To open and maintain the Eonrift entrance for newly awakened individuals—who needed to take their trial in order to activate their powers—a large amount of energy was required.
Each time the Federation opened the entrance to Eonrift for the newly awakened, it consumed a massive quantity of cosmic energy stones, along with other precious resources such as boundary stones, which were essential for stabilizing the spatial channel that led to Eonrift.
There were trillions of humans in the Genesis World, and every day, countless individuals reached the age of sixteen and underwent their awakening.
After awakening, all of them were required to enter Eonrift to activate their powers.
Opening Eonrift for the newly awakened consumed a significant amount of resources, and if the Federation were to open it daily, even they would feel the sting of the cost.
As such, the Federation only opened all five entrances leading to Eonrift twice a year—on the 1st of January and the 1st of July—for newly awakened individuals.
Azrael’s birthday fell on the 27nd of June, so he only needed to wait four more days before the Eonrift entrance opened again for those like him.
Since he was planning to join Slayers Academy, he would be entering Eonrift through the entrance located within the academy itself.
Slayers Academy was not located in the Aetherion Expanse Galaxy; in fact, it was quite far from it. If he used a high-level spaceship to travel there from his home planet, Veltharia, the journey would take around one and a half months.
However, since he didn’t have that much time, he planned to use a cross-galaxy teleportation formation to reach it.
The sub-branches of the Federation, which were located on almost every human-inhabited planet, did not have cross-galaxy teleportation formations.
However, each galaxy had a main branch of the Federation, and that main branch possessed a cross-galaxy teleportation formation that could be used for intergalactic travel.
Of course, the cost of using such a formation was enormous—even Silas and Ashara rarely used it.
After getting Silas’s approval, Azrael returned to his room in a good mood.
He quickly took a shower, changed into fresh clothes, and threw himself onto the soft bed.
Once he lay down, he finally opened his status window and looked at the newly unlocked Shop and Inventory functions.
The Inventory function was similar to a storage space, and it wasn’t difficult for Azrael to figure out how it worked.
Ashara had given him a storage ring, but since he had remained at home all this time, the ring had merely served as a decorative item.
Suddenly, Azrael thought of something and opened his palm. As he did so, the space around it rippled slightly, and an old, somewhat broken pocket watch appeared in his hand.
A few months ago, Azrael had discovered that the pocket watch was somehow connected to him, and that he could summon it with just a thought.
He had tried storing the pocket watch in the storage ring but found that he couldn’t. It was as if the storage ring wasn’t strong enough to contain the watch.
’Let’s see if I can put it in the Inventory. It would be troublesome to always carry it around in my hand or pocket,’ He thought.
As soon as Azrael mentally directed the pocket watch toward the Inventory, it vanished from his hand.
He looked at the Inventory information on his status window and saw that the pocket watch had successfully been stored inside.
He then attempted to retrieve it—and in the next moment, the pocket watch reappeared in his hand.
Seeing that he could both store and retrieve the pocket watch, Azrael felt a wave of relief and satisfaction. He placed the watch back in the Inventory. Along with it, he stored the Despair Level Token as well.
Once he had familiarized himself with the Inventory, his eyes shifted to the Shop, and immediately, a different status window opened before him.
There were various sections in the Shop interface: Runes, Attributes, Pills, Substances, Skills, Essentia Arts, Artifacts, Relics, and several more.
Azrael couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the sight and selected the Rune section.
Immediately, information about some Runes appeared on the status window.
---) Rune of Slaughter: After embedding this Rune, each time you kill someone, you gain a certain amount of slaughter aura. Once your slaughter aura reaches a specific level, you can use it to unleash power far exceeding your current level or to permanently increase your Stat Points. The power you can unleash or the Stats you can increase depends on the quality and quantity of slaughter aura you have collected.
(Price: 70,000 Task Points)
---) Sky Rune: Increases your flying speed by 30% whenever you fly at an altitude of 2,000 meters or above.
(Price: 5,000 Task Points)
----) Rune of Spirit: Upon embedding this rune - - - -
(Price: 40,000 Task Points)
---) Rune of Golden Body: Increases the power of body and - - - - - -
(Price: 13,000 Task Points)
Azrael looked at the prices of the Runes, then looked at his meager one thousand Task Points—and found himself speechless.
He browsed the other sections of the Shop as well and discovered that most of the items were similarly expensive. Those that were cheap were essentially useless to him.
What shocked him the most were the prices of the relics—even the cheapest one cost a seven-figure amount.
He realized then that he was far too poor to even browse this shop seriously.
Azrael shook his head and decided to ignore it all for now.
He had never intended to depend on whatever this "thing" was to grow stronger anyway.
Though it had provided him with the Cosmic Energy Affinity Pill—which helped him blend into this world—he still had no idea what the mysterious status window truly was, and thus, he did not trust it.
To him, it was like a parasitic time bomb attached to him—something he knew nothing about, and which could potentially explode at any moment.
’Once I activate my powers and increase my level in Eonrift, I might be able to get some clues about this thing,’ Azrael thought, and then closed his eyes to sleep.