It felt a little bit weird to find out that his territory was located in a small part of the Untamed Jungle’s outskirts. Simultaneously it was not that annoying either.
The new information he obtained merely meant that the Untamed Jungle was a lot bigger than he initially thought. There was nothing wrong with that.
Other than the goods Michael had already plundered from the secret vault there was a lot more. There were various items and miscellaneous stuff that attracted Michael’s curiosity.
“All those materials are required to upgrade the Summoning Gate to the Intermediate rank. It looks like the Kitsun Lord was only lacking 4 Basic Summoning Cores and 1 Intermediate Summoning Core. Well…and maybe some more or less minor stuff that can be procured with enough funds,” Michael mumbled, not sure if he should be surprised or not.
He wanted to start collecting the materials required to upgrade his Summoning Gate soon as well. The number of Summoning Cores installed in his Summoning Gate were almost enough to meet the requirement, after all!
All Michael lacked was a single Basic Summoning Core, and the Intermediate Summoning Core to upgrade the Intermediate Summoning Gate now that he plundered the materials the Kitsun Lord had been hoarding for years. It must have been very difficult to procure some of those materials, which was why Michael was thankful for the Kitsun Lord’s hard work, despite hating him for being a psychopath.
Michael’s gratefulness reached new heights when he found out that the Kitsun Lord had obtained an add-on blueprint for Intermediate Summoning Gates. It was of extraordinary quality.
‘Had the Kitsun Lord completed his Intermediate Summoning Gate and added the add-on, I would have never been able to eliminate him. Hah…’
The extraordinary-quality add-on blueprint was called [Summoning Gate Attachment: Portal]. It was special because of a very simple reason. Using the add-on’s unique function one could travel in between Summoning Gates that have been linked to each other.
It was important to note that Intermediate Summoning Gates could link two Basic Summoning Gates to its base. Therefore, the add-on would have allowed the Kitsun Lord to move across his territory via Summoning Gates rather than spending half a day – or longer – in the Untamed Jungle.
A Lord could always travel through his linked Summoning Gates since his War Rune was connected to all linked Summoning Gates. But his subordinates couldn’t do the same without the add-on. Using the Portal Attachment, Michael could come up with a wide variety of strategies to overpower his enemies in a battle – whether the battle focused on attacking his enemies or defending his territory.
All the Portal Attachment required to be used was Monster Cores.
It was only obvious, but the Portal Attachment was one of the most valuable goods he obtained from the Kitsun Lord. It could become extremely useful in the future.
For now, he would have to procure the resources required to upgrade his Summoning Gate to the Intermediate rank and manufacture the Portal Attachment to use it once his Summoning Gate had been upgraded.
Fueled with excitement about his finds, Michael momentarily forgot about the most important point, and the reason he opened the secret vault in the first place- the treasures he wanted to sell to procure the funds to construct the Intermediate and Advanced levels of the Sacred Knight Temple.
When Michael recalled the motive with which he had begun searching for the secret vault initially, he continued to smile.
‘I can produce a wide variety of potions now. Given the experiment log made about the Elemental Empress, I can use some of the elemental fruits to substitute a wide variety of materials as well. It should accelerate the mass production of Energy Nourishing Pills. Then again, elemental fruits are also quite useful for various other potions. I should talk to the Alchemists and ask them which potion will be the easiest and cheapest to mass-produce without compromising on quality.’
Now that Michael had plundered the secret vault of the late Kitsun Lord, he knew that he couldn’t sell most treasures. They were too valuable to sell. He would require most of them in the future, either way. Therefore, selling them wouldn’t be profitable.
But that didn’t mean Michael didn’t have other ways to make a fortune. He had yet to plunder the warehouses spread all over the settlements. The barracks and other places were also filled with items that could be sold for a small fortune. Michael would be an idiot if he didn’t plunder everything, now that he had the opportunity.
Michael emptied the secret vault with a target in mind and returned to the surface. Dozens of energy shares reached him, indicating that Sun Demos and the Elemental Empress found a large group of Kitsun to slaughter. Michael accepted the energy shares and focused on his War Rune for a moment.
‘I wonder how long it will take before I advance to Tier-3…Well, it’s not like I’m in a rush. I haven’t even been in the Origin Expanse for an entire year. It should have been roughly 8 months now.’
Advancing to Tier-3 before the age of 19 would be exceptional. However, it was very unlikely. He had too many high-ranked Soultraits that slowed down his War Rune’s progress.
Michael thought that it would be good enough to reach Tier-3 before he turned 20. That was still pretty fast – almost two years faster than Danny – but it was somewhat feasible given his current progress.
‘But I should upgrade Extraction and my other Soultraits until I turn 20. Maybe, I should prioritize upgrading my Soultraits as a goal rather than improving my Tier.’ Michael thought before he chuckled lightly.
His train of thought was vastly different from everyone else. Others focused on studying their Soultraits in-depth and improving their Soultrait to unleash their power to the highest limit. Meanwhile, Michael had yet to properly study one of his Soultraits. Everything he discovered of his Soultraits was by chance and instinct. He never really took time to diligently study his Soultraits until now.
Maybe that had to change.
Unfortunately, time was of the essence, and he had to focus on too many things that he had been neglecting quite a bit. This included his body refinement technique, Sacred Rectification, and his mind refining technique, Caesurium Menta.
Other than that, Michael had yet to procure proper martial arts techniques to learn. He had many Soultraits and could probably use some of them with many combat, or movement techniques, yet Michael never really put his focus on researching such techniques.
Only after meeting Zira did Michael’s focus divert a little. He grew more interested in those techniques, which meant that he had to start researching soon to satiate his curiosity. Therefore, Michael had even less time for other things…and that was quite annoying.
Why was the day so short? Couldn’t a day be 48 hours, or maybe even 72 hours?
Grumbling in his mind, Michael began to move through the Untamed Jungle. He visited all Kitsun settlements within the Untamed Jungle and plundered everything of value. Michael worked thoroughly and spent two days making sure that he didn’t miss out on anything.
After that, he finally returned to his territory. Sun Demos and his subordinates, the Elemental Empress, Tiara, and close to a hundred Combatants who had followed Tiara into the battlefield returned a few hours after Michael. They got rid of all Kitsun and returned with the corpses and loot of those they had slaughtered mercilessly.
There were a lot more Kitsun residing in the Untamed Jungle than Michael expected. Therefore, he had to spend two hours extracting the Will’s loot before he added the corpses to the satchel storage where the other Kitsun bodies were kept safely until the sealed container was manufactured.
“Wait. Shouldn’t the sealed container be done by now?” Michael wondered. He paid a visit to the Alchemy Lair where he found the Forest Elven Alchemist from a few days ago. She smiled brightly upon seeing him and retrieved a huge container that looked similar to a metal barrel. It was around the size of a human, which ought to be enough to store all Kitsun Clouds inside.
“You are already done? Good job. Here is a small reward,” He said nonchalantly as he retrieved more than a dozen potion recipes. The alchemist’s eyes widened and she stared blankly at Michael for a few seconds.
Michael just smiled in response and stored the tank-sized metal barrel. After that, Michael returned to the warehouse where he retrieved a total of 54,000ish Kitsun Corpses whose Kitsun Cloud Michael extracted. The Kitsun Clouds were stored in the metal container and sealed right after.
Once everything of value had been extracted from the Kitsun bodies, Michael got rid of them. He told his people to carry them out of the territory and offer the corpses to the Untamed Jungle as a tribute.
Even though the Untamed Jungle was not on his side, Michael didn’t want to destroy the Untamed Jungle. It provided him with various opportunities. That was something Michael was grateful for. Thinking about it that way made Michael wonder if the Untamed Jungle was maybe actually on his side, or if it was neutral.
Thanking the Untamed Jungle by nourishing it with the corpses of his enemies was a good way to get rid of worthless corpses and to make sure that the Untamed Jungle would never be destroyed. If anything, the Untamed Jungle would expand and its environment would flourish, becoming even more beautiful and nourishing.
Once Michael was done with the Kitsun corpses, he spent the rest of the evening using the Summoning Scrolls he obtained from extracting the Will’s loot from the thousands of Kitsun his people hunted in the last few days.
