Michael's memories of the final battle against the Tekur and the human traitors were still fresh in his mind. He recalled taking control of Archangel's Grace with brute force and how his skin and flesh were extracted, layer by layer. Everything in the range of Extraction had been extracted, one layer at a time.
It was a grotesque way to use Extraction. A brutish method, and certainly inefficient as it drained a tremendous amount of energy.
But it was also powerful. Powerful enough to kill Lords at the Peak of the 3rd Tier. No one could enter the dome of Extraction at some point. The closer the enemies, the stronger Extraction's power grew. The Stigmatas that had manifested all over his body unleashed the Essence of Extraction. They strengthened Extraction's power and unleashed its latent potential. At least, that was Michael suspected.
Michael recalled that something deep within him had been unleashed after his arms had been cut off. He was certain that there was something hidden deep inside him, and that some sort of seal holding it inside broke when he went all out.
'Did I shatter Extraction's limiter? No. I cannot sense the tremendous power anymore. It's almost like the power appeared when I was in peril, just to disappear once again. I didn't unlock some sort of new power either. Also, Extraction feels a little bit stronger than before but there is no major change. Does that mean I can strengthen Extraction by jumping into more perilous situations, or was that just a one-time thing?'
Various questions formed in Michael's mind, but there was no answer. He didn't really plan to jump into a dangerous situation anytime soon, either. Michael's priority was to develop his territory, earn a fortune, and grow stronger. The last few months had been busy enough. Fighting with his life on the line shouldn't become a habit. Though…maybe, it was already too late for that.
'Did I unleash the full potential of Extraction that is sealed within me? Is that how strong Extraction can be at 6-Star?' Michael couldn't really believe it.
Fortunately, he had various other doubts and queries that tormented his mind. The questions revolving around the power he'd executed at the end of the Flag War were pushed aside. Meanwhile, a particular memory resurfaced in his mind. The memory showed Giuliana Seraph as she spoke to Michael…speaking about Hesta.
'The Matriarch of the Seraph Family knows that Hesta is my sister…' Michael understood at last, his heart skipping a beat.
He thought about his sister every now and then. It was not too often these days, but Michael had a bad feeling about it. He was unsure why, but in the last few weeks he would sense increasingly uncomfortable whenever his thoughts drifted to his family. His gut twisted and he felt like destroying something. Michael encountered a similar phenomenon before Danny died and right before his parents messaged him on Starnet Messenger as well. The timing had been so uncanny that now he was dreading two possibilities.
Either that meant his parents died, or they were about to message him again. Michael was not sure which option he preferred at this point.
One way or another, Michael figured that something was about to happen. Something related to his family. That made him feel sick in the stomach.
"Fuck this shit," He cursed, sensing that his good mood after his talk with Kraft Viton was now in the gutters.
'Just forget them. None of them are important anymore. They will never come back, either way.' He thought, choosing to distract himself by creating the customized Soul Technique for Maria's Soultrait.
Michael retrieved a few tomes and concentrated on the Mark of Fate. The shard of Archangel's Grace was embedded into it. He closed his eyes and exerted the Inferior power of Archangel's Grace that resided within his War Rune.
By spending the next eight hours analyzing Archangel's Grace in great detail, Michael found out various characteristics and elements of Maria's 7-Star Soultrait. Archangel's Grace was not a Healing-type Soultrait at its core. If anything, it was a mixture of a Transformation, Summon, and Domain Soultrait.
Each type was related to Angels, but there was a distinct and clear difference, separating them. The weakest power was the ability to Summon the Spirits of Angels. It had to be augmented by the Seraph family's Inheritance Technique to Summon more than one Angel Spirit in the Heavenly Realm – which is what Michael called the healing domain that coated the entire area in sacred healing power.
The strongest ability of Archangel's Grace was the power to transform into an Archangel. Maria was granted temporary access to all powers of the Archangel. The only issue was that she could not use all of them even though she had access to them. The transformation drained a considerable amount of energy to be set into motion, which was followed by a constant drain of energy until the transformation was complete.
As far as Michael could tell, Maria could decrease the energy demand as the Soul Power residing within Archangel's Grace increased. That was what she did upon utilizing Heaven's Descent. The more Soul Power she had, the lower her energy consumption to unleash the transformation into an Archangel.
That was also why Michael didn't want to focus on the transformation ability for Archangel's Grace's Soul Technique. Soul Techniques drained the user's Soul Power. Therefore, the energy consumption to maintain her form as an Archangel would increase drastically right after the Soul Technique was activated. The Soul Technique might augment the transformation's power but given the increase in energy to maintain the form, Maria wouldn't be able to use the augmented power, in the first place.
With that in mind, Michael decided to augment the Heavenly Realm power of Archangel's Grace using the Soul Technique. Michael used his extensive knowledge of Common Class Soul Techniques, coupled with the fact that he possessed several Healing-type Soul Techniques in addition to his personal experience with Archangel's Grace. Over the next 36 hours, he diligently crafted several drafts of the Heavenly Realm Soul Technique. He called the technique Heavenly Realm, just like the name he'd given to Maria's power, because he was the only one who called it such, either way.
"Urgh. Why does this take so long?" Michael complained, throwing the newest version of Heavenly Realm aside before he slumped onto the bed. Altering an existing Soul Technique to create Soul Glacicle Bullet had been so much easier.
'Maybe I went a little bit overboard. I should tell Kraft Viton to postpone auctioning the customization of Soul Techniques for the time being…'
It had been easier to customize Soul Glacicle Bullet because Michael knew it like the back of his hand. His proficiency with the 5-Star Soultrait was rather high. In comparison, his proficiency with Archangel's Grace was close to non-existent. Furthermore, Archangel's Grace was a 7-Star Soultrait. It was several times stronger than Glacicle – and tens of times more complex. Glacicle was extremely simple, after all.
Michael was still rather new in the Soul Technique business. It would take a while before he could create a handful of customized techniques in a short period. Fortunately, there was no need to rush anything. He vowed Giuliana Seraph to create a Soul Technique for Archangel's Grace and that was exactly what he focused on doing. There was no need to accept any more customizations until the demand increased. That would naturally happen once neutral Soul Techniques hit the market in bulk.
Since he had some spare time now that he finished Heavenly Realm, Michael messaged the Matriarch of the Seraph household and Maria. They could pick up the technique and report issues – if there were any. He doubted that there would be any issues given that the technique was only a Common Class Soul Technique, but he might be wrong. It was not as if he was a perfectionist. Michael was just a human. And humans make mistakes. The only thing he could do was to minimize the mistakes and fix the remaining mistakes after Maria examined the technique and found some issues.
Michael's eyes were about to close, but he noticed something. Just as his eyelids were about to shut tightly, Michael noticed some faint flickers of energy from the corner of his eye. The flickers were minuscule and without Spirit Eyes being one of the strongest Soultraits in Michael's possession, he wouldn't have noticed them. The energy fluctuations beyond the walls of his room inched closer to his door before they came to an abrupt halt.
Michael channeled origin energy into Spirit Eyes and he added two layers of Enhancement to Spirit Eyes to get a better glance at what awaited him beyond the door.
He jumped up from the bed and swallowed difficult a moment later.
Three men and a woman shrouded in veils, stood in front of Michael's room. The veils shrouded their presence near-perfectly. All that exposed them were faint energy fluctuations that were increasingly difficult to notice. If not for Spirit Eyes, Michael would have never noticed them. But he possessed Spirit Eyes…and he did notice the four hidden Awakened.
Michael couldn't estimate the might of their power as they naturally restrained the power their bodies exuded, but he remembered having seen the faces of the three men and the woman.
They were Tier-5 Lords, each of them.
'I doubt that they came over for afternoon tea.' Michael joked in his heart, while his expression stiffened.
It was quite obvious what was going on. No one with good intentions would try to hide their presence like the four Lords by sneaking up to his room uninvited.
Michael understood at once that the four Lords were about to kidnap him. He opened Starnet Messenger in an attempt to send some messages to the people around him and to alarm the bodyguards that had been assigned to protect him, but Michael noticed several things simultaneously.
First, the energy fluctuations of the bodyguards located all around the building were extremely weak. They were not dead, but they had been knocked out and injured severely.
Second, Starnet Messenger was not working. His signal was blocked.
Third, his access to the Runic Gate was capped temporarily as well.
Michael couldn't even seek protection in the Origin Expanse. He had nowhere to run or hide.
The four Lords came prepared.
Interestingly enough, Michael was not as nervous as he should have been. On the contrary, his heart palpated in excitement as a sly grin appeared on his face.
