Coming down from his room, he walked towards her mother's study.
At this time of the day, she was usually doing administrative work for the Duchy.
He walked towards the door and finally knocked.
"Mom, it's me."
Not even a second after, she had already opened the door and pulled him into a hug.
"Ugh mom, I'm already eighteen! Are you seriously going to keep doing this?"
She decided to put her acting skills into play here, and play out a drama of how he didn't love her anymore after finding out he was some transcendent big shot.
They bickered for a while, until finally he sat down and got to business.
"Mom, the innate skill void palace I obtained is insane, I can essentially train at fifty times the speed I would on the outside if combined with the mana absorption method my bloodline provided, meaning if I create a serious regiment for training, breaks, and rest, I can come out half a month before the academy starts and go into some rifts based on the rank I come out with."
Celine thought about it for a few seconds and nodded.
"If what you say is true, then you would actually close the gap if not surpass it in these next two months. Can Nyraxis go with you or would you rather I take her so she can start growing and training?"
Calux quickly denied being separated from his newly bonded beast.
"No need, thankfully since she is a spirit beast, she can come inside the palace with me and train at least five times better than what she would outside. Plus, I've barely had time with her since she hatched a few hours ago, how can I just send her away with you?"
Celine chuckled, she couldn't believe he was being so defensive about being separated from his new bond.
She felt warm in her heart, if he was like this with this beast, then what about when he gives her grandchildren?
Just the thought made her squeal in delight.
"Alright, enough teasing Calux, I would suggest you train no more than eight hours in that palace of yours. You need at least eight to ten for sleep, then you need breaks in between to eat and bathe. So I think eight hours fits the bill perfectly, people don't usually train for eight hours a day, every day for four years you know."
Calux agreed with his mother, his only worry was that he didn't really know how much his body rank increase training would set him back, but since Void had told him that he would help, he was confident to at least reach C- rank.
After they finished their conversation, Calux went back to his room, sat on the bed and finally willed the Void Palace skill to be sent there.
Suddenly, the palace room was in full display once again, but this time the gravity was controlled to twice as much, just as when he had left thanks to Void's control of the room.
"Welcome back master. Are you ready to start your training?"
"Hold on."
"Nyraxis, come out girl."
Suddenly a small portal open behind Calux and a two feet obsidian dragon pounced on him as if she was a little kitten.
She sat on his shoulder, while her tail coiled around his neck possessively.
"As you can feel Nyraxis, this place is special to my bloodline, and can help us train at a better pace in comparison to the outside world."
"I need to catch up to my peers, and you well although you are already C rank, even for this world that is in the average level of power, so it won't be bad if you can increase by a rank or two while I train don't you think?"
Nyraxis studied him, and nodded while pushing her face against his.
"Yes father, I need to get stronger so that I can protect you."
She said telepathically, but the emotion she felt when saying those words were not missed between the bond they now shared.
"Master, as for training, I already know you decided to train for eight hours a day in here, I thought you would start with less, but thankfully you are dedicated to getting stronger."
"Considering that master is behind every one of his peers, it is only right that I set you straight and make it so that by the time we finish this training session in two months, you can stand above them all."
"First, you will train for four hours by gathering mana into your core, this will require full concentration on just gathering and improving your core rank. If you ever feel like you are about to break through, stop gathering mana and then continue with the physical training until you are ready to break through in both, sounds good?"
Calux could feel the seriousness of Void when he said these words.
It wasn't the first tie he heard, that if he broke through the mana rank without also doing so for the body, he would essentially cripple any possibility he had to ever improve above the S rank.
Therefore he could only nod at Void's words.
"For the other four hours, we will focus on multiple things."
"For starters, you need to understand how your affinities work, this will help you create your own skills later on."
"After you get a feel for your affinities, we will start training your skills, we need you to exhaust yourself to the brink, while also getting hit hard using both the enhanced gravity that will break apart your bones and muscles."
Calux was about to ask something, since in paper it sounded simple enough.
"If you are wondering if just gravity alone is enough to increase your body rank, I'm afraid not. But worry not, with void puppets that will constantly hit you while you train your skills, your body will body get damaged and recover thanks to the special properties tied to the void palace."
"See, the void puppets that the palace creates for training, will hit you hard with void skills. The void essentially shatters, destroys, annihilates, or banishes. The puppets will attack you with a multiple of techniques at a level that will injure you but not kill you, and since you are the owner of the palace, the same skills that hurt you will slowly heal you back up with the same void energy."
"This will only happen within the void palace, and with these special conditions, don't think of getting your self almost killed out there and just blinking inside of the palace to recover, it doesn't work like that."
Calux was a bit annoyed that this guy was responding to all of his questions before he could even finish formulating a thought, but he could understand the efficiency.
Void seemed to get the queue, and finally let Calux think and talk before responding.
"Thank you for the explanations Void."
He looked at Nyraxis, they shared a thought and nodded to each other.
"We're ready, so let's start!"