Chapter 55: Secret rivalry

After eating, Jason noticed that both Malia and Greg were still preoccupied with absorbing mana and that they hadn't moved since they had started their trip.

This astonished him extremely.

Earlier, he used to believe that everything was largely dependent on one's wealth in the end.

Jason knew that both Greg and Malia were strong but previously his opinion about them was different and he thought that their strength or prowess was only because of their family's wealth.

However, when he saw them diligently absorbing mana for hours together he realised that they were really determined and Jason found himself to be much more motivated than before.

Sitting down again, he absorbed the mana more greedily and the sky turned dark, while the interior of the hovering truck began to shine in a white light.

Jason was breaking through and everyone noticed that the mana around Jason gathered forcefully with an incredible suction force that affected those around him. He was indirectly responsible for slowing down Greg´s and Malia´s mana gathering to a huge extent.

After they finished their mana absorption, the siblings noticed that Jason was about to breakthrough, and looked at Jason without distracting him.

Gabriella and Mark didn't know that Jason had been absorbing mana for two months only, but Greg and Malia knew it and they were shocked to see Jason breaking through once again.

Even if most people said that the first steps were the easiest and fastest while increasing one's mana core rank, this wasn't necessarily the case without achieving a certain degree of control first.

One needed to control the mana through all mana channels and insert it gently into the mana core later. And, to do something like that took a lot of time and was very taxing to the body.

While Greg´s sensitivity to mana wasn´t that high, Malia had a high sensitivity.

Both began to sense mana at the age of 8 and Greg took half a year to reach the 2nd Novice rank while Malia needed 2 months to reach it.

As they were really young it was even more taxing to their body to absorb mana for too long and the time to make a big circle through one's mana channels was relatively long causing their growth to slow down a lot.

It takes a child quite a long time to comprehend what mana was, how precious it was, and how to absorb it more efficiently.

For them, it seemed like Jason´s sensitivity and control over mana was extremely high even if his mana core rank was still below the average middle school graduates.

Greg was jealous because his sensitivity was worse compared to Jason and Malia´s and it was becoming apparent that he had no time to grow stronger if he didn't want Jason to outrun him in the future.

Right now, his only unique characteristic compared to his future classmates would be his soul and his first soulbond which would increase his combat prowess.

Greg estimated that he would only be an average student in Cyro-City because of his low rank which frustrated him.

Seeing Jason breaking through one shackle after another, while he also had such a special mutated snowflake owl, meant that Greg could only do a single thing!

Work harder! He would never allow Jason to catch up to him!! At least, he would give his best to prevent that.

Greg decided that Jason would be his arch-rival, even if he had been a small mouse earlier when he was blind…. Right now, Jason looked like a fierce dragon to Greg, when he saw the white shining cocoon slowly dissipate and Jason´s golden eyes that opened slowly, gleaming with vigor, while his black hair fluttered lightly in the air due to a light gust of wind that drafted through the window.

Meanwhile, Malia had extremely complicated feelings.

On one hand, she was astonished about Jason´s speed but her mother had already told her that Jason had mana eyes and that he was probably extremely sensitive to mana because of the same.

But upon seeing Jason after the cocoon vanished, her heart fluttered slightly and she had to pinch herself to fall out of a trance.

`He is more than 2 years younger than you!! What are you even thinking, you wench!!!`

Shaking her head, she congratulated Jason, before she averted her gaze and took something out of her spatial storage to eat.

Everyone congratulated Jason and he smiled lightly before he scanned his own body again.

Reaching the 5th Novice rank felt nice. His physique and mana core both received a nice push, while his mana core reached the size of a quasi 7th Novice, his physique broke into the 6th Novice rank due to the amplification provided by Artemis through their soulbond.

There was a big difference between a mana pool of a 6th and a 7th Novice rank because it was a minor threshold one had to break before one could break into the level. Jason would have to weaken this limit once he reached the 6th Novice rank or Artemis reached the four-star wild beast rank.

The limit other people had to face, would be easily weakened by him reaching the 6th Novice rank.

Jason changed his clothes because they were full of filth and impurities and after he had changed, they talked for some time while eating lunch in a comfortable ambiance.

Afterward, Jason entered his soul world only to notice that his soul energy has increased by a small amount.

Smiling lightly, Jason knew that it was because his mana core rank increased.

His physique had also increased and his whole body improved because of his breakthrough.

His soul energy was around 5.3 now and Jason was getting more and more confident in himself because the worst thing about him was his low soul energy.

But he was still not able to gather his courage to ask Greg how high his soul energy was because his starting point would be much higher than his.

He nervously gulped thinking solely about the soul energy provided to Greg by the reinforced bull…

A rough calculation told him that Greg was estimated to have a soul energy of 450 while a mid-evolved beast has around ~~300.

With a 10% share, Greg's soul energy would increase by 30 only because of his soulbond..

Jason didn´t know if Greg practiced the Heaven's Hell technique every day or not, but if he did, his soul energy might have reached somewhere between 600-700 or even more….

He was barely holding back his tears, thinking about that but he forced them back and decided to practice the Heaven's Hell technique as often as possible. He noticed that his soul energy production rate had increased slightly, while his soul world was enlarged concurrently.

Jason´s head constantly ached, but he had grown numb to the pain after such a long time which was somehow good and bad at the same time.