“Where is Michael Fang?” A young Descendant asked.
He was worn out, but a tinge of anger mirrored on his face.
“Why are you looking for Michael?” Kaleb frowned.
“He stored one of the Tekur’s bodies in his storage space.” The Descendant answered.
“He collected one here too!” Another Descendant said, only for a Warlock Centaur to note.
“I think he collected most of the bodies. I see only two corpses.”
“Did he run away? That bastard stole our merit points!!” The young Descendant roared angrily once again, not hesitating to accuse Michael.
“I did not run away, brickhead.”
Michael’s voice resounded from behind the Dimensional Pillar. He walked around the pillar with a mocking smile on his face. “I stored the corpses to make sure that nobody will obliterate the corpses by accident, and to ensure that nobody else could take them while we were busy fighting.”
Michael retrieved a total of 10 Tekur from his storage space and snapped at the man who’d accused him just now, “How about you think before you accuse someone? That might help you stay alive a little longer. Maybe, you can get a girlfriend if you keep your foul mouth closed.”
He turned to the remaining Alliance members and pointed at the corpses, “Let’s make sure that everyone receives a contribution for killing the dozen Tekur. After all, everyone participated in the battle so it’s only fair that everyone should receive merit points.”
Michael did not really care about glory, or honor. The merit points he could procure were not that important either. The sole reason Michael took the corpses mid-battle was to disappear near the end of the battle to extract the SoulStar Fragments, Soultrait Symbols and Memory Orbs from the dead Tekur. He contributed to their death. Therefore, he could easily loot the Tekur.
To make sure that nobody would notice anything, Michael extracted only the rewards nobody else could procure. Memory Orbs, Soultrait Symbols and SoulStar Fragments were not something others could procure. Only Michael’s Extraction was capable of that.
Unfortunately, he had to be extremely fast. Almost the entire energy he extracted from the Tekur was used up to further amplify the Extraction used on the Tekur. He didn’t even have a minute to extract as much as possible and had to collect everything in a rush before returning from behind the Dimensional Pillar.
The bodies of the Tekur were now spread out in front of Michael but he was unable to use Extraction on them. He didn’t plan to expose Extraction in front of the Alliance after all.
“You want to make sure that you’ll get your contribution in the battle to complete your punishment sentence and be done with it, don’t you? That’s smart!” Kaleb blurted out, his voice loud enough to reach everyone around them.
Most Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs didn’t know about Michael’s punishment, but the human Descendants had heard something about it. The man who had accused Michael stared daggers at him, but Michael didn’t really pay much attention to it.
He secretly thanked Kaleb for saving him from coming up with an excuse, but he didn’t answer Kaleb. The thought of punishment had not even crossed his mind. It was not that important at this point.
The Dimensional Pillar was of greater importance. It would take the Alliance members a few hours to destroy the pillar, but it was certainly worth it. They would get closer to their final goal: to close the Isolated realm and seal the dimensional portal for good.
“We can talk about everyone’s contribution later. For now, we have to recuperate and destroy the Dimensional Pillar,” A four-meter-tall Berserker said, his voice thundering through the surroundings, “But one thing is for sure. This kiddo deserves the contribution he needs, whatever his punishment may be. He was running around to help everyone on the battlefield and his attacks weakened the Tekur over time. If not for him we would have lost more brave warriors!”
Michael didn’t like that the Berserker pushed him into the limelight. He felt that the Berserker thought of him too highly after what happened in Piloq. It was not as if his influence in the battle had been much higher than Kaleb, Lincoln, and the rest. Everybody gave their utmost to kill the Tekur, but all Michael could do about it was nod and hope to stay out of the Alliance member’s radar.
Almost everyone noticed Michael at some point in the battle. They realized that Michael had been everywhere on the battlefield to use his Soultrait once or twice before disappearing once again. Once he disappeared the Tekur’s power output and resilience seemed to weaken over time. As the battle progressed the Tekur’s resistance decreased even further.
The most perceptive Alliance members observed that Michael did something to weaken the enemies over time. They were not sure whether it was poison or the freezing of his Soultrait. But one thing was easy to tell; Michael’s attack pattern had been similar from start to end.
He utilized his Ice Soultrait which was shrouded in a whitish-silver aura intertwined with golden vein-like threads to distract and inflict damage over a long range. His body was covered in a white hue, which amplified Michael’s strength and speed, allowing him to cross the limits of his Tier.
“Okay okay. Fuck this shit.” The man, who’d accused Michael said, the anger in his tone apparent.
“I will rest a little bit then. I wasn’t wounded but I need to recuperate my energy before I can be of any help,” Michael said, not even minding the Descendant. He shifted near the teams of Kaleb and Lincoln to stay close enough to them if anything was to happen. Simultaneously, he disappeared behind the crowd to make sure nobody could bother him with more questions.
He then closed his eyes and focused on the goods he’d extracted from the Tekur.
‘Ten Tier-3 Tekur provided 4100 SoulStar Fragments…and that was in a rush. But I didn’t get a single Soultrait Symbol. That’s a shame…’
Michael was quite surprised about the massive amount of SoulStar Fragments. If he was given enough time to use Extraction on the Tekur he would have procured 30% to 50% more SoulStar Fragments and at least three Soultrait Symbols. Even though it was a bit unfortunate that he didn’t obtain everything, Michael was satisfied with his gains. His life was never in danger, yet he procured enough SoulStar Fragments to upgrade a Soultrait to 5-Star.
The only issue Michael had to solve now was to figure out what he should do with the SoulStar Fragments he’d accumulated.
A total of 50,000 SoulStar Fragments were eager to be utilized to upgrade some Soultraits. Unfortunately, it was not enough to upgrade Extraction. As for Insert, it was already quite powerful as a 5-Star Soultrait. It wouldn’t increase his combat prowess drastically.
‘If I accumulate 100,000 SoulStar Fragments it will still not be enough to upgrade Extraction to 7-Star. The gap between a 6-Star Soultrait and a 7-Star Soultrait is even wider than that between 5-Star and 6-Star. The price to upgrade Extraction to 6-Star was more than 20,000 SoulStar Fragments. That means…I’ll need 200,000 SoulStar Fragments to upgrade Extraction to 7-Star, at the bare minimum.’
Michael was actually not in a hurry to upgrade Extraction. The amount of energy he required was already high enough to bother him. Nonetheless, the easiest way to increase his strength was to upgrade his Soultraits. It was the fastest and most potent way to acquire power. Furthermore, the more energy his War Rune required to be refined, the more tempered his origin energy would be.
Upgrading his Soultraits was like playing with a fiercely burning flame. As long as he could control the flame it was fun to play around. But once he lost control, the flame would burn him down mercilessly.
‘The Tekur are even stronger than I’d anticipated. Their teamwork is a little bit sluggish, but that was probably because they underestimated us. They didn’t expect our Soultraits to be that effective against them.’ Michael thought, retrieving one of the Memory Orbs he’d removed from one of the Tekur.
He extracted a total of three Memory Orbs and decided to consume them one after another. Maybe the Tekur’s memories could give him more insight into their power system, their weak points, and their plan for the Interdimensional Flag War.
Michael consumed the first Memory Orb and closed his eyes. He distributed origin energy through his entire body to stir the surrounding energy and absorb it while also watching the memories of the first Tekur.
Ten minutes passed in the blink of an eye, yet Michael was not done digesting the memories of the first Tekur. An hour elapsed before Michael opened his eyes. Michael tilted his head, pressed his lips together, and scowled lightly. He was not exactly sure what he’d observed just now.
He consumed the second Memory Orb and closed his eyes once again. Half an hour later his eyes shot open again, the frown on his face even deeper. The last Memory Orb disappeared in his mouth and his frown disappeared as the third flood of memories attained his mind.
The third Memory Orb was fully digested within half an hour. Michael licked his lips, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple.
“That is…fucked up…” He mumbled to himself.
He found out why the Tekur were a superior race and how their Soultraits ended up so powerful even though they were not of a high rank. It was pretty simple.
First of all, the Tekur were much older than the Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs. Michael could not be certain about this but he was pretty sure that the Tekur were even older than the Forest Elven tribe… and that explained quite a lot of things. 𝘪𝘦.𝘤𝑜𝘪𝘳.𝒸𝘰𝑚
Due to their age, the Tekur were able to procure lots of knowledge. But that was not because their intelligence was superior to others. They didn’t research much. If anything, the vast majority of their knowledge comes from conquering other races.
And that was how the mess all began.
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