Michael was disoriented when he woke up.
The headache was still as bad as before, but Michael got up, nonetheless.
He looked out of the window and noticed that it was already early in the morning.
'Did I sleep that long?' Michael wondered before he took a quick bath and changed his clothes.
He left his room after a light workout to examine his body and find out where he was the worst injured.
After he stepped outside the room, Michael was greeted by dozens of Starless Summons who were busy tending to the injured with great care. The non-combat Summons with higher star rating were also there, supporting the injured in any way they could.
Everyone was doing what they could to help their injured, and traumatized friends and colleagues.
'It might take a while for everyone to recuperate from today's fight, but everything will return to normal sooner or later…' Michael thought on his way to the warehouse.
Michael had enough space to retrieve the corpses of the six Adventurers and the Blood-eyed Minotaur inside the warehouse.
First, Michael used Extraction on the six Adventurers. He extracted the items stored in their War Runes, SoulStar Fragments, or Artifacts bound to their War Runes.
Afterward, he did the same to the Blood-eyed Minotaur. However, contrary to the Adventurers, Michael dissected the Blood-eyed Minotaur's corpse. It was more valuable dissected than left untouched – which was the case for the Adventurers' corpses. They were worth quite a lot in mankind's marketplace, with their corpse left intact.
Of course, the corpses were far less valuable than the other loot he had obtained but he was not going to respectfully burn them either way. Michael extracted a few pieces of paper from the War Rune of the aggressive Lionheart, several huge Zentik bills, and a few Artifacts. Most Artifacts were 2-Star or 3-Star Tierless Artifacts, but they were quite valuable, nonetheless.
Michael was happy about the gains he made, but his biggest focus was on the SoulStar Fragments. Interestingly enough, even the Minotaur dropped SoulStar Fragments.
It was a tamed monster – bound by the Lionheart Adventurer, whose Soultrait was related to taming, but did that mean it could drop SoulStar Fragments? Did that make sense?
'Does it drop SoulStar Fragments because of the Taming Soultrait? If that's the case…was the Black Bear also a tamed beast of that bastard?' Michael wondered as he recalled the Black Bear dropping SoulStar Fragments as well.
Michael was confused, but also angry.
The Senator was getting on his nerves. It felt as if everything Senator Keltos did was to annoy Michael and make his life miserable. Unfortunately, there was nothing Michael could do about it.
He didn't even know the true extent of Senator Keltos' power, or the secret channels of influence in his possession. The few pieces of information Michael read about Senator Keltos were already more than enough to tell him that he couldn't fight such an existence, not now at least.
'In that case, use your peanut-sized brain and throw more low-ranked idiots at me. I will kill them all and use them to grow strong enough to beat the shit out of you!' Michael swore in his mind.
His head flicked to a semi-translucent Symbol that was hiding in the midst of the small SoulStar Fragment pile.
It was a Soultrait Symbol that looked frail and easily breakable.
Michael initially wanted to focus on increasing the star rating of the Soultraits in his possession but thinking about Senator Keltos made him absorb everything.
'It dropped in its complete form. Tearing it apart might not benefit me,' He thought before allowing his War Rune to absorb everything.
When he was asleep, his War Rune had refined the energy influx he obtained from killing six Tier-1 Adventurers and one Low Tier-2 Monster. His degree of refinement didn't increase a lot, but Michael felt more energetic.
His War Rune mirrored his energy, and several tentacle-like streams of energy shot out of the back of his right hand. They coiled around the SoulStar Fragments and the frail Soultrait Symbol before devouring everything at once.
A stream of information entered his mind as the frail Soultrait Symbol fused with the white pillar in the deepest parts of his consciousness.
Michael closed his eyes and focused on the white pillar as well. A moment later, it appeared in front of his closed eyes. He saw his four Soultraits and the frail Soultrait Symbol of Taming.
'Is it broken?' Michael thought at first, but he shook his head.
'No, that's not it.'
The information about the Taming Soultrait didn't seem incomplete in any way.
It took Michael a while but when he finally compared Spirit Whip's 1-Star Soultrait Symbol with the Taming Soultrait Symbol and realization struck him.
'Taming is not even a complete 1-Star Soultrait. Only the outer frame of the first star has formed!'
Michael didn't expect to fuse an incomplete Soultrait. Incomplete Soultraits usually awoke much later than ordinary Soultraits because they lacked the necessary Soul Power to manifest. That was what happened to the Taming Soultrait Symbol. It lacked the necessary Soul Power to completely manifest the first star.
'Fortunately, I have a way to fix this easily!' Michael thought before he moved a single SoulStar Fragment near the Taming Soultrait Symbol.
The frail Symbol shook violently as the SoulStar Fragment fused into it. Michael felt goosebumps all over his body as more information about the Taming Soultrait entered his mind. Simultaneously, the first star of the incomplete Soultrait was fully manifested.
His plan had worked and Michael gained a new 1-Star Soultrait!
"A single SoulStar Fragment was enough? Well, that's even better then!" Michael mused, giving himself a pat on the back.
So far, he had obtained a total of 31 SoulStar Fragments and an incomplete Soultrait Symbol by using his 4-Star Extraction on six Adventurers and the Minotaur.
Michael might not have been lucky enough to extract some memory fragments, but the SoulStar Fragments were more than enough to make him happy.
'I shouldn't use any SoulStar Fragments on Lesser Enhancement, and Eagle Eyes for the time being. It would be too suspicious if the Soul Power of each Soultrait would increase by more than a hundred units in just 30 days, right?' Michael asked himself, recalling that his Soul Power would be evaluated in the second aptitude assessment.
Upgrading Lesser Enhancement to a 3-Star Soultrait would attract even more attention. He might unintentionally reveal his secret and attract everyone's attention.
Michael didn't want that to happen.
With that in mind, Michael chose to focus on Taming and Spirit Whip. Taming seemed quite useful – though it didn't seem to be much different from a Link of Loyalty. The only differences were the quality of the connection between a Tamer and his or her tamed monster, and the ability to communicate telepathically with each other through a long distance.
He could tame monsters of the Origin Expanse and create a combat unit of tamed monsters. That didn't seem like a bad plan.
Spirit Whip had come in handy a few times already. Thus, Michael wanted to upgrade it to a 3-Star Soultrait at once. He spent four SoulStar Fragments to upgrade to a 2-Star Soultrait and spent another 23 SoulStar Fragments to complete the upgrade to 3 Stars.
Michael tested the lethality of his upgraded Spirit Whip, and he was slightly shocked. The energy consumption increased quite a bit, but so did the damage output of the non-physical attack. It was quite exceptional.
"If my opponents are not prepared for a feisty Spirit Whip, I can change the tide of the battle easily!" Michael murmured, feeling quite satisfied.
Afterward, he spent the remaining Soulstar Fragments on Taming, barely completing the second star, and upgrading it to a 2-Star Soultrait.
At last, Michael's gaze fell on the pieces of paper which he had extracted from the War Rune of the Senator's direct subordinate.
"Let's see what you've been hiding from me!"
