by William Hill
Because he was constantly on the move it was definitely slightly more difficult to feel the mana and his focus was sloppier but it was still not too difficult as his sensitivity with mana was excellent.
The first step was done but the more difficult step was yet to come.
Jason was now supposed to absorb the mana into his body and lead it through his mana channels to complete a whole cycle in order to annex it into his mana core.
Only then would the mana be yours and part of your body.
It was so difficult and Jason had to walk at a very slow pace to even start integration the mana into his mana core.
He only walked subconsciously while focusing mostly on the whole mana replenishing process which wasn't the correct way.
It should have been the other way around and Jason asked himself if he would be able to do it the right way and more importantly when.
He wasn't sure how long Greg and Malia took to do it but he wouldn't ask them about it because knowing it could be more disastrous than not knowing it.
If they needed a long time, Jason would be too lazy and if they took a very short amount of time to perfect it, he would be discouraged.
Artemis was flying around, exhausting herself, while trying to do the same as Jason.
Commonly, beasts below the magical beast rank replenished their mana by eating other beasts or eating plants with mana in them or just by resting while magical beasts used mana for almost everything and had to replenish their mana continuously passively.
While Artemis flew around she didn´t forget to look at Jason curiously from time to time and what Jason did look very exciting for her.
Jason meanwhile drew lots of attention to himself as many youths questioned themself why this black-dressed youth walked around for hours without doing anything else.
Even some middle-school teachers who went out to the one-star plains wild zone with their students didn't know what Jason did as they couldn't comprehend that Jason tried to passively absorb mana without using too much of his attention on this particular field.
While some teachers instructed their students about Jason´s tries, they also told them that it was extremely difficult to learn how to passively gather and replenish mana while walking, running, or even fighting.
There was one middle-school teacher who was extremely knowledgeable and he was holding a speech about the Mana gathering manual when Jason was walking past them.
Jason´s pace slowed down by a notch and he heard the teacher saying something about the difficulties of passive mana gathering and replenishing without the help of manuals and detailed descriptions.
Many difficult questions could be answered before one would even start learning how to passively gather mana and Jason asked himself why he didn't know about that before he was reminded that he didn´t attend the trip to the one-star wild zone last year because of his blindness and phenomenal strength of a 1st Novice-rank without any combat prowess.
Listening to the teacher for a minute, Jason also understood why he hadn't heard anything about this manual, as one requirement to get permission for such a technique was attending a prestigious school, purchasing a copy with merit points, or one had to be a noble.
Other than that, there was also the chance to get permission for the passive mana gathering manual would be human achievements.
For Jason, the easiest way would be purchasing a copy with merit points from his future school but he had the premonition that it would be quite expensive and he decided to continue with his own try to learn how to passively gather and replenish his mana.
Chapter 48: Destroyed Worldview
Four days passed and Jason was excessively exhausted.
He would at most sleep for 4 hours a day which was barely enough for someone who absorbed mana consistently but he wanted to learn how to replenish his mana passively before the trip began and it was necessary in his opinion.
It was taxing on his body to practice the Heaven's Hell manual three times a day for 30 minutes, practicing his knife-throwing skills and trying to learn the passive mana gathering technique without anyone's help.
He also wrote some messages to Greg and Malia, who added him, with questions and sometimes only to chat a little bit, which released his tension by a large margin.
Because solely learning how to passively replenish his mana was boring but also taxing on his mind, Jason was also out, hunting wild beast cores for Artemis.
His whole day was scheduled like a machine without many breaks except four hours of sleep and in total twenty minutes to eat.
But today, changed Jason´s whole worldview, or rather his view on beasts, their ability to grow stronger, and the ability of his eyes.
While Jason and Artemis´ combat strength didn´t rise at all, they got closer to the next star or level until they were infinitely close.
Unknown to Jason and most other youth´s inside the one-star wild zone, a small number of a few hundred awakened beasts, from the two-star wild zone around the corner, tried to migrate between the borders of their two-star wild zone and this one-star wild zone at the beginning of the week and nobody knew, why that was the case.
However more importantly was, that the hunters and teachers who slaughtered the awakened beasts after a few days to protect their precious students took the corpses with them, while they forgot something even more precious.
The awakened beasts that tried to migrate into the one-star wild zones were lesser elemental foxes and there was something special about this race that made out a huge difference compared to normal fox´s
For other fox races their mating season is at the beginning of the year while their offsprings are born two months later, but for lesser elemental foxes it's different.
Their mating season is situated between May and June which means that right now somewhere in this one-star wild zone could be a fox burrow with many lesser elemental fox cubs and an Idea formed in Jason´s mind
It was common knowledge that foxes give birth to around 4 to 6 cubs…and there were a few hundred mature lesser elemental foxes that were killed during the last few days…
When Jason found that out, a tiny seed of greed began to grow inside him and it began to enlarge as he was in need of money, but he also felt somewhat sorry for the lesser elemental fox cubs, when he found a huge burrow hidden under a large tree, after searching for half a day for them.
He could only find the burrow with the help of his Mana eyes and more importantly was, that a greater horned wolf was trying to break into it, probably because he sensed a large amount of mana, which these cubs already radiated.
They were weak and their strength was comparable to one-star wild beasts but they had already condensed a higher incomplete mana core than the greater horned wolf possessed.
Looking at the bloodlust the greater horned wolf radiated, Jason was perplexed...
` What´s wrong with this beast? Why does it seem so desperate?`
He questioned himself as he looked at the greater-horned wolf, that looked like he was possessed. Previously he wondered why Artemis was able to break through her racial limits but he thought it was because of her mutation, but maybe it was really because she was able to absorb abnormal amounts of mana that helped her to improve her strength faster than normal beasts would do and the possibility to construct a mana core?!
Jason had never seen a beast with a higher rank than it should have but once a beast evolved its racial limit would also increase and its maturing process would renew slightly.
`Maybe the potential was only the limit a beast could achieve without many difficulties? Were his thoughts about the potential and so on wrong?`
Would that mean every beast had the chance to rank up or were the chances just too marginal to even care about???`
Jason had heard that wild-beasts were unable to break through their limit as the amount of mana they could digest was marginal but that wasn´t the case for magical beasts.
Even if their potential was locked
at the magical beast rank, they could continue to strengthen themselves until they met their possible limit.
Each magical beast had the chance to reach the peak-magical beast rank but reaching the following rank was unimaginably difficult.
Jason asked himself if the greater storm eagle would be able to strengthen itself to reach the next rank if it had the time, or if it would remain at the magical beast rank without the slightest chance to rank up until its lifeforce diminished due to old age??
If that was the case, what was it, that Jason saw with his eyes? Until now his predictions had been right, so why should it be otherwise???
What would happen if this greater horned wolf killed all of the lesser elemental cubs inside this exceptional large burrow and absorbed all of their mana and digested their more developed incomplete awakened mana cores?
Would it reach its limit and break into a new rank or remain at the five-star rank without the chance of breaking into a higher rank ever?
But that wouldn't make any sense because the greater horned wolf seemed to be obsessed with these awakened beast cubs…
While hundreds of questions appeared in his mind Jason took out three knives for each hand and threw them at the wolf, before he charged at the greater-horned wolf with his dagger unsheated.
While one three-hit their target, one of them injured the wolf greatly.
But nonetheless, the five-star wolf was way too deep inside the burrow ravaging the entrance and at the same time deep in thoughts about the prey in front of it and it only noticed the pain, when it was already too late.
A shadow covered the sunlight and a clean cut through the neck killed the obsessive greater-horned wolf.
Only a moment later Artemis dived onto its body to take out its five-star wild beast core, before Jason could do anything
While Artemis gulped down the beast core a sudden thought appeared in Jason´s mind….
PURITY??
Maybe...purification...or talent? Maybe it could also mean that these beasts have a higher quality???
There were too many theories about beasts and evolutions, mutations, racial limits, and so on but Artemis danced out of line with her unique mutation.
`Maybe she purifies the wild beast cores when she digests them and can thus strengthen herself without creating any limits, or her talent is greater compared to her brethren because of the mutation??`
Standing still, while thinking, Jason was extremely lucky that no beasts could be seen nearby and a shocked expression appeared on his mind as thoughts ran wild.
`Maybe these limits of beasts appear because their mana cores are full of impurities hindering them in increasing their strength…. If that is the case I can't see the real potential of beasts, rather the purity of their mana core and their innate limit… but that's not their potential… `
Minutes passed and the shock in Jason´s face was even more apparent...
`What happens when one would give their soulbond items to purify their mana core??`
Wild thoughts ran through Jason´s mind and most of them were total garbage, while some other thoughts could be described as useful.
`Would they be able to increase their strength above the commonly known racial limits or would they maybe even evolve?`
Jason didn't know but he got goosebumps while thinking about this theory and the desire to test these theories slowly began to implant in his mind.
Suddenly Jason could hear a loud and noisy yapping of young foxes in front of him, inside the burrow looking at him with their yearning eyes.
Chapter 49: Mother Jason
Below the tree, covered by thick roots, Jason could see the burrow with many different colored hand-sized fox cubs enveloped in a black-colored hue.
There was enough space for him to squeeze through the densely packed roots after taking out the greater-horned wolf corpse, but not more.
Because the burrow was below a tree, not much sunlight reached the bottom, but what Jason wondered, was something else.
Inside the burrow were many tunnels leading somewhere and Jason could see lots of black lights at the end of them.
There were probably a lot more fox cubs inside and Jason wondered how many lesser elemental fox cubs there were because he could already see a bunch of them in front of him.
`Did all of the lesser elemental foxes gather together to give birth to their offsprings inside this big burrow? Why would they do that here and not in their territory? Did something happen there?....
I hope that's the only group of beasts migrating… `
Looking at all those lesser elemental fox cubs which could barely see, Jason grew sad.
Their parents were killed by some humans because they were seen as a threat to the middle-school students who trained inside the one-star wild zone, even if they didn't do anything wrong.
Jason was sad but there wasn´t anything he could do about it. The world was built in a hierarchy where the strong reigns and the weak suffer and die. This was even more apparent outside the dome.
Because he had to mature since he was young, his mindset was already in a better condition than other youths at his age and Jason didn´t know if other youths thought about killing living beings like he did but sometimes Jason couldn´t understand himself either.
Four days ago he killed packs of low-star wild beasts without getting emotional but now he felt sad?
His own mindset was still difficult to comprehend, even more for himself but the longer he faced reality, the more he tried to find a good balance for it.
He didn't want to kill each and every beast ruthlessly, but he wouldn't shy away from killing matured beasts and other threatening predators.
If he gained something from it, Jason would probably still do it but was that even right?
Jason didn't want to kill mother beasts with their cubs but other than these few exceptions, there weren't many excuses to not kill them as the population of beasts increased more and more in recent years and it wouldn't take long for another beast tide to pervade through Astrix.
Most humans would probably think, Jason was to soft-hearted because beast cubs could also grow into terrifying existences and kill one in the future, but he didn´t really care about their opinion.
The news was filled with information about the overpopulation of wild, awakened, and evolved beasts while the reproduction ability of beasts with higher ranks was fortunately lesser.
The stronger one's mana core was the less active was the beast's reproduction ability.
But Jason had to say to himself, even if it was hard to accept: If he didn't kill these beasts to get stronger and more proficient with his martial arts, someday these beasts could kill him even if he didn't like that fact.
The numbers grew more and more and Jason was not confident to survive against a stampede, even if it were only wild beast-ranked individuals, which was hilarious.
He couldn't even outlive a high quantity of wild-ranked beasts, which were by far the weakest beasts… while others killed hundreds or thousands of them with a single thought, Jason was conflicted to think about these cubs in front of him.
But one thing was sure! He wouldn't kill these cubs… They had done nothing wrong and maybe they could act as cute soulbonds for someone and live a decent life.
Apparently they seemed to have been born a few days ago when their parents arrived and they wouldn´t survive without mother milk and it seemed like he had to act as fast as possible because they looked at him with hunger in their eyes.
Before anything else, Jason had to bring these lesser elemental foxes outside.
Taking out the big self-driving enlarging miniature beast cages, Jason pressed the red button and the miniature beast cage enlarged itself outside the burrow.
After that, Jason empowered it with a decent amount of mana as he began to work.
Fortunately for Jason was, that the fangs, claws, and elemental affinity of these beast cubs weren´t fully developed yet, otherwise this procedure would be a
lot more dangerous.
Taking out one hand-sized furball after another. Jason noticed that Artemis looked at him fascninates as more than two hours passed before he was finally done.
Jason´s clothes were completely dirty as well as his hands and his whole face, while he estimated that there were over a hundred lesser elemental foxes that migrated but never had he thought that there were so many cubs.
There were at least 150 lesser elemental foxes and Jason was shocked to see the 20 sq.m self-driving beast cage be so cramped….
Jason gulped and activated his mana eyes again to see if he forgot a fox cub.
But Rather than that, he noticed the differentiating of black color radiating from these beasts.
He could almost immediately figure out which beast had a better potential...or higher limit?
Adding was he saw to his self-established theory that slowly formed in his mind, Jason thought that the parent genes of the cubs with denser color had to be stronger and it looked like that the kind of ability also played a role as blue-furred lesser elemental foxes had a gentle black color radiating while red-furred ones had vigorous color radiating like a flame.
But that wasn't everything as the amount of color radiating from them was dependent on their ability or so Jason thought.
In the beginning, Jason took a look at two fox cubs from the same batch and one of their colors was denser and Jason thought that it was either that one beast inherited dominant genes or the fire ability which was slightly stronger.
And again...too many questions began to torment his mind.
But there was something else that Jason noticed.
There were all kinds of wild beasts and they struggled when they saw Jason but after looking deep into his eyes, they completely stopped moving around and some even rubbed their heads at him.
But he had to steel his heart… He couldn't raise up over 150 lesser elemental foxes due to many reasons.
First of all, were wild beasts not allowed in any city except at the beast pagoda, for selling purposes or as soulbond.