“Hello,” Michael answered the call, after pausing his meditation.

“It’s Lisa.” A lovely, yet bland voice sounded out.

“Ah, the slender Lisa. How are you? The old lady isn’t mistreating you is she?” Michael responded with probably more knowledge than he should have.

“You knew she came for me?” Lisa asked in confusion.

“Well she certainly didn’t come for the money.” Michael replied, ignoring her curiosity.

“She wants to meet you and test you.” She continued after seeing that she wouldn’t get anything out of him.

“I have no interest in her tests, but I do want to meet her.” Michael responded bluntly.

There was a pause before Lisa asked, “Why?”

“I’m not completely clear on matters concerning her world, and desire answers concerning certain matters. Tell her it is a matter of resources.” Michael explained.

“Dinner at the Holden, tomorrow at 7. Ask for Sheona.” Lisa said before hanging up without waiting for an answer.

Michael smiled at her straightforwardness before continuing his meditation. Michael had given his number to her for this purpose, so he was satisfied with the results.

Michael had almost met the requirements for what he wanted to do. After meditating for several weeks, Michael had gathered almost enough element particles to advance to the stage of rank 1 mage, which would be impossible for anyone other than him. But that’s not exactly what Michael wanted to do.

In his past life, he had started out as a cultivator of a martial spirit. Although, in this life he wasn’t born with a martial spirit and the cultivation system of this world was completely different, Michael still had some lingering attachment to that style of cultivation. So Michael combined his knowledge of the mage path with his knowledge of martial spirits, and created a modified cultivation system that would suit him best, considering his talent to be a mage wasn’t very high. This system would have both the versatility of the mage path and the inherent power of a martial spirit.

After several hours of meditation, Michael’s preparations were complete. All the element particles that he had gathered in his sea of consciousness were stirred up and began to move. Soon a vortex of element particles was created, which began to compress through the sheer power of Michael’s soul. Eventually everything was compressed into the shape of a small egg and the storm of element particles seemed to come to a stop.

But the changes didn’t stop within the mass of element particles. If one could see through that mass, they would see that the element particles within were shifting and being shaped into a particular order. It took an hour for Michael to form this egg, even with his knowledge. After all that work, the inside of the egg was formed to Michael’s satisfaction and rune was engraved onto the shell of the egg’

Michael took a deep breath and prepared for the last step. Michael reached the peak of his focus and began to split his soul. The pain of Michael’s soul ripping apart caused him to grit his teeth, but he withstood it. It wasn’t the first time he felt a pain like this.

Part of Michael’s soul was removed and implanted into the egg, which activated the life within the egg, and also, talent rune engraved onto the egg. Usually, advancing to a rank 1 mage, would require a medium that would use either the person’s life force or other rare resources to stimulate the advancement into a rank 1 mage. In Michael’s case, he was using the power of his soul to stimulate this advancement, but this power had also simultaneously ignited the life that was within the egg.

Michael’s part in this was already done, and now it was up to the life within the egg. Michael soul was now on the level of an average person, if not worse, and if this failed, the part of his soul he had used as a sacrifice would have been wasted, and the talent rune would crumble without the life within the egg, not even leaving Michael the power of a rank 1 mage.

Usually, with experiments like this, Michael would succeed most of the time if he was confident in his calculations, but this was not a question of whether he was confident in his calculations. This was a question of whether he really understood himself as well as he really thought he did, and whether he still had the desire to live. As the life within the egg was created using a part of Michael's soul, it was a part of him, so if, within the depths of his soul, he was truly tired of life, the life within the egg would simply die.

Although this situation would have been impossible if it was anyone other than Michael, if this was another person, this experiment would already be considered a success, as any other budding mage would definitely be excited at the thought of the future and how far they could go. But Michael was a being who had lived countless years, and the majority of those years were lived alongside regret and weariness.

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So even though Michael believed in his will to live, it was not enough to be sure, considering how much he had experienced.

Michael continued to focus on his sea of consciousness, and watched as the egg continued to compress as if something was swallowing the egg from within.

Everything became swallowed until all could be seen was a point of light, which suddenly expanded into a multi-colored flame.

Tweet cheep hoooot caww!!

Michael smiled at the sounds of a bird that didn’t know what kind of bird it was.

Michael's martial spirit was in the form of a semi-corporeal small bird, engraved with a rune on its chest, and covered in multi-colored flames. It was an Elemental Phoenix!

The bird's eyes had the same deep and aged look within its eyes as Michael but was much livelier, as if it was excited for its new life.

Michael laughed. He was elated at his success. He now had some measure of defense against the cultivators of this world.

With Michael's soul now split into two parts, the Elemental Phoenix could focus on gathering element particles, while Michael could focus on advancing the power of his soul.

…

….

…

As Michael ate breakfast with his family he began releasing a small amount of element particles from his body and watched the reaction of the particles in the presence of his family.

Hmm, my dad is like me with low affinity to the element particles. My mom has decent talent with water, but she would need extra help to advance to a rank 1 mage at her age. Karina has a pretty high talent with fire.

After that, Michael began to sense the state of their bodies with his soul.

Both dad and Karina can accept a life seed. I should try to prepare that for them when I can.

“I have something to say.” Michael said after he finished eating.

The rest of the family stopped eating and looked at Michael.

“What is it, son?” Michael's dad, Paul, asked.

“First, a demonstration.” Michael said as if he was preparing a PowerPoint presentation in school.

Michael released his martial spirit into the room, and watched as gasps left his family members.

“Ahh, what is that!?” Paul exclaimed.

“It's a bird!” Michael's mom, Melinda exclaimed.

“Pretty!” Karina cried out with wonder in her eyes.

The Elemental Phoenix flew around for a bit before landing on Michael's shoulder.

“This is my martial spirit, Elix.” Michael announced.

Chiiirp hoooot!

It took a moment for everyone to settle down in their chairs.

“What are you trying to tell us, son?” Paul asked.

“This isn't a magic trick, is it?” Melinda asked as she stared wide eyed at Elix.

“This isn't a trick, this is real magic.” Michael answered without hiding anything. “Hidden in the modern world exists a world of magic where many things such as Elix are possible. This is a world where there are mages who control the power of nature and knights who have broken the limits on their genes exist.”

Michael wished there was a better way of doing this, but he had to tell his family some time, as the more they knew the better it would be for his plans, and this was better than waiting for them to accidently find out, or wait until something made them realize the truth.

After the serious speech came an awkward silence as Michael's family members were forced to decide whether Michael was crazy or if they should change their perspective of reality.

“Magic, right?” Karina suddenly asked, unable to hide her interest as the possibility of magic fascinated her. After all, she was still 16, and not much older than a kid. “Can you do other magic things, like make the table float?”

Michael simply nodded, and watched as he caused the table to float.

Gasps were heard once again.

“Amazing!” Karina exclaimed as she watched the table float up and land back on the ground. “Can you do other things? Or can you teach me magic?” She said with eagerness clearly displayed on her face.

“Wait a second, Karina. Your brother has always been a little troublemaker and I can't stop myself from thinking this is all a prank prepared by you and your brother. In conclusion, I also get to have a request.” Paul said, thinking over what he should ask.

“Alright, but keep it within a certain limit. I’m not a god.” Michael said with a smile, playing along with the game.

“Okay, I’ve decided.” Paul said with a serious expression. “Change the table into gold.”

“Paul! Just because he can do magic, it doesn’t mean he’s now your personal ATM machine!” Melinda yelled, seeing right through her husband’s thoughts.

“(Cough cough) Can you do it?” Paul asked with a straight face after coughing to hide his embarrassment, ignoring Melinda.

“I can do it, but I can't do it without some preparation. You should probably ask something else.” Michael said with a grin, satisfied with the light atmosphere.

“I shall wait for you to prove yourself.” Paul continued in an ironic, humorless tone.

“Ignore him, Michael. We believe you. Now why are you telling us this?” Melinda asked.

Michael became serious once again. “As you now know, there are beings out there which aren’t governed by the laws of the modern world, and this place is much more dangerous than people think, especially now that I, myself, am a cultivator of magic. For this reason, and also the reason of not wanting to watch any of you grow to old age, I wish for all of you to cultivate with me.” Michael said, stating his selfish desire.

“Yes yes! I want to be a magician also!” Karina shouted, impatient to start.

“Wait a second. Can anyone become a magician?” Melinda asked. If anyone could become a mage, than wouldn’t everyone be a mage?

“Mother's right. Not everyone has the talent to be a mage. I have tested the talent of everyone here and both mother and Karina have the talent to be a mage while both Karina and father have the talent to be knights.” Michael answered.

“A knight, eh?” Paul said with a grin, as his mind wandered towards thoughts of a hero surrounded by beauties.

Melinda smacked Paul on the head. “What are you thinking about!? We're having a serious talk here!”

Paul rubbed his head as he grumbled, “My son's a magician and my wife is a mind reader…”