บท 42: Heirloom

Shane sent another message to Uncle Max and thanked him for his help. He then clicked on the profile within their chat, leading him to the private account of his father.

Pondering on what to write, he just decided to send him the same photo that he already showed to Uncle Max and sent a small message attached to it.

<Hey Dad, it's me. I'm doing fine.

Don't search for me, I won't return until our disputes are settled.

Also, I want to clarify some facts… I'm not your puppet and won't listen to your orders like a dog anymore! You can't force me to do things I don't wanna do!! Accept it or not, It's your choice…

I won't pressure you with a time limit because I know that you're busy, but think carefully before you decide what to do! My temper is as bad as yours and you should know your own temper, right?!>

Shane wasn't sure if he should send the message word for word, but his temper wasn't something to joke with. As such, he just sent it before he closed the system's messenger.

He and his dad had always been at war but until now Shane had been helpless to do anything against it.

This message was the second time he had done what he wanted in front of his dad, even though the message was rude.

Only after turning 16, he was able to flee from his dad's firm grip. He would rather suffer a little but reclaim his freedom instead of being spoiled and locked up.

Shane didn't expect to receive an answer soon and thanks to Uncle Max he would receive a drop of wyvern blood, with a trace of low purity dragon blood.

As such, he had found a solution to an important problem of upgrading Umbra's quality much more easily than he had expected, which made him happy.

Furthermore, messaging Max had somehow released the guilt gnawing at him for running away without informing anyone. Now, Shane felt at ease and he was completely free.

What he had to do now, was gather around 200 more gold coins, in order to upgrade Umbra completely.

In Shane's opinion, his own strength and Umbra's evolution would both receive a large boost with this.

With Umbra's current quality, Shane thought it would be able to reach the mid-Wild stage but that was it.

It was said that beasts could evolve once they reached maturity, which means for a normal Shadow-snake it was the peak of the 3rd-Wild stage.

Shane wondered if the evolution section of Umbra would be unlocked then, and not only the evolution paths.

As of now, Shane would have to purchase a few things, so he went inside the shelter once again.

There were multiple items he needed for his cultivation and body refining to work out.

For his body refining, Shane required nutrition solutions, while for both body refining and cultivation, mana stones would help his progress extremely.

Shane wanted to increase his combat prowess as much as possible in order to venture deeper into the mountain range, three weeks from now.

With his 51 gold coins, there were more than enough funds to elevate his strength to an acceptable degree.

Considering that four weeks from now the academies would accept or reject students, Shane would have to show some progress because the requirements these academies had were the bare minimum.

While descendants of the rich and powerful families wouldn't enroll in these academies except for socializing, Shane knew that they wouldn't use dimensional-spheres because they won't bother wasting time to learn skills and techniques slowly.

Instead, they would receive enough funds from their families in order to purchase their skills and have all information directly implanted into their minds.

As such, Shane's only opponents for the dimension-spheres were mostly youths from average households in addition to irregulars that enrolled in the school due to special circumstances like he did.

Another set of irregulars were children from poor families with special body traits, innate skills, or blessings. Awakening any of these special features with the system's help indicated that they wouldn't stay at the bottom of the food pyramid and soar higher.

This was, at least when one considered individuals within the human race, as long as they wouldn't die early before they were nurtured.

From Shane's point of view, the children from average families could only be considered as the smaller fish, while similar youths to him in addition to poor youths with any special feature were his major competitors.

He had special features and went through an arduous childhood with years of knowledge imprinted into his mind in addition to, etiquette, combat techniques, tactics, and so on.

One could say Shane was the ultimate irregular and he knew that. As long as he worked hard enough, it shouldn't be a problem for him to gain a spot for the Tier-1 dimension-sphere for a start.

Learning a skill or martial art technique at the mortal grade was ridiculous because one would at most stay at the mortal stage for one or two months with a little bit of effort.

Reaching a purity of 10% couldn't be considered a problem and even Tier-1 skills were not that useful for a longer progression.

Nevertheless, it was important to learn Tier-1 skills as they build upon one's foundation and enhance it with the addition of a higher requirement for mana circulation.

Walking through the market, Shane noticed many stalls selling cultivation and body refining resources. Finding valuable items for a cheap price wasn't easy and Shane tested out his negotiating skills, pushing down the cost of his purchases by a lot.

This was mainly because Shane bought mana stones and nutrition solutions in bulk and his handsome face had bewitched the young female attendant.

Nevertheless, he had received a huge discount, which was what he had wanted.

In the end, Shane had used 31 gold coins to purchase [10x nutrition solution (Common), 7x nutrition solution(Uncommon), 30x fist-sized mana stones (Common), 10xfist sized mana stones(Uncommon]

While the uncommon materials were all priced at 1 gold each, the common nutrition solution cost 50 silver coins and the fist-sized mana stones 30 silver coins.

Average households would never make such a purchase. Shane had to increase his strength at a rapid pace and couldn't waste much time gathering mana over a long time.

Furthermore, body refining techniques demanded a lot of nutrition and the nutrition baths could only last 12 hours at most. During the first four hours, the effects were the most effective, while the nutrition effect would slowly decrease over time.

Even if he were to use one nutrition solution each day, Shane had bought solutions that would last for 17 days only. Also, he wasn't exactly sure how long the mana stone stock would hold with both him and Umbra using it.

Only increasing one's cultivation and physical strength was also wrong, hence Shane wanted to go out every day in order to train for a few hours. Thus, he decided to sleep only for the shortest required period for a cultivator at his stage.

When he was about to search for an Inn to use his first nutrition solution, Shane received another message from Uncle Max.

His package had arrived but Shane noticed that it said two items were sent to him, which was confusing.

After accepting the package, a bottle with a single gleaming red drop of blood appeared within one of his spatial rings, while a familiar ring appeared in his empty hand.

Looking at the ring, Shane immediately knew it was a spatial ring because it was impossible for mortal graded spatial rings to store other spatial rings.

Gazing at the pure-white spatial ring, Shane could see a black dragon head with golden pupils gazing at him and a shocked expression could be seen on his face.

'Isn't that mom's?' Shane thought, as his legs almost gave in.

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