My Soul card is a Reaper-Chapter 906: The Horus Temple Arc (Part-2)

"Iphi Magnolis, Title: Scarlet Flames, 54 years old; Rank-7 with nearly thirty years of experience in the field. Just so you know, I was a part of team SKY for 10 years, and I had a near 100% success rate last year. So, you should really know your place and stay here as if you don't exist, alright?"

Azrael was first surprised that this girl was actually an old woman, maybe not by the world's standards, but still she is like thrice his age, but at the same time, her words were too immature to the point Azrael really felt the urge to laugh out loud. In the end, he played along with her, giving an elaborate gentleman bow, "Yes, Your Highness. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to take a rest."

"Hmpf, go on." She went back to her bed and continued to sleep.

Azrael shook his head with a smile and sat on the bed in a lotus position.

'Energy Condensation'

"Before we go into this dungeon, I need to master this technique."

Shutting his eyes, Azrael concentrated on his surroundings. "Okay, let's see… Hmm… two hundred meters? That seems right for the starters…"

He heightened his senses to atleast two hundred meters above, reaching the world outside the facility. Outside, there was nothing but a barren, cold desert, stretching for dozens of miles in every direction.

From there, he started absorbing the natural energy. The absorbed energy entered his body, and then he simultaneously refined it into soul energy, slowly but steadily increasing his reserves.

As the distance is quite far and he is still a beginner, it took several minutes for a little bit of natural energy to even reach him, much less be absorbed into his body.

After several tries, he finally absorbed a minute amount of energy and proceeded with refining it.

Surprisingly, it was quickly refined in a smooth manner, just like how butter melts in hot oil.

As soon as the natural energy entered his body, he observed that his own soul energy rushed towards the invading objects and absorbed them instead of trying to repel them as a part of a defensive mechanism. "Perhaps it is due to the high compatibility," thought Azrael.

Whatever the case, Azrael was satisfied with the outcome and continued with energy condensation, a high-ranking technique he was taught by his late teacher. It became smoother and smoother every time he received near-death injuries. And after the breakage of the seal, his radius increased to 200 meters now.

Just like that, several hours passed, and dawn arrived. Azrael was immersed in his training.

As soon as the girl woke up in the morning after her 12 hours of sleep, she spotted her roommate. She rubbed her eyes and took a clear look at him again with her eyes wide open, "What was that?"

A faint glow of red aura formed a thin layer over his body.

A few hours later, the red aura around his skin turned blue, and he finally opened his eyes with a smile on his face. "The number of soul energy particles has increased by more than 30000 overnight. I have a long way to go, but it is fine."

After finishing his brushing and bathing, Azrael left for the reception counter to call for Colonel Hamid to get into the training room. As for Iphi, she had long gone by the time he opened his eyes. He doesn't know where she went, and neither does he care. After all, this lodging is only temporary.

But then again, he still didn't find out the reason for the dorm's existence. Because of Iphi's personality, he couldn't ask for the details and kept quiet. Now that he was curious, he asked the receptionist directly. As she would know his details, he thought she would be patient in explaining them to him.

Fortunately, luck is on his side, and she informed him that, rather than a home, this dorm is more like a detention facility for the Arcana Master, working for the government, who messed up during the mission more than once and indirectly caused casualties. All the people in the dorm were under observation. As for the staff members, they live in another dorm located somewhere else.

"So, that girl was kicked out of Team SKY?" Azrael remembered his conversation with his roommate. He proceeded to enquire more about her.

The receptionist was quite cooperative. She went through the database and informed him of the basic details about her. Azrael realized that his assumption was right.

He then asked, "Was she on a mission right now?"

"No, as I told you before, the people here are under observation. No one is allowed to take a mission until they receive a pass from a colonel or higher officer. She must be in a training room or must have been summoned by a superior. I don't know…"

Maybe Sarah was also interested in Azrael. She tried to flirt with him a little bit and even was successful in getting his number, but unfortunately for her, Azrael has no interest in talking with her on the phone. He planned to block the number once this mission was over.

After a while, Colonel Hamid made a visit to the dorm and escorted him to a special training chamber.

"Thank you." Azrael gave a salute before clicking on the button, which opened the metallic door.

A dark red barrier appeared before him. Seeing the surprised look on the young man's face, Colonel Hamid suddenly started explaining the history of the chamber, "These chambers were created with the help of our legendary Arcana Master Codenamed 'Graviton,' the only Arcana Master in the history of our Llyne who managed to become a Supreme Being, but too bad that he couldn't breakthrough to demigod realm. Anyway, at the current stage, we have 12 of these gravity chambers in this facility, and only qualified cadets can enter this place. If you are given access, that itself states your potential."

Azrael only smiled in silence, giving a nod of understanding.

As the colonel left the place, leaving Azrael to his own devices, the latter continued to stare at the barrier. A look of surprise was spotted on his face as his gaze penetrated through the barrier to watch what was going on inside.

There was a fight going on between a middle-aged fellow and a teenage-looking girl. The latter was none other than Iphi Magnolis, who was in the midst of a spar against an opponent whose fists transformed into stone, an Earth element Body transformation skill. As for Iphi Magnolis, she was wearing some purple glows and had a whip made of flames in her hand.

"Let's see what this chamber does…"

Azrael then stepped inside the barrier, and in an instant, he felt an enormous amount of pressure, almost forcing him to kneel.

Realization dawned upon him. "So, this is the modified gravitational pressure, huh. Judging by the pressure, I guess around 7 times?"

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused on his meridians. He pushed a substantial amount of soul energy particles away from his body, forming a bubble around him. "Bubble Technique." All of a sudden, the pressure decreased a lot, and he could freely stand just like he was outside.

This was called a bubble technique that he got from the market for 100,000 credits. Its effect is to reduce the pressure on the body faced by an outside source like gravity, aura, the weight of an object, wind, etc.

However, the problem is that the consumption of the Soul energy particles appeared to be huge for Azrael. "It looks like I can resist for ten and a half minutes at most…" Intending to act as a rookie with little experience but filled with potential, he canceled the technique in the next second and just sat on the floor in the lotus position and became a spectator.

He doesn't know whether both of them are ignoring his presence on purpose or they are engrossed in the sparring and didn't realize that he was there. Whatever the case, the sparring session between the two of them went on without any pause.

Meanwhile, Azrael, who was feeling the gravitational pressure, stuck to the floor and faced a struggle to straighten his back as this is the first time he ever experienced such a thing. Perhaps, he can move around freely once he got used to it, but for now, he can only sit down and observe. He observed that both of them, and then suddenly, a scarlet glow came from beneath the dark patch that covered his left eye… "Hmm…"

Suddenly, everything became slow. Azrael could clearly see how each fist was going to hit or how each foot was moving.