After a long time, Michael finally finished arranging the constellation of his Soultrait Symbols.
Extraction was the sphere of light’s core, while Eagle Eyes, Enhancement, and Glacicle formed the inner area that revolved right around the Symbol of Extraction.
The middle area had two sockets which were occupied by Spirit Whip and Taming, only for Soul Grimoire and Mind Reader to fill the outermost sockets in the ‘outer area’.
Michael had yet to find a significant use for Soul Grimoire and Mind Reader. Thus, he rather focused on his other Soultraits for the time being.
In the worst case, he could spend 2.5x the original cost to upgrade the Soultraits in the outer area. It may be expensive, but it was better than removing a Soultrait from the inner area to switch the position of his Soultraits once again.
“This is so difficult,” Michael complained silently, fully understanding that the situation wouldn’t get easier.
On the contrary, he could tell that for every new Soultrait he bound to his War Rune, he would have to spend more SoulStar Fragments to create a new socket in the sphere of light.
Michael actually thought about removing Soul Grimoire and Mind Reader from his War Rune just to decrease the number of his Soultraits. Unfortunately, the sphere of light could only work properly as long as all of its sockets were occupied. That meant Michael had to place all eight Soultraits in the sockets, otherwise, the sphere of light would malfunction and possibly be destroyed.
Unsure whether he could repair or recreate the sphere of light if something were to go wrong, Michael did not dare to take the risk of damaging the sphere of light.
Thus, he had to live with the consequences of possessing eight Soultraits.
𝒏𝒐𝗏ℯ𝓵𝐍𝗲xt.𝗇𝓔t
“Well, it’s not too bad. Everything is rather organized, and the difference in the amount of SoulStar Fragments required in the inner area vs. the middle area is only an increase of 50%. It’s still feasible to upgrade Spirit Whip once I’ve accumulated enough SoulStar Fragments,” Michael told himself before moving his attention to Glacicle.
Michael had spent 100 SoulStar Fragments to experiment a little with the increase of upgrade cost inside the sphere of light. Thus, he had only 1263 SoulStar Fragments left.
He then used some of the remaining SoulStar Fragments to make up for the loss of Soul Power Units some of his Soultraits encountered when Michael had used Extraction to switch the positions of the Soultraits inside the sphere of light.
Moving them around had been quite expensive for Soultraits with 4-Stars and above. He had to spend more than 500 SoulStar Fragments to make sure that his Soultraits were as strong as they had been before!
Fortunately, that left more than 700 SoulStar Fragments at Michael’s disposal.
He immediately used 336 SoulStar Fragments to upgrade Glacicle to 4-Stars. This resulted in a flood of information entering his mind, providing him with basic information about Glacicle’s power, its effects, and certain special functions.
‘It should require a little bit more than 3000 SoulStar Fragments to upgrade Glacicle to a 5-Star Soultrait. Spirit Whip will probably require close to 4,500 SoulStar Fragments. I should start collecting more SoulStar Fragments,’ Michael told himself and realized what a tough task he had set up for himself.
It was actually not that easy to harvest SoulStar Fragments. However, the Lord Rift was a golden opportunity to change this since even monsters dropped SoulStar Fragments in here.
Thinking about the monsters of the Lord Rift, Michael diverted his focus to the loot he plundered from the Lords and Awakened he and Masked Saber had killed.
There was a big mountain of corpses and other loot waiting for him to dissect and organize.
Michael had lots of work to do.
Three hours later, more than 300 Superior Monster corpses had been dissected, looted, and tightly secured inside his spatial pouch.
The Lord Rift’s countdown was slowly moving closer to the last phase, leaving less than one and a half days for Michael to make some more big gains.
“If we enter the abandoned town to search for natural Artifacts and other heavenly treasures, we will definitely be attacked. But is that really something we should avoid? If they want to kill us, there is no reason for us to show mercy, right? Killing the Lords of the Zentika Empire can only benefit us and the territory,” Masked Saber said when he saw that Michael was thinking about their next move.
Michael knew that Masked Saber was right. Like always, Masked Saber’s words made sense. Nonetheless, Michael felt that something was wrong.
It was obvious that some Lords would enter the abandoned town to prey on others, but after seeing two groups of Lords fighting side-by-side, Michael felt that the hierarchy in the Zentika Empire was not that simple. That was something Michael reaffirmed with the Memory Orbs he had obtained from the Lords and Awakened he and Masked Saber had killed.
Some of the Lords didn’t want to work with other Lords. They would rather travel through the Lord Rift on their own. However, most Lords of the Zentika Empire had been forced to work with others due to the conditions the council had forced upon them.
These conditions were tied to the Lord Rift entrance tickets which the Lords had only been granted by the council after they accepted to obey the stronger and work together with them to ensure that the Zentika Empire gained the most.
While it was correct that the Zentika Empire benefited a lot if the Empire’s Lords worked together, it was also true that the weaker individuals barely received scraps. Their biggest gains would be the corpses of the Superior Existences they had killed.
Considering that the Lord Rift was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, most Lords were displeased at the thought of working with other Lords – especially the arrogant folks, who would order them around as if they were their slaves. In exchange for that kind of treatment, they would only obtain a few monster corpses as well. It was truly frustrating.
But even then, all the Lords, who had been chosen by the Council still agreed to the conditions.
Why?
Entering the Lord Rift was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not only was it possible that they might gain a lot more than they initially thought, but it was also an honorable task. Thousands were dying to get the chance so being chosen as trustworthy and powerful enough to enter the Lord Rift and bring back as much gains as possible would increase their social standing by a lot.
It would bring them honor and glory throughout the Zentika Empire.
Honor may not feed them, but the thought of additional gains certainly did. Thus, the weaker Lords could only obey and temporarily become the helping hands of the stronger Lords. They accepted the condition of the council and obtained a Lord Rift entrance ticket.
“Only Tac Lec and a few other Lords were able to procure their own Lord Rift Entrance ticket. That means we might have to face bigger groups of Lords if we’re entering the abandoned town,” Michael pointed out, but Tiara only gave it a shrug.
“But will that really be a problem for us, Master? Our teamwork is great, and we’re stronger than most enemies either way. Masked Saber’s silver energy blade is extremely powerful, my Soultraits are not weak either, and you are…well, you are our Master, and in possession of several combat-related Soultraits. Even Tac Lec and Taros wouldn’t have an easy time fighting you despite having a higher degree of refinement and better Artifacts!” Tiara declared pridefully.
Michael could understand her point of view, but he shook his head. There was something else he forgot to mention earlier.
“Since we know that the Lords in a group have all accepted the conditions of the empire’s council, we know that they’ll start searching for the outsiders in the last 20 hours of the Lord Rift’s countdown. The memories of two Lords showed me that the Zentika Empire’s council wants to get rid of all outsiders to ensure that only they could gain something from the Lord Rift. The Lord groups will search for us and attack with their numerical advantage and great fighting power,” Michael said, revealing another important piece of information, which he had found out from a Lord’s Memory Orb.
He looked at the response of his subordinates, smiled slyly, and added, “That being said, I think we should strike the groups of Lords first. If they’re going to attack us either way, we might as well stride forward and take them by surprise!”
Michael’s strategy was quite simple at this point. If others wanted to harm him, his people, or his territory, they would be his enemies. And enemies had to be removed as quickly as possible to ensure that they couldn’t cause any trouble.
Michael was fully aware that he changed a lot during the last few months. Instead of being afraid or hesitant of ending the lives of living beings, Michael could mercilessly strike his enemies.
He was still very vigilant of others, and careful before he jumped into action, but he never had a second thought once he identified his opponents.
Now that he found out who his enemies in the Lord Rift were, Michael was ready to strike them first.
There was no hesitation in his actions as they began moving closer to the center of the Lord Rift. He had spent more than enough time harvesting rare plants, herbs, trees, and extract ores.
It was about time that the Hunters went on their next kill!
Meanwhile, the temperature in the Lord Rift continued to rise.