The day of departure arrived at last.
Michael never thought that he would be this happy when Alice told him that it was time to leave Piloq. But he couldn’t be more wrong. It felt great to leave since that meant he could escape Alice’s beating. One or two spars with Alice a day would have been great, but it was definitely not great to spar with her tens of times close to 16 hours a day– if one could call the beating he received a spar, in the first place.
“There is no need for you to be so happy. I will continue to train you until the day the Interdimensional Flag War starts. That’s five more days to train you!” Alice said, the faint smile on her lips speaking volumes. She enjoyed herself. Good for her. Bad for Michael.
“Ah…Great…” Michael cursed in his heart, trying to force a happy expression on his face.
Alice understood why Michael was unhappy. He was known for using his Soultraits to overpower his enemies. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work whenever he encountered strong opponents. One fluke and he might lose his life. Alice wanted to prevent flukes by training Michael relentlessly until he could learn to evade her attacks instinctively without having to use his Soultraits.
Once he reached that level, Michael could easily evade attacks with his Soultraits utilized right before unleashing a barrage of attacks to counter and kill his enemies. Immortal Knight thought like Alice. That didn’t make things easier, but it showed Michael that their approaches were indeed important. They cared about him and hoped that their merciless lessons would help him survive in the Origin Expanse and outside.
Michael thought a lot about the Origin Expanse. Unfortunately, he didn’t have too much time to spend in his territory. All Michael could do was hand Opars his Legendary Ring Artifact to fill it with the Power of Energy Imprint until the Interdimensional Flag War started. Other than that, Michael received the requested materials and items from Kraft Viton a day ago. Kraft Viton brought everything and told him that he was not in debt. Just a little bit…of course…
The profits of the Agriculture Project should negate his debts soon enough. There was no need to worry.
Alice procured Michael’s Summoning Scrolls even before their training session began. Michael used the Named Scrolls immediately whereas the Ordinary Scrolls were stored in the warehouse. He thought about extracting them immediately, but there was something he wanted to test out first.
Given the resources Michael had stocked in his territory, he didn’t have too much to do in the Origin Expanse. He could train, refine his War Rune, and spend time with his subjects to train, hunt, or get closer to them, but his presence was not required for the next few weeks. That was good. After all, nobody had a clue how long the Flag War would last. The dimensional portal would open just once in a year for three to ten days. The exact duration was uncertain. All the Tritan Alliance knew was that some Flag Wars lasted only a few days while others lasted ten days. The participants that survived the flag war would be expelled from the dimension and brought back to the place they entered once the active duration of the portal ended.
“Don’t worry. You will be at your peak when the Flag War starts,” Alice said reassuringly before turning a bit more serious, “I know that you understand why I’m doing this. I hope that you can kill one Tekur to satisfy the High Nobles. Because the Zan family is still bothering some of the families and clans affiliated with them. The only reason why nobody took any severe actions against you is because you didn’t kill the Zan Twins and also because of the video the Barbaric Couple shared online.
“It would disgrace the Zan’s affiliates to hunt you down for what the Zan Twins did. Other than that, it is pretty good that you are Maria’s Primal Amplifier. The Zan family will probably shut their mouths soon enough. That means you only have to kill one Tekur to complete your ‘punishment’, and everything will be back to normal…somehow…”
Alice didn’t sound pleased talking about Maria, but Michael shrugged that off. He was pretty sure that the Zenovia family and Seraph family were not on good terms. Even if they were, it was not as if their relationship mattered to him.
“I will be fine, don’t worry. The Zan family should wait patiently until I come to interrogate them. They understand something about my brother’s death, so they should wait for me. I will come to them on my own sooner or later,” Michael responded, his eyes turning ice cold. Thinking about his brother and what the Zan Twins said when they provoked him openly, Michael felt like crushing the Zan family in their entirety.
However, Michael also comprehended that the Zan clan were merely the pawns of some organization or High Nobles. They heed the commands of someone stronger than them. That someone probably had some connection to Danny’s death or was aware of more information. Michael had to investigate further soon enough.
“You can think about that once you’re strong enough. For now, your mission is to survive and avoid attracting too much attention from the High Society. It’s not like you’ve already attracted more than enough unwanted attention at this point,” Alice scolded him. She shook her head and gestured to him to get moving.
The day of departure had reached and they had to get inside the spaceship. The next few days would be spent in a small, but cozy spaceship. As for their destination, it was a small planet – the native planet of the Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs – where the dimensional portal had manifested.
They had to return to the ginormous hill surrounding Piloq to get to the spaceship. It was a massive, sleek, and incredibly advanced vessel that appeared to be a mix between a spaceship made by humans and an ancient, intricate relic of old times. The spaceship had a circular gate-like structure at its core with shimmering, glowing symbols.
The spaceship could travel through vast distances with incredible velocity. Once the symbols etched all over the vessel were activated, it emanated an otherworldly hum, and the ring-like gate at its center would come to life, releasing a mesmerizing whirlwind of energy. 𝑖𝑟𝘦𝘢𝒹.𝑐ℴ𝘮
Michael had never seen a spaceship like this. He read a lot about mankind’s space exploration technology due to his vast interest in space, but he had yet to find time to study everything in-depth. His lack of knowledge about spaceships manufactured by other races irked him a little bit seeing the oddly shaped spaceship, but that only fueled his motivation to research more once he had the time and focus to spend his little time on things other than the Origin Expanse, training, training, or training.
Michael and Alice were among the first to enter the spaceship. They didn’t have to wait for anyone else. Instead, they used the time to start sparring. Their spars didn’t even stop as more participants and powerhouses entered the spaceship. Alice ignored their existence entirely whereas Michael had to learn to endure their glares and the hushed discussions about him.
Ever since the attack on Piloq, Michael was not just another ‘nobody’ as before. Now he was a well-known nobody whom everyone researched to find out what made him so special. The answers they received were all the same; there was not much about Michael to find online.
His parents abandoned him after his sister disappeared. The brother was dead, and all properties of the Fang Family could be counted on one hand – one finger to be precise. It was a small apartment, nothing special.
The only special thing about Michael’s Family was the fact that the name of his sister couldn’t be found out. It was almost like his sister never existed. Only by digging deeper was it possible to find out that a sister existed – but her name was still unknown.
Most were not interested enough in Michael’s clan to put more effort into researching his sister as well. Instead, they studied his combat prowess – something that turned out to be much harder than initially expected.
Michael ignored the people around him and the only reason their spars ended for a few minutes was to sit down when the antique spaceship was about to take off. While sitting down, Michael didn’t even realize that Maria Seraph had appeared next to him. She seemed just as surprised to see Michael and looked at him with wide-open eyes.
Michael and Maria hadn’t seen each other since the bombardment of Piloq. Michael had no idea what Maria had been doing, but he did not really care that much either. All he cared about was that the Mark of Fate didn’t restrict him in any way. That was a pleasant surprise since it meant that Maria and the Seraph family were the only ones with issues, for now.
Maria’s lips parted and she desired to say something, but no words came out of her mouth. She was not certain how to behave around Michael because she dragged him into a big mess. However, Michael didn’t seem to hate her. It didn’t look like he did. Seeing Michael grin at her calmed her considerably. Thus, she decided to strike up a light conversation.
“Hey, Michael. It has been a while,” She greeted him and attempted to add a little tease, “Looks like your hair grew back since we met last time. You look much better now!”
It was true.
Michael was not bald anymore!!