I am the Only Son of Nyx

Kai sprinted through the forest.

Behind the mask, his eyes stayed focused ahead. No glancing around.

Something shifted when one realized that nothing around could pose a threat, and Kai was feeling it firsthand. Team Coeus was gone, and the survivors scattered. All High Angels were either dead or incapacitated.

Lion and Wolf are dead. Snake incapacitated. And Matilda, he didn’t need to worry about her.

Even the Awakened Monster was no longer a problem.

Absolutely nothing in Ixos could threaten Kai’s existence.

And as the strongest, he can afford to cut through the forest like this.

Kai went north into foreign territory. He kept going and stumbled across where Team Coeus spawned. It was easy to spot because the place was absolutely trashed from all the fighting taken place on the first day.

Some might see this and shake their head.

But Kai learned something.

"Not one from Team Coeus betrayed their own team, and that’s because their ego clashed on the first day," Kai thought aloud, sweeping his gaze at the battlefield. "And since our team didn’t do something like this, we’re split."

Shaking his head, Kai continued onward.

He stopped by a clearing with a mound right at the center.

Kai went around the mound and saw the entrance that led underground. It was the mana ore mine that belonged to Team Coeus. He quickly entered the tunnel—and went down until the space opened up.

As soon as he reached the open space, Kai gritted his teeth.

Before he confronted Team Hyperion, he spotted their mana ore mine while climbing the hill, and it was small. Just about as big as the cave he was stuck in during the first and second trials.

This mana ore mine, on the other hand, was as big as a soccer field.

Some man ores were sticking out of the wall. There are still veins that weren’t mined, but not a lot. Team Coeus had cleared the entire place, which was the reason their members were all near opening their second Divine Lock.

"One, two, three... ten... thirty-three," Kai clicked his tongue. "Just thirty-three?"

Kai came here for one reason only.

He was hoping that he could stuff his Primordial Lock, which was as hungry as a black hole with as many ores as possible. Since there’s no sign of it being filled, he was really worried that he might not be able to complete the requirements to be eligible to pass the rite.

If it came to that, he has no other choice but to confess that he has a Primordial Lock.

That’ll get the attention of the academy enough to let him win.

But he didn’t know what would happen next, and he didn’t want to take that gamble.

Kai put that at the back of his mind, and called out a name, "Perion..."

No sooner had he spoken the name than an ink-black star pushed out from his forehead—and floated upward. Torches burned steadily along the chamber walls, illuminating the room in warm light.

But when that black star emerged, the flames faltered—flickering in unison.

As if they recognized something they should not witness.

Rapidly, the black star began to twist and contort like a lump of oil—and formed one massive creature that towered over him, almost hitting the ceiling. Perion realized that he was too tall for the chamber, and with a thought, shrank to about ten feet tall.

Still towering, but not as much as earlier.

Upon completing the Ending Fragment of Stone, he fully learned Perion’s name.

And that allowed him to summon Perion at will like this.

It was done by using the Deep Slumber on himself for a second and calling out the name.

However, he could only do it during the night. Not that he couldn’t summon Perion during the day, but even with his current mana reserve, he doesn’t have enough to do that. It’s quite a shame, but it’s only a matter of time.

And this also meant that I could summon Noxian someday.

Kai smiled inwardly.

Noxian has multiple Ending Fragments, so Kai can’t summon him after the Perfect Slash.

"Perion, can you help me mine the mana ores?" He asked while taking an abandoned pickaxe nearby. It’s going to be his first time mining mana ores, and he was sure that it’s going to take too long if he did it himself.

He needed helping hands.

And with Perion, he didn’t only have helping hands, but big helping hands.

For the next hour, Kai and Perion began to mine.

Perion transformed his hand into a pickaxe—and drove it into the wall with tremendous force. Kai also did the same thing, though the difference in power was immediately clear. Every hit from Perion split stone and exposed the mana ore more, while every hit from Kai barely left a shallow dent.

No wonder mining mana ores are slow.

Even he couldn’t mine the mana ores quickly, much less the other weaker students.

During this, Kai also realized why weak Supernals were sent to become Angels to do this. He saw the stone around the mana ore had turned a deep shade of blue. It was infected by mana, and it became abnormally strong.

No normal human could break it, even with proper tools.

Only those with mana inside them could break the stone and mine the mana ore.

Following the hour of mining session was the absorption session. It only lasted briefly, a few minutes at most. And even after absorbing all thirty-three, nothing much changed. Kai still couldn’t feel anything.

Even after all the mana ores, the Primordial Lock gave no reaction.

He wasn’t going to give up yet, but there are no more mana ores.

"Should I try my luck finding another mine? There might be another one. Or should I return to the others and pray that the other mine has excess mana ores?" Kai contemplated, but neither option seemed good. "What am I going to do?"

Just then, his eyes darted to Perion.

Perion was facing the wall on the other end, looking at it like it was interesting.

"Perion!" He approached. "What’s wrong?"

Instead of answering, Perion drew back his hand and punched the wall as hard as he could.

Crash—!

Kai stood up in shock, watching the wall collapse. A big gaping hole was made in it, but on the other side, there was no more rock. Even from afar, he could tell there was another chamber on the other side of the hole.

He quickly jogged over and gasped when he got close enough.

It was really another chamber, and it was bigger.

But what caught Kai’s attention most was that the mana ores weren’t lodged on the walls.

Instead, it bloomed from the walls, the ground, and even the ceiling in clusters. Their lustrous radiance was blinding, but Kai couldn’t turn away. He was still in place as his mind could not believe what he was seeing.

Just from sweeping the entire chamber, Kai was certain that there were hundreds of mana ores.

Heck, he wouldn’t even be surprised if there were more than a thousand, as he saw that there was a rightward turn on the other end, suggesting the chamber continued farther than what he was seeing right now.

"Jackpot..." He murmured. "This is insane."

Seconds ago, he was fretting over how to get more mana ores.

It turns out, there were more in this mine than he would probably ever need.

Since Ixos is used to hold this Blood Rite, I guess it’s a hassle to resupply the mana ores every time the rite happens. Why didn’t I think that the mines that were shown were man-made? The real mine is this one.

Kai didn’t think that far.

Frankly, he didn’t know how far Ixos was to Cloud Colony Alpha.

Assuming that it was far away, hosting the Blood Rite on a cultivated cloud that has a large natural mine was the most efficient way to guarantee no shortages. And if not for Perion, he never would have discovered this actual mine at all.

Out of sheer excitement, Kai raised a hand for a high-five with Perion.

Perion stared at him silently.

His face was a rock, so there were no expressions, but Kai assumed that he was confused.

"Slap your hand against mine," Kai said. "It’s something we humans do."

Perion glanced at Kai’s outstretched hand, then down at his own. A moment of hesitation—then he raised it and gave Kai’s hand a tentative smack. The resulting force surprised both of them as it was harder than anticipated.

Crash—!

Like a broken doll, Kai was launched and slammed into the wall.

He bounced and dropped to the ground, gasping for breath.

"Gently," He mumbled while holding his aching back. "Slap it gently! Not that hard!"

After recovering from the accidental murder attempt, Kai resumed the mining process. It took far longer now. Somewhere along the way, Perion vanished, turning back into a black star and returning to him.

It was the sign of dawn, and Kai barely scraped the mine.

Mining the entire thing would take him weeks or even months.

Time that he doesn’t have.

"Can I directly absorb them from the walls?" Kai wondered. He placed a hand on a cluster of mana ores and tried using the Primordial Lock to absorb it. But in the subsequent second, he was slammed into the other side of the wall.

Crash—!

For the second time, his back took the hit.

"Eurghh..." Kai groaned in pain—veins bulged across his neck as he pushed off the wall.

He slumped to the ground and looked back, finding a sharp mana ore where he had slammed into.

"N-No wonder it hurts more than the first time," Kai stayed on the ground, his body stiffened from the excruciating pain. It felt like his spine was cracked from the impact. "Noted. Noted. Can’t absorb mana ores directly."

Unlike the first time, it took him longer to get back up.

And when he spent more time mining, he finally got to two hundred mana ores.

It was a big haul for half a day of mining.

"I need to absorb them quickly," He placed his hands on his waist—and stared at the pile. "If this is really the academy’s stash, the professors would certainly notice what I’m doing. I only have a day at most."

Kai sat down cross-legged and wasted no time absorbing the mana ores one by one. He allows himself to be immersed in feeding his greedy Primordial Lock that never seemed to be satiated, no matter the amount of mana ores he absorbed.

An hour passed in a blur.

He was already a quarter into his pile, and it was going great.

Since he had gotten stronger, he could absorb more consecutively than he did before.

Just then, he heard footsteps. He thought it was the professors coming to intercept him faster than anticipated. But when he looked over his shoulder, he wasn’t greeted by the professors. It was a woman whom he knew.

"Matilda," Kai stood up and turned to face her, ready to fight. "Coming back for round two?"