Nial was greeted heartily by his parents.
Maline, his mother, rushed to him and hugged him tightly for several minutes, without intending to let go of him. Nial felt that his mother's grip was too strong but he hugged her back nonetheless.
His father, Miles, gave him a thumbs up once his mother let go of him. He didn't say much but it was already enough to visualize his father for Nial to understand that Miles looked at him lovingly.
He didn't want to embarrass his son by acting overly worried or overprotective of his son. After all, Nial was already much stronger than his parents and there was nothing they could do, even if they wished to be of any help to their children.
However, Nial didn't really care about any of that. He went over to his father and gave him a tight hug.
By now, Nial was even taller than his father, reaching a height of around 1.85 meters, and his physique was also much better than ever.
His body was overflowing with vigor and the outlines of his tightly compressed muscles could be seen through the clothes he wore.
After he released his father from the bear hug, Nial raised his head to look in the direction behind his parents.
Miranda, Mathias, Kirlia Maverick, Hana…and his sister, Sabrina, were standing there.
"Looks like you won't shame your brother with your appearance anymore, little monster!" Nial teased his sister cruelly.
Sabrina's joyful expression changed drastically in an instant. She began to fume in anger as she stomped in his direction.
Her body released extremely pure and altered mana naturally, clearly outlining her body as if she was trying to show off her figure and appearance to Nial. Sabrina was still under the impression that Nial was merely able to outline others with his mana if they shrouded their body with it.
"You!! I look better than you, just for your information!" Sabrina said arrogantly, flipping her hair backward.
Nial just smiled at her reaction before he pulled her in a big hug as well.
"You worked hard, good job!" He praised his sister, clearly sensing that Sabrina had reached the 4th Superior Mirae rank.
He was still not sure what kind of Legacy Sabrina went through but by now he could clearly tell why Sabrina had been bedridden for all these years.
'A special constitution caused her to demand tremendous amounts of pure mana…' He used Damian's memories to find out the answer to Sabrina's earlier situation.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtThe Heaven's Gates organization was always on the lookout for terminally ill children, who showed signs of having similar conditions as Sabrina before they kidnapped them.
Afterward, the organization would attempt to help them resolve their issues, awakening their special ability, constitution, or other traits they possessed.
Their success rate, however, seemed to be quite low, otherwise, Hana and Sabrina wouldn't be amongst the only veiled disciples in the rows of the Heaven's Gates organization.
Nial didn't really bother about that as he was grateful that Sabrina was still alive. That was also why he didn't feel like laying waste to the Heaven's Gates organization for the time being, at least, until they would do something stupid enough to enrage him.
"Of course, I worked hard! I'm even stronger than you after binding my third ability!" Sabrina wriggled herself out of Nial's embrace before she smiled slyly.
"You think you're stronger than I am? Little monster, don't underestimate your big brother so much!" Nial returned a sneaky smile that caused a fiery fire in Sabrina's eyes.
"Let's fight then! I will show you how powerful I am!!" Sabrina exclaimed, grabbing Nial's hand before she stormed onto the floor, pulling Nial with her.
He had no idea where his sister was dragging him to, but Nial let her feel as if she had an upper hand on him for a while.
Meanwhile, the remaining people in the room looked at each other with amused smiles as two voices could be heard by everyone.
"I couldn't even greet him…" Hana complained quietly, looking at the siblings in jealousy.
"His sister is really obsessive…I want to greet my friend as well!" Mathias grumbled, without thinking about lowering his volume.
Everyone in the room smiled when they heard the two young Originals complain. Miranda cleared her throat after a minute, and she took the first step forward.
"How about we watch their spar? I don't think that something bad will happen but I'm curious to know how strong Nial has become," She stated with a gentle smile on her face. By now, she could already tell that Nial was stronger than herself.
This shocked her a lot, but Miranda could clearly tell that Nial's strength exceeded hers, just by sensing his presence at that.
At first, she didn't want to believe it because it was not supposed to be so easy for anyone to become stronger than her. After all, she had worked for years to achieve her strength and reputation.
However, Nial shattered her worldview more than once since they'd gotten to know each other. By now, Miranda should have grown accustomed to him surpassing her expectations and shouldn't be surprised about anything Nial did, which was easier said than actually done.
It was not as if it should be possible for a youngling to keep shattering an experienced person's worldview over and over again, after all…
Weirdly enough, Kirlia was the first to agree to Miranda's proposal. She quickly followed Sabrina, clearly aware of where she had to go.
Kirlia Maverick knew the Orin family's mansion like the back of her hand! The sight of the formerly aloof woman rushing through the huge mansion was hilarious and even her disciple began to smile, forgetting about her complaints.
"Shall we go as well then?" Maline asked while she was beaming with pride over her two children who had grown stronger than her wildest dreams already. The others nodded and they made their way toward the underground arena that had been constructed for training purposes and spars.
The most competent Elven Runiciers, who had been able to emerge on Jundra had engraved various protective runic constellations to make sure that nobody at the Mirae rank would be able to destroy the underground arena.
It would cause lots of trouble if the underground arena were to collapse, especially since the mansion would collapse and Nial's entire land would turn into ruins then!
Nial and Sabrina were already armed with their weapons, ready to start their spar.
Nial's most-used weapon was still the Dragonflame Spear. It was not a runic armament he had created but it was still a great Tier-1 spear.
He had learned to forge a better spear by now, but the Dragonflame Spear had yet to reach its limit, and wielding a Tier-2 weapon was not something Nial should be doing with his strength.
Once he created his eight or ninth Ancient Origin ring, he could consider wielding a Lowest Tier-2 runic weapon to make use of it, but it was better to wait until he advanced to the Prometheus rank.
'Sabrina has two more abilities and a powerful constitution. I shouldn't underestimate her!' Nial reminded himself as he took a deep breath.
Sabrina had put on a set of highly flexible metal gloves. She inserted her mana into them while activating her abilities without hesitation.
Mana circulated through her entire body, enhancing her strength drastically. Most mana compressed around her gloves and her eyes that had begun to glow brightly.
Sabrina stared intently at him, using her 3rd ability [Mana Eye] to detect even the smallest hint of Nial's movements. Her 2nd ability [Mana Compression], allowed her to increase the strength of her [Mana Eye] even further, scanning everything that happened in her sight.
As if that was not enough, her first ability, [Mana Increase], which passively increased the mana she could absorb, allowed her constitution to increase her strength even further.
Her first ability was also the reason why Sabrina had been able to 'cure' her disease, why she could drastically improve her constitution and for her to be able to create Superior Origin rings.
Nial perceived numerous things about Sabrina and he digested all the information at once.
'Her physical strength is higher than mine!' He concluded almost instantaneously while swirling the Dragonflame spear around his body.
He ignited blazing flames at the tip of the spear while continuing to observe his sister with [Mana Sense]. Nial could clearly visualize that his sister's eyes moved rapidly, taking note of every single movement he did as a tremendous amount of mana circulated through them.
It caused him to be more vigilant as he created a few needles of darkness around his body to shoot them toward Sabrina.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmThe darkness needles had been created in a moment and they blasted in Sabrina's direction with a shocking velocity.
Mathias' eyes could barely follow the trajectory of the darkness needles, while Miles and Maline could hardly see a black flash shooting straight toward their dear daughter.
Maline closed her eyes instinctively, only to open them when the sound of metal colliding with the darkness needles reached her ears.
She looked at the spar ahead and saw the afterimages of her daughter. Sabrina moved rapidly, destroyed the darkness needles with ease, and pushed forward.
Her gray gloves were shrouded in a semi-translucent membrane. Mana was being compressed around her gloves and with every punch, she released some of the compressed mana, creating tiny shockwaves.
With her strength and the precise use of [Mana Compression], she was able to create long-range attacks that used the wind pressure her punches created.
Through the wind pressure, the compressed mana was blasted forward, destroying several darkness needles in an instant.
Through this, Sabrina quickly reached Nial's side. She released dozens of punches within seconds, which Nial was trying hard to block using the Dragonflame spear defensively.
Sabrina was faster and she could see every single motion he did. By predicting his movements beforehand, Sabrina should have easily been able to land numerous punches on Nial's body instead of his Dragonflame spear's thin shaft.
However, oddly enough, it didn't matter how hard Sabrina was trying to win against Nial, it looked like he always dodged her at the last moment, blocking her attacks by a hair's breadth.
Nial was giving his all to block Sabrina's attacks. He had never fought against someone, who could predict his opponents' attacks as she could.
Sabrina's means to predict his attacks and motions was by using her [Mana Eye] to read his body's subtle motions accurately.
She was trying hard to overwhelm him and Nial acknowledged that with all his heart.
But that didn't mean he would allow her to win easily while fighting against him.
He would never allow his sister to win a spar against him, not under normal circumstances, at least.
Thus, Nial was giving his best while unleashing his senses to sense even the slightest change in his proximity.
The movement of the wind, the lingering fragrance around him, the vibrations caused by Sabrina's steps, and the other noises she created were more than enough to determine what she was doing.
However, adding his precise range of perception, it was even possible for Nial to determine where she would attack, and how she changed her trajectory to adjust her attack to hit Nial's body instead of the Dragonflame spear.
And this was more than enough for him to move at the last moment, blocking all of her attacks.