These warlocks' souls really do have a problem... and this is no minor problem, but an unbelievably enormous one!
Standing in his magic tower's laboratory, Punk stared deeply at a magic array as large as a grand plaza. Thousands of hazy, fragile souls floated sporadically above the array. The Soul Flames encompassed warlock professionals of every age, every race, and every level of strength, from those without any class levels to Master-level individuals.
Unnoticed, several months had passed since the Hatak Imperial Nation's collective "apology" incident. During this time, the Hatak Imperial Nation's professionals, having seized upon a lifeline, had hunted down every warlock they could find with near madness. Even the bounty for an ordinary commoner possessing magical bloodline had once risen as high as five gold coins. The "targeted cleansing policy," which had initially existed only as a rumor, had now thoroughly become a fanatical activity involving the entire populace. In merely one month, nearly every already-scarce warlock in the Hatak Imperial Nation had been hunted to extinction.
As the initiator of the investigation, Punk had not gained any leisure time either. A large-scale investigation requiring sample collection could not focus on only one small empire. To obtain the most comprehensive intelligence and test subjects possible, the spellcaster, having raised his vigilance to the utmost, had simply concealed his identity and purchased vast numbers of warlock professionals from across the Faerun plane through slave-trading channels, then personally activated teleportation arrays to receive them.
With a Legendary Mage employing every available resource to gather "warlock resources" from multiple avenues, the number of warlock test subjects delivered into this towering magic tower within one month had reached well over a hundred thousand. These diverse "experimental subjects" had indeed brought Punk enormous gains.
Now, the thousand-odd souls laid out by the