Michael stepped into the Awakener line, hands slipping into his pockets as the crowd slowly shuffled forward.
After the first five minutes, the novelty of "standing around" wore off.
He leaned slightly to the side, letting his gaze wanderânot toward the front, but toward the cultivatorsâ line.
With a thought, his new class skill flared to life.
[Spirit Eyes]
A faint, cool ripple passed over his vision, and the world shifted. Lines of subtle light and color bloomed over the cultivators in his sight, threads of energy winding through their bodies like intricate root systems.
He ignored the Awakeners beside him. There was no point. Awakeners were... complicated. Even Spirit Eyes wouldnât give him an accurate read on their strength without using
Detect
, and that meant the risk of drawing attention he didnât want right now.
Their power didnât always match their visible energy signaturesâsome could be terrifying despite looking weak, others the exact opposite.
Cultivators, though? They were much easier to read. Their progress was written clearly in the way their power system operated.
His gaze passed over a broad-shouldered youth in the cultivatorsâ line.
The mana coating him was faint.
And noâMichael wasnât using himself as a point of comparison.
The youth would barely qualify as Elite-level by Auroraâs naming system, or Intermediate Stage by Lionheartâs.
For an Awakener, he was likely around level 11 to 13.
Talented in certain ways, yesâbut still weak.
Of course, not everyone in the cultivatorsâ line was like this.
Michaelâs Spirit Eyes swept further and caught a few brighter aurasâsolid, dense flows of energy that marked them as dangerous. A rare handful even pulsed with enough force to rival a Rank 2 monster.
Still, they had no business with him. The glance they spared in his direction was purely curiosity, the kind that faded almost as soon as it appeared. They were here for the exam, same as him.
After a few more scans, the novelty wore off. The crowd blurred into background noise, and Michael found himself losing interest.
Without hesitation, his focus shifted inward. His consciousness split cleanly, one thread still idly aware of the shuffling line in Aurora.
In the Land of Origin, inside a quiet study room in Thornvale Manor, Michael sat rubbing his forehead.
For awakeners, the original body and the clone in the Land of Origin rarely shared the same problems.
Physical injuries or exhaustion were carried solely by the body that sustained them. But soul energy and mental energy... those were different.
Or rather, anything tied to his consciousness seemed destined to affect both bodies simultaneously.
Fortunately, the headache was easing, the dull throb fading into something he could ignore. After rubbing his temples a bit more, he let his mind drift back to earlierâspecifically, to the moment heâd regain consciousness.
When his body in Aurora blacked out, this one had gone under as well, as if someone had simply flicked a switch. And when the body in Aurora woke up... this one followed instantly.
By the time his eyes had opened here in the Land of Origin, Jester had already been waiting. The undead wasted no time in briefing him on everything that had happened while he was out, relaying events in his usual unnervingly calm toneâdetached, precise, and just a touch too pleased with himself.
Michael absorbed it all, committing the details to memory.
Michael had to admitâJester was proving more useful than heâd expected.
Apparently, the undead had a form of telepathy. And not the usual whisper-directly-into-your-mind typeâno, Jester could project his voice in a way that made it
sound
like it was coming from right beside you, perfectly natural to anyone listening.
Using his voice, Jester had been able to stop anyone from entering the study room while Michael was unconscious.
Creepy? Yes.
Effective? Absolutely.
Michael didnât like how naturally Jester wielded those abilities, but he couldnât deny that having someone like this was... valuable.
Fortunately there was no issue.
With a calm mind, Michael turned his focus to something else.
With a thought, he reached to his soul and brought something out.
It was a spear.
His spear. And the root for his headache and lack of consciousness yesterday.
Though it was his fault.
[Venomfang Spear]
[Rank: Extraordinaryâ â â ]
[Type: Poison Spear]
Effect:
Inflicts a lethal-grade venom on the target, dealing devastating damage over time, crippling movement, and drastically weakening defenses.
Skill â Serpentâs Lunge:
Instantly extends the spearâs reach by up to 30 meters in a straight line, striking with 250% attack power and injecting a hyper-concentrated dose of venom. Usable five times before a seven-day cooldown.
Skill â Fangbreaker:
Upon striking a poisoned enemy, detonate the venom within their system, dealing immediate burst damage equal to the accumulated DoT (Damage over Time) and stunning the target for 2 seconds. 60-second cooldown.
"This thing is heavy!"
Indeedâit was far heavier than it looked, and longer too, its full length giving it a presence that demanded space.
The spearâs obsidian shaft seemed to drink in the light around it, every inch of its etched runes flaring in a sharp, venomous glow before settling into a steady, predatory pulse.
The spearhead gleamed with a faintly translucent sheen, as if carved from crystallized poison, each edge refracting a sickly green light in thin, dangerous flashes.
At the base, the serpent ornament no longer looked like a lifeless carvingâit seemed to coil in place, its scales glinting with an oily sheen, gemstone eyes swirling with an unsettling green radiance.
The air around it shifted subtly with pressure too.
*****
A/N: Some readers asked where Michael is seeing his evolution points. He still has a lot from before but to avoid getting the numbers messed up, I left for myself to see in my sheet.
Michael had about 8000 evo points. Most of his undead evolved from one star to three star rare rank creatures. A few evolved to one star extraordinary rank and five to three star extraordinary rank.
If you calculate it, thereâs still quite a lot.
Sorry for the previous mishaps when I uploaded the Chapters! Thank you for reading!!!