At last, Michael returned to the Origin Expanse.
He reported his arrival to his subjects before he made all preparations to take a medicinal bath.
Even if his sore muscles felt much better after devouring two humongous plates of savory and highly nutritious food, Michael took the medicinal bath. He wanted to provide his body with the best possible treatment.
While he immersed himself in the bathtub to relax, a young man entered his room to hand Michael the daily report. Michael smiled lightly at the young man, who could only see his Lord's battered face and the bruises all over his body.
The young man left shortly, confused, and unsure what kind of torture their Lord was going through outside the Origin Expanse.
Michael didn't even know that Frederik had beaten him black and blue. He felt great!
'Trails leading outside the Untamed Jungle have been successfully laid, the traps are installed, the Nature Spirit stretched out its roots, and the Heavy Armored Elephant is currently paving a way straight to the lizard cave. The trail will be completed soon…great!' Michael summarized in his mind while reading through the daily report.
'Tiara and the others went out to kill hundreds of monsters. Looks like they want to increase their rank swiftly. Well, it makes sense. Tiara and I are the only ones in Tier-1. It's time to change that.'
It was important to strengthen the military's combat prowess, not only to protect the territory, but also to conquer the lizard cave, and ensure the safety of the miners once they would start mining the ore deposits in the cavern tunnels.
"The constructions of the Enchanter's Lair, the Smithy, and the Alchemy House have been completed, and the Bilrox Ranch has been expanded. That's pretty fast," Michael realized.
But now that he thought about it, Michael also understood that his territory's workforce had increased rapidly.
With more Combat Units in his army, who had great equipment, high star ratings, and a vast, highly populated region to hunt, it was only obvious that Michael could summon dozens of subjects every day.
After all, he possessed a Soultrait that complemented his military power and the highly populated Untamed Jungle perfectly.
Despite that, Michael didn't think that he would have to extract more than 350 Monster Corpses once he finished the medicinal bath. 350 Tier-1 Monster corpses resulted in an extraction of 261 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls after the Summoning Scroll Fragments were combined in addition to three Tierless Artifacts, other unique drops, and 41 blueprints.
Some of the blueprints were new to Michael. There were even recipes among the blueprints, which were new.
One particular recipe attracted Michael's interest. It was a recipe called Jungle Street Mixture. It didn't seem like anything special at first, but it created a concrete-like substance using the most common resources of the Untamed Jungle.
"I can upgrade the dirt-paved trails into proper streets. What a great recipe!" Michael exclaimed.
He immediately stepped out of his room after wearing fresh clothes, found someone, and gave new orders. The Jungle Street Mixture had to be mass-produced and used immediately.
After the new orders were given, Michael walked over to the Summoning Gate. He used up all 261 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls at once, adding 234 Starless Summons and 27 1-Star Summons to the population of his territory.
As usual, the Links of Loyalty slowly formed between the Lord and his new subjects. Michael approached his subjects, and talked to them while ordering his older subjects to explain the situation, give the Newlings a place to stay, and so on.
The summoning process had already become a daily routine, and it was completed quickly without any disturbances.
Just as Michael thought that the next few days would be calming and without any trouble, Blaire appeared with a request to him.
Since the population in his territory expanded so quickly, Blaire Tracer turned her desire to train more Trackers into one of her missions.
More than enough Summons had the means to become Trackers – even if they did not possess the natural skills of a 3-Star Tracker such as Blaire. She taught them in an attempt to help Michael to ensure his territory's safety.
Michael had heard about that, but he didn't expect an incident to happen already.
'What did Blaire do again? Don't tell me that she stole the cubs of a Tier-3 Monster or something like that. I swear, I will whip her bum if she did that…' Michael cursed quietly in his heart.
He clearly recalled the last incident with Blaire, and couldn't help but worry.
Fortunately, Blaire and her students hadn't done anything wrong.
The report was about something they had witnessed. It was a huge mess.
Michael was relieved when he read the first few sentences of the report. He was happy that Blaire didn't do anything stupid. However, his expression turned sour real quick.
"What…the…" Michael blurted out, and his expression turned deadly serious the next moment.
Apparently, Blaire and her students had been near the habitat of a Sabertooth Wolf pack. She initially planned to teach her students more about the Sabertooth Wolf pack, the power disparity of an Alpha, Luna, and Beta of a wolf pack, and point out a few more pieces of information by giving them a live tour.
However, their study trip turned into a horror trip shortly after they arrived near the Sabertooth Wolf pack's habitat.
A single monster had invaded the territory of the Sabertooth Wolf pack.
According to Blaire's power scale, the Alpha, Luna, and Beta of the Sabertooth Wolf pack were as strong as the Black Bear respectively at the Lowest Tier-2 with exceptional instincts and above-average combat experience.
Yet, despite being that strong, and having a pack of more than 200 Peak Tier-1 Sabertooth Wolves by their side, a single monster annihilated them in less than half an hour!
Michael could tell that had been a close shave with death with a single glance in Blaire's eyes. Blaire may be a little stupid, but she was a confident young woman. She knew how strong their small army was, yet she was scared witless.
Adding the detailed content written down in the report to her reaction, Michael felt that the monster was far more troublesome than any opponent they had encountered until now.
The monster was a three-meter-tall Minotaur, wearing metal armor, and a huge war-axe. A monster foreign to the Untamed Jungle had somehow appeared, and wreaked havoc, massacring the Sabertooth Wolf pack, without sparing a single soul.
Its huge war-axe sliced through the air, flesh, and bones without any resistance. The Minotaur's crimson glowing eyes which were fixed on obliterating one opponent at a time struck Blaire and her students with terror. They were frozen to the spot while the Minotaur slaughtered one Sabertooth Wolf after another.
The Sabertooth Wolves attacked the Minotaur from all sides, but it never paid much attention to them. Instead, it used its empty hand to grasp the Sabertooth Wolves, nonchalantly, and smashed their skulls with brute force.
After their skulls were smashed, the Minotaur tore their Sabertooth out of its hide before it proceeded to kill the remaining Sabertooth Wolves as if nothing happened.
The Minotaur was like a highly combat aware, yet bloodthirsty Berserker. It was a monster that obliterated everything in its way before it disappeared from sight.
Michael read through Blaire's report several times, and his expression worsened every time he finished reading through it.
He took note of a few points and pieced the clues together. Unfortunately, the result wasn't really pleasant.
It was the second time a Tier-2 Monster had gone completely wild and acted weirdly. The first time was the Black Bear, and now a Minotaur – a monster that didn't belong to the Untamed Jungle, just like the Black Bear.
This time it was worse than the first incident. The Minotaur wore a set of high-quality armor, and wielded an exceptional weapon.
Was it a Summon, or possibly a tamed monster? The probability was not zero, but it could also be something else.
'Maybe the Minotaur is an evolved species? It's not impossible for monsters to evolve after they have absorbed enough origin energy. It could have broken through its racial genetic limitations. The Armor and Axe might be from Adventurers which it hunted after evolving.' Michael theorized in his mind, but it was not adding up together.
There was something about the theory that irked him. It was like he was missing an important piece of information.
What would be the easiest way to obtain this missing piece of information? How could he find out more about the Minotaur after it appeared out of nowhere?
'Maybe it wreaked havoc somewhere else before?' Michael wondered.
The thought crossed his mind, but he had nobody to ask about the Minotuar.
'Wait…I do have someone to ask!' Michael realized, recalled a familiar Elven face.
It was about time to visit Xiltra!
