Michael finished his trade with Kraft Viton, while Kaleb was deep in thought.
"You will get everything before the departure to the dimension portal," Kraft Viton said before sending the two youths away.
Michael and Kaleb left the office and made their way back to Alice.
"Did something else happen while I was away, or was that everything important you told me?" Michael asked Kaleb.
"Something else? Well. If you didn't know that yet, the Sacred Desert is in danger."
"In danger?" Michael inquired.
"Apparently, many Lords encountered Undead forces in the Sacred Desert. The Undead appeared out of nowhere in astronomical numbers, and have already exterminated several human territories. Other than human territories, the Undead must have obliterated dozens of enemy territories as well. Their strength and numbers increase as the plague of Undead continues to spread. It's…kinda difficult to tell what is going to happen now," Kaleb explained to his friend.
'Undead?' Michael frowned deeply, a seed of uncertainty blossoming in his heart. 'Are the Undead related to Danny's death? Is that possible?'
Michael was not really sure, but the Undead of the Sacred Desert made him feel things. Something was definitely wrong with them.
Unfortunately, there was nothing Michael could do about the Undead of the Sacred Desert.
The only thing he could do was to focus on the Interdimensional Flag War. There was not much of a choice in that regard since he had to stay alive a little longer to find out more about the Sacred Desert, Danny's death and the role some higher ups of High Society played – and maybe how the Undead were involved in his death.
Strength was what Michael needed the most to achieve each of these points. Therefore, he had to utilize the Flag War!
The youths talked a lot about the Sacred Desert and its issues until they reached Alice's office. Alice was already waiting for them, but she was surprised to see Kaleb accompanying Michael.
"Hey Alice. I hope you're going to give me a nice deal!" Michael greeted her lightly, "The Mythic Scrolls are already waiting for you."
"Before we begin discussing our little trade, I'm curious about something," Alice said.
"Did you really use up all the resources that were given to you? How did you do that? Leviathan Diffusion is rather new so your mastery shouldn't be too high yet. Its absorption rate of purified energy is not that high either. Did you mix two techniques to increase the absorption rate of another technique with Leviathan Diffusion's energy circulation?"
"I am just a Glutton. There is no need to think too much about it. I got the knack of Leviathan Diffusion quite fast as well."
"But that was enough to bring…" Alice glanced over to Kaleb and shook her head, "Forget it."
"So you are about to reach the Peak of Tier-2. That should be fine with your combat prowess and the Aethyr Artifact."
"Aethyr Artifact?" Michael inquired but Alice just smiled.
"Let's finish the trade first. How many Original Scrolls do you want in exchange for one Mythic Scroll? You know that you can ask for specific Scrolls as well. Given the rarity of Mythic Scrolls, you can get your hands on Named Summoning Scrolls quite easily as well," Alice explained, providing Michael a chance to pick Named Summoning Scrolls other than Ordinary Summoning Scrolls.
Michael had already thought about that. However, he initially thought to wait a little longer before switching from trading Mythic Scrolls for Ordinary Scrolls to demanding Named Scrolls.
"I know that the Zenovia family has several Adventurer teams hunting for them. You have great hunting grounds that reward a high number of Ordinary Scrolls. That's why the inflated price due to the limited purchase ability of Ordinary Scrolls doesn't really apply to the members of the Zenovia family," Michael said, clearing his throat to give his idea a second thought before he added, "I hope you can give me 20,000 Ordinary Scrolls and 100 Named Scrolls of my choice in exchange for a Mythic Scroll."
Alice raised an eyebrow, "15,000 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls and 50 Named Scrolls at most!"
Michael smiled in response and raised his hand to shake Alice's. "That's perfect! You obtained a deal right there."
Instead of trying to play around with Alice by negotiating, Michael accepted the trade right away. His offer had been a little high with the Named Scrolls in addition, but he obtained exactly what he wanted – if not more – through Alice's counteroffer.
"15,000 Ordinary Scrolls and 50 Named Scrolls of my choice for every Mythic Scroll I'm giving you or a member of the Zenovia family. Is that fine? If it is, let's proceed to prepare a proper formal contract, please," Michael uttered with a smile on his lips.
Alice expected some more resistance from Michael. She didn't think that he would accept her counteroffer just like that.
Named Scrolls were quite hard to procure but Ordinary Scrolls were basically procured for free for the Zenovia family.
'Is it because he inquired for specific Named Scrolls? Since he can decide what 1-Star Summon he wants, he can develop his territory with more precision. For someone who lacks funds, it might actually be better to trade his Mythic Scrolls or Named Scrolls of his choice.' Alice thought, preparing the contract right away.
She quickly signed the contract once she was done drafting and setting it up. Alice handed Michael the contract with a flick of her wrist. He read through it and was satisfied with the clauses. There was nothing that could be used against him. The contract was very simple and transparent. Michael signed it without hesitation.
Once both parties signed the contract, Alice put the Zenovia family's seal on it before making a copy with a magical device. She handed the copy to Michael while keeping the original.
"Do you want to move to the next subject right away? How about I introduce you to the Aethyr Artifa–..." Alice stopped her sentence mid-way as she watched Michael gather 10 Mythic Scrolls in one go.
"Before that, I would love to finish my business with the Mythic Scrolls first. That's 150,000 Ordinary Scrolls, and 500 Named Scrolls. I need 200 Archers, 50 Instructors for Archery and Spearmanship. Assassination, Scouting, and Riding. If you have any Instructors for Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting I'm all in. The remaining Named Scrolls should be focused on Agriculture. A batch of 10 Lesser Tamers would be great as well."
Michael smiled at Alice, his expression nonchalant as he shared an exhaustive list of what he wanted with Alice. He thought about retrieving 52 Mythic Scrolls in one go, but he figured that he wouldn't procure enough Fragments to create a Legendary Scroll. Thus, it was not worth retrieving all Mythic Scrolls since it would attract too much attention. Michael didn't need 2500 Named Scrolls right now either way, let alone 780,000 Ordinary Scrolls.
It was better to wait until after the Flag War to trade the Mythic Scrolls when he was in need of more specific Named Scrolls since he could choose whatever Named Summoning Scroll he desired.
"That…Well, alright." Alice said, staring at the Mythic Scrolls for a moment.
"I will get your Summoning Scrolls later," She added, "Are you ready for your gift at last?"
"Gift?" Michael was not sure why he would be given a gift.
"To be more accurate, it's the reward you were supposed to get a while ago. The reward for helping interrogate the war criminals and revealing their tactics. Without your help many more would have died. Maybe, we would have lost the Tritaenus and the secret information stored in its network forever.
"You might not realize how valuable your help was. That was also why it was much harder to find an appropriate reward for you!"
Alice twirled the paperweight on her desk with her hand as she continued, "Of course, there were some higher-ups who were not really in favor of giving you something valuable. They'd been hoping to secure the Aethyr Artifact for their families. Fortunately, the War Priestess and the Chieftain were adamant of not letting that happen. It is only thanks to them that you can receive 'this'!"
As her last words reached Michael, Alice retrieved something from her War Rune.
It was… a mass of silver liquid…
"That…thing is the Aethyr Artifact?" Kaleb inquired instead of Michael.
He was not sure whether his sister was joking, or not, but given Alice's usual demeanor and her overly serious expression the silver mass must be something good…probably?
"We didn't want to give you some sort of martial arts technique since you wouldn't be able to reach a high enough mastery until the start of the Interdimensional Flag War. That is where the Aethyr Artifact comes into play. It's an alloy created from a trace of Aether. The Aether content is about 0.001% within the alloy, but it has high compatibility with the other materials used to create the alloy," Alice explained.
"You can use it just like Aether even though it is countless times weaker than pure Aether. Nonetheless, it is extraordinary. Aethyr is a Unique Artifact that can be upgraded up to Tier-3. In fact, most Descendants would still use it even after becoming a Higher Lifeform since the Aethyr Artifact can change into 28 different types of weapons."
Alice noticed that Michael stared at the silver mass intensely. She thought that he must be wondering what Aether was.
"I guess you don't know what Aether is since it's rare to find and retrieve. Only a few humans were ever able to gather a few grams of Aether. So Aether is—"
"I know what Aether is," Michael intervened. "It's amazing! I didn't even know that you could create an alloy with bits of Aether to substitute the required volume to form Armaments with other raw materials. Even though Aether's power and wide variety of uses were downgraded a lot, I love it!"
The Aethyr Artifact was ideal for Michael. Only pure Aether would be better. After all, Michael was somewhat adept with all weapons thanks to the Memory Orbs of more than 100 Awakened he'd digested.
He loved it!
