For gathering intel and tailing, shadow mice are the best, because they are highly intelligent and understand human language.

But for scouting an area, the insects are the best things.

Zoi termite queen let all the termites cover all the area around the mansion and started spreading throughout the estate.

The mansion is in the deeper part of the estate and it is mostly covered with the impact crystals which are toweringly high in some places and at the same time make it almost impossible to peer into the mansion from a distance.

So, if the other party really wanted to keep an eye on Sam, by employing a human, he would be able to find them in no time with the zoi termites.

Even if the shadow mice are good, they are better suited for gathering intel and tailing. But for scouting a particular area in a short amount of time, insects with a queen are best.

But Sam waited for more than half-an-hour and he didn't find any person in the distance. More precisely, the queen didn't find anyone.

Then he deployed the shadow mice to see if anyone is in shadow form. He might have overlooked this before. So, he let the shadow mice take a look.

In the field of shadows, these shadow mice are the best, there are very few beings who can beat them in shadows when they are at their peak.

After getting a negative result again, Sam felt that human following is out of question.

So, he thought of something else. The watcher might be a beast or an insect.

And there is another thing to consider and that is the watcher should be capable of identifying the person who killed Sam, if they want to deal with that person.

So, the search criterion can be narrowed a bit.

And when he looked at the termite queen, something came to his mind.

He immediately went into the tower library and went through the info of the beastiary, he spent more than five hours before he came out. Now, he has a faint smile on his face.

If his guess was right, the watcher must be an insect.

So, he gave some instructions to the queen and took out the remaining locust queens and general of the termites and locust.

Then all the remaining locust are let out to scout the area.

After more than an hour, the termite queen finally gave him a positive answer.

Sam immediately moved to an area the termites and locust spotted and he started using his observe ability. There he saw a small, thin, transparent butterfly flying.

It is not visible to naked eye and even the spiritual sense cannot pin point it.

Only other types of insects can spot it and that is also very difficult.

This is Soul chasing butterfly.

A very peculiar and useful insect.

This insect is not like other butterflies which are independent, rather these butterflies also grow in a community.

In fact, they stay with the caterpillars which would transform into the soul chasing butterflies.

The soul chasing butterflies have a boss which gives the instructions and this insect species bloodline is only below the Zoi termite.

These soul chasing butterflies are a great for tailing and marking a person. The butterfly will attach itself to the soul presence of someone on the orders of the Boss and from then on it will follow that person

The Boss butterfly can record some instructions to the subordinates and infuse those instructions in form of memories or visuals into the souls of the butterflies.

So, if something happens to the person they are tailing, the butterflies will act according to the instructions.

For example, if the target is killed by a person and if the boss instructed that the butterfly should mark the person who killed, it will do so based on the visual instructions that are ingrained in its memories.

If the target is assassinated sneakily or from a long range, if there are any instructions matching the scenario like following the trajectory, the butterfly can do so and mark the killer.

The Boss has a wide range of sensory when it came to sensing its subordinates which is almost compared to a satellite from his previous life.

But it can only sense its subordinates and nothing else.

And the main draw back is it cannot attack, it is only useful for tracking.

Sam felt amused and relieved at same time. The soul chasing butterfly can only track and didn't have any abilities to relay the messages. They have very low intelligence and only the boss butterfly has some intelligence.

A big shot of the people behind the scenes must have found and subdued this boss soul chasing butterfly and they must have found a way to mark the candidates and Sam felt that it must have been after the Marquis city tests.

That person who caught this insect must have gone through a lot. Because, the soul chasing butterfly has many abilities that are suitable for tracking and one of them is invisibility. It can blend into the surroundings like a chameleon.

And its presence is almost negligible.

Sam doesn't have to worry anymore. Even if they track the person, they wouldn't have a way to see what Sam is doing and his secrets are safe.

So, Sam didn't bother and recalled all the insects and went back to his mansion.

He entered the tower and started doing some research and experiments. He needs to create a machine to get these impact crystals out as soon as possible. Even if they worked their ass of, in their current situation, they won't be able to clear the whole estate.

But Sam has to clear it as soon as possible because, this estate is one of his main points to make money in the latter eight months.

He is going to use the whole place to get as much as he wants.

So, he has to speed up the process and for that he has to find a way to get the fire that was strong enough to melt the impact crystals and also make the device collect the molten crystal.

He can try and use the fire elemental crystals and make a device made of energy cells and some inscriptions, but the consumption would be too costly and the profit margin is very small.

But Sam has an alternative for the heat source. The methane from the bulls.

After he found out that the methane is powerful, he has ape dig some large holes and trained the bulls to defecate in the pits.

A single pit of methane gave him more than 20 litres of methane. [not liquid. Just volumetric measurement]

The faeces of this bull are so powerful and they do defecate a lot.

The calorific value of the methane is so high that it can even be used to melt the materials like tungsten carbide and titanium in his previous life if it is used like a normal torch without any pressure and setup.

And with enough pressure and proper furnace like environment, he is quite confident that he can melt this impact crystal.

But the question is how is he going to use this. He cannot just control the wind and pressurise the gas and increase flame intensity manually and stand there.

If he can do so, he could just use the disintegration process. The point is that he doesn't have to stay here but the work should be done.

So, he buried himself in the research for the next two days that is twenty days in the tower to come up with a design. And when he was finally satisfied with a design and simulation in the second floor of the tower.

After confirming the design, Sam started going through the materials he had and sorted them out.

He wondered if the whole ten days [in the tower] he has would be sufficient or not. Because, this time, the mechanism is going to be a lot trickier and he has to make several components.

This machine is going to be operated manually and it would be a multi-purpose machine.

The complexity of mechanism is not that high. The tricky part lied in placing and making the components with precision and accuracy.

Any problems in manufacturing, he is going to have some serious trouble for the operator.

That trouble would be risky and the operator might even die if it is not handled properly.

So, Sam has to be careful and take his time in making the items.

The first and base of the machine is going to be made with Grey meteoric sand. It has high strength and it has a very high refractoriness for heat. The melting point is almost highest in the meteorite sands.

But it is still within Rank 2 materials and its melting point is about a above average rank 3 material.

Whereas the impact crystal can at most be at lowest of rank 3.

The Artisan ford didn't clear this whole land because, even if the rank 3 metal can be molten easily with a rank 5 and rank 4, they would have to take a long time and energy to do so.