Michael knew that Frederik was strong, but his intelligence and personality were questionable.

He was already in a bad mood because the Barbaric Couple was once again around to annoy him once again. Michael could tell that Julian Spinne must have heard them gossip about him, which is why the young, skinny man approached him with bad intentions.

Julian Spinne was not important to him, but the Barbaric Couple felt like a parasite. The first time he came across them was at the House of Witchery. Michael could accept their actions in the House of Witchery because he had received many benefits from interfering in their lover's spat.

But their attitude during the aptitude assessment was truly annoying. They were not weak, by any means, but the Barbaric Couple was just too full of themselves, bad-tempered, and looked down at their opponents.

Whenever they fought someone weaker than them, they fooled around intentionally, just to show off that they were superior.

And this was visible with the way Frederik's first two opponents ended up with hundreds of cuts all over their bodies. Frederik could have but purposefully didn't end the battle quickly. No, he made his opponents suffer and humiliated them. They had to surrender for the battle to end.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline's opponents were partially frozen before the battle ended with the interference of the referee. She toyed with her victims and never even thought about fighting seriously.

They made fun of their opponents and disrespected them. It was unfair to those combatants who gave their utmost to fight seriously.

Michael really wanted to see the Barbaric Couple have a taste of their own medicine.

Their actions made him recall the fight against the Lionhearts from a few days ago. The Lionhearts had fooled around with his subjects, killing them slowly one after another with their blazing flames. They didn't show mercy. Instead, they used Michael's subjects as toys to fool around with and torture them.

Michael's mind had been flooded with the memories of his fight against the Lionhearts after he defeated Frederik. He had been generous enough to the annoying brat by not slicing Frederik's throat when he had the chance but Frederik was testing his patience. Michael couldn't hold back anymore when Frederik was foolish enough to ignore the mercy he had shown the first time.

The tension and the memories of the gory battle where his people burned to death right in front of him were still fresh in his mind.

So in order to not thrash the hopeless fool, Michael only stared at Frederik's pitiful figure for a few seconds and walked out of the arena. He noticed that Silverian Schild's gaze was fixated on him, staring at him intently, and Michael returned his gaze.Their eyes met, and neither side was afraid to maintain eye contact. The right corner of Silverian's lip tilted upward and he nodded subtly to Michael before he turned back to Frederik.

Michael had finished his third fight, and he could go home now. Many other applicants had already left after they finished their quota of three fights, hoping that they had done well enough to be accepted into the Saphirelake Military Academy.

Michael was not too worried about that. He gave his best and showed what he was capable of. If that was not enough to get accepted, then the Saphirelake Military Academy didn't deserve someone like him.

It was not as if his future would be destroyed by not getting accepted into the Saphirelake Military Academy. Some things would be a little bit more cumbersome such as researching the old languages before the Third Epoch and being taught unique combat techniques by high-tiered instructors, but that was it. He would not fret about rejection and simply move ahead with other tasks.

With that in mind, he went for a shower and returned to the cafeteria. After using up so much origin energy, Michael was hungry once again.

He had to refill his body with nutrition to provide the War Rune enough power to replenish his origin energy back to the full capacity of a Lowest-grade Tier-1 Lord.

Being able to use nutrition to replenish origin energy was another function of the War Rune. Not only did it refine the body and increase the limit of origin energy that can be stored inside the body, but it could replenish the origin energy Michael used up.

By the time he finished dinner, it was already past 8 pm. He was a little tired, but he didn't go to sleep just yet. Instead, he hailed a shuttle that brought him to the Central Trading Hall.

Michael had a vast fortune of 40,000,000$ to invest in his territory and didn't want to return to the Origin Expanse empty-handed.

There were many things Michael wanted to purchase, but he had to do some research first. He opened the Bartholomew Network and spent an hour researching a few items, including the price for a Basic Summoning Core.

Unfortunately, Summoning Cores weren't sold online. Some articles reported about Summoning Cores being sold in VIP auctions, but there was no price mentioned. Most of the time, Summoning Cores were exchanged with other valuable goods rather than money.

That was a little sad because Michael would have loved to purchase more Summoning Cores in the future, but it was fine even if he couldn't procure more Summoning Cores for the time being.

He was about to close the crystal watch's holographic screen after completing his research when he noticed that he had received a message.

Michael opened the message, hoping that it was his brother. Unfortunately, Danny had not yet returned from the Origin Expanse.

Instead, he received a message from Alice Zenovia.

[Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): I heard that you reached the last round of the final assessment easily. Congratulations. Message me please once you're done. I want to complete our transaction. The Mythic Summoning Scrolls have been prepared for you!]

'Transaction?' Michael was confused for a moment. However, upon reading 'Mythic Summoning Scrolls', he recalled something.

'Ahh, right. I forgot that Alice wanted to buy Tigerfang!'

Tigerfang was an exceptional Weapon Artifact. He was thankful to Danny for gifting it to him, and it hurt his heart a little bit to sell it off.

However, Danny also told him to make the most use of Tigerfang and gain as many benefits as possible when handing over the Epic Artifact to him.

Danny knew that Tigerfang's utility would decrease the further Michael progressed. That was also why he told his little brother to sell Tigerfang once he felt the need to purchase better weapons.

And according to Michael, exchanging Tigerfang with a bunch of Mythic Summoning Scrolls was certainly worth it. After all, Mythic Summoning Scrolls couldn't be purchased easily. They were increasingly rare, and only a few people would sell them instead of using them to strengthen their own territory.

Michael didn't have to think long before he responded to Alice.

[Michael Fang: I finished the aptitude assessment, and I'm currently in the Central Trading Hall. If you're not in a hurry, we can meet up somewhere close in an hour or two. I just want to purchase a few things.]

He closed the crystal watch once he sent the message to Alice. He strode toward the House of Witchery but stopped just outside the entrance when he received several notifications.

[Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): If you want to purchase stuff for your territory, wait until we've met. I can be in the Central Trading Hall in ten minutes!]

The second message was the location of a restaurant in the Central Trading Hall, which was followed by a third message popping up in front of him.

[Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): Let's meet up there. Just tell the staff that you have a reservation in my name, and they'll take you to a private room]

Michael finished reading through the messages in no time. He was not sure how the Mythic Summoning Scrolls were related to his purchases, but there was no harm if he waited a bit.

Nonetheless, Michael was mildly curious about her plan.

'What is she planning again?'

[A/N: I know this is annoying, but it would be great if you could leave a review. I am close to obtaining a ranking, and it means a lot.

Spend your hard-earned powerstones on this novel to receive special benefits - such as more chapters and a happy author - the latter is the most important!]