Michael's eyes opened slowly. He was not sure how much time had passed but he felt much better.
His body was warm and overflowing with vigor. The energy surrounding him was highly compressed and purified. He felt great.
His eyelids were heavy, threatening to close once again, but Michael fought against it. He kept his eyes wide open and looked around to figure out where he was. It was only now that he realized that he was lying in a large bathtub filled with glimmering green liquid.
'Intermediate Nutrient Solution?'
Michael recalled the familiar smell of Intermediate Nutrient Solutions, but he didn't expect to be bathing in it. There had to be at least a thousand Intermediate Nutrient Solutions dissolved in the bathtub. However, more shocking was that the nutrients inside the Intermediate Nutrient Solution bath had…disappeared.
The nutrients had been sucked dry.
It was also interesting that the floor around him was covered in Common Energy Stones. There were at least 500 spread through the room, probably even more than that.
"You don't have to look so shocked. This is nothing compared to what you used up in the last two days. You consumed the energy within 11,000 Common Energy Stones and the nutrition from 2900 Intermediate Nutrient Solutions."
Immortal Knight's voice reached him from the side. Michael turned to the old man, whose complexion had improved a lot. The effects of the Bloodline Upgrade Token rejuvenated Immortal Knight a lot. He was doing much better.
Immortal Knight wasn't wearing his armor like usual. Instead, he wore ordinary clothes like most citizens. That was a rare sight to behold.
"You cannot imagine how shocked we were when your attendants told us that you collapsed and that you've been spitting out blood and other extremities for hours. We were worried until we found you collapsed on the ground in your blood. Well. It was mixed with lots of impurities and retched worse than my ascension to a Higher Lifeform when I was still alive and a Lord."
Siegfried teased Michael a little, but it did not take long before Immortal Knight turned more serious again.
"I think you should control your aura a little bit better. You almost killed the attendants who changed your water and added more Energy Stones and Nutrient Solutions. I had to jump in and protect them, only to end up replacing them because you started dissecting their bodies while they were still alive. I can tell you one thing. That was…creepy!"
Michael looked apologetic to some of the attendants. He saw their bandages and the shimmers of fear in their eyes and pressed his lips together. He lifted his arm and used Archangel's Grace. Michael added Heavenly Realm by swiftly converting Soul Power and Origin Energy into Soul Energy. His Soul Energy was drained rapidly but the attendants' wounds regenerated swiftly. The skin that Michael had subconsciously extracted regrew rapidly.
Thereafter, Michael sent the attendants away after giving them some rewards, including Warrior Enlightenment Potions. His attendants did great work. They stayed by his side even though they feared getting skinned alive.
Michael closed his eyes once the attendants left. He enters the deepest parts of his consciousness and glanced at the Sphere of Light. Extraction was at the center of the Sphere of Light. Seven vibrant stars had been etched on Extraction's Soultrait Symbol. Upgrading Extraction succeeded!
Michael's attention was pulled to the pile of SoulStar Fragments. Only 11,958 SoulStar Fragments were left.
'Upgrading Extraction required 300,000 SoulStar Fragments. That's an increase of more than 10x compared to Extraction's upgrade to 6-Star.'
Michael licked his lips. He was pulled out of his train of thought when Siegfried spoke up again.
"You were asleep for two days because you severely lacked nutrients and energy, you know?"
'Hmm?' Michael frowned deeply 'Upgrading Extraction shouldn't have required that many nutrients and energy. Is that why I felt so cold and weak? I thought my body was revolting against Extraction's upgrade…'
Michael recalled something and a flood of information about Extraction impacted heavily on his mind. He instinctively comprehended more about Extraction's uses, limitations, and hidden powers.
The information also told him that Extraction altered his entire body to release some of the impurities that had been stuck within him since he was young. Simultaneously, Extraction altered his cells to tune them better. His cells were adapted to fit better to Extraction.
Michael could use Extraction far easier now that it upgraded to 7-Star and his body used Extraction subconsciously. A passive effect of Extraction had been unlocked, creating an Aura around Michael's body. He had to pay more attention to Extraction to block the Aura, otherwise, he would dissect everyone around him without his knowledge.
Injuring his subjects like he did when he was asleep would happen more often if he didn't pay attention to the Extraction Aura.
The changes to his body and his increasing understanding of Extraction were terrific. Michael closed his eyes and unleashed Dome of Extraction to measure the dome's range of effect. He didn't extract anything with the Dome of Extraction, but Michael could instinctively tell that its power was tremendous.
Everything around him was clad in a golden hue, and Immortal Knight shuddered. The dome's presence was several times more terrifying than it used to be. Siegfried felt that if Michael wanted to kill him he could do so with a simple mental command. His hair stood up to its end at the thought.
Even Michael couldn't help but shudder as he retracted the Dome of Extraction.
'Powerful'
Upgrading Extraction to 7-Star was definitely going to help save Danny. Mixed with Soul Grimoire's Soul Tear, and Enhancement, Extraction's power should be enough to remove the weakened Curse before it could regain some of its former power.
'Now…all I need is to gather more Soul Tears to strengthen Danny's Living Soul and upgrade Soul Grimoire. Then…I can finally rescue him!'
Only slightly more than two months passed since his mother told him about Danny's Living Soul and the 1-year-period he had to rescue him. His mother told him that she would take Danny away two months before it was 'too late'. That meant Michael had more than enough time to solve his other issues and ensure his brother's safety!
A sigh of relief escaped Michael's lips, but his thoughts quickly traveled to the upcoming battles and threats he had to remove soon.
The Council's Teleporters were dangerous and Michael couldn't be certain that the Heart of the Blazing Lion army wouldn't have equally dangerous members. That worry drawn his attention to the 471 Soultrait Symbols and the remaining 11,000ish SoulStar Fragments.
But before he put too much focus on the Soultraits and Fragments, Michael decided to finish his other task first. He wanted to observe Extraction's power.
Michael stepped out of the bathtub, cleaned his body, and stored the remaining Energy Stones inside his War Rune's storage with a wave of his hand. He dried his body swiftly and put on a neat set of comfortable clothes.
Once he was ready, Michael left the room, ignoring that he had been exposed to Immortal Knight the whole time. He ordered Immortal Knight to follow him and made his way to the warehouse complex once again.
He retrieved some of the 200,000ish Summon corpses brought back by the Savannah Expedition and used Extraction.
'Should I focus on Mythic Scrolls this time, or will it be better to get some Legendary Scrolls to have some powerhouses to increase my chances against the Zentika Empire?' Michael wondered but he shook his head.
The Soul Power amassed within Extraction's Soultrait Symbol increased drastically over the last two days. As a Soultrait with a higher star rating, Extraction possessed a higher conversion rate than his other Soultraits. The conversion rate was directly related to the Soul Power every single Link of Loyalty provided.
If the Soul Power provided from the Links of Loyalty of a Starless Summon would be 0.001 Units at its strongest, a 1-
Star Summon could provide 0.01 Units at its strongest. However, most Awakened couldn't attain a higher conversion rate than 50% due to their Soultraits' limit.
There were multiple ways to exceed a Soultrait's limit via external means, but there was one particular fact that couldn't be shaken; The higher a Soultrait's star rating the higher the conversion rate.
Upgrading Extraction to a 7-Star Soultrait increased the conversion rate drastically, therefore, increasing the Soul Power provided from every Link of Loyalty.
That meant it might be more beneficial for Michael to increase his strength by summoning as many Summons as possible. Their Links of Loyalty would increase his Soul Power manyfold, granting him tremendous power to deal with the Zentika Empire's army.
Michael had enough residencies for 100,000 new Summons, but he shook his head quickly.
'First, I need to check what resources I have.'
It felt like an eternity passed but Michael was done extracting the loot from 200,000ish Summons.
The drop rate of Extraction at 7-Star didn't increase tremendously. Actually, that was not correct. Some drop rates changed drastically, while others didn't seem to have changed so much. However, the slight changes were enough to create a massive increase in gains since he had so many corpses to extract.
A few Summoning Scroll Fragments more from every corpse was equivalent to 1 to 2 Legendary Summoning Scrolls given the sheer mass of corpses he had looted.
He made a massive haul. The gains were enough to shock Immortal Knight to the core. He stared at his Lord, his hands trembling in excitement.
'I'm glad that you resurrected me,' Immortal Knight nearly blurted out loud.
Michael didn't see the glimmer in Immortal Knight's eyes. He was too excited and shocked about the gains he made. He incorporated the Scrolls, blueprints, and other loot he procured from the Awakened corpses and spread his entire energy through the warehouse complex to count his gapins- Even though he gained a lot from extracting a portion of the Awakened's War Rune storage…it was nothing compared to the gains he made from the 200,000ish Summons.
He looted a total of 12,405 Artifacts. More than half of them were Tier-1 Artifacts, but even among those were a few interesting gains. One natural Epic Tier-1 Weapon Artifact, and close to 250 4-Star Tier-1 Artifacts. Other than that, Michael gained various Tier-2 Artifacts. Most of them were 2-Star Artifacts, but there were some rare finds as well. The overall haul from Artifacts was better than ever.
But the Artifacts were merely the beginning of Michael's great haul. He procured 124,580 Blueprints, 145,600 Ordinary Summoning Scrolls, and 6,001,430 Summoning Scroll Fragments.
He could combine the Summoning Scroll Fragments into 600 Mythic Scrolls, or 6 Legendary Scrolls!
The big question, however, was…what was he going to do??
