"Everyone has to finish their plates, otherwise, you'll be kicked out of the Limit Breaker Course!" Silverian Schild announced nonchalantly.
He snapped his fingers and more than ten staff members walked out of the kitchen carrying humongous plates.
Everyone received one of those plates that were filled to the brim with highly nutritious meat and vegetables.
Since they had already been accepted officially, Michael and the others were now freshmen of the Saphirelake Military Academy. Thus, most of their food expenses would be covered by the Academy. But that was not the most important.
The quality of the food was the most important. Their food had been prepared with high-grade ingredients from the Origin Expanse. They were either highly nutritious or infused with a tremendous amount of origin energy. Both of these were necessary means to accelerate the refinement of the body, replenish the body and mind, and make sure that the daily training regime wouldn't be too taxing on the new students.
Since they enrolled for the Limit Breaker Course, Michael and the others were even given potent medicinal solutions. They could dissolve the medicinal solutions in water and bathe in it for a few hours to ensure that the soreness all over their body would be eased.
Michael told himself that he would use it later once he returned to the Origin Expanse.
Food was Michael's passion. He didn't even need a command to start eating and was genuinely happy that he was given a humongous plate filled with all kinds of delicious dishes.
It felt like he had been thrown into paradise after a hellish two-hour training session. He was tired and his muscles felt like they might tear apart at any moment, but Michael forced them to move. His desire to eat was too strong, and even his sore muscles couldn't stop him!
Michael was not the first to start eating, but he was the first to finish the humongous plate. While everyone else was still groaning in pain and forcing more food down their throat, Michael had already shot up from his seat.
"Can I get another plate, please?" He asked, smiling vibrantly.
His entire body was overflowing with energy. It was almost like he had never undergone a hellish two-hour-long training session.
Michael's body was still hurting, and he was sore all over, but the humongous plate was simply too tasty to focus on the pain.
He wanted to have more delicious food!
Kaleb, Frederik, Jacqueline, and even Silverian Schild stopped in their tracks when they heard him. Their forks froze mid-air, and their heads turned simultaneously over to Michael.
"Are you a pig or what?" Frederik blurted out without thinking.
Kaleb wanted to stay quiet, but even he couldn't help but murmur quietly, "Is his stomach a bottomless pit? Is that another Soultrait?"
Silverian Schild remained silent. He watched him get his refill and finish the second humongous plate when the others were struggling to finish their first serving. Michael looked perfectly normal, while the others were bloated and appeared drowsy. Their bodies were still sore, and now their stomachs were filled to the brim as well.
"Will I have to pay extra for such meals once we arrive at the academy?" Michael asked suddenly, looking straight at Silverian.
Silverian Schild looked at Michael, who moved around nonchalantly as if his muscles weren't sore after having trained until they were on the verge of tearing apart.
"Usually, you would have to pay for these meals. They're prepared with valuable ingredients and require a specially trained cook, who can handle ingredients of the Origin Expanse. After all, we want to make sure that the origin energy and nutrition of the ingredients won't be wasted, right?" Silverian explained. He saw that Michael's expression turned sour and snickered lightly.
"Don't be too sad. As long as you join courses like my Limit Breaker course, you'll be given a special meal quota and a special medicinal solutions quota. But don't be fooled. Most courses with additional resource quotas have higher passing requirements. If you fail the course, you will receive a Mark…and you don't want to receive Marks."
Michael and the others knew that failing your course was bad. One Mark was not that much of a problem but if you failed three courses in a single semester, or five courses over the course of three years, you would either be expelled from the Saphirelake Military Academy, or they would punish you and send you somewhere to make up for failing to uphold the Saphirelake Military Academy's honorable image and standards.
"That means we can either play it safe and pick courses without resource quota and pass them rather easily, or face the challenges head-on, obtain more resources, and pass the courses with higher difficulty," One of the other freshmen, who had joined the Limit Breaker Course pointed out.
He was one of Kaleb's henchmen and initially joined the course to please Kaleb and become the friend of the Zenovia family's young master. However, after a hellish two-hour long training with a 100-kilogram heavyweight combat suit and feasting on several times more food than he would usually eat, he was not sure if he could keep going.
Was the possibility of breaking down worth becoming Kaleb's underling, and pleasing him day in and day out?
Michael didn't bother pleasing anyone. Silverian's lesson was over, and both Kaleb and Frederik seemed hooked. That was enough for him.
"Looks like I'm the winner today. I feel great, so I'll leave now," He said simply while patting the sore shoulders of Frederik and Kaleb. Afterward, he disappeared from their sight with quick steps.
"This bastard…" Frederik growled quietly, while Kaleb stared coldly at Michael's retreating figure.
Meanwhile, Silverian Schild began to smile lightly.
"These youths…I wonder how far they can go by competing."
Michael could tell that his body could convert nutrition and origin energy much faster than others. He was not sure if that was solely caused by his high metabolism, or if there was more. Either way, it was extremely helpful to recuperate.
Initially, Michael wanted to use the Saphirelake Military Academy's network to research more about foreign languages, but he disregarded that idea for the day. They had just entered space and he had more than enough time to do so in the future.
But there was something else he had to do before returning to the Origin Expanse. He joined a few more classes, one of them being [History of the Origin Expanse], another one being lectured by Harry Baren, called [Soul Power Study] and a third being [Memory Lane].
Amongst his four classes, Memory Lane was the only popular lesson Michael joined. It was a lesson on how to improve the memorization ability of the mind. It was quite interesting.
Meanwhile, Soul Power Study was not something anyone was curious about at this point. It was not a popular study anywhere because it didn't really matter how strong your Soul Power was. Every Lord could tell how strong their Soultraits were by utilizing them. As such, it was not important to measure your Soul Power.
Despite that, Michael was curious about Soul Power. It was not popular, but there were a few things only he could test out using Extraction. The History of the Origin Expanse was something everyone learned in high school, and in afterschool. Most freshmen had been taught about the History of the Origin Expanse, including Michael.
However, there was a major difference between knowing the History of the Origin Expanse from mankind's point of view, and the point of view of older races.
Michael hoped that the History of the Origin Expanse lesson from the Saphirelake Military Academy used information collected from older races. Maybe, it would help him find out more about Fenrir, his own family…or the Temple of the Forgotten.
In the worst case, Michael would ask the Professors about information related to the Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs, and how to get closer to them.
They were his best chance to get to know more about the Temple of the Forgotten, and Michael already had a feeling that he would have to approach them to find out more about the underground ecosystem and the languages used before the Third Epoch.
However, he already knew how to get closer to the Berserkers and the Warlock Centaurs and grab their attention.
The easiest way was to get stronger and be assigned as the freshmen's representative in the next Tritan Battles.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
It was a fierce competition. Everyone wanted to reap the benefits of being the freshmen's representative.
This included Michael, but he was up for the challenge.
The competition excited him.
It ignited his desire.
It made him want to get stronger by all means!
…
His gluttonous greed was slowly awakening...