Chapter 54: If You Want to Awaken, You Must Pay a Price
No need to worry about food and drink for now. Anyway, Michael wasn’t really about to die of hunger. That weird body of his wouldn’t easily die of thirst or starvation either.
"Hey, let me see what that knife looks like."
Based on the exterior, the wooden box holding the two knives was made extremely delicately. The knives inside probably had decent quality too.
"There are tons of these things in the temples of The Great Sun Temple. I just need to sneak in and grab a small box."
As he spoke, he opened the wooden box. Inside were two gleaming knives with gems embedded in the handles. Anyone with a working brain could tell these weren’t ordinary items.
"Are you guys that rich? Randomly picking two awakening knives and they’re already set with precious gems like that?"
Leo looked at Raphael with a very suspicious gaze. Even though he asked that, he was sure the answer was no.
"Haha, of course we’re not rich enough to help commoners awaken with stuff like this. This must be custom-ordered for some rich noble who likes to show off."
Raphael wasn’t lying. The knife he’d used to awaken before wasn’t even this beautiful, even though his status had been among the highest on the continent since he was a child.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it, but both Gabriel and he never cared about this kind of flashy stuff.
"Haha, someone’s probably about to cry."
Michael smirked, and his initial fear disappeared with it. He didn’t know the market price, but these two knives weren’t cheap. That noble who spent money making this stuff was probably crying their eyes out.
The two knives Raphael took weren’t just about the money. Looking at the carvings and design, you could tell the craftsman put incredible care into making them.
The time needed to complete the knife, even for an expert, was clearly very long. So if that unlucky noble was about to use them, they’d just have to settle for lower-quality stuff.
"Pick a knife quickly and awaken. I want to see what’s so different about a god’s talent too."
Raphael said that and pushed the wooden box in front of Michael for him to pick freely. Michael, who had been laughing, suddenly went quiet when the knife was brought in front of him.
This scene made him feel like someone was handing him a knife and telling him to kill himself. He wasn’t some heroic warrior who could do stuff like stab himself in the stomach to commit seppuku.
But at this point, what way out did he have left? He took a deep breath and grabbed the knife on the right.
It wasn’t any more special than the knife on the left. Michael picked it simply because he was right-handed.
"Stab decisively, you won’t die."
Raphael stood on the side cheering enthusiastically. This was the first time he’d seen a ’three-year-old child’ awaken, so it’d be a lie to say he wasn’t curious. This hadn’t happened in tens of thousands of years.
"Yeah. Hurry up so I can learn from you."
Leo also stood on the side cheering. If Michael failed, then he could learn from the experience. And if Michael succeeded, he’d just do exactly the same thing.
"You two... you guys..."
Being stared at like that by two people made Michael a bit uncomfortable. He took a really deep breath and then stabbed straight into his heart.
A sudden sharp pain shocked him. The pain then spread, his head spun, and he felt like he could barely breathe.
But just as Raphael said, this wasn’t suicide, this was awakening. The wound on his chest didn’t bleed but instead emitted a strange blue light.
In just a moment, Michael didn’t feel any pain anymore. The scene around him suddenly changed.
Here, the space was pure white with something like drifting clouds floating around. His body had no support and was floating in midair.
He looked around and saw the same scenery everywhere. The only special thing was that his body had now returned to his grown genie form, not a kid’s.
"Is this awakening? But why don’t I feel anything? And why did my body change like this? This must be some kind of special space, similar to the place where I met Cook God, right?"
Michael mumbled to himself, asking many questions but not knowing any of the answers. He had many guesses, but nothing was certain.
Suddenly, the bright light in the space gathered into one point. That spot was especially bright, but it was just like an extremely powerful light bulb, with no special shape.
"What’s that? And what exactly do I have to do to awaken? Raphael just said it’d be quick, but he didn’t explain. Maybe it’s because my situation is weird too."
[You can call me Heaven. You’ve probably heard of my existence already, so I won’t introduce further. Now, do you want to awaken or not?]
A sudden voice, emotionless and mechanical like a system, didn’t even reveal if it was male or female, which startled Michael. But it called itself Heaven, so maybe it wasn’t system.
"Are you system?"
Even though he thought that, Michael still asked carefully. He couldn’t just casually judge things beyond his understanding.
[No, I am Heaven. Your answer?]
Heaven didn’t seem to like rambling on like a system. Talking like it wanted to kick Michael out as fast as possible clearly wasn’t the kind of system he knew.
"I want to awaken."
[Okay. But you are an immigrant, not a native, so you must pay an awakening fee.]
???
Michael felt like something was off. Besides the fact that he couldn’t be killed, what did he even have to pay? Money? If the money in his bank account on Earth could be used, he’d give it all to Heaven without a second thought.
[Don’t overthink it. I want lifespan. Final price: ninety years of lifespan, no negotiation.]
"Huh???"
Even though Michael didn’t have a physical body right now, he felt like his whole body had turned to stone. His mind also seemed to have temporarily stopped working from being overloaded.
