章 29: Heaven´s Hell
The first level of the Heaven's Hell technique was simple compared to the subsequent levels and it only used a marginal amount of soul energy, even Jason could barely afford.
While the first level indicated that one required around 0.1-9 soul energy units in numbers, the second level would need at least 10-49 units of soul energy to work properly, with a few additional requirements.
Jason's soul energy was close to non-existent and he was fortunate that he could form a contract with a one-star wild beast owlet.
Now with his increased soul energy due to Artemis's growth, his breakthrough, and the big overall share he received through his unique soul, Jason's soul energy finally reached one unit, which was enough to control Artemis as his soulbond properly.
Having the lowest required soul energy, Jason could only perform the Heaven's Hell technique once, before his soul had to replenish the soul energy over time.
As such he had to be careful.
Even if the first level was simple it could be extremely dangerous.
Thus, he entered the soul world carefully where Jason came across the sleeping Artemis.
He found it amusing to walk around his own soul world. He hadn't done it before because there were too many things he had to do on priority earlier.
It was the first time for Jason to experience his soul world and he looked around with curiosity shining in his eyes.
All kinds of color could be seen floating around his soul world while a dense golden hue accompanied everything inside his soul.
His eyes fell to the ground and he could also see the golden hue enveloping him, causing Jason to feel refreshed and calm.
There was not the slightest anxiety seen in his eyes as the tranquility filled him with newfound energy.
Looking around Jason got the feeling of being at home and at peace.
In this place, he was welcomed, which made him happy as he continued to walk through his soul world until he reached its center.
There was a golden unstable liquid in the form of a ball that was floating slightly above Jason´s head.
Everyone who underwent the soul-awakening had the same thing inside their soul, which was a mysterious liquid ball in various sizes.
Meanwhile, the soul and the size of the liquid, surrounding the weird-looking ball, varied for each individual.
The existence of the liquid ball was the same for everyone and it was the soul energy surrounding the so-called soul world core.
Many also called it one's soul but the commonly used name was soul world core.
Around the soul world core was the soul energy swirling around in the form of unstable liquid.
The amount of soul energy within indicated the size of the core because it was normally stored inside the core.
While most cores had at least the size of a ping-pong ball, Jason was glad that he had found his grain-sized soul world core within a rather short amount of time.
His core didn´t have a particular form right now and there was only the mysterious liquid revolving around the soul world core as the center.
The soul world core was the starting point of each soul world and its life.
Looking at the grain-sized soul world core, Jason was slightly embarrassed about his unique and fabulous soul world but useless soul energy.
The golden hue around him began to shine faintly as he calmed down almost immediately, oblivious to the shimmer surrounding him. which Jason didn't really notice.
Remembering his main purpose to enter the soul world, Jason concentrated on the grain-sized soul world core.
He tried opening the soul world core slightly, as he wanted to move the soul energy around.
From the formless liquid, he created a wafer-thin thread which most humans couldn't even see except someone blessed with exceptional eyesight like him.
The more soul energy Jason extracted, the smaller the amount of liquid around the soul world core became.
After his whole soul energy was taken from the liquid that enveloped his soul world core, Jason saw a golden-colored marble with an indescribable size as it was almost not visible, even to him.
This almost invisible marble was his real soul world core and it was almost embarrassing for him to even look at it due to its microscopic size.
This golden marble i.e, his core had mysterious inscriptions on it and while the liquid floating around it was the unstable soul energy. This energy was ejected by the core produced by his first soulbond.
The first step of the Heaven's Hell technique was to draw out the unstable energy around the real soul world core with his mind to form a thread with the energy.
This step wasn't dangerous, instead, one needed to have sensible and accurate control over soul energy.
His soul energy thread was less than half a meter long and wafer-thin due to the very good innate control he had over mana.
The first step was done in a relatively short time once Jason got the hang of how to handle soul energy.
After that, one could see Jason sweating buckets inside his tent while gasping for air.
He only sat down and nobody could imagine that he entered his soul world except the small golden hue shining around his head as an indicator.
Inside his soul world, Jason readied himself for the painful part as the unstable soul energy was now formed into a complete thread.
He would have to pierce through the golden marble with his thread to inject the soul energy inside it to force a certain growth.
Without a little nudge, Jason's soul energy wouldn't increase and it was necessary for him to force himself in order to do that.
He had to aim at a certain spot to maximize the effect of the technique and it took him quite a long time to find the right spot as it was already difficult for him to even see the soul world core.
As he forced the thread to pierce into the marble, a searing pain spread through his whole body as it felt like hellfire itself had ignited within him.
The pain rapidly spread through his brain, flowing through his veins like molten lava making him feel as if he was burning on the inside.
While he cried out in pain inside the soul world, one could see the liquid thread invading the golden marble blending into it after a certain amount of time.
Jason had never felt such pain before and he continued to shriek in agony, but he couldn't leave the soul world as it could harm or even destroy his soul if he made the slightest error.
Until the whole wafer-thin thread completely blended into the golden marble, Jason had to endure the torture. And so he gritted his teeth and did just that.
An hour later the whole process was over and Jason left the soul world with the floating golden marble in the center. He was drenched in sweat that made his clothes stick to his body and it flowed in rivulets down his face. But, he didn't have the energy to wipe it off as he was utterly exhausted. Slumping to the ground, he fell into a deep slumber as sleep overtook him.
**
Waking up due to suffocation early in the morning was as unpleasant as before and Jason pushed the furball, also called Artemis away, gently.
Opening his eyes, he could see Artemis who looked at him as if he had betrayed her and Jason felt her range of emotions that were filled with sadness.
To make up for his rude behavior, he pulled her into his embrace, and her mood changed instantly.
He activated his mana eye's special ability to look at her plumage and saw that she had slightly more mana in her blood than a day before.
If this continued, Artemis´ ability could reach the strength of a two-star wild beast while being a one-star wild beast in the future.
Continuing this mind game Jason was eager about her future growth and her evolution.
When he entered his soul world to look at the golden soul world core Jason noticed something unexpected.
Injecting the unstable foreign soul energy into his soul world core should only be done once a day because the replenishing effect would take a long time for the soul world core to push out the unstable energy.
However, looking at the still unstable, formless liquid surrounding the marginal small golden marble, Jason noticed that his whole soul energy was already replenished and expelled.
A soul world core was like a generator and dialysis at the same time, producing a fixed amount of soul energy until its energy was used up.
Refilling it with the expelled soul energy would activate the generator, causing it to once again expel the injected soul energy after cleansing and purifying it in order to make it more stable.
Once the soul energy would reach a certain size, purity, and degree of stability, the real process of the Heaven's Hell technique would begin with the subsequent levels.
Jason wasn't even remotely close to meeting a single criterion that was previously named but he was still astonished to see that his soul energy was replenished this fast.
With this, he could already practice the Heaven's Hell technique again.
Normally it would take a whole day to have one's soul energy replenished but Jason had slept for less than 6 hours and his soul energy was already completely replenished.
Thus Jason set down and repeated the same procedure as the day before.
This time, it took him 90 minutes and he writhed in agony through the entire duration that was much more painful than the day before. However, this time, he didn't fall asleep or faint.
Enduring the pain quietly, Jason finished his practice, before he stood up.
Washing up, he walked out of the tent into the open plains where he could see hundreds of youth gathering next to some strong-looking middle-aged men and women.
クリエイターの想い 
HideousGrain
HideousGrain Painful AIGH..ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ
->Greedy for Power stones<-
章 30: Innate Battle prodigies
The youths Jason could see in front of the dome looked like they were around twelve years old, but the weapons and armor they wore indicated that they belonged to a well-to-do family compared to Jason who had none.
He was poorer than he had ever been before but he didn't mind that at all, as he had a unique soul, special mana eyes, and a beautiful soulbond.
No sooner had he ventured outside the dome into the one-star wild zone with Artemis circling above him, he came across a group of four two-star scaled wolves that attacked both of them.
This was bad as one of the scaled wolves looked bigger than the others.
Upon activating his [Mana eyes] he saw that its core almost reached the three-star wild beast rank and the Mana it possessed was also slightly larger than the other three scaled wolves.
His mana eyes detected some anomalies within the large wolf and Jason concluded that it might be a mutation or something similar, but he wasn't sure.
Jason was slightly worried but with Artemis as his support, he went into his fighting stance to welcome his enemies.
As Artemis grew stronger each day, Jason's physique, Mana core, and even his eyesight improved along with her. His exceptional eyesight played a big role in this battle, helping him pick out the flaws of his opponents to strike through.
The group of scaled wolves formed a semi-circle and tried to surround him while Artemis attacked the scaled wolves from behind to distract them.
The wolves tried to intimidate him and once in a while a wolf would try to get uncomfortably close to him, trying to lunge at him but Jason attacked it, forcing it to step back. Artemis would then use this chance to dive down on the retreating wolf to pierce her mana-infused claws into the scaled Wolves back.
Without infusing mana into her claws she wouldn't be able to pierce through the thick scales but with the mana enhancement, her claws easily dug into the scales and tore the flesh, injuring it lightly.
Howling in pain the wolf twisted its head to find the culprit but this was a mistake as it was still within Jason's range.
Jason infused mana into his lower body to increase his speed while pushing himself off on the injured scaled wolf.
The three other wolves didn't waste a second and pounced on Jason in an attempt to save the wolf. Alas, it was already too late, as the injured wolf had died with a dagger in its throat. Jason had rammed the dagger into the beast's hide with all his might when he saw the right moment to attack.
This was because his eyes were bestowed with yet another feature that could tell with minuscule details, that the scaled wolf would turn around to Artemis and Jason used this exact moment to finish it off.
After killing the scaled wolf, Jason used its body as a meat shield to deflect the attack of the stronger scaled wolf. Similar to the earlier wolf, his eyes had helped him predict the attack of this wolf that had already jumped behind him in the air.
The scaled wolf corpse was heavy but using a quarter of his mana was enough to enhance himself with enough energy to throw the dead body at the pouncing wolf.
Artemis was already hovering in the air above him waiting for her next victim to fall into her trap as she supervised the battle. After throwing the body, Jason immediately attacked the bigger scaled wolf which was taken by surprise giving it no time to react.
Jason couldn't attack its body directly as the dead wolf's corpse was in his way but he stabbed his dagger to cut through its paw.
Emitting a blood-curdling howl, the bigger scaled wolf was shocked for a second as something white dived down onto its head piercing into the eyes.
Jason and Artemis's teamwork was exceptional and not many were able to get in sync and have amazing coordination within such a short amount of time.
One could say that their connection was innately exceptional. It was rare to see such synchronization and tacit agreement amongst a pair in a battle of four against two while being weaker strength-wise.
There were still two uninjured scaled wolves charging at Jason and both were only around three meters apart from him, when they tried to surround him from two sides.
The wolves were under the impression that their normal tactic would work against Jason, though they missed an important fact.
He wasn't alone!
While a wolf pounced at him, Artemis screeched at the same time, alerting him that the wolf behind Jason was also gearing up for an attack from the back.
Jason now knew that both were pouncing at him at the same time.
Thus he ducked down and used another quarter of his mana to increase his speed to the maximum of his capacity to jump straight to the front. The now blind and injured wolf was still howling in pain, pitying itself oblivious to the calamity it would face a second later.
While the two uninjured wolves crashed into each other, Jason finished off the larger scaled wolf with a clean strike.
Over the last few days, Jason had discovered his fighting talent which was largely due to his good eyesight. His ability to see the mana flow was relatively good, even if he didn't have anyone to compare his combat prowess to.
It was also easier for him to detect where a beast would attack him and what its next move would be thanks to the small but important details.
The two remaining scaled wolves shook their heads in pain as their bodies had rammed against each other.
Afterward, they looked at Jason furiously and seeing the corpse of their dead leader drew away almost all of their remaining reasoning.
Both charged straight at him as rage consumed them. The sight of two beasts running towards him had been the most threatening thing that could happen to Jason so far. He very well knew that he didn't stand a chance against two beasts at the same time with a single dagger.
Fortunately, Artemis was back into the air, diving down on one of the scaled wolves which saw the threat coming at it.
Jason saw this, forcing the attacked scaled wolf to take a difficult decision as he used his last burst of remaining mana to charge at it.
Now attacked by two threats at the same time it was overwhelmed and halted its charge, betraying the last wolf because it wasn't sure what to do.
Unfortunately, the scaled wolf's instincts told it that it should run away, instead of charging at the duo in front of it.
The betrayed scaled wolf didn´t know what had suddenly changed as the other wolf tried to flee the scene but he saw the youth charging at its friend as it tried to help.
However, it could only see the youth changing its course with a big stride towards the side.
Artemis also stopped her attack after she saw the wolf halting its charge while Jason changed his course. With a twist he turned his dagger downwards in order to stab into the wolf's side, twisting it while continuing his run.
The wolf hadn't expected Jason´s speed to increase so much. It was unaware of its injury as its legs gave in while blood ran down from the open wound.
Its eyes became heavier with each passing moment and after enduring some pain it gave in to the slumber that awaited the wolf.
Jason was exhausted as he hadn't thought that he would have to use all his mana in such a short time, but his speed did not decrease as the halted wolf saw its last comrade die because of its fault.
Enraged, the scaled wolf attacked Jason only to end in the same situation as before.
Artemis attacked the scaled wolf from above while Jason charged at it from the front.
Thinking that Jason was the bigger threat, it charged at Jason who rolled to the side while the enhanced talons of Artemis caused red stripes to appear along the back of the wolf.
Blood spurted out of the injury like a thick fountain and it wouldn't take long until it would lose enough blood to collapse due to loss of blood.
The scaled wolf was overwhelmed and didn't exactly know what it should do once again.
Being in a desperate situation gives most living beings a boost in strength and that's what happened with the wolf as its speed increased slightly. In one last attempt, to injure its opponent the beast turned around to pounce on Jason who was still on the ground and was about to get up.
Artemis was still flying up while the wolves' speed accelerated to its highest possible as it saw a light green shimmer leaving Jason's hand.
There was nothing it could do as the Jade Iron dagger flew straight towards its head and lodged itself into the wolf's skull, killing the scaled wolf instantly.
Jason wasn't really good with throwing daggers but it was difficult to aim at a large beast, standing five meters apart with a certain degree of calmness.
And even if he hadn't hit the skull, he was confident that at least its chest would be pierced, consequently slowing it down which would give him enough time to stand up.
Taking a deep breath, Jason yanked the dagger out of the wolf's skull as blood sprayed on his face. Wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, he willed himself to not give in to the growing exhaustion before pulling out the pebble-sized cores.
Storing the beast carcasses away, Jason went inside the dome that was only around 200 meters away from him.
The time to replenish his mana decreased with every turn as he was becoming more and more proficient with the process, which was entirely different compared to him gathering mana inside his eyes.
An hour later his mana was completely refreshed while his exhaustion was blown away.
Wondering about his soul world core, he entered the soul world to see that the core had already expelled some unstable soul energy.
Jason was now convinced that his soul was the best thing that could ever happen to him after getting his eyesight back.
He calculated that 6 hours were more than enough for the soul energy to get completely expelled and he slightly renewed his schedule.
クリエイターの想い
HideousGrain
HideousGrain
If you liked the fight, cheer me up. If not criticize me..kekeke ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ
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