560 We Want War!
Many Blessed Squires, and Holy Knights applied for the expedition into the Savannah Region. The number of applications crossed 1000 within a few hours.
Michael didn't expect everyone to be this interested in the Regional War, but he guessed that it was mostly the internal rivalry between his subordinates that resulted in the massive flood of official applications.
Since their colleagues gained tremendous strength, confidence, and combat experience on the battlefield all while they had been safe and sound in their homes, they wanted to invade the enemy's territory as well. After all, nobody wanted to lose out against their rival!
In the first place, every Starless Summon who'd joined the Sacred Knight Temple did so to grow stronger. Their reasoning was pretty simple. They either wanted to protect their friends and the people they learned to love in Michael's territory, or they desired to use the second opportunity they'd been granted by resurrecting in Michael's territory to change their fate. They didn't want to stay the same no-names they'd been before they died. Everyone wanted to be something.
Michael supported them. He didn't reject many applications. However, since he was not going to join them, Michael decided to reject every application from Summons below Late Tier-1. As long as they were at the Peak of the 1st Tier, they should be able to manage to hold the fort against some foes. Furthermore, at the Peak of Tier-1, a Summon could advance to the next Tier pretty quickly.
As long as his subjects fought in their formation and didn't charge mindlessly at their enemies, it would be fine.
Other than the 1000 official applications, Zeroa told Michael that she would join the battle with an equivalent number of Lesser Elementals. Her Lesser Elementals and the Noble Elementals weren't that powerful yet, but they could support the Blessed Squires, Holy Knights, and Awakened with their variety of elemental attacks.
Zeroa would become Tiara's temporary partner whereas the nobility of the Elementals partnered up with Thaor, Lilica, and Mekhaz.
["Please accept the low-ranked Lesser Elementals as well. They want to join, and their elemental powers can be used to protect your subjects, amplify their attacks, and aid them physically in various ways!"] Zeroa requested via telepathy. Michael sighed heavily but he agreed reluctantly.
Zeroa was responsible for her society. If she deemed the low-
ranked Elementals strong enough to pose a threat to the Council of Xylon and strengthen his subjects in battle, he wouldn't reject her request.
At the end of the day, Michael recalled what happened last time his subjects asked him to join the battle. That was when the incident in the Elementals Cave occurred. Nonetheless, Michael allowed most subjects to join this fight. It was their decision and responsibility. The only reason he rejected some was because he felt that they might endanger their comrades. It was fine if they took responsibility for their own lives, but Michael wouldn't allow anyone to harm their allies by being too weak, or reckless.
It annoyed him a little bit that he wasn't going to be present for the next few battles in the Savannah's Regional War, but he had too much other stuff to do. Michael couldn't run away from his responsibilities any longer. It wouldn't do him any good.
Michael realized his foolishness a few days ago. After fighting in the Savannah Region for a while, Michael understood that he shouldn't keep postponing important tasks any longer, not if that came at the expense of the people he loved.
That was also how Michael understood that his brother might suffer tremendously just because he was unwilling to talk to his mother. That wasn't fair.
However, before Michael was going to jump into the dragon's nest to talk to his mother, he had a few other things to do. He was responsible for the development of his land as well, after all!
The first thing he did was obtain the Summoning Cores he'd procured in the Soultrait Symbol Auction. Those were four Basic Berserker Summoning Cores and four Basic Warlock Centaur Summoning Cores. They were incredibly valuable even though their purity level was among the worst. Fortunately, something like that was not a problem for Michael.
He summoned the Soul Grimoire and used two Soul Tears to amplify Enhancement and Extraction. The potency of the two Soultraits increased and it was not much later that Michael used eight layers of Enhancement to amplify Extraction's power exponentially.
Thereafter, Michael began to extract the impurities within the eight Basic Summoning Cores. It would have been even better if he could stack the effect of the Soul Tears because Enhanced Extraction removed a terrifically high amount of impurities from the low-quality Summoning Cores, but the effect was already shocking enough.
The amount of impurities extracted was even larger than the impurities he'd managed to extract from the remaining 11 Summoning Cores he possessed. Taking that into consideration, Michael used Enhanced Extraction with the amplification of Soul Tears to remove more impurities from the other Summoning Cores in his possession.
Once the mess caused by the disgusting mass of impurities splattered everywhere around the Summoning Gate had been cleared, Michael installed the new Summoning Cores in the remaining vacant sockets. Only a single opening was left empty now.
"I should look for an Intermediate Summoning Core," Michael mumbled, staring at the last empty socket before he closed the hatch of the Summoning Gate. A smile crept up on his face. He felt good now that his first Summoning Gate was slowly approaching its limit. It was about time to upgrade his Summoning Gate to the Intermediate rank!
The next thing he did was to move over to the Architect's main office where he retrieved 162 Intermediate-ranked Blueprints of Exotic and Extraordinary Rarity, and 75 Advanced Blueprints with core edifices like a Hunter's Academy, an Advanced Hospital and tens of devices that could be used for advanced farming, land protection, and a significant improvement of life throughout the territory.
"Since I'm not as knowledgeable about architecture, and the overall construction process, I hope you guys can meet up with the construction workers to create a priority list for all blueprints. I recommend constructing the Hunter Academy and the Advanced Hospital with its designated medical devices as soon as possible. However, I've also been given enough resources to start the construction of the Intermediate Sacred Knight Temple," Michael dropped the bombastic news in front of his subjects nonchalantly, however, they could only stare blankly at him.
The Basic level of the Sacred Knight Temple could be renovated as long as the necessary resources were put aside. The only problem was that they would have to expand the temple, build a second floor, and expand into the second basement as well. In fact, calling it a problem was exaggerated. The only issue was the time and manpower required to renovate the Sacred Knight Temple.
The sudden influx of workload stunned the architects, but rummaging through the Intermediate and Advanced Blueprints ignited their excitement. The flame of excitement burned fiercely in their hearts at the sight of some highly advanced buildings that used incredible techniques, runic engravings, and devices to construct some of those magnificent structures.
Michael felt like an outsider the moment the architects' focus switched to the blueprints. It took the architects several minutes to recall that their Lord was still in the room, waiting for their response.
"We'll create a priority list and come back to verify the list with you. As you might know, we will require resources…lots of resources, if you want us to focus on several construction sites simultaneously. It will be cost-intensive and it will take a while before the first edifices are completed. Most Advanced Blueprints have large structures and our workforce is already busy expanding the residencies for more Summons and Awakened," One of the Architects responded.
Michael expected that response and retrieved one of his rings. He removed the seal of his energy frequency and placed the ring in the Architect's palm.
"The materials required to upgrade the Sacred Knight Temple to intermediate level and a batch of other materials are inside the spatial ring. It should be enough to get started with a few projects. More materials will follow soon."
Michael had yet to sell the remaining treasures he'd obtained from the three Tier-5 Lords who'd attacked him, and that didn't even include the treasures he had obtained from the Soultrait Symbol Auction and the gains he would make once he finished extracting the corpses of the enemies they'd slain in the Regional War.
The Architects eyed him weirdly, confused about how their Lord procured so many precious materials in such a short amount of time, but Michael didn't linger in their office for long. He told them to finish the priority list and come find him to discuss the following steps of their plan. Once that was done, Michael traveled to the Alchemist's Lair to repeat what he'd done with the Architects.
He retrieved a large batch of formulas for various sought-after potions and elixirs before telling the Alchemists to create a priority list. However, he also added another request. The Alchemists were told to research more potions, the Warrior Enlightenment Potion, to be precise. If the Alchemists could create their own set of Promotion Potions for other occupations, their land would find another source to generate a massive fortune.
'Should I use some of the Vouchers for Customized Epic Tier-3 Artifacts already? No. I don't really need them right now.' Michael shook his head. He might have enough space left for external amplifications, especially after his physique improved drastically thanks to Superior Constitution, but there was no need to rush.
He was not sure what type of Customized Epic Tier-3 Artifact he needed. Did he need something like that, in the first place?
