When Michael finally reached the warehouse, Tiara and the Forest Elves were already waiting for him. They retrieved all corpses and the other loot they collected in the Kitsun Lord’s territory and handed all of it to Michael before waiting for further orders from their Lord.
Michael accepted the corpses and stored them in the satchel to organize everything a little. Then he looked over to the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer team.
“I’m not sure if you got enough time to think about this already since we returned but we started talking about this topic in the war against the Kitsun Lord. It’s about the Soultrait Symbols and upgrades of Soultraits. Have you guys considered what to do? Do you want to change to a proper Link of Loyalty and establish a Soul Pact with me to gain access to more Soultraits and the possibility to upgrade them, or will everything remain the same?” He asked the Forest Elves, who looked at each other for a few seconds.
After they witnessed Michael’s combat prowess over and over again the Forest Elves wanted to grow stronger as well. They knew that there were many other ways to grow stronger than relying on Soultraits, but it was also common knowledge that Soultraits were as important – if not more crucial – than the Innate talent.
So what if you could absorb more energy than others, or comprehend martial arts techniques faster than everyone else? The moment you had to face an enemy at the same Tier with a 7-Star Soultrait, you would have to run away, or fight desperately hoping that your enemy couldn’t control his mighty Soultrait.
Zira was the best example for such a case. Her Soultrait was utter trash, yet she was quite powerful. Zira worked hard to master a few rare martial arts techniques, resulting in her current combat prowess. She could deal with several Inferior Awakened because her combat prowess was ranked Elite. She was stronger than the average Awakened after all.
However, Zira was not strong enough to deal with enemies like Kaleb. Kaleb’s 7-Star Soultrait was unique and extremely powerful. It was hard to control Frozen Nova, but Kaleb did a good job with studying his Soultrait. He was about to reach the Mid Tier-2 and was probably strong enough to deal with a Tier-3 Awakened single-handedly.
As long as they didn’t have specific Soultraits that weakened Frozen Nova’s might, even Tier-3 Awakened wouldn’t be able to deal with him.
At least that was what Michael thought. He knew how high Kaleb’s mastery of Frozen Nova was and that Zira had no way of destroying Frozen Nova’s creations with a single attack. Kaleb could stall Zira and inflict minor injuries on her to wear her down slowly. Or he could go all out and obliterate her in one go by using his entire energy storage.
Therefore, Michael hoped that the Forest Elves would accept his proposal to change their Link of Loyalty into a proper one, and to sign a Soul Pact. He would be able to provide more Soultraits and upgrade their Soultraits to turn them into powerhouses like Kaleb.
“I don’t think anyone here has a problem becoming your subordinate after working together with you for the past months. We might not love becoming the subordinates of another race’s Lord, but you are different. So that fact can be safely overlooked,” Lilica said, her cheeks a little red, “Nonetheless, we will have to speak to our family and the Elders about this. Becoming someone else’s subordinate is a big thing for us Forest Elves. I hope you can understand that we will have to leave for a few days to talk it out with our beloved.”
“That’s only obvious. I didn’t expect you and the others to accept my proposal immediately. Take your time and talk it out,” Michael responded to Lilica, unable to hide the smile on his face.
Since the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer team was willing to follow him, Michael felt that the most important problem had already been solved. That was a good way to start the day.
“Now that that’s cleared, I should focus on looting!” Michael said, his smile growing brighter than before.
As his voice faded, hundreds of golden tendrils shot out of his palms. The tendrils flickered brightly as they sought their targets. Michael accessed his Spatial Pouch and retrieved the bloodthirsty beasts he had hunted while wreaking havoc in the Kitsun Lord’s territory.
There were around 3,000 bloodthirsty beasts in his possession with most of them being Peak Tier-1, or Low Tier-2 corpses. Using Extraction on them wasn’t difficult. The only difficulty was that Michael did not only have to extract the loot generated by the Will, but that he had to dismantle the bloodthirsty beast corpses properly. Their fur, fangs, bones and most other parts of their body were quite valuable. At least that was what a quick analysis of their body parts suggested.
Dismantling 3,000 corpses was not a difficult task with 6-Star Extraction, but Michael had to spend a few hours to finish his job nonetheless. He wanted the corpses to be dismantled as perfectly as possible without any sort of damage. Wasting precious resources was not something Michael wanted to do, after all!
The workers Tiara brought to the warehouse moved the dismantled body parts to their designated area in the warehouse before they updated the information sheet of the warehouse’s stock accordingly. They knew what they were doing and moved nimbly through the warehouse, putting everything away shortly after Michael finished dismantling the corpses.
Michael stared at the large piles of loot generated by the Will for a second before he stored everything away. Instead of daydreaming about his gains he might as well continue doing his job. There were close to 41,000 Kitsun corpses waiting for him to be extracted.
The number was a little bit higher than Michael expected, but it made sense.
More than half of the Kitsun had been killed and harvested in the final battle against the Kitsun Lord, and at least 10,000 Kitsun had been killed by the three Lords and their forces. In fact, Michael was pretty sure that the three Lords had given him the corpses of the Guards from the two other border settlements as well. The three Lords had conquered the border settlements shortly before Michael regained consciousness. ．𝚌ｏｍ
‘Usually everyone from an alliance can obtain the Will’s loot even if they didn’t participate in the battle. That should mean as long as they haven’t claimed the Kitsun bodies yet, I should be able to obtain all the loot…right?’ Michael asked himself even though he knew that he was theoretically correct.
First of all, he was the first to attack the three border settlements. Therefore, he was considered as a contributor in the three Lords’ conquest of the border settlements either way. Second, if the Lords conceded their loot to Michael, the Will of the Origin Expanse would accept it – under normal circumstances, of course.
Taking these factors into consideration, Michael was a little curious about how many Summoning Scrolls, Artifacts, blueprints, and Summoning Scroll Fragments he was about to extract from 41,000 corpses.
He began to extract 1000 Kitsun corpses at a time. He inserted the tendrils of Extraction into their bodies, extracted the Will’s loot, and stored them back inside the storage satchel. Other than the Kitsun Cloud, Michael didn’t really require any body parts of the Kitsun. Thus, he had to wait for a few more days before the sealed container for the Kitsun Clouds had been manufactured and ready to use. Michael could then extract the Kitsun Clouds and carry them safely before throwing the Kitsun corpses into the wild where the Untamed Jungle would devour them to receive nutrition.
A few more hours passed before Michael finished extracting the loot of 41,000 Kitsun. Huge piles of loot had been generated, and Michael stored all of them in his War Rune. He had to make enough space since he was not yet done with Extraction. More than 600 Awakened were still waiting to be extracted.
“59 Tier-3 Awakened, and only two Peak Tier-1 Awakened. That leaves exactly…565 Tier-2 Awakened. It looks like it’s about time to get rich,” Michael mused to himself before retrieving a box with multiple gemstones embedded in the frame. It was the same box Michael had procured inside the Lord Rift – the box that contained the recipes for the Body Strengthening Pill and the Energy Nourishing Pill.
A locksmith had been able to open the emerald box without breaking it. To be precise, the locksmith altered the configuration of the emerald box, allowing Michael to imprint his energy into the emerald box to open and seal it as he pleased. No one but Michael with his energy imprint could access the emerald box now without breaking the box and destroying everything stored within. It was a pretty good safety net, even though it would be a little bit problematic if someone actually broke the emerald box. After all, Michael wanted to store the Soultrait Symbols he extracted inside it.
But Michael was not too worried. It would be good if the content of the emerald box would be destroyed the moment the emerald box was crushed.
‘If the box breaks that only means someone stole it before. It’s better to lose all Soultrait Symbols than accidentally empowering my enemy with dozens of Soultraits. That would be more disastrous than just losing the Soultrait Symbols!’ Michael told himself before he began extracting the Awakened corpses.
Michael didn’t pay much attention to the Artifacts, blueprints, and Summoning Scrolls he extracted. His main focus was on the SoulStar Fragments, the Soultrait Symbols, and the Memory Orbs. They were of the most value and had to be treated with great care…or not.
Michael destroyed all Memory Orbs other than the Kitsun Lord’s Memory Orb without batting an eyelid. Why did he do so? It was pretty simple. The Kitsun race’s memories were disgusting. Most people wouldn’t be able to overcome living through the memories of the Kitsun as if they were their own.
These weak-willed people would have an existential crisis and they might end up losing their sanity. It hadn’t been easy on Michael, Tiara, and the Forest Elven Adventurers to consume a Memory Orb of the Kitsun, and Michael didn’t want to be at fault for accidentally turning one of his subjects into a mindless idiot.
As for why he decided to keep the Kitsun Lord’s memory orb…Michael was not yet sure whether he should consume the Memory orb or not. He was certain that the Kitsun Lord’s most valuable treasures were hidden somewhere, and the only way to find them without any further trouble was through the Kitsun Lord’s memories.
However, Michael was not sure if he wanted to live through the memories of the Kitsun Lord as if he was the one committing all those disgusting acts. Since he hesitated it was better to store the Memory Orb away until he knew what he wanted to do. As long as the other Memory Orbs were crushed indiscriminately everything would be alright.
“Soo…first I’ll store the Artifacts, blueprints, and Summoning Scrolls away,” Michael mumbled, his eyes gleaming as he looked at the two stashes of Soultrait Symbols and SoulStar Fragments.
It was great to look at. That was for sure!
