Klein screamed out in pain, but Michael only stared coldly at him.
The weaker the lifeforce and mental defenses the easier it would be to read his mind and extract Memory Orbs. That was something Michael had learned after using Extraction for months.
Michael also learned that inducing fear and despair was exceptionally useful to further weaken the mental defense of his targets.
Thus, he kept torturing Mr. Klein while simultaneously weakening his mind with Spirit Whips that struck the teacher's mind, hard.
A minute felt like an eternity for both Mr. Klein and Michael. While Michael was trying to get hold of useful information, Mr. Klein could only scream in horror and pain. His voice grew weaker by the second, which decreased the influx of useful and coherent information even further.
Michael grit his teeth and slapped Mr. Klein, just to change his tactics.
He stopped extracting the teacher's lifeforce and origin energy. Instead, he used six-fold enhanced Extraction to extract Mr. Klein's memories – focusing on the information related to the Primedival Pyramid and Daniel Fang.
By now, Michael had found out that the head of the Minor Noble House, Hiro Zan, had given Mr. Klein a mission for the last decade. Michael first thought that Hiro Zan was somehow involved in the incidents revolving around his brother's death, but he quickly realized that Hiro Zan was merely a pawn as well. It was just that Hiro Zan had a higher authority than Mr. Klein, and that he was given the mission to forward them to the lower-ranked pawns.
It confused Michael a little bit when he heard that the patriarch of a Minor Noble house was merely a pawn, but given the powerplay and shifting dynamics of the human race's hierarchy, it did make sense for Minor Nobles to work for High Nobles, Supreme Families, Great clans, or possible even the Big Five Universities and the Great Three Academies.
Politics were never something Michael was interested in, but he could tell that he was already dragged into some dirty politics.
The moment he accepted Alice's personal lessons, Michael indirectly accepted to become a chess piece in the game of the powerhouses. The only question was what kind of chess piece he was. He was schemed against in order to drag Alice's name and reputation into the mud. The plan worked out well, but the damage caused by Michael was beyond everyone's expectations.
He had severed the arms of the Zan Twins, cut off one of Mr. Klein's arms, and also collected a considerable number of useful pieces of information.
Michael focused Extraction upon Mr. Klein to extract his memories. He used the vast majority of his stored energy, and broke past the teacher's last strands of resistance before a small Memory Orb manifested in Michael's hand. At last, Michael extracted his first Memory Orb from a living being – though draining tens of times more energy than usual.
Michael ignored the ghastly expression on Mr. Klein's face as he absorbed the Memory Orb. He then grasped Mr. Klein's face, closed his eyes, and overexerted himself to extract the memories of the last few seconds from the teacher's mind.
After all, Michael didn't want Mr. Klein to share with everyone that he could extract someone's memories.
The other bystanders might have seen the orb in Michael's hand, but they wouldn't know what he had actually done. As for the rest they witnessed, Michael wouldn't bother explaining. There was simply no need to do so.
His Soultraits were his, and he wasn't obliged to tell anyone about it just because they were curious.
He destroyed the second memory orb containing Mr. Klein's understanding of his Soultraits. That way, Mr. Klein would forget what exactly the golden streams did to him after they entered his body.
At the same time, Michael began to frown deeply as his mind began to digest the teacher's memories related to the Sacred Desert, the Primedival Pyramid, and his big boss.
