Chapter 17 – Return

Once he crossed the rift, several notifications appeared on Kieran's aurora collar, most of them from his mother, who was worried about him.

A slight smile appeared on his face as he texted his mother to let her know he was back safe and sound.

"It's already too late to go to the academy. I managed to earn quite a bit of money through the rift. Maybe I could buy a crystal essence manipulation technique."

Heading to a train station, he took a magnetic train towards a shopping district that was famous in Ozryn.

He sat looking at the city through the train window, the skyline was littered with elaborate skyscrapers, flying cars could be seen driving all around the city, and occasionally, cultivators could be seen flying through the air with their own abilities or with the help of flying crystal beasts.

Several minutes later, he arrived at his station and got off the train before going in front of a 30-story building. The building was filled with stores belonging to Starlight Industries, one of the largest companies in the Aegis Alliance.

Their company had stores on all the planets belonging to the alliance, their merchandise ranging from simple soap to spaceships. Almost everything could be purchased from them.

"This building alone must have cost hundreds of millions of nova."

Kieran entered the building, getting closer to the reception, he spoke with the employee who told him the floor for the crystal essence manipulation techniques.

He arrived at the 17th floor, where he entered the store dedicated to crystal essence manipulation techniques.

As soon as he entered, a staff member came in front of him to greet him.

"Welcome! How can I assist you today? Are you looking for a particular technique?"

"Hello. Do you have any crystal essence manipulation techniques that could be used with claws?"

"Of course, follow me."

Kieran followed the staff member, he then showed him a holographic screen with thousands of techniques on it. Their price was exorbitant, some of them were worth millions of nova. He continued to scroll through the list of techniques before his eyes until the prices he saw finally became affordable to him.

After several minutes he finally found a technique that looked like what the lycan was using in his dream. The technique was called Crystal Essence Claw.

The purpose of the technique was to form claws made of crystal essence , the more the technique was mastered, the more the claws became blue until they finally took a physical form replacing the ethereal form of the crystal essence, it was not a great technique, but its price was affordable to him.

'If I use this technique to cover my claws instead of forming them I should be able to reproduce what the lycan was doing in my dream.'

He purchased the technique for 1200 nova before receiving a notification on his aurora collar, indicating access to the technique.

If ownership of the technique was not purchased, access to it would be restricted. It would only be possible to access it via his aurora collar without being able to share it with anyone. When a person checks the technique on his screen, the screen blurs for other people around him. He could not show it to anyone without the permission of the owner of the technique.

He suddenly remembered the messages he had received from his mother when he returned from the rift.

'I should buy a vital orb, even if their price is high, once it absorbs a drop of my blood, my mother will be able to know that I am fine at any time. She won't have to worry so much about me in the future. I can also take the opportunity to buy a larger spatial gem.'

Kieran took a detour into the store to purchase the two items before returning home. As soon as he crossed the door of his house, he felt a weight hit him. Lowering his head, he saw his mother hugging him.

"Welcome back, Kieran."

"I'm back, Mom."

***

After staying with his mother for a while, Kieran made his way to his chamber.

His eyes shone with excitement as he displayed the Crystal Essence Claw technique information. He spent a moment reading all the information about the technique before sitting cross-legged.

He changed his hand to that of a lycan, and using all of his concentration, he moved the crystal essence in his body as instructed in the technique. Slowly a thin layer of the crystal essence covered his hand.

His next goal was to concentrate more of his crystal essence to form claws while keeping the crystal essence stable.

Kieran advanced step by step. He began by forming a single crystal essence claw above his own, a dense film of crystal essence covered the first claw of his hand. He kept the crystal essence in this state, trying to better understand the technique. After understanding how to maintain the crystal essence in this form he began to form the second claw.

At first, Kieran failed several times. Each time he failed to form a claw, he reread the entire technique, and by the end of the day, he was able to form a dense film of crystal essence around each of his claws.

Kieran was still practicing when someone knocked on his door.

"Enter."

The door opened, and Ryan walked into his room. He looked at his brother for a moment.

"Dinner is ready," Ryan said, turning around.

"Ryan, wait."

Seeing Ryan turn around, Kieran called him as he threw three small blue stones at him.

Ryan caught them before raising an eyebrow.

"What are you doing? Why are you giving me crystal cores?"

"I got quite a lot of harvest through the rift, and these three crystal cores don't contain enough crystal essence to upgrade my crystal trees, so I can give them to you."

"You could have sold them."

"Why sell them if you can use them?"

Ryan looked at his brother before leaving without saying anything.

*sigh*

A long sigh came from Kieran before he followed his brother.