227: Distress

Distress

"The total for 500,000 fresh Tier-1 monster carcasses sums up to 501,530,000$. However, since you were willing to sell a total of 4752 Tier-1 Artifacts and 521 Tier-2 Artifacts in our little shop…, 5.3 billion dollars will be transferred to your account," The shop manager said, his back drenched in cold sweat.

When he first received his subordinates' call, he didn't think too much about it. Yet, seeing more than 5,000 Artifacts in the hands of a single Lord was more than enough to make his heart skip a beat. 

The shop manager had no idea where the Artifacts came from, but that was not important. The only important fact was that he could contribute to the profits of the Bartholomew Corporation by selling the Artifacts using the Bartholomew Shop Managing system. 

As long as he sold all Artifacts at a high profit, he was bound to obtain a generous bonus. The thought of a bonus excited him, causing him to treat Michael much better than before. 

Michael turned into a treasure trove in the shop manager's eyes.

Michael noticed the shop manager's change of attitude pretty quickly, but he didn't mind it. He received the first batch of Monster corpses which he stored inside his War Rune's storage space, and Spatial Pouch before he opened the Runic Gate in the middle of the shop.

He disappeared in the Origin Expanse, where he spread the monster corpses along the outer area of the corrupted land. Afterward, Michael returned to the shop where the next batches of monster corpses were waiting for him.

Since Michael's storage space was not big enough to carry 500,000 monster carcasses in a single trip, he had to travel back and forth several times. 

It was a little bit annoying, but Michael spent only a few hours before he was finally done.

A total of 500,000 monster corpses had been spread across the border to the corrupted land. 

'That should be enough for the time being,' Michael thought before he started utilizing Extraction to extract some of the chaos essence that had taken root in the corrupted land.

He didn't spend much time using Extraction, but the results were great nonetheless. Extraction was already a 6-Star Soultrait. Even if he didn't spend much energy or time extracting chaos essence, fixing the corrupted land wouldn't take too long. Half an hour a day was enough for him to gradually extract the impurities and fix the corrupted land in a month or two.

Michael was satisfied with that. He left the Origin Expanse once more to purchase hundreds of tons of soil. It didn't even have to be nutritious since the Untamed Jungle would fill its surroundings with nutrition as long as he provided it with enough monster corpses.

Michael spent the next few days extracting the chaos essence of the humongous pit. Afterward, he filled it slowly with soil.

"Did the corpses of the Paladins disintegrate?" He wondered at one point in the pit.

The corpses of the 10 Paladins seemed to have vanished. The only signs of their death had been the energy influxes and the fact that Michael could extract a small piece of paper coated in gold from the humongous pit.

The piece of paper looked like the plane tickets of ancient times – just that it was coated in gold.

"Did that belong to the Paladins? What is it used for?" Michael wondered when he picked up the golden paper.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find out its use. Not even channeling origin energy into it had an effect. Thus, Michael stored it inside his War Rune's storage space without giving it much thought.

The days after the Jungle Expedition's defeat were calming. Nobody bothered Michael nor his people – not even the monsters inhabiting the Untamed Jungle. Everything was quiet and relaxing, providing Michael with the luxury of resting properly.

Michael didn't use Extraction too often or too much these days – just to a degree he was comfortable with without draining himself. Despite that, he found himself using Extraction considerably more as his condition improved.

After five days of adequate rest inside the Origin Expanse, Michael was full of vigor and able to use Extraction to the extreme without any issues.

Nonetheless, he didn't rush the process of fixing the corrupted land of the Untamed Jungle. He didn't want to attract unnecessary attention from the Zentika Empire so soon after the warfare against the Jungle Expedition ended.

A good thing was that Michael had lots of things to do both inside the Origin Expanse and outside the Saphirelake Military Academy.

The relocation of his territory's epicenter had been completed; the wooden manor and the Summoning Gate had been moved along with the Nature Spirit.

It had been a difficult task that required the brute force of close to a thousand subjects and several days, but it worked out at last.

Now that the relocation of his territory had been completed, Michael could change orders and expand his territory once again, focusing on the growth of his military force, their nourishment, and rebuilding everything that had been destroyed in the warfare with the Jungle Expedition.

Once everything had been reconstructed, Michael would use his remaining funds to expand the Underground Forging Hall.

Michael spent a hefty sum of close to 5.5 billion dollars to expand his farms and both Alchemy and Blacksmithing businesses. That way, he could focus on the production of energy pills, potions, and low-level armaments while ensuring low costs in the long term.

"With the current efficiency of basic energy pills and low-level armament productions, I should focus on stability. Once everything has been stabilized, I should focus on the nourishment of my Blacksmiths and Alchemists," Michael thought aloud while wondering about the best possible way forward, "….should I purchase a few manuals, blueprints, and recipes for them to study, or should I wait a little bit with that?" 

Michael was located in the Untamed Jungle, where the flora and fauna grew multiple times faster than anywhere else, and he was in possession of both a high-ranked Nature Spirit and a Botanica Magician. Taking gardeners and farmers into account, Michael would never have issues farming Tiatcha, herbs, and other plants. 

That was great, but it was also one of the reasons Michael fell into deep thoughts. Alchemists required a large amount of ingredients to concoct potions, pills, and to research new recipes in order to advance to the next rank. Focusing on their growth was something Michael was supposed to do as a Lord in the Untamed Jungle. 

However, the lizard cave and the Underground Ecosystem provided the best environment for the Underground Forging Hall. Splitting his attention and funds to nourish both businesses was great, but it drained his money much faster than a wildfire could do.

'I haven't even started focusing on the creation of Artifacts yet. How am I supposed to create a proper Enchanter's Lair and nourish Master Enchanters if I don't have enough money to expand the Alchemy House and Forging Hall properly?!?' Michael cursed in his heart.

He knew that 5.5 billion dollars were a vast fortune and that it was enough to nourish a few Master Blacksmiths, and Master Alchemists. However, Michael knew how greedy he was better than anyone else.

"I need more money!"

But money was not everything that kept him on his toes.

He had to catch up to the other students in his classes as well. Adding the days he spent to eliminate the Jungle Expedition, the days he'd been unconscious in the medical hall, and the time he spent to recuperate and relocate his territory's center, Michael missed out two weeks' worth of lessons in total.

While that was not a problem in the Limit Breaker Course nor Alice's Individual Teaching course, missing the other lessons was a little bit more troublesome.

The Researchers and Instructors didn't like that he missed the Memory Lane, Old Language, and Ancient Ruins courses.

He didn't receive a Mark for not attending the courses, but it was noted down, which was not in his favor.

Michael was a little regretful as well. In two weeks, he could have learned so much about Ancient Ruins, and the Old Languages, and his proficiency in the Memory Lane technique could have increased drastically.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do anything about the Jungle Expedition's attack, and its aftermath. It was not his fault that they attacked him, after all!

But there was nothing Michael could do about it. He accepted the Professor's remarks and decided to give his utmost to make up for missing their lessons.

He began to practice the Sacred Rectification body refinement technique in the Limit Breaker Course. Michael's Berserker Physique reached its peak after refining his body to the Lowest-stage of Tier-2. 

It was a great feat to practice Berserker Physique to the limit, but Michael had to replace it. Sacred Rectification was its replacement, and it had a much higher limit.

Practicing the first two stages of Sacred Rectification was rather simple. It used Berserker Physique's refinement as the foundation to refine his physique a second time. But since Sacred Rectification was a body refinement technique of a higher level than Berserker Physique, practicing it refined his physique to an even higher degree than before. 

The re-refinement required a considerable amount of nutrition and energy, but the result was exceptional.

Other than Sacred Rectification, Michael started to utilize Pandemonium's Requiem as well. He initially purchased the neutral energy absorption technique for his subjects. Michael didn't intend to use the technique because he was certain that he could depend on the energy share of his subjects to refine his War Rune.

However, Pandemonium's Requiem allowed him to improve his natural energy circulation after he overcharged his energy storage in the warfare against the Jungle Expedition. Without Pandemonium's Requiem, Michael might still be suffering from the aftereffects of the warfare.

Thus, he began to practice Pandemonium's Requiem more diligently, hoping that he could further improve his energy circulation and prevent future incidents before they occurred, in the first place.

Other than Pandemonium's Requiem and Sacred Rectification, Michael also focused on Caesurium Menta. It was a great mind refining technique that had great compatibility with Memory Lane.

Practicing Ceasurium Menta was likely to give him the momentum he required to catch up with the others in their practice of Memory Lane. 

All in all, Michael had the means to grow stronger in a short period. As a matter of fact, Michael had already grown a lot stronger in an extremely short period and reached the Peak of Tier-1.

Meanwhile, his Soultraits advanced a lot, providing him a wide variety of abilities, which empowered his combat prowess even further.

Despite all of that, Michael felt powerless.

His friends noticed that as well.

It was not difficult to see that Michael had grown a lot stronger in the last few weeks. Yet, instead of rewarding himself with a few more days of well-deserved rest , Michael's focus switched to getting stronger consistently.

The thought of being helpless against the Tier-3 Paladins caused him great distress.

The Chaos Pills might have saved him, but he never wanted to use them again. Only after using them did Michael realize how foolish it had been to concoct the Chaos Pills inside his territory, and how lucky he had been to survive – and not to obliterate his own territory by triggering 100 Chaos Pills.

Michael might have won the territorial war, but he lost the war of nerves.0

He never wanted to feel like this again, and the only way to achieve this was to grow stronger…strong enough to deal with hundreds of Paladins on his own!

**

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