Chapter 1381: Aetrox

Aetrox’s face went from confusion, to realization, to understanding, and back to confusion once again.

Michael used magic. He wasn’t a Mystic Master who commanded the Arcane, and yet, he was able to command the mana in the air to form a magic circle.

At first, because of Michael’s strange words and his suspicious knowledge about the Eternitus Consortium, Aetrox first thought that Michael was an enemy. That he was an agent of the Ersatz, sent here in order to cause further chaos and destruction.

However, the young man’s use of magic was a complete contrast of that. It was what the Ersatz hated. There was no way that they were going to let one of their members wield magic like this. In fact, if the Ersatz found out that he had this ability, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that he would be killed by them.

So, this meant that Michael wasn’t a part of Ersatz.

Meaning, he was probably a member of the Eternitus Consortium.

"I’m sorry for riling you up," Michael said. "I had to make sure that you weren’t part of the Ersatz."

Michael purposefully made himself suspicious. If Aetrox was untrustworthy, then he wouldn’t have reacted so brashly when MIchael was about to mention the Eternitus Consortium. After all, it was in Ersatz best interest to let their secrets be spilled out in the open.

But instead, Aetrox shrouded him and Michael in an impenetrable cloud of fog. Why? That was because the Mystic Master knew that there could be numerous people watching and listening to their conversations at this very moment.

Aetrox decided to move in an instant, with his instincts placed on protecting the sanctity and the privacy of the Eternitus Consortium, thereby proving his alliance to them.

"You... you can wield magic?" Aetrox asked, surprised and unable to understand. "But... but how?"

Michael, now that he was sure that the Mystic Master could be trusted, told him the truth. "I have a Supreme Talent," he said. "It allows me to have control over all the eight natural mana in the world."

Of course, as a Mystic Master and a friend to the Eternitus Consortium, Aetrox immediately knew what this meant. His eyes widened. "No way... no way..."

"You can ask Seberus. He’ll attest to my talent," he said to Aetrox.

"Seberus? You know that guy?"

"He’s a friend," Michael replied. "And I hope that you will be one too."

It was at this point that Aetrox conjured a seat made out of the clouds and sat down. He was trying to consume the large amount of information that he was just given.

"So you really are a student of Lichtenstein?"

Michael nodded. "Yes. He’s the one who told me about the Antique. Do you know what happened to him?"

Aetrox looked at Michael for a few seconds, wondering if he should reveal the truth. "He’s still in a coma."

Seeing Michael’s unsurprised reaction, Aetrox saw further evidence of Michael’s words. It seemed he really knew the professor.

"I haven’t heard a word from him or from Katarina in a while," Michael said.

And this time, it seemed that Aetrox was even more surprised than when Michael revealed his ability to wield magic. "You even know about Katarina?"

"Yeah. I even know about her... unique heritage."

It was at this point that all the suspicions that Aetrox harbored against Michael were fully dispersed. Now, there was no doubt in his mind that Michael truly was an ally of the Eternitus Consortium.

"Not a lot of people know about that," Aetrox said. "If they told you about that, then this means that they trust you a lot."

"You said that this Antique will help you restore magic. How?"

Aetrox ruffled the white feathers in his neck. His sharp blue eyes seemed to contrast heavily with his sharp beak, making him truly look like an eagle commanding the entirety of the skies.

"If there’s anyone who’ll know how to restore magic to the world, then it’ll be Lichtenstein," Aetrox said. "I thought that if I gave him this Antique, it would help him recover from his coma."

The Mystic Master had good intentions. But not necessarily good execution.

The very reason Lichtenstein went into a coma in the first place was because Michael overwhelmed him with a lot of surprises and shock, namely his ability to wield Unity and other such talents.

According to Katarina, Lichtenstein went into an emergency shutdown in order to process that information for a breakthrough.

Micheal didn’t think that giving the professor yet another puzzle to solve would help him wake up from that coma.

"Wait, I thought that the way to restore magic to the world is to find the Nascent Spirit cultivator who created it in the first place and disrupt their Influence?"

Aetrox nodded, his sharp eagle eyes glistening. "Yes, that is true. But... he... is a cautious person. He had made it so that even if he was found and disrupted, the Nascent Influence he spread into the world would still persist.

... He... had shattered his own Influence and spread it around the world, imbuing it in the mysteries in the deepest parts of our history in order to keep it from being found.

Our best wizards and magicians divined that the only way to truly restore magic in the world is to find those very same shattered pieces and destroy them one by one. Only then will this Nascent Influence be broken and let mana be returned to our reality."

Michael frowned, feeling that things had become a lot more complicated than before.

"By he... do you mean the Grandmaster?"

Aetrox narrowed his deep blue eyes at Michael. "I shall warn you to not speak of his name so lightly. Even in this shroud of fog that I have made, I still use precaution in uttering his title.

After all, if a person with such power as me utters his name, he may possibly hear it from the other side of the world and use it to curse me."