Training

 Michael gets up early the next morning. His mother has already left at this point, to go to work. She is still supporting two people by herself after all. Michael eats some toast, before heading out.

 He walks towards a small old forest a little ways off from the village. Walking into the forest, Michael walks in a certain direction. He twists and turns without hesitation, as if he knew exactly where he was going. 

 After a while, Michael walks into a small clearing. The place looks like it has been used often, as the ground here is worn down. The trees in the surroundings are huge and give the place a mysterious feel.

 This place is where Michael spends most of his time when he needs a space that is all his, a place where he can be alone.

 Reminiscing about the time he has spent here, Michael brings out his tome. The beautiful lines of white gold on it shine, and it looks almost Divine. 

 Michael takes a second just to look at his tome and its beauty. The last day had gone by in a flash and he hadn't had the time to appreciate it. The cover seems to be made out of liquid gold, with lines of white gold that run through. 

 He hadn't noticed it before, but there are words on the front of his cover. They seem to be from an ancient language, one he had never seen before.

 However, after a moment, the words seem to disappear. 

 Pausing for a moment, Michael then looks at the first page of his tome. His status page.

[Michael Void]

[Divine grade tome]

[High level talent]

[Mana: 50]

[Affinities: Space, ???]

 It was the same as the last time he had checked it. The only difference this time is the affinity area. It now shows that he has a space affinity when it didn't before. 

 Next, Michael moved on to the next page in his tome. This was what he actually came for. He had not had the time to look at this page fully yet. He wills the page to turn in his tome. As soon as he does so the page flips over to the next.

[Spell list]

[Divine Cultivation]

[Space Storage]

[Notice: Can Choose Next Spell Every 100 Mana Cultivated]

[Notice: Can Choose Next Affinitiy Every 1,000 Mana Gained.]

 The first thing Michael notices is the alerts from the tome. He can learn a new spell for every 100 mana gained. This is great news! However, what really catches his eye, is the word, choose.

 Does this mean what he thinks it means? When most people get their tomes, the spells that they can unlock from them are decided from the moment they awaken. They do not have any choice in what they get. 

 If this alert actually means what he thinks it means, he will get to choose the spells he unlocks. This is mind-breaking.

 Moreover, the second alert! Doesn't it say the same thing? Can he choose his affinities? 

 Michael pauses, taking a moment to cool his mind. The implications of just those two alerts are enough to shake the very foundations of this world. There has never been anybody in history who could choose their spells and affinities.

 He calms down when he thinks about the negatives of this. If people found out about this ability, even if it is just him reading too much into it, people would want to test and perform experiments on him to try to figure out how this ability works.

 There would be many people after him, therefore, he can never reveal this ability to anyone. At least, until he is the strongest in the world. When that time comes, he can reveal anything to anyone and nobody can do anything about it.

 Clearing his mind of all the distractions, he gets back to what he was doing before. He needs to find out the exact abilities of his spells. The first spell is his personal mana-cultivating spell. He decides to save this one for last, as cultivating is known to take a long time. 

 That makes his only choice here, his space affinity spell. Space Storage. Judging from the name of the spell alone, this spell holds things in a different space.

 However, to get used to, and to know the extent of this spell, Michael needs to test it. The first thing to do is to chant.

 "Space Storage!" He says it excitedly, as he is using a spell for the first time.

 The second he finished his chant, space itself seemed to warp in front of him. Michael stares at it in amazement for a moment before snapping back to his senses.

 He analyses it, making mental notes. The spell ends after about one minute.

 Michael cast it again, faster this time to gather more data. He does this many times. He knew that although the data he is gathering may seem insignificant, it may save his life to have this information later. So he keeps making notes and observing his spell.

 After casting this spell nine times, Michael is extremely fatigued. He pauses for a moment to take a look at his status page.

[Michael Void]

[Divine grade tome]

[High level talent]

[Mana: 5/50]

[Affinities: Space, ???]

 "Five mana to cast this spell once, that means I can theoretically cast this ten times in a row right now," Michael says out loud.

 He also takes a look at his spell list. Spells have certain masteries. When you use and master a spell enough, it can be upgraded.

[Spell list]

[Divine Cultivation]

[Space Storage: 0.9%]

[Notice: Can Choose Next Spell Every 100 Mana Cultivated]

[Notice: Can Choose Next Affinitiy Every 1,000 Mana Gained.]

 Seeing the progress beside his Space Storage spell, Michael is stunned. He quickly did the math. 

 He would have to cast his spell a total of 1000 times to upgrade it. This is surprising. Most people take years to upgrade their spells. They have to cast their spell hundreds, of thousands, if not, millions of times before their spell is upgraded.

 Michael can completely upgrade his spell in a little over a hundred days if he casts it nine times every day! This is great news! The reason he does not cast it ten times a day is mana deficiency. 

 Mana deficiency happens when people run out of mana. It is common knowledge to most people in this world to not use the very last bit of mana unless it is an absolute emergency.

 Michael's spell, Space Storage, is a very useful spell. It can hold any object he touches, no matter what size. As long as Michael touches the object he wants to put in his Storage, it will disappear into his subspace. 

 However, it can only hold objects that aren't living beings. He picked a dead stick off the ground and put it in his Storage, but when he tried to break a stick from a tree and put it in there, it did not work.

 As he tried to figure out why this was the case, he happened to spot a beetle on the ground. Michael decided to try to put that in his Storage but it didn't work. That's when Michael got an idea!

 Michael had read in a book once that all living organisms on the planet have mana in them. Michael discovered that this is why he could not put anything living in his Storage! 

 The mana in living organisms would interfere with the mana in the Storage, making storing them impossible.

 The last thing he discovered is that his subspace can only hold a certain amount of things. He could only store five things in his storage at a time.

 While Space storage has its limitations, its usefulness exceeds Michael's expectations! 

 The next thing Michael decides to do is to cultivate his mana and study his cultivation spell.

 Everybody in the world gets a different cultivation spell. Usually, it is the same grade as their tome, however, there are times when some people get a higher grade cultivation spell. 

 Michael has a Divine grade cultivation spell. This spell is the reason that a Divine grade tome is believed to exist.

 A couple of decades ago, someone awakened with a white gold grade tome in his family. He was a descendant of a noble family, and it wasn't too abnormal to have awakened White gold grade.

 However, that person stood out from his family fairly quickly. He was cultivating his mana faster than the rest of his family. Nobody knew why though.

 Soon, he became the head of his family. As the strongest person in his family, it wouldn't be bad to tell the truth. So it came to be known, that he had a higher grade cultivation spell than his tome! The Divine grade!

 Not much is known about this spell, however, as it is kept as confidential information among the high nobility. 

 After waiting for his mana to replenish, Michael decides to try it out. According to the info available in his mind about this cultivation spell, he sits cross-legged on the ground with his hands on his knees.

 Closing his eyes, he tries to remember what the mana he used for his Space Storage spell felt like. Suddenly, after a while of doing this, Michael can 'See' specks of purple light surrounding him.

 This is the first stage of his cultivation spell. In the next stage, he needs to use the mana in his body to attract all of those specks towards his body. 

 According to the info he gained from his cultivation spell, he needs to spin the mana in his body and it will attract the surrounding mana. Starting from the center of his mana, he starts swirling his mana around.

 Michael doesn't know this, but the shape of his mana as he spins it is the shape of a spiral galaxy of stars.

 As he does this, the purple specks of light in the surroundings start coming towards him, albeit slowly. 

 After a while, one speck of light enters his body. Michael immediately loses his focus and can't cultivate anymore, as the feeling he is hit with is too intense. 

 His body feels numb and tingly like the feeling of resting your head on your arm and your arm falls asleep. It isn't exactly bad, but it could leave him more vulnerable immediately after cultivating.

 Checking his surroundings, Michael is stunned. Why is it dark out? Was it not just early morning? 

 Now that it is turning dark, Michael decides to head home. Leaving the forest, he looks at his status page again. 

[Michael Void]

[Divine grade tome]

[High level talent]

[Mana: 51]

[Affinities: Space, ???]