Visitors with an opinion.

Sylvia had finally reached the airport, along with her adopted daughter. The flight hadn't been too long, but it had been awfully awkward.

Megan was very cautious of her. Sylvia had been pretty ignorant when it came to her, and her association with Alex rang all sorts of alarming bells. Believe it or not, this was the first time they had talked, and the conversation had lasted only two sentences.

"Are you confident?"

Sylvia asked her, without any change in her expression. It was as cold as she could get.

"I am."

Megan similarly answered her, but she was a bit nervous about this mission.

She glanced at Megan and then wore her sunglasses. She was in no mood for prolonged conversations. It was time to test her son.

-------------------------------------------

The training sessions inside of the system space had become way more interesting. With the system's guidance, Alex getting the hang of his techniques in actual combat, while the system was also busy imprinting data on his mind.

"User, time is up. Be sure to revise before leaving the system space."

Alex was bruised all over his body. He was training with Lucius at maximum intensity, with the current maximum ability that Lucius had shown him.

"Ok. I'll stop for today."

Alex sat down and started meditating. His body inside of the system space was completely healed, and the system began applying the effects to his body, which was making him stronger by the second. At this point, if his improvement rate continued at this speed, he was going to become the last boss pretty soon.

----------------------------------------

After waking up, Alex decided to go to the institute. He had already missed many days, and his progress had come to a halt.

After getting dressed, he went onto the training grounds to inform Lucius about his schedule. The Grey Family master was very enthusiastic about training, and because there was no big hit ordered by the collective currently, he was pretty free. All the Families had their respective Side-businesses to combat this free time, but because his wife handled pretty much everything, he was less burdened as compared to his previous self.

"Do you still want to fight?"

When he arrived though, a very unexpected scene greeted him. Wei was standing with his stick in his arm, in a very defensive stance. When he saw who was standing in front of him, his surprise was raised to a whole new level.

"Trust me, if you still had your leg, I would have had a hard time. But without it, you are just a cripple who is an above-average fighter."

Sylvia was standing, with her hair tied. She was in a black dress, with a knife in her hands. This was the first time he had seen his mother tie her hair down, which felt weird to him. Alice had stated in a previous conversation that she only ties up her hair when she is serious.

"Your school-girl insults are going to get you nowhere. I know all your moves, you cannot defeat me."

Wei was confident in himself. He was from Ronald's generation, and they had been pretty good friends before he had been outcasted by the Zhao family. He had been Sylvia's sparring partner for a long time in the past.

Alex entered the ground, and Sylvia changed her attention towards him. She was looking at him coldly, and Alex returned the favor, although with an expressionless glance.

"You two know each other?"

After the fight, Alex had talked a bit with Wei. Turns out, he was just a grumpy old man who liked to complain and correct, but Alex could get behind his personality because he had provided Alex with some pointers after his fight with Lucius. They didn't actually fight, but he had been quite helpful.

Sylvia put her knife back in her sleeve and answered,

'An Old Acquaintance."

"An Enemy!"

Wei immediately followed up with his own answer. He did not like the Curran family. Being a Zhao, their betrayal had hurt him in ways that most humans can't imagine. It was an unhealable scar.

Alex looked at his mother. If she was here, then there has to be a reason behind it. Lucius would have informed him if it was about a mission. Most probably, it was something that had to do with his problem.

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

The background character said.

"I brought someone along with me."

She smiled.

Alex, who felt all of his senses ringing in Alarm just as she said it, dodged as fast as he could. A direct attack had been aimed at him, and he felt an insane amount of bloodlust targeted towards him.

Fortunately, he succeeded. The attack had been aimed at his heart from behind, and the weapon was a very sharp dagger. If he was predicting the force correctly, that attack was enough to behead him if it hit him on his neck.

"Meet your 'Adopted Sister', Alex. She was the child your father got to replace you."

'What was that attack?'

Alex was still trying to figure out how he didn't sense her before.

Megan looked up, straight at him. She clicked her tongue in dejection.

'That move could have killed him. I needed to be a bit faster.'

She pocketed her knife and held her hand in front of Alex. He looked at her cautiously and shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you, Brother. My name is Megan Curran."

Extra emphasis was put on the last word, which made Alex realize everything about this situation.

'One more enemy.'

"Nice to meet you, Sister. My name is Alex."

He deliberately didn't include his surname to give a signal,

'I don't care about that family.'

Megan was pissed off. This was the guy that father hit me for?

"Mistress brought me to fight you, fair and square. Is that okay with you?"

She didn't want to waste time talking to him. Defeat and humiliation, that was the only thing that he deserved from her.

"Sure. Can you wait a minute though? I want to talk to my mother."

Again, one more signal. Extra emphasis on the word 'Mother'.

'You don't have the right to command me to do anything.'

Alex could sense the hostility from her. She had probably been tormented because of him, but that actually had nothing to do with him in the first place. You should fight your own battles, instead of shifting the blame.

Claudia entered the ground, surprised to see Sylvia. She was going to send her an email today regarding today's events, as Sylvia had informed her to do, but seeing her here was quite unexpected.

"Do I have to fight her?"

Alex made a bored expression. He didn't want to fight this braindead girl, who was blaming him for all of her problems.

"What does the Grey Family mean to you?"

Sylvia asked him upfront.

'So That was the case.'

"My benefactors."

Sylvia smiled. Alex had matured.

If he had tried to hide their relationship and said nothing, that would mean that he had decided to join the family. By saying that they are his benefactors with a serious expression, a thing that Alex would never normally do in front of a powerful authority figure like Sylvia, he had already given her a message.

'Nothing has changed.'

She thought to herself.

"Just indulge her. She will strike to kill, but show me that you haven't been slacking off and defeat her without killing her."

Alex cracked his neck. The misunderstandings had been solved.

Megan was furious. Not only did Sylvia manage to completely downplay her, just with one sentence, she even asked Alex to hold back.

'Am I a Joke to them?'

Alex turned towards her and said,

"Let's get this over with."