After watching some battles, Michael was actually a little bit disappointed in his competition.
He fought against the Kitsun Lord and Haro Ki's subordinates for several days and spent weeks in the Origin Expanse to increase his strength rapidly so he had expected some worthy opponents here as well. Sadly, the combat prowess of the other participants of the Battle Exchange didn't increase by much. If anything, Michael felt that some of the Token Holders were a lot weaker than before.
But was that really the case, or did his strength increase to a higher extent than he predicted? Or maybe Michael was just better at pointing out the other participants' weaknesses after everything that happened in the last few weeks.
With Eagle Eyes and Spirit Gaze activated simultaneously, it allowed him to see far more and far better than ever. That allowed him to pinpoint his opponents' weaknesses and flaws without too many difficulties. Michael could, in fact, imagine several scenarios in which he fought the Token Holders in official battles, and he couldn't help but furrow his brows at the result of the imagined battles.
If it had been a few weeks ago, Michael would have lost against some of the Token Holders. To be precise, most of the second-year-students would have defeated him with a high probability. Their combat prowess was ranked either Elite or Superior and most of them were at the 3rd Tier.
But now that he obtained Spirit Gaze, which linked to Eagle Eyes, and that Glacicle was upgraded to a 5-Star Soultrait the situation changed. And that didn't even include the changes he underwent by refining his War Rune to the Mid rank of the 2nd Tier, in addition to the new experiences and fighting styles he got to know. Last but not least, there was also the heavy and intense training he obtained from the Immortal Knight.
While the official battles were a little bit disappointing, Michael was quite satisfied about his own strength. The fight against the Kitsun Lord had been quite fierce, and he was still irked about the loss of 1,500 Combat Summons, but the increase in strength he obtained from it was clearly notable.
Therefore, Michael decided to research the other Token Holders and find out more about the Descendants who had yet to bother challenging Token Holders. He could just challenge some other Token Holders, but Michael didn't want to obtain a Flag War Token with a low rating. If anything, Michael desired to obtain a Token with a good rank. He required far more resources than others to increase his strength rapidly. Therefore, he had to give his all to rank higher to obtain more resources.
Researching everything took quite a while, but Michael was not in a hurry. He had close to two weeks left before the Battle Exchange would end. If he entered the Origin Expanse until the end of the Battle Exchange Michael would have close to a month's time to grow even stronger and complete his research. Then again, Michael was not patient enough to wait until the end of the Battle Exchange before he would start challenging other Token Holders.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye. Michael was once again in the Colosseum observing a few official matches of the Token Holders he researched. Their fights were somewhat interesting, but the messages he received on that day were a little bit more important.
[Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): A healer of the Holy Sun Guild accepted your request. The healer was already stationed in a military base located near the Saphirelake Military Academy. That was very fortunate for Frederik because the healer traveled to the Saphirelake Military Academy immediately and started to tend to his wounds. Apparently, he had been afflicted with a Minor Curse that would have killed him if not tended to in the next few days. It was a good thing that the healer's Soultrait can cure Minor Curses. The Curse was alleviated and Frederik woke up. There is only one downside…]
[Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): The healer demands additional pay for curing the Minor Curse. Apparently, she can only cure Minor Curses once a month. Furthermore, Frederik's condition seems to be worse than stated in the medical report. She uttered that she would have to stay with Frederik for a month to make sure that his condition would improve and he would be back to its former peak. To put it simply; she wants 50 Mythic Summoning Scrolls or something of equal value…]
Michael didn't expect Frederik's condition to be that bad. All he had known was that Frederik was in a coma and that he sustained various injuries.
[Michael Fang: The payment is not a problem. Can you please tell the healer to focus on Frederik's condition and that she doesn't have to worry about the Mythic Summoning Scrolls?]
The price he had to pay was fairly expensive, even for someone like Michael. Procuring 500,000 Summoning Scroll Fragments to create 50 Mythic Scrolls wasn't that easy.
It was a relief that he had one particular advantage. He opened his chat with Kraft Viton since he was not sure where exactly the old man from the Bartholomew Corporation was and wrote him a message.
[Michael Fang: Hello Mr. Viton. I noticed a particular clause written in the special privileges provided to Diamond Members of the Bartholomew Corporation. Is it true that I can use the backlog of Summoning Scrolls from the last few months to boost my monthly purchase limit for one month?]
The purchase limit of Ordinary Summoning Scrolls was rather annoying for anyone interested in purchasing them in bulk. But given that the society was reigned by capitalists there would always be people with special rights and privileges. If not for the special privileges, it would be unlikely for Descendants of truly influential families to be so much stronger than anyone else.
At last, Michael could make use of such a special privilege as well. He never used the purchase limit for Ordinary Summoning Scrolls. Therefore, he could use his privilege to purchase the unused Scroll purchases and add the backlog to the current month. Therefore, he could exceed his purchase limit by the number of Summoning Scrolls he 'could have' purchased over the last few months.
This worked only for people with special privileges such as being a Diamond Member of the Bartholomew Corporation.
Michael didn't have to wait long before Kraft Viton sent him a reply.
[Kraft Viton: Do you want to boost your Soul Power for the Battle Exchange? If you don't have the capacity to keep the Summons alive and treat them well in your territory I advise you not to purchase too many Summoning Scrolls at once. Of course, you can do whatever you want, but I hope that you will listen to my advice.
If you still want to purchase the backlog of Summoning Scrolls that you haven't used in the last handful months, you can purchase a total of 684,650 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls for 3,500$ a piece. That is the current market price. The Diamond-level discount happens to apply to Ordinary Summoning Scrolls as well. You don't have to pay an extra fee for bulk purchases as it would usually be the case when someone purchases a bulk of Summoning Scrolls either. Therefore each Summoning Scroll will cost you 2,800$, or a total of 1,917,020,000$.]
The price stupefied Michael a little bit, but it was not as if he couldn't have expected something like that.
'Almost two billion for 680,000ish Ordinary Summoning Scrolls!! No wonder that some Descendants are that powerful. Ordinary people won't ever be able to purchase that many Scrolls. They would never have that money to spare. Well…I can't either, but it's not like I have a choice.'
Michael would rather not buy the Scrolls from the Bartholomew Corporation and wait a handful weeks until his subordinates hunted enough monsters to extract Summoning Scrolls and Summoning Scroll Fragments. Unfortunately, Alice sent him a message just now – a message that forced Michael to spend far more money than he could afford.
["Alice Zenovia(fierce beauty): Apparently the healer won't continue until a deposit of 20 Mythic Scrolls has been paid. I told her that I can vouch for you…but she doesn't seem to care. That is rare, but it happens since not everyone trusts big families. It's not the first time that Descendants of Superior families have taken advantage of their family's influence and authority to get freebies from Guilds and their members. So…you would have to send 20 Mythic Summoning Scrolls to the Saphirelake Military Academy in the next handful days, otherwise, Frederik's treatment won't continue…"]
Alice was trying to keep her cool but she was frustrated. She couldn't even help Michael. All the power and influence she possessed was rendered useless. She wasn't even capable of helping her only student to pay for his friend's medical treatment. Why? Because her family would notice and question her. They would notice her unusual behavior, take note of Michael, and pay more attention to him – attention she didn't want Michael to obtain just yet.
Michael was not yet ready to be thrown that deep into the politics of big families. If possible, Alice wanted him to stay out of it forever. Unfortunately, she knew that the Patriarchs of the Piedra and Lavita family had already taken note of Michael. Once the Flag War was over, Michael was likely to end up being pushed into the hell of high society. That was a shame, but it gave Alice enough time to prepare Michael at least a little bit. She couldn't afford to waste that time…even if that meant Michael would have to struggle a little bit to pay for Frederik's treatment.
[Michael Fang: No worries. I will be fine.]
Michael expected something similar. It was a shame, but it was also a good thing that his ties with Kraft Viton and the Bartholomew Corporation were fairly strong. Thus, he sent Kraft Viton a reply without wasting any time.
[Michael Fang: I will purchase everything, but can we deduct the bill from the profit I made with my percentages of the Agriculture Project? There should be some profits by now, so…if it's possible can we just deduct the 1,917,020,000$ from the profits?]
He felt a little bit sorry for asking a big favor, but he felt that it was necessary. In the worst case, he could just harvest more Agriculture-type Blueprints and sell them on the spot. In fact, that was something Michael wanted to do in the first place. But the funds earned from selling the Agriculture-type Blueprints were something he wanted to invest into his territory – and not into Frederik.
That was why Michael hoped that Kraft Viton would allow him to use his portion of the profits from the Agriculture Project to purchase the Ordinary Summoning Scrolls.
[Kraft Viton: How did you know? I wanted to surprise you by saying that you don't have to pay anything since the Agriculture Project's first profits are about to get distributed. You really are a sly fox!]
Michael didn't expect such a reply. It was poles apart from Kraft Viton's serious character. But it was not a bad thing. On the contrary, Michael was happy about the message's content.
[Michael Fang: Does that mean my portion of the profit is close to two billion dollars, or even higher?]
"Damn!"
