Chapter 121 - Discomfort

An hour later, Kieran was lying on the training room floor, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. His body was drenched in sweat, and numerous injuries could be seen on him.

A shadow appeared above him, accompanied by a cold sensation on his cheek. He instinctively raised the upper part of his body to sit up and saw Elseria crouched in front of him, holding a cold soda can in her hand.

"Here," she said, extending the can towards him.

"Thanks," Kieran replied, taking the can and drinking all the contents as if he hadn't had a drink in days.

Elseria looked at him for a moment, her eyes moving to the injuries on his body.

"Do you always train like this?"

"Hmm? Yes. I try to give my all every time I train."

"Why are you training so hard?"

"Because I am weak," he said, his expression turning somber as his gaze fell upon Luna lying beside Runihoril, "If I weren't so weak and had made different choices, many things could have changed. She wouldn't have become a wandering soul."

Elseria remained silent, fixing her gaze on Kieran's eyes, 'So, he too can make such an expression? Until now, I had always seen him smile.'

A subtle pain pulsed in her chest. It was as if a tiny shard of glass had pricked her heart, sending a wave of discomfort through her.

She placed her right hand over her heart and furrowed her brow, not understanding where this discomfort came from. Her crystal essence traveled through her body, searching for any anomalies.

"Did Luna cause you some trouble?" Kieran suddenly changed the subject, and a smile reappeared on his face as if it had never left.

"No, she's quite calm," Elseria said as she stood up. The discomfort she felt a moment ago seemed to disappear just as it had come, "Have you finished your training?"

Kieran checked the time before nodding, "Yeah, it's getting late, and Ryan will be waiting for me to go to the cafeteria. Do you want to come with us?"

"Ok."

Kieran thought that she would refuse again and that he should insist, but to his surprise, she quickly accepted.

He stood up the next second, "Luna."

Hearing his call, Luna reluctantly swam towards him before entering his spiritual world.

"Let's go."

The two started walking through the academy towards the cafeteria. On the way, Kieran sent a message to Ryan to let him know that he would be arriving soon.

As they approached the bustling cafeteria, the two could smell the aroma of various dishes filling the air and the hum of conversation from the students enjoying their meals.

After getting their food, they found Ryan sitting at a table and joined him.

Ryan looked up as the two approached, a slight smile appearing on his face when he saw Elseria, then his gaze fell on Kieran's appearance, who looked exhausted and beaten.

"What happened to you? You look like shit," said Ryan.

"Still better than you," Kieran replied, sitting down in front of him.

It only took one exchange for the two to start arguing with each other.

Elseria sat calmly, observing the interaction between the two brothers while eating.

"I bet you trained with a training dummy again and got beat up. You have a weird fetish," Ryan said.

"Ah? I already told you I don't have any weird fetish. I can't find a training partner at any time. But if you want, you can serve as my training partner," Kieran replied.

Memories flooded into Ryan's mind, and his face paled.

"Let... Let's avoid that. I have a busy schedule between training my ability and improving my inscriptions. I don't have time to serve as your training partner. Why don't you ask Elseria?" he said, trying to escape the situation he had caused.

Kieran turned to Elseria before shaking his head.

"She's much stronger than me. She would waste her time with me as her training partner."

"It doesn't bother me," said Elseria, who had been silent until then.

"Then it's settled," Ryan said quickly as he started to eat.

"You don't need to help me. I can use training dummies," Kieran said, lowering his voice.

"It's nothing, and if you don't want my help, I'll take care of Luna while you train."

"Thanks."

Changing the subject, Kieran looked at Ryan and asked, "Were you able to find the catalysts you can use to forge an artifact?"

"I have some ideas, but I'm not sure yet. It will take me a few more days to prepare if we don't want to waste materials unnecessarily."

Kieran nodded and began to eat as well.

After finishing their meal, the three left the cafeteria before separating to go to their respective dormitories.

Walking alone, Kieran thought about the dinner and Elseria's words.

"Looks like she opened up a little."

Dividing part of his consciousness into his spiritual world, he observed Luna, "It's probably thanks to you that it happened."

A faint smile adorned his face as he entered his room. After taking a shower to clean his body of all the sweat from the training, he sat cross-legged on his bed, closing his eyes.

The next moment, he found himself in his spiritual world. A yellow sun as big as a house pulsing with a cloud of crystal essence rotating around it overhung its two crystal trees.

Under the sun was an orb as large as himself made of pure crystal essence. It shone with a radiant glow, without impurities.

"It's time to check how beneficial this orb is for cultivation," he said as he sat down in front of the orb.

Closing his eyes, Kieran focused on the orb. A thread of crystal essence escaped from the orb before leaving his spirit world, entering his bloodstream and beginning to nourish it.

The crystal essence slowly seeped into each drop of blood, passing through each of his veins, then continued its path, reaching his bones, strengthening and fortifying them.

Continuing to direct the crystal essence through his skin, tendons, muscles, organs, brain, and bone marrow, a rotation of the Heavenly Sun Body was completed before he redirected the crystal essence within his spiritual world to nourish his crystal trees and finally merge with the cloud of crystal essence rotating around the yellow sun.

Exhaling a long breath, his focus shifted to the rotating yellow sun. Guiding the crystal essence that formed the yellow sun towards its center, he compelled it to compress, pushing the sun's brilliance to condense.

The once expansive sphere gradually diminished, its golden glow becoming more concentrated. Maintaining a steady concentration, Kieran synchronized his breath with the compression of the yellow sun. The condensing energy inside was like a volcano on the verge of eruption, threatening to escape his control at any moment, but he did his best to control it.

Time passed slowly, and the yellow sun, which had once been the size of a house, was now reduced to the size of Kieran.

Once the sun was stable again, he released his control over it, and it resumed its rotation. The gravitational force increased several folds, and the cloud of crystal essence circling around it was quickly attracted and absorbed, increasing its size slightly.

Looking again in the direction of the orb, he gathered another thread of crystal essence from it before repeating the rotation.