Even though Michael tried not to think too much about Liopham and Pheli, it was not like he could shut off his brain. The harder he tried to think about sothing else the more he was reminded about the two Forest Elves.
It was even worse since the sorrowful band of Mika, Opars, and Tiara stayed close to him. They clung to him as if he could drain their sorrow and pain. On the other hand, Lilica left the Origin Expanse for a while. She had to report Liopham and Pheli's deaths and et their families.
Michael decided to distract himself by looting the spatial rings, spatial pouches, and other objects with isolated pocket dinsions. The first thing he did was transfer all Energy Stones and other useful resources into his War Rune's storage. Following that, Michael moved to the large complex of warehouses where he began retrieving the corpses of all Adventurers that had been killed in the last two months.
The Savannah Expedition worked hard, but the majority of battles were small skirmishes. It was also impossible to retrieve all Adventurer corpses. Despite that, Michael ended up with more than 3,500 Adventurer corpses that waited patiently to be looted.
More than a third of the corpses had been given by the Trilance. That was a little bit less than expected, which was another reason to start doubting the Trilance's sincerity, but Michael didn't let that doubt disturb his focus.
His entire attention lasted on the Adventurer corpses.
Michael summoned the Soul Grimoire and retrieved a Soul Tear to use on Extraction. The potency of Extraction's power increased temporarily in response. Following that, Michael spent the next few hours looting the Adventurers with Extraction.
Michael put the extracted Artifacts, blueprints, Summoning Scrolls, and Summoning Scroll Fragnts aside for later. His attention lingered on the piles of mory Orbs, Soultrait Symbols, and SoulStar Fragnts.
'Damn'
Michael swallowed hard, his eyes lingering on the massive piles.
Since the drop rate for Awakened that hadn't been killed by him or his people killed was lowered, Michael didn't expect a lot. However, that was a grave mistake.
He ended up with 3,095 mory Orbs, 283 Soultrait Symbols, and a total of 189,529 SoulStar Fragnts!
It was the first ti that Michael saw such a huge pile of Soultrait Symbols and SoulStar Fragnts. Of course, he'd never seen so many mory Orbs piled up in one spot either, but the Soultrait Symbols and Fragnts shocked him the most.
Michael has accumulated 122,459 SoulStar Fragnts and 188 Soultrait Symbols until now. All of a sudden, these numbers increase more than twofold.
Michael's mind went blank as he reached out to the piles of Soultrait Symbols and SoulStar Fragnts.
"It's a good thing I procured a larger Sealed Container to keep the Soultrait Symbols," He mumbled at so point, retrieving the Erald Box, where his old Soultrait Symbols had been squeezed into without anymore space to breathe, and a new container that was five tis the size of the Erald Box.
Michael stored all…471… Soultrait Symbols into the new container and sealed it with trembling hands. The next thing he did was to store all SoulStar Fragnts. That was rather easy. Dozens of energy tendrils burst from his War Rune and devoured the piles of SoulStar Fragnts rapidly.
The pile of SoulStar Fragnts inside his War Rune expanded, slowly turning into a massive mountain with 311,988 SoulStar Fragnts.
'I have enough to upgrade Extraction to 7-Star!'
Not only did he have enough to upgrade Extraction, but it might as well be enough to upgrade so other Soultraits. That was pretty great, and it was also why Michael didn't bother continuing to extract the corpses of the 200,000ish Summons that the Savannah Expedition brought back.
Extraction's potency would increase trendously upon upgrading it to 7-Star. That also ant Extraction's drop rate would increase. Michael would be able to gain more loot after Extraction reached 7-Star. Thus, he chose to be a little bit more patient.
He was about to feed the Extraction Symbol with tens of thousands of SoulStar Fragnts at a ti when he recalled how painful it had been to upgrade Superior Constitution. The changes caused by upgrading Superior Constitution's Symbol were more drastic than the changes of other Soultraits since it affected Michael's physique directly.
However, Michael didn't forget that upgrading his Soultraits to 6-Star had always been rather painful. Upgrading a Soultrait to 6-Star changed his physique, even if it was only a slight alteration. Michael suspected that the sa – just more intense – would happen once he upgraded Extraction to 7-Star.
Michael considered the pain and began infusing five SoulStar Fragnts into the Soultrait Symbol of Extraction. He added five SoulStar Fragnts every second and stopped whenever he felt that his body required more ti to assimilate the SoulStar Fragnts into Extraction.
He was not in a desperate rush. The Heart of the Blazing Lion army was on the way, but their army was massive. It would take a while before they crossed the Zentika Empire.
Several hours passed in the blink of an eye, yet Michael didn't feel any major changes in Extraction. Still, he could tell that the Extraction Symbol pulsated vibrantly and that it was full of vigor.
Michael felt like the Extraction Symbol was excited, but that might as well be him being excited about Extraction's changes.
He was going to upgrade his first Soultraits to 7-Star. How could he not be excited? Was that even possible?
More than half a day passed before Michael's body reacted to the assimilation of close to 200,000 SoulStar Fragnts. The outlines of the 7th Star had already been completed and the incoming energy of the SoulStar Fragnts was used up to fill the outlines.
However, it was only now that the cells in his body began to complain. Extraction's presence weighed hard on his cells. Michael began to shudder as an increasingly uncomfortable sensation swept over him. The pores all over his body opened and sharp pain spread through his entire body. It felt like soone was trying to rip out his internal organs.
But all Michael could see was dark spots mixed with blood oozing from the pores all over his body. His head thumbed violently all of a sudden and his heart skipped a beat. Michael began to bleed dark blood from his nose and ears. He coughed up clots of impurities and dark blood.
All of a sudden, Michael felt like he was freezing. The warmth of his body disappeared and his view blurred. He stopped assimilating more SoulStar Fragnts into the Extraction Symbol for a while and breathed heavily. His condition improved the mont he stopped integrating more SoulStar Fragnts with the Extraction Symbol. To test whether it was Extraction's fault or not, Michael rested a few minutes before he began to channel so Fragnts into Extraction again.
The first few SoulStar Fragnts didn't do anything to Michael. However, as the number increased, Michael felt a wave of weakness pass through him.
'My body cannot handle a 7-Star Soultrait? But that's not possible. Kaleb awakened a 7-Star Soultraits as a Tierless Lord. If he can do that, why shouldn't I?'
Michael wondered if it was a big difference to manifest a natural 7-Star Soultrait or upgrade a Soultrait with external help. However, he quickly disregarded that thought as he recalled sothing else.
'The Awakening Stone!'
Every Lord was given an Awakening Stone to ensure a secure manifestation of their Soultrait. It was widely known that one could only manifest a Ability trait with an Awakening Stone, but that might not be everything the Awakening Stone was capable of. Maybe, Awakening Stones protected the Lords from the discomfort and suffering one would sustain for manifesting a Soultrait that was too powerful to handle as a Tierless Awakened.
That was rely a theory, but Michael thought that it made sense. Even Awakened with 5-Star Soultraits were usually not powerful enough to unravel the full potential of their Soultrait as Lesser Lifeforms. Only by ascending to Higher Lifeforms would they be able to unleash their Soultrait's full potential and do magical things that were deed impossible as Lesser Lifeforms.
This phenonon was even worse for Awakened with 6-Star Soultraits. They knew that their Ability trait was extrely powerful, but they didn't possess enough energy to experint and unleash their Soultraits' trendous powers.
Michael sensed sothing like that with his Soultraits as well. However, even though he couldn't unleash the full potential of most of his Soultraits, the power he did manage to unleash differentiated vastly depending on whether he used his 5-Star Soultraits or 6-Star Soultraits.
Even if he couldn't unleash Extraction's full potential once it reached 7-Star, Michael was certain that it would help him grow stronger…and rescue his brother.
No matter how painful it was, Michael knew that he had to upgrade Extraction. His brother was waiting for him!
Michael grit and integrated more SoulStar Fragnts into the Extraction Symbol. He channeled the Fragnts into the Ability trait Symbol slower than before. He decreased the rate from five Fragnts every second to two Fragnts and slowed down even further once he couldn't bear the pain anymore.
It was good that enhancing Extraction removed so of the additional tenacious impurities that were stuck in so spots for a very long ti. However, he didn't want to risk dying just to remove more impurities from his body. He endured the discomfort of upgrading Extraction as well as possible while coughing up more dark blood clots and exuding more dark blood all over his body.
Michael grew weaker as the hours passed, but he never succumbed. He continued to endure the discomfort until Extraction's 7th Star was filled.
Once Extraction was upgraded to a 7-Star Ability trait the world around Michael turned dark. He collapsed.
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