Chapter 557: Lucrative

A week full of ferocious battles ended at last.

Michael and his subordinates joined the Trilance's forces to defeat and successfully pushed back the forces of the Council of Xylon seven times. They succeeded every time and never sustained many casualties and injuries. Of course, it was not possible for Michael to save everyone, but he gave his utmost to rescue his subordinates once they had been pulled into a situation that they couldn't escape on their own. Michael's main priority was to keep his subordinates safe and pinpoint fragile spots in the enemy's defenses. Other than that, Michael observed the battlefields and watched his subordinates go wild. But that didn't mean he avoided fighting. Michael focused on experimenting with the Soul Tears that had accumulated in the Soul Grimoire. There were hundreds of Soul Tears and using them in the midst of a fierce battle seemed like one of the most efficient ways to boost his combat prowess and comprehend new things for the future.

After a full week of fighting had passed, Michael's subordinates were dead-tired. Even the Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs had to take a break. It was good that the Warlock Centaurs and Berserkers weren't as foolish as they seemed to be. They rested when they had to rest and they avoided enemies they couldn't deal with. Of course, they would never openly acknowledge that they avoided a certain enemy, but it made sense to focus on the foes you could deal with rather than fighting above your weight class. Dealing with a Peak Tier-3 Awakened while being at the Peak of the 2nd Tier was not something everyone could do. It was even more difficult for an ordinary Adventurer whose Soultrait didn't do much to strengthen him in combat.

Despite that, everyone's combat prowess increased significantly. Michael's Holy Knights gained more combat experience in one week than they'd accumulated over the last few months. Their rank improved as well after they'd received countless energy influxes from eliminating so many foes.

Everyone who had been at the Peak of Tier-1 advanced to Tier-2, and the Awakened who were stuck at the Peak of Tier-2 advanced as well. At last, they advanced to Tier-3.

Michael received a share from everyone's energy influx, but he was not even close to refining his War Rune to the next rank. He was lowkey stuck at the Lowest rank of Tier-3, and it would take a while before he would reach the Low rank as well.

Fortunately, he didn't have to rush his advance to the next Tier. He was not in a rush, after all.

Other than the energy influxes and the experience everyone had accumulated, Michael obtained a lot more. After helping the Trilance to exterminate five armies and force two more into retreating, they went out of their way to thank Michael.

The deal with Michael demanded that he would be given the corpses of the Awakened that had been killed on the battlefields where Michael and his subordinates participated. However, instead of keeping it at that, the Trilance send him the corpses of all Awakened they had killed in the last seven days.

The Trilance didn't know why Michael was so focused on corpses, but the Lords knew that there were many Soultraits that required certain materials and conditions to be used. Those Soultraits were usually quite powerful. Therefore, they went out of their way to aid Michael. The Trilance was hoping that it would be enough to keep Michael by their side and that he would use the corpses to empower himself and his subordinates to keep fighting for them.

Michael didn't plan on telling the Trilance about Extraction but it didn't matter if they knew that he had good use for Awakened corpses. Therefore, he accepted the Awakened corpses without hesitation, totaling the number of Awakened corpses in his possession to 1,225.

That was a little bit less than what Michael had been hoping for, especially since the Awakened corpses were Adventurers with little Soul Power, and most of them weren't even close to the Peak of Tier-3. But he was not completely dissatisfied.

Last but not least, Michael understood that Extraction didn't work that well on people who hadn't been killed by him or his people.

Nonetheless, he made huge gains. His subordinates eliminated 7,300 enemies on average on the different battlefields, totaling the number of corpses in their possession at 51,100. That meant Michael and his squadron of less than 100 subordinates eliminated a little more than one-tenth of the enemy troops they'd faced.

The number was a little unexpected, but it didn't seem too odd, at the same time. Michael's trials were intense and it was no wonder that he killed close to 2,000 opponents on every battlefield. It didn't seem odd to anyone. If anything, the Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs expected this from Michael.

Their Lord had to be a monstrosity to manage them.

"I've known that wars, especially Regional Wars, will be treasure troves for you, but I didn't expect this," Mekhaz said to Michael, whose eyes turned to the Warlock Centaur.

"I mean. You haven't told the public how you procure Soultraits and what you have to do to strengthen a Soultrait, but now that I think about it, it's quite obvious," He added, the corner of his lip curling upward.

"It makes sense that you hide the mysteries of your power. I don't even want to imagine what some crazy powerhouses would do to please you. Maybe, some would go insane and commit genocide both in the Origin Expanse and outside to collect the corpses of Awakened to exchange with you for a Soultrait Symbol, or some Soultrait upgrades." Michael smiled sadly. He'd already imagined what would happen if he'd requested the right to perform the punishment for all awakened criminals. On one hand, Michael could harvest thousands, if not tens of thousands of SoulStar Fragments a week, but the downside was that everyone would get to know about one of the few remaining mysteries of Extraction. For now, it was merely a suspicion, but Michael knew that some older powerhouses were crazy enough about his Soultraits to consider kidnapping him. Since that failed once, some families decided to shower him with gifts. Kraft Viton accepted the gifts for Michael, but he never sent a response or let them try to approach Michael. It was obvious that these families were trying to gain his favor, and Michael couldn't really do anything against that. But what would happen once he told everyone that he procured Soultraits and SoulStar Fragments straight from Awakened? He would turn the suspicion into a fact, therefore giving the crazy powerhouses more reason to shower him with the bodies of Awakened instead of cheap gifts. After all, Awakened corpses were more valuable than some Inferior Energy Stones or the like.

"Yeah...I can already see the Zeus family gifting me the captives from Tartarus just to please me. And the worst is, I would probably feel guilty if I didn't return the favor. That's why I should keep my mouth shut and keep the suspicion just that. A suspicion. Otherwise, everyone will throw bodies at me, hoping that I will jump around happily before upgrading their Soultraits," Michael responded, earning a scoff from Mekhaz.

"That's a luxurious problem you have right there. Good thing we had to sign a super tight NDA to never tell anyone about anything you don't want to leave your territory," The Warlock Centaur added, tending to his wounds.

Mekhaz had been injured a little bit over the last few days, but that was not a big surprise. Michael was, in fact, one of the few people who didn't sustain any injuries. Even Lilica and the other Forest Elves couldn't avoid injuries.

"But you might displease some Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs if you don't change your Jungle Points System a little bit. I don't know how many Soultraits you acquire from the Awakened we kill, but once the others find out that they're basically slaving away for you, they might demand more Jungle Points. Currently, we would have to kill close to 300 Peak Tier-2 Awakened to exchange a single 1-Star Soultrait Symbols, one of the weakest, at that."

Since Mekhaz had no idea how high the probability of procuring a Soultrait Symbol was, he couldn't make any demands. However, he doubted that it required 300 Peak Tier-2 Awakened to acquire one or two Soultrait Symbols.

"Don't worry. I am still working on adjusting the Jungle Point system. I will change the prices pretty soon. The first Soultrait Symbol bought from the Jungle Shop will be a lot cheaper. However, the price scale for Soultrait Symbols will increase drastically as you purchase more Soultrait Symbols. I'm not a Soultrait factory, after all."

Michael figured that it should be easy to purchase one or two Soultrait Symbols and that it shouldn't be a problem to upgrade them to 4-Star either. However, the price for every subsequent upgrade and Soultrait Symbol would increase exponentially. There was no need to upgrade the Soultraits of his subordinates further than 4-Star, or for anyone to have more than 3 Soultraits. Michael didn't have enough Soultrait Symbols to give away 6-7 Soultraits to every Awakened just like that, in the first place.

"There is no need to change it just because I told you about it. I just wanted to talk to you about the Jungle System and some possibilities since you are still new to the nature of Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs," Mekhaz explained, smiling gently, but the words that escaped his lips were far from gentle, "We despise dishonesty."

"Eh...okay..."