Now that Michael knew what he had to do to increase his combat prowess rapidly, he could focus on studying the Tekur's memories and alter the wide variety of Soul Techniques he'd procure. In fact, Michael was pretty sure that he could experiment a lot and create a new series of Soul Techniques. These techniques wouldn't be on par with Common Class Soul Techniques right off the bat, but that was something he could work on.
But before he focused solely on his Soul Techniques, Michael had to finish the upgrade of Spirit Gaze. The last battle helped him procure enough SoulStar Fragments to complete Spirit Gaze's 6th Star. The Soultrait Symbol shone brightly and exuded tremendous power.
Michael's pupils were now entirely silver, creating a stark contrast to his vibrant golden irises. Upgrading Spirit Gaze didn't stimulate an evolution. It didn't hurt that much either. Michael could easily endure the pain.
However, there was something else he realized. The link between Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze was growing stronger. It pulled the two Soultraits closer until they clashed. The fusion of Spirit Gaze and Roc Eyes began.
The moment the actual fusion was initiated, his eyelids grew heavy. He was forced to close his eyes and experience tremendous pain as millions of tiny melting needles pierced through his eyeballs. The pain was even worse than it had been when Eagle Eyes evolved to Roc Eyes. Michael could barely muffle his screams as he began to bleed from his eyes once again. But what Michael didn't expect to happen was that the pain would spread further. The pain of millions of searing hot needles piercing through his eyeballs spread over his eyelids and continued to expand.
'Why is it so painful to upgrade most of my Soultraits. How about giving me some power without tormenting me? Wouldn't that work??'
Michael cursed in his heart but all he could do was endure the pain and hope that it would be over soon. There was nothing else to do.
He tried to adjust his breathing using the Sun Soldier's Breathing technique but it had little effect. All it did was pass some time.
Michael grit his teeth and clenched his fists until his nails dug deep into his palms. Blood trickled down his fists as he kept enduring.
Time seemed to pass eerily slowly. The pain reminded him that a single second could feel like an eternity. It was terrifying. However, Michael endured it knowing that the rewards would be generous. He knew that his strength would skyrocket once again once all of this was over. Thus, he waited impatiently, pushing himself to his limits.
The Soultrait Symbols of Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze clashed with each other. Cracks formed all over the Symbols and they burst into countless tiny pieces. Following that, the Soultrait symbols disappeared.
The Sphere of Light within Michael hummed loudly. It was almost like the Sphere of Light was grieving the loss of its two Soultraits. Michael lost control of Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze, yet he didn't realize any of it. All he could sense was that the severity of pain increased manyfold all of a sudden.
The Sphere of Light glowed brightly whereas the shards of Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze were pulled together. The Essences of Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze swirled around each other like a helix. The link created between the two Soultraits had spread alongside the helix, connecting the two Soultrait to create a proper double-helix. If Michael could see the structure of the Soulraits just now he would probably compare it to the physical structure of the DNA.
The Essence Helix as it was formerly called attracted the shards around itself. The shards were sucked into the Essence Helix that began to shape from anew, merging and fusing with each other over the course of several hours and took root in one of the two Soul Sockets they'd left behind.
The majority of the pain coursing through Michael's body dispersed the moment the newly fused Soultrait took root. A flood of information and understanding flooded his body and wiped away the pain that had tormented him for the last few hours. Michael grit his teeth and slumps to the ground onto his sweat-drenched back.
His wet clothes clung to his body like leeches. It was disgusting and made him feel uncomfortable. However, Michael couldn't move at this point.
All he could feel was his eyes and the discomfort inside his body. After Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze fused, only one of the two Soul Sockets were occupied.
The Sphere of Light revolved against this. He couldn't destroy the Soul Socket without harming the Sphere of Light, and harming the Sphere of Light was definitely not something Michael wanted to do. He had no idea what would happen if the Sphere of Light ended up damaged, or if it broke apart. The second possibility was the worst-case scenario but Michael couldn't be certain that it would never occur. It was not worth the risk.
That meant he had to use another Soultrait to fill the empty Soul Socket, otherwise, he would feel this uncomfortable emptiness within him until the end of time – or something like that. Michael didn't really plan to fuse a new Soultrait to his War Rune but it was not like he had a choice. Either he had to fuse a new Soultrait, or he would feel empty until he finally gave in to the demands of his Sphere of Light.
But before he gave in to the Sphere of Light's desires and demands, Michael had to find out more about the power of his fused Soultrait.
Spirit Eyes.
That was the name of his Soultrait. The flood of information and understanding he'd obtained told him about that quite clearly. The mass of information had been far more than usual as well. Nonetheless, Michael was struggling to understand everything.
'Spirit Disturbance still exists. The only difference is that the name changed to Spiritual Domination. Spiritual Domination is…thrice as strong as Spirit Disturbance…amazing. But there is also more now. Spirit Sight allows me to see the unseen. I can detect basically everything now. Ranging from Spirits to every last detail in the energy in my sight…and I can even process and understand most of it near-instantaneously. That's amazing…'
Michael was deep in his thoughts, going through the vast amount of information he'd obtained when someone approached him from the side. He saw a large hand reaching out for his shoulder.
Michael merely saw the figure from the corner of his eyes but he jumped into action at once. He rolled backward and jumped up in a smooth motion, steadying his feet and changing into a combat stance, ready to use his Soultraits and display Aethyr to fight the unknown figure when he realized who it was. It was Zeron.
But something was odd.
The figure was Zeron, the leading Warlock Centaur, but that was not the confusing part.
Zeron was not yet near him. The dome of Glacicle broke down somewhen in the last few hours, but there were still some of the dome's remnants. Zeron hadn't even crossed the dome's remnants yet. He was several meters away from him.
Only then did Michael recall something: Spirit Eyes had a third ability.
Prognosis.
Prognosis was similar to being able to predict the target's movements. The only difference was that he could see the movements before they actually happened.
Michael decided to use Prognosis on Zeron to see what he was doing and to find out how Prognosis worked, but all he could tell was that he had no idea whether Prognosis allowed him to look into the definite future or if the ability merely calculated the information at hand to anticipate the target's movements long before Michael's mind could do the same manually.
It was ominous, yet also extremely cool.
Michael was certain that Spirit Eyes would become very useful in the upcoming battles. After all, the Soultraits' power increased manifold, and the Soul Power which the Roc Eyes and Spirit Gaze had accumulated merged within Spirit Eyes. Once he came up with a proper technique to use Spirit Eyes with a Soul Technique, his enemies would learn to fear him – if they didn't already.
"What is wrong with your eyes, kiddo?" Zeron asked Michael after he regained his exposure.
Michael's eyes had already been weird before, but the current state of his eyes seemed even more abnormal and out of place now.
"My eyes?" Michael asked, summoning Aethyr in its Shield form to look at the reflection of the polished silvery metal.
Michael's eyes didn't look much different than before. His iris was still radiant golden, and his pupils glimmered silver. His eyes were bright and full of vigor. But there was also the point Zeron mentioned. There was still something different in his eyes, and around them.
The blood vessels in his eyes were not red anymore. The white in his eyes was now permeated with golden and silver veins that had replaced the red blood vessels.
His eyes didn't look human anymore.
But that was not all.
The area around his eyes had changed as well. The golden and silver veins spread across his eyelids and the area around his eyes. The vein-like marks were faint, but upon activating Spirit Eyes they began to glow dimly, forming a symbol – a mark.
The mark didn't look special at first. But looking at his own eyes in the polished shield made him realize something after a while.
Michael was not sure why or how that happened but the Symbol etched on Spirit Eyes' Soultrait was now etched on his face.
'How am I going to hide this?'
