When Michael woke up, he felt extremely calm and at ease.
His mind was void of worries and his body felt much lighter than before. How was that even possible? Was it owed to a few hours of practicing the Sun Soldier Breathing technique?
“That’s amazing!” He blurted out as he got up from the bed. The sun had already risen beyond the horizon, but Michael was not worried about the amount of work he had to complete today.
Somehow, he was certain that everything would be alright as long as he gave his utmost effort to make it work.
Michael made his way out of the wooden manor with that belief. Most subjects were already awake and working on new treehouse complexes, while others were busy collecting the fruits, they found inside the protection barrier.
Apparently, the rainforest had cocoa pods of high quality and fruits that looked like mangoes, and tasted like mangoes, but weren’t mangoes.
Michael gladly feasted on some freshly harvested Tiatcha, which was the local name for the mango-like fruit.
After mostly eating meat for the last few days, Michael felt like his taste buds came back alive. It was like he was thrown into a blissful moment of tropical indulgence when he took the first bite of the Tiatcha. The Tiatcha combined sweet juiciness and tangy flavors with the tropical essence of the rainforest, which created an intoxicating aroma and a bittersweet taste.
“If we can produce more Tiatcha, we can have enough for ourselves and sell the rest for a good price,” Michael thought aloud. He knew that it would take a while to grow more Tiatcha trees, but the Tiatcha trees seemed like a reliable source of income, just like the Bilrox eggs.
They hadn’t hatched yet, but it was only a matter of time before they would hatch, mature, and produce more eggs. By the time a small Bilrox horde formed, he would have two decent sources of income, mounts to ride and sweet fruits to eat.
The thought alone was enough to make him smile contently.
“You’re already awake, Master!” Tiara and the two 1-Star Warriors ran over to Michael when they saw him pace through the clearing. He was strolling around and observing his people as they went about their day to get a rough understanding of his territory’s progress.
Michael saw a big quiver full of spears slung around the Warriors’ back, and fresh blood trickled down Tiara’s silver spear.
“You went out to hunt already?” He asked Tiara, who nodded her head.
“I wanted to show our newcomers how dangerous our territory is and why it is so important for everyone to become stronger,” She answered, “I also demonstrated how to hunt the monsters of the rainforest with the protection barrier’s help. Luckily, we have enough throwing spears to attack from further away now!”
The Gogis had thrown more than 100 throwing spears at the protection barrier before they gave up on their attempt to break it and retreated. Tiara and the two Warriors collected the spears the day before and spent a few hours training with them. This morning, they made use of their practice from the day before to hunt a few monsters.
Tiara retrieved four corpses with a bright smile, “They were able to hunt one monster each while I killed the other two!
Her voice was filled with pride, and Michael could understand why she felt like that. If more people inside the territory were able to hunt monsters, their gains would increase. In return, Michael would have more corpses to extract. The number of Summoning Scroll Fragments and Summoning Scrolls in his possession would increase as well, and so would the chance to summon more subjects with combat-oriented occupations!
Furthermore, Michael would also receive an energy influx more often since his subjects would kill more monsters, but that was trivial when compared to the increased chance of summoning more Warriors and other combat units!
Tiara and the Warriors shared their experience when hunting the monsters while he used Extraction on the four bodies. After using his Soultrait more than a hundred times in the last four days his proficiency and understanding of the Soultrait had improved drastically.
Completing the extraction of a monster he had already extracted from several times took less than five minutes, and he didn’t waste/damage any energy, or body parts either. Michael walked over to the warehouse once the extraction was completed, and he activated the preservation enchantment array using one of the Monster Cores.
The enchantment array cooled the entire area of the warehouse, and it could be configured to have intense cooling in certain areas compared to the rest. That was something Michael wanted to test out in the future.
However, for now, he had to listen to the daily morning report. Michael had introduced this practice to make sure that he would be informed about the newest changes after waking up every day.
“So, to summarize everything, the warehouse has been completed, the Gogis’ body hair has been used as bedding, various tools have been created with the remaining resources, and we’re currently lacking more resources, which include water and sturdy construction material,” Michael said after he read the report. Tiara nodded but she quietly added,
“Blaire will survive but she has to rest for a few more days to recuperate properly, and we need more treehouses if the population of the territory is going to expand soon.”
Michael licked his dry lips while contemplating his next set of orders. He stretched his neck and nodded his head.
“Tell the craftsman to create a few large barrels,” Michael ordered, “I need a few people to follow me. The stronger they are the better.”
After he said that, Michael left the clearing. He scanned the trees around him and nodded his head once he found two large rainforest trees that had grown next to each other. They were restricting each other’s growth. That meant he could remove one of them without any qualms.
Initially, Michael wanted to use the next few days to solve the problem they had with the Gogis, but it was obvious that rushing anything wouldn’t be helpful. On the contrary, focusing on the Gogis would harm his territory since they lacked various resources to be self-sufficient.
Michael could provide the resources using Extraction, and that was exactly what he did.
“I wonder how much energy I need to process you,” He mumbled as a golden light conjured in his right hand.
A few seconds later, he began extracting blocks of sturdy wood from the tree in front of him.
Michael didn’t stop until his energy ran out. His breathing was ragged, and his back was drenched in sweat, but a satisfied smile appeared on his face.
He was not even close to finishing processing the large rainforest tree, but the amount of resources he procured was already more than he had expected to extract from the entire tree.
That fueled his motivation, and he spent the remaining morning and noon diligently working on extracting everything useful from the tree before he couldn’t handle it anymore.
He was constantly running out of energy, sweating profusely and his mind was slowly going awry. Adding the toll of constantly using Extraction to that, Michael clearly exceeded his limit.
Fortunately, his Soultrait had grown stronger after the Link of Loyalty of several dozen summons was added to his War Rune, and Tiara went out hunting with the two Warriors.
Bursts of energy reached him through their Link of Loyalty whenever they killed a monster, providing the support he needed to keep going until the large tree had been fully processed.
Michael could extract the moisture in the blocks of wood after extracting them once. That removed the need for air-drying, which made it easier to use the sturdy wood for construction projects such as the treehouse complexes and the warehouse.
Once he finished his work for the day, Michael rested a bit.
He practiced the Sun Soldier Breathing a little to empty his mind, which was harder than the day before. Michael realized the core problem in the fight against the Gogi Lord and his subjects had been the fact that all Gogis were natural fighters, while the same didn’t apply to humans.
‘Only Tiara is strong enough to aid me in the fight against the Gogis…but one of us needs to stay behind to manage everything and protect everyone…Tiara could help the warriors get stronger, but that doesn’t change the core problem.’
He had only a handful of Warriors, and the few he had couldn’t help him yet.
The Sun Soldier techniques’ impact was not big yet, no matter how much future potential they had.
On the brighter side, Michael and Tiara’s combat prowess were quite impactful.
“It doesn’t matter how all of it began, we’re on hostile terms with the Gogi Lord. Either we obliterate him, or he obliterates us once the protection barrier has been lifted,” Michael mumbled quietly to himself.
He summarized the events and the bits of information at his disposal.
“That means, I have to defeat them before the protection barrier is lifted… I will be able to take them by surprise if I attack earlier…”
“But do I have what it takes?” He asked himself the most crucial question.
A few hours later when it was already dark outside, Tiara knocked on his door. Michael was a little surprised to see her that late in front of his room but when he saw what she pushed into his arms he could only nod his head.
“You’re right, I might need them.”