While Michael was away, Blaire Tracer visited the lizard cave several times.
She used the GPS treasure map to travel through the cavern system and took notes about the variety of monsters underground, their habitats, and the location of exposed ore and Gloa Crystal deposits.
Blaire even wrote a full report about the cavern system, which included a grading of the monsters' power level. She couldn't determine the exact power level of the monsters she encountered, but their presence gave her a rough indicator of how strong they were.
For example, the Warriors in Michael's territory received 0.8 points from Blaire, while Tiara received a 1.7 as a level indicator of her combat prowess.
That way, Michael could roughly gauge how strong the monsters in the lizard cave were and which cavern tunnels he should avoid for the time being.
Some habitats received a Level 2 Indicator, while others were given a 1.999 because Blaire couldn't precisely determine whether the monsters in that area were at the Peak of Tier-1, or if they had already broken through to the 2nd Tier. She could only tell that certain Tier-2 Monsters were stronger than others.
She could not come up with a perfect scale of measurement either. 0 stood for Tierless, 1 for Tier-1, and 2 for Tier-2. It was just a rough indicator Blaire could use with the help of her high perception.
Of course, this didn't determine how strong certain monsters were in reality. Some were weaker but had strong instincts and unique racial traits like the lizard mother's acid spit.
The number of monsters was also written down in the report, providing more information to determine whether Michael's people could deal with them or not.
His Warriors had an average rating of 0.8, but if 20 Warriors fought together, they would be strong enough to defeat two or three Late Tier-1 Lionheart Adventurers, even if they were to own decent Artifacts.
Michael read Blaire's report with great interest. He hadn't expected Blaire to know the combat prowess of his subjects and the monsters of the Untamed Jungle so well. In her report, she even made a comparison between the combat prowess of the Gem Jaguar, Frenzy Deer, and other monsters.
It was very accurate, which meant that the level indicators of the monster habitats in the cavern system were likely to be accurate as well.
'I should use Blaire's talent more often. It's a waste to limit her potential only to tracking.' Michael thought as he put the report aside.
He reached the warehouse with more than 20 volunteers, who wanted to help Michael organize the stuff and store it in an orderly fashion.
Their help was necessary because Michael couldn't spend his entire day moving around 300 monster carcasses after he dissected them. That would be too wasteful.
With that thought in mind, Michael opened the gates to the warehouse and a humongous pile of monster carcasses entered his sight. He stretched his body a little and exerted the 4-Star Soultrait Extraction.
Dazzling golden streams manifested around his palms as he began his work.
He extracted a total of 309 Tier-1 Monster corpses in the next two hours.
When Extraction was still a 3-Star Soultrait, extracting many corpses would have taken up his entire morning. However, that was not the case anymore.
The speed at which he could extract a corpse was halved now that Extraction had been upgraded to a 4-Star Soultrait. But that was not everything. Extraction's Soul Power increased a lot thanks to his advancement to Tier-1 and the strengthened Links of Loyalty with his subjects.
The efficiency of his Soultrait increased a lot, but so did the quality of Extraction.
After extracting a total of 309 Tier-1 Monster carcasses, Michael obtained a total of 36 blueprints, 77 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls, 4019 Summoning Scroll Fragments, and two Tierless 2-Star Artifacts.
On average, every fourth Tier-1 corpse dropped a complete Summoning Scroll and 13 Summoning Scroll Fragments. That was a great qualitative increment!
Overall, Michael was satisfied with his progress. He combined the Summoning Scroll Fragments and ended up with a total of 237 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls.
Combined with the 28 Named Summoning Scrolls and 20 Mythic Summoning Scrolls which he brought back, Michael could summon 285 new subjects!
It was a massive number for a small territory like his. After all, his population reached barely 500 after the Lionhearts' Invasion.
'This is a great way to give my people a fresh start and something to look forward to after a terrifying nightmare!' Michael thought.
He rushed out of the warehouse, leaving his people alone with the nearly perfectly dissected corpses.
Michael reached the Summoning Gate in excitement. However, instead of tearing all Summoning Scrolls in his possession apart at once, he did something else first.
He stepped onto the metal foundation of the Summoning Gate and opened the hatch. Surprisingly, it didn't resist and opened smoothly.
Two dazzling Summoning Cores entered his sight. Michael reached for them while activating Extraction.
Extraction had improved exponentially in terms of quality and the efficiency with which he extracted objects.
That was also why he was certain that Extraction could extract more impurities from within the Summoning Cores than before.
His gut feeling didn't betray him, and he was proven correct shortly.
He extracted a considerable amount of impurities from the Summoning Cores. The badly reeking black mass caused a bright smile on Michael's face. It might smell disgusting and make him gag, but it was a good sign that his Summoning Cores could be purified slowly over time.
As long as Extraction grew stronger, Michael could extract more impurities within the Summoning Cores. The first extraction of impurities improved the Star Rating of his daily summons. Maybe it was possible to further increase the Star Rating of his daily summons by continuously extracting the Summoning Cores' impurities!
The thought of summoning two 2-Star Summons everyday was quite enticing. However, Michael's mind went even further, and began daydreaming. What if it was possible to summon 3-Star Subjects as long as he kept extracting the impurities within the Summoning Cores?
That would be amazing!!
With excitement filling his heart, Michael began to break the seals on the Ordinary Summoning Scrolls. Breaking 237 seals took quite a while, but his heart was filled with joy and anticipation making the time fly like the wind.
He didn't use the Named Summoning Scrolls and the Mythic Summoning Scrolls yet because he wanted to see what kind of hidden gems more than 200 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls would give him.
At first, only Starless Summons appeared in the Summoning Gate. There were more than 200 of them, and all of them were confused. The information in their heads told them that they had been resurrected, and the Links of Loyalty that formed slowly over the course of the next ten minutes showed them who their new Lord and Master was.
However, other than that, they were helpless and confused. Michael ordered his people to explain the newly summoned subjects about the situation, and their territory.
Meanwhile, his eyes never left the Summoning Gate as 31 1-Star Summons emerged out of the energy pool.
'Seems like I was quite lucky. Great!'
He summoned more 1-Star Summons through the Ordinary Summoning Scrolls than expected, but the mass summoning was not yet done.
In fact, the most important part was just about to start.
Michael broke the seals on the 28 Named Summoning Scrolls, and the 20 Mythic Summoning Scrolls one after another.
"Let's go!"
