章 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.
クリエイターの想い 
HideousGrain
HideousGrain If you like my novel, leave some power stones and a review<3
章 56: Jiro-City
It was already late at night, but Jason was still fully awake and eager to absorb more mana.
This condition was one of the advantages one would get by absorbing large amounts of mana.
He decided to take a night shift and solidify his mana core to prevent any flaws in his foundation while waiting for Artemis to finish her digestion.
He wanted to know the exact difference in her digestion time between five five-star wild beast cores and one of the lowest awakened beast cores.
Maybe, the information would come in handy in the future.
Furthermore, Jason wanted to practice the Heaven's Hell technique as soon as his soul energy was reproduced.
He continued absorbing mana from mana stones and it was around 4 am when he was woken up by Artemis.
She had digested the awakened core is slightly more than 13 hours which was around 3 hours longer than the time she needed for five five-star wild beast cores and Jason took notes about it.
He had already bought many wild-ranked cores and would use them for Artemis, so he wasn't disgruntled after finding out that the awakened beast cores were roughly 30% better. The one who had to suffer was Artemis and not him, so he was a little bit sorry for her but that was it.
She had to eat the wild-ranked cores for the time being and he would replace them when the stock was exhausted, or the effect was almost not strong enough anymore.
The sun was already up but Jason was still absorbing mana.
He had already used up three small mana stones which roughly amounted to 150,000 Credits, which shocked him quite a bit.
Jason hadn't been aware of the fact that he would have to use so many mana stones for a breakthrough into the 5th Novice rank and to solidify the foundation…
With the 17 small mana stones he had left, Jason would probably be unable to enter the 7th Novice stage as only using mana stones was unhealthy for the body.
One would have to absorb a certain amount of naturally generated mana and not the one that was compressed into the stones and transmuted over the course of time.
Jason didn't want to absorb mana from mana stones for the remainder of the journey and he decided to read the beastarium while trying to improve his proficiency in passively gathering mana.
He was able to do it after almost a week but his reading speed was relatively slow compared to before and Jason was only able to even read at his current speed because of his extraordinary eyes.
Otherwise, he might even not read because a sloth would be much faster to him.
Every few hours Jason entered his soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique and practicing this technique somehow had grown on him. He could improve his soul energy because of it, even if it was painful.
By the time he had practiced the technique thrice, they had arrived at the borders of a large dome that radiated even denser and more formidable mana fluctuations.
Looking through his mana eyes, Jason noticed that its density was at least threefold the amount and he was astonished to see the walls of a large city.
Normally, one would ask why there were walls but Jiro-City was a B-grade City and was close to a few magical beast zones. The defenses of the dome couldn´t instantly kill hordes of magical beasts that attacked human shelters every once in a while.
That's why gigantic and stupendous walls were built.
Jiro city was often attacked by beast tides, but the walls were always enough to stop these tides along with the help of mankind's artillery and other weapons.
One could ask if it was even worthwhile to live in such a danger-prone city as it could always happen that the defensive measures would collapse but the answer was simple.
YES!
If one wanted to get stronger, one would have to enter more dangerous zones because of the thick mana, higher graded herbs and ores, and the possibility of finding natural-born treasures.
It was said that even inside Jiro-city the density would be much higher and almost comparable to that of a two or maybe even three-star wild zone.
Jason was already astonished about the mana density of a one-star wild zone and he was excited to visit Jiro-City even if he was slightly frustrated about the situation with the greater storm eagle.
However, there wasn't much he could do about it and he tried to relax by thinking about the fox cubs which would find their new soul buddies soon.
There were already a few people who had contacted him about the forum post only high-quality beast merchants had access to, and they were reliable sources, so the scaled wolf and more than half of the fox cubs were quasi sold.
They could freely enter the city's dome but there was an entry fee of 500 Credits payable for every single visit to the dome.
If the same fee were to be charged every time he wanted to enter the dome of the C-grade City, Jason would cry a river because he didn't have any money earlier and it was akin to daylight robbery for him.
But, the dome had to be operated and the fee was likely the main source of income for its operation, so nobody objected to the fee.
Unfortunately, Mark had to pay the entrance fee for every unbound beast which was more than 150 beasts.
500 Credits were not much but the quantity made a difference.
Once they entered the dome, the scenario changed slightly, and Jason could see that the landscape was lush and greener, a stark difference to that of a C-grade city, but it was still less wild than the zones outside the dome which was typical.
Each magic dome was made of materials that would absorb mana from its surroundings, as that was the only way to provide enough energy to it as the dome was like a glutton.
Nobody was sure of the exact amount of mana it could absorb, but it was definitely a lot.
As the truck entered through a futuristic-looking gate one could instantly see a huge difference between Jira and Artes city where they previously lived.
The streets had more lanes while even a few flying shuttles could be seen, and the skyscrapers were ridiculously high making Jason wonder as to why they didn't collapse…
There was even a huge stadium-like shopping center with 30 floors which looked magnificent.
Jason kept marveling at the cityscape and the flamboyant architecture of the city where everything looked immaculate and ridiculously expensive. Jason looked around in fascination trying hard to imagine what the poorest districts would look like.
He asked that question in a spontaneous outburst and everyone looked at him with a perplexed expression, asking themselves why he would ask something like that.
Compared to C-grade cities, the poorest districts were probably similar to below-average districts. But once a household grew too poor to sustain the expenditure of living in a B-grade city, they moved into a C or D-grade city. Most B-grade cities were used by companies, hunters, the government, above-average families, for military training, and so on to improve their mana core rank within the city and hunt outside the dome.
Human society nowadays was cruel and once one couldn't afford to live in a city, one would get passively removed with the next migration group...It was cruel, but that was a way for the society to sustain itself and motivate the citizens to work hard.
Once one would be able to reach a certain degree of strength or wealth, one would be able to move into a higher city and vice versa.
Everyone in a B-grade city had a certain standard amount of wealth, strength, or other advantages, most citizens from C-grade cities didn't have, except they wanted to live in a lower graded city due to personal reasons like was the case with the Fler's.
They were wealthy enough to live within Cyro-city but due to Greg, they had moved to a faraway C-grade city, to help Greg recover from his elementary grade trauma.
Jason wasn't sure what to think about what he heard, but even if he wanted to change something, he wouldn't be able to.
クリエイターの想い
HideousGrain
HideousGrain
Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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