章 53: Let´s go!

Jason felt something on his head move and unsurprisingly it was Artemis.

After waking up he stroked her a few times, before entering his soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique. He suddenly noticed that his soul world core has increased in size while the produced soul energy was much more than before.

Looking at the amount, Jason estimated that his soul energy has reached a minor threshold of five units.

The night before, it had been quite a distance away from five units and closer to reaching four than five.

Jason's first thought was that Artemis must have broken into the three-star wild beast rank and he was right.

This caused Jason to be overjoyed and his lips curled up.

He couldn't feel any noticeable difference in his body, but maybe, it was because he was still sleepy.

His soul energy depleted rapidly as he continued to practice the Heaven's Hell technique and after a while, he left the soul world to look at Artemis.

While Jason hurried to get ready, he began to feel slight changes within his body.

His body itched a little, but it wasn't unbearable so he tried to ignore it as much as possible.

Compared to earlier, his mana core was already close to the 7th level while his physique was also at the threshold of the 6th level.

And his core was almost at its limit and close to a breakthrough so he would be able to level up soon.

'And my strength has also increased quite a lot including my mana core.. Hahaha, Artemis and my soul are so nice…'Jason was happy when he heard a gentle knock on the door.

"Jason, are you awake? We have to leave soon...If you don't answer me, I'll wake you up in 3..2..1.." Jason heard a teasing voice that was familiar, but also unknown because this personality definitely wasn't suitable for the person he had known for the better part of his life.

"Stop that Greg.. I'm awake.. I'll come downstairs soon. Let me, at least, wash up and change my clothes."

Jason hurried to join the others after leaving the room and he was on his way down the stairs to the living when he came face to face with Malia. She was wearing a revealing white nightgown made of silk and Jason's eyes grew almost double in size to see her hourglass figure and so much of her skin on display.

`She is really beautiful!` Jason thought and gulped down his saliva.

Despite having gained his eyesight just over a month ago, he was still able to admire beauty and the feminine shape of girls….

He wasn't particularly interested in her but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the sight when Malia, who had been in her own world, noticed and looked at him with tired eyes.

Before she could greet him, she noticed his obvious gaze and looked down, only to see her revealing nightgown…

Horrified with herself, she shrieked before immediately disappearing into her room. She walked out a moment later with enough clothes on.

Her cheeks were beet-red and she rushed down to the living room without sparing a single glance at Jason.

He could only silently follow her thinking that she looked really beautiful, without having any hard feelings.

Rather than a potential lover or something similar, he thought of Malia just as a friend.

And Jason was way too young to think about love or romance, to begin with. At least, that was his opinion.

Getting stronger was much more important for now!

Climbing down the stairs to the living room, Jason noticed that everyone was already seated at the table, waiting for him.

He pulled back a chair and sat down before politely greeting everyone.

There was a wide variety of food on the table served in neat bowls and some dishes had glass cloches on them to keep the food warm. Jason looked at the food heartily and began to eat.

He even noticed that a marginal amount of mana was radiating from some dishes which surprised him greatly as his eyes widened a bit.

The whole breakfast was relatively quiet, and only Gabriella asked Jason if Artemis, who was perched on Jason's shoulder, was in need of food, which Jason declined politely.

It was uncommon for beasts to be so excessively affectionate and close to their contractor as Artemis demanded many caresses from Jason.

Most beasts would be close to their master, but they would still prefer freedom than getting confined to a house or being almost clingy to their master like Artemis.

Greg's first soulbond, the reinforced horned bull, for example, had already reached complete maturity and was at the mid-evolved rank.

But, contrary to Artemis, who would always hover around Jason, the bull didn't like houses and would avoid them, if possible.

Getting reminded of food, he looked at his notifications after they finished breakfast, and Jason requested for his parcel to get delivered immediately.

He went out and accepted his parcel which he stored away.

Jason wanted to break into the 5th Novice rank as soon as possible, but they would start their trip soon, so he had to wait until they started their journey.

Before their trip would start, they had some things to do.

Jason saw a large armored truck appearing at the entrance of the mansion out of Mark´s storage device.

The truck was covered in layers of metal and reinforced with magic circles and runes that shone brightly all over its surface, while the truck itself floated due to the magical, anti-gravitational circles.

It was a custom-made truck specially designed for off-road purposes outside the dome, and it would be pretty useful because the landscapes were uneven and full of obstacles.

Jason estimated that the length of the truck was around 25 meters including the hovering trailer.

While it was empowered by dense and thick mana, the easiest way to provide it with a constant supply of mana would be mana stones.

He didn't even want to think about the credits one had to shell out in order to travel through the whole island and he decided to not bother about it as he didn't have to pay the price.

While the greater storm eagle and the scaled wolf were already placed in front of the trailer, Jason assumed that the fox cubs were probably getting fed before they would start their trip.

After returning to the backyard, Jason saw a completely different beast cage next to his own.

While it was bigger than his cage and had a slightly blue color, the mana radiating from it was no joke.

The lower half of the cage was tightly sealed with bars, preventing the fox cubs from falling out or escaping the cage.

Jason inspected the beast cage intently, and it looked like the whole beast cage was one entity.

Such kind of beast cages were extremely rare and made of special materials, while it had many different modifiers, including the densely packed bars modification that was activated at the moment.

Inside the beast cage, Jason could see the fox cubs huddled around a big fancy machine.

There were several bottles sticking out of this machine, and the lesser elemental fox cubs almost fought to suck at them.

Apparently, the Flers bought an automatic feeding machine for cubs which included a heater and so on. This was to ensure that the cubs would stay well-fed for the better part of the journey and they wouldn't need to take frequent stops to get their formula.

The machine was operated by mana like almost everything, and could easily feed 10 beast cubs at the same time.

It was only 4:30 am when everything was loaded and checked twice before everybody entered the vehicle.

The truck's interior was spacious, almost like a futuristic vanity van. Greg, Malia, and Jason entered the back of it while Gabriella remained in the front with Mark who hopped in the driver's seat.

Closing the door, Mark turned the ignition on and they took off.

*Above the City*

An old man was floating in the sky, releasing a marginal amount of mana to defy gravity, while an old but elegant woman with silver hair was next to him, huge green ivory wings spreading behind her back.

The old man was looking down, and his gaze followed the treasure he had chosen inside the truck while a smile appeared on his face.

Previously, he had considered Jason useless because his soul energy was extremely weak and was almost non-existent, followed by his equally neglectable mana core rank. However, he had been keeping tabs on the boy over the course of the last few weeks and the old man had grown more and more astonished by the youth´s feats.

Not only was the snowflake owl, which he himself had deemed trash and useless, proved to be superior to all snowflake owl's he had ever seen, but also Jason´s weak soul energy could contain the snowflake owl. The owl had broken through its racial limit within a few weeks and Jason's soul energy had considerably increased.

After observing Jason for a few weeks, he was sure that his soul had to either amplify an enormous amount from the soulbond to the contractor, or something else was the crux.

Based on the vast knowledge the old man had accumulated over dozens of years, he knew that every soul was different, which included the soul energy, soul affinity, soul amplification, soul physical enhancement, and soul energy replenishing time.

A 24 hours replenishment period for soul energy was only the researched average and it was different for every individual.

"Is he really that precious?" the woman next to him questioned uncertainly.

The old man´s smile widened and his decision to get his hands on Jason was now affirmed, after what he had witnessed.

"I hope so! " He whispered while looking down.

"Show me some more of your potential, Jason Stella!" the old man said as both of them vanished into thin air.

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章 54: Speed!

The truck was driving slowly, due to the speed limit inside the city, but once they left the city it began to accelerate to a certain extent.

Mark was mindful of his driving speed because he had to be careful of the surrounding humans who could run around inside the dome.

Nevertheless, he maintained a good speed while the kids peered out of the windows.

After a few minutes, one could see the dome as they reached the outskirts of the city. The truck drove through the dome without any further obstacles.

What then happened astonished Jason extremely, because Mark pressed a button on the mainboard causing the truck to ascend slightly.

The advanced anti-gravitational magic-circles were shining brightly and Jason saw that they reached the limit of their ability when the hovering truck reached a height of around 3 meters.

There was a holographic screen next to Mark with a detailed map of Astrix and a few large grey dots could be seen on it.

The whole Island was divided into many different areas which were probably wild-zones.

Each of these areas was marked with a certain amount of black stars. Jason thought that one star was probably the indicator of a one-star wild zone. His assumption was confirmed when the map indicated that their vehicle was moving through an area pinned with a single black star while they drove through the one-star plains.

Jason found it oddly interesting as he keenly observed the whole map which was filled with many different kinds of landscapes.

Mana was capable of many things and since the mana outbreak, mana environments in some areas had undergone a drastic change.

It didn't matter anymore where the equator was or how far away one is from the sun compared to other places, the temperature and environment were almost completely dependent on the surrounding mana and natural-born treasures.

Magical treasures are able to change the whole environment with their radiating mana, even after the treasure was discovered and collected, the remains would cause the environment to continue transforming.

It was still unknown how exactly the environment had changed, but there were a few theories like it was with everything new.

The northern area of Astrix was filled with many white spots while in the center of the island was a huge volcano.

Jason knew that right now their position was relatively close to the ice fields but more towards the east. They would travel closer to the volcano to enter Cyro city which was somehow between the volcano and the northern ice fields.

But Jason was also astonished to see that except for the few empty areas, the strongest area was pinned with a single red star while one to four black stars represented the corresponding wild zone.

He concluded that the strongest zones were thus a magical beast zone.

Thinking about the empty gray areas, Jason concluded that stronger beasts must live there while humans didn't dare or maybe cared to venture through it.

While Jason was in thought about what kinds of beast could be ranked higher than magical beasts, the hovering truck further accelerated and reached an astonishing speed.

Mark revved the engine and cranked the speed to more than 300km/h and once Jason looked through the window, he almost shrieked in shock.

`Isn't that too dangerous?!?!`

But apparently, they flew through a detour and avoided areas with huge hills, big rocks and certain types of trees.

`With this speed, we still need two days until we arrive at Jiro city?? And Mark said they have to drive through the night….`

Malia and Greg didn't mind the hovering trucks' speed and absorbed mana from small mana stones or read some files on their holographic screen.

Jason noticed that and decided to follow suit and absorb mana for himself.

When he retrieved a mana stone Artemis noticed it and she tried to grab it, though Jason prevented it.

Instead, he took out five five-star wild beast cores and told her to eat and digest them.

He would give her an awakened beast core later which would definitely make her happy while he would check if there was a difference in the conversion rate between her digestion because the amount of mana was the same for five five-star wild beast cores and a low-awakened beast core.

Artemis was not satisfied with the wild beast's cores and annoyed Jason, forcing him to give her the mana stone but he was resolute.

A few minutes later Jason finally convinced Artemis and she gulped down the cores before she went into the soul world to digest them.

Meanwhile, Jason readied himself to absorb mana from the mana stones.

He hoped that he would be able to break into the 5th Novice-rank either today or the day after.

Closing his eyes, he loosened up a mana thread from the mana stone in his hand, leading it into him.

After circling it through his mana channels, he inserted them in his mana core.

Hours passed and Jason practiced until it was already lunchtime.

While the landscapes steadily changed, Mark drove through them as he traveled through them every single day.

Not a single beast was in the vicinity nor were there any surprise attacks and this was probably because of the beast repellent used on the truck and its scary appearance.

So far, they had only driven through one three-star wild zone and not a single beast could harm them if some were confident enough to try attacking it

Surprisingly Artemis woke him up at 2 pm and she had already digested five five-star cores which was quite impressive.

He had thought that she would at least need a day to digest them completely but she did not even require half of the estimated time.

Jason's stomach rumbled and he decided to eat something.

Everyone would eat something whenever they felt hungry because the time needed to gather mana was more important and it could be quite harmful to distract someone while absorbing it.

A simple mistake could lead to serious injuries.

This problem wouldn't occur with Artemis because he had already sensed that she was awake before she annoyed him and Jason finished absorbing the mana smoothly.

Jason was really astonished about the increased speed of his mana absorption rate with a mana stone. He felt that even if his mana core increased because of Artemis's sudden rise in her level, he would be able to break through tomorrow.

Before he ate something, he gave Artemis an awakened beast core and she gulped it down greedily.

Jason wondered if Artemis would eat up all his stocks if he did not control her, seeing that she was visibly not satisfied with the single-core.

Artemis entered his soul world in disappointment and Jason followed her to practice the Heaven's Hell technique.

After 20 minutes, he was done and left the soul world once again.

Looking outside, Jason noticed that the scenery changed slightly and to his left, the whole area was filled with lush and blossoming plants and wildlife while the right side was rather scantily planted.

Looking at the map, Jason noticed that there was a three-star wild zone next to a one-star magical winter field zone to his right side while to his left there was a two-star zone next to a large swampland.

He couldn't distinguish many features because of the hovering trucks' extreme speed, but there was no way to miss certain gigantic trees with a height of at least a hundred meters.