Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

With these two 'lost chapters', he was probably only missing one last chapter, which his Flame talent had filled in the blanks for.

This was what had probably caused him to gain the Phoenix Flames talent, but it didn't explain why he had essentially skipped all the stages of the Energy condensing process which other people would spend years slaving away to receive the same results.

Well, Alex attributed this towards the rebirth process he went through, which completely rebuilt his body from the ground up.

He had realised by now that this was probably the ultimate technique of the Divine Phoenix, so it was pretty powerful.

Alex wondered whether he would go through another rebirth if he died again, but he wasn't willing to test that out…

He didn't feel like dying again for the second time in a day.

Besides, there was no guarantee that he would come back to life again.

There was no mention of him actually having the ability in the description of Phoenix Flames, only saying that his regenerative heat was derived from the Divine Phoenix's ability to infinitely reincarnate.

It didn't say anything about Alex having that ability.

However there was one thing Alex had forgotten to consider.

His soul orbs.

The second stage of the technique consisted of refining the condensed energy, but Alex's energy was already as refined as it could be, because he exclusively absorbs soul orbs.

So even if he didn't have this mysterious phenomenon happen to him, he would have still skipped the second stage entirely.

***

A day had passed since Alex's whole 'ordeal' and things quickly returned to normal for him and Mira.

Normal meaning that they were attending lectures, lessons and training 10 hours a day at a minimum.

When Alex returned to his combat classes, nobody noticed anything different about him at first.

His appearance hadn't changed at all from the rebirth, so that made sense.

But the moment the usual sparring sessions between students started, each of his sparring partners noticed a change in him almost instantly.

That was because they all lost the battles instantly…

"What happened to him?"

"Did he rank up or something?"

"Is he a C tier now??? What the hell is with that strength…"

"I want what he's eating...."

"..."

The students quickly started discussions around his mysterious overnight increase in strength, but they could only speculate.

It wasn't like Alex was going to tell them how he had become so much stronger so quickly anyway.

However, things were different for the combat instructor.

He was privy to more information than these students, and he had heard from his circle of friends among the professors and lecturers that the Principal had received a call mid meeting the day before, and immediately disappeared.

Nobody knew where he was from that point, nor did they know what the call was about. That was until some nosy professors spotted him coming out of Alex's dorm, nearly 2 hours after he had left the meeting.

'The Principal helped him increase his strength…'

Was what the Combat instructor thought.

He wasn't a fan of such nepotism, as the Principal didn't treat the other freshman the same.

In fact, he didn't even bat an eye at most of the 4th year seniors, with some of them even having strength on par with the weakest of professors.

Thankfully for the other students though, Mira was there to spar with Alex.

With Alex's strength increase, he was much stronger than Mira now.

But she was still able to hold her own against him when she used her Golden Presence talent.

Naturally after being on the receiving end of Alex's new strength, Mira was even more curious about what happened to Alex.

But she knew he wouldn't be able to tell her until they were somewhere where they could actually get some privacy.

The only way they could do this was to either partake in another Soul contract, which the system was still denying for some reason, or to leave the planet entirely so they would be out of range of any prying eyes or ears.

***

The morning classes ended, and Alex and Mira left the classroom under the watchful eye of others.

The male students were still unhappy about Alex's relationship with Mira, but they knew better than to try and interfere or get on the bad side of either one.

They had both made their stance clear, and their strength even clearer.

Alex or Mira would be glad to test their strength out on any student who was bold enough to challenge them.

There were more classes in the afternoon, but the two of them were in different ones.

Alex had to attend Soul studies, while Mira had her own history classes to attend.

Since this was the case, the two didn't spend much time with each other after the Combat class ended, only getting some lunch together then going their separate ways.

'Hopefully I can gain some comprehension into souls this time…' Alex thought.

His goals were still clear.

He may have deviated from his original plan a little, with what happened the previous day, but other than that, everything was still on track.

Even more important was the fact that now that his strength had increased so much, equalling a Variant class C- rank according to the Principal, the freshman evaluation committee for missions couldn't delay his request any longer.

He was already stronger than most, if not all second years now, and probably most third years too, so it would be blatant favouritism if they delayed Alex from accepting missions any more.

With this problem basically solved, all Alex had to do now was to gain comprehension into the soul, before he went to the mission hall to see what was on offer.

He didn't know why, but the more he thought about his plans, the more he had a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that urged him to work on his soul comprehension before he did anything else.

It was this that had him anxious and impatient for the next soul studies lecture to start.

He had to wait a week between each lecture, which was far too long for Alex's liking, as it only delayed his progression.

After a short walk, he arrived at the Soul Studies building and followed the droves of second year students in as they took their seats, waiting for Dr Zoric to show up.