Time´s up

Jason went into the dome again where he took out the five-star corpses to retrieve their incomplete cores before storing the corpses again.

After replenishing his mana, he relaxed for a short time before he entered the wild zone again.

It was only 1 pm and he still had roughly 24 hours left to improve his combat skills, experience and to earn a little pocket money, including cores for Artemis.

While supervising the battle of the youths who were at least a year younger than him, Jason noticed that his combat abilities were already at par with them, but still not good enough.

His familiarity with the dagger was already decent while his innate combat ability was definitely above average.

However, some things could only be learned through practical experience.

Thus, Jason decided to hunt larger two-star wild beast groups in order to improve his observance ability by another notch, even if it was already above average.

Fighting against ten two-star wild beasts would be more difficult than fighting a small group of four-star wild beasts or a single five-star wild beast, except for their overwhelming strength.

Jason had to be careful during his fights with either faction.

*

Hours passed and he sustained only some small cuts after being overwhelmed by numerous beasts, but he prevented receiving serious injuries by forming small layers of mana around the spots of his body that were attacked.

It was almost dark when he returned to his tent where Jason went through his daily routine including the Heaven's Hell technique.

He was quite happy as he had accomplished his designated task faster than he had expected.

After writing a short message to Greg he went into his sleeping bag and fell into a dreamless sleep.

--

Before the first ray of sunlight reached the plains, Jason was woken up by an overwhelming feeling of happiness when he felt something fluffy on his face.

Knowing that it was Artemis, he immediately opened his eyes and cuddled with her for a few minutes before he stood up.

Her injury had been completely healed which made Jason happy.

Furthermore, sensing the constant increase of mana within her blood, Jason began to ponder if he should feed her some more incomplete beast cores or not.

He had many left but he wasn't sure when he would be able to enter the wild zone again to farm more and there was a small problem.

He had only around 20,000 credits left and many beast corpses to sell but with Artemis' insatiable hunger, Jason would need to have a talk with Greg later.

Greg had informed him that school would start in around two weeks and Jason wasn't sure how long their trip to the designated city would last.

Jason knew that they had to travel for quite some time to reach the A-grade city because the route avoided dangerous magic beast zones.

The time they needed to travel from their C-grade city to Cyro would be at least 4 days with a decent vehicle.

Maybe Jason could enter the wild zone for the remaining 10 days to hunt three and four-star beasts for their cores.

Thinking about his shortage of credits or more likely lack of incomplete cores, Jason entered the soul world to complete his Heaven's Hell training. He then went into the plains' wild zone with Artemis circling above him.

Around 11 am, Jason had returned to the dome again to dismantle his tent and stored it in his quantum bracelet.

He then ordered a shuttle to take him to the Fler family mansion anticipating his meeting with Greg and his parents while trying to think of how to make a good second impression. His first impression had been rather disastrous in front of Greg's parents and he hoped to not repeat the same mistake again.

It would take around 40 minutes for him to reach his destination. Instead of worrying over Greg's family, he decided to practice the Heaven's Hell technique again as his soul energy was already replenished.

The pain after practicing the Heaven's Hell technique was still horrifying but somehow Jason had gotten used to it over the last two weeks.

As the shuttle arrived at the address Greg told him, Jason noticed that he had entered the noble district. It was directly next to the central area, where the government's headquarters, big conglomerates, the Beast Pagoda, and large shopping centers were situated.

He saw huge yards lined with many exotic plants and flowers in neat rows all around the district, causing Jason to feel astonished, as he could see mana radiating from some of these plants.

Overall one could say that the yard radiated dense mana that was even better than the mana outside the dome within the one-star wild zone.

The noble district wasn't even remotely comparable to the outer areas of the city. The Fler family's front yard had probably more than enough space to construct a few skyscrapers on it where tens of thousand tenants could comfortably reside.

He looked around at the grandeur in awe and spotted a three-story tall mansion in the center of the plot, built with white marble and many other exquisite materials.

Calculating the prices of the materials and the cost for the plot including the unknown plants, Jason's heart ached.

For normal people, it wasn't even possible to purchase a plot in C-grade cities.

One would need to have to be nobility or earn glory points, which were equivalent to humanity's achievements in order to receive the permission to purchase land or larger property.

While Jason admired the gigantic yard and the luxurious-looking mansion, the doors were opened by a young girl with long brown hair who was probably slightly older than him.

She looked at him with a slightly cold face which surprised Jason a little.

Wearing a white summer dress, she looked incredibly beautiful but Jason knew who she was.

It was Greg´s sister Malia and Jason sensed that she didn't like him as she avoided eye contact with him while trying to look unruffled by his presence.

He wasn't sure why she avoided him but she slowly approached him, gesturing that he should follow her.

She didn't even greet him with a 'hello' and Jason thought back at the time of Greg's soul-awakening when she had to step back with a terrified expression after looking into his eyes from a very close distance.

`Nevermind...maybe she is shy or something like that.` Jason didn't worry about it and he disregarded any ill-intention, as he wasn't aware of the shock he had given Malia.

Jason's senses hadn't betrayed him as Malia was truly scared to look into his eyes.

She remembered clearly how intimidated she had been to look into his deep, cold golden eyes. Malia was scared to get devoured if she dared to look into them once again.

But even so, she was too prideful to say something like that out loud, so she had to keep a calm expression in front of him.

Jason followed Malia quietly and both of them didn't exchange even a single word which caused an awkward silence around them.

However, after entering the mansion, he was way too fascinated by the opulence which could be seen right from the exquisite furniture to the plush interiors of the mansion. The magnificence all around made him temporarily forget the air of awkwardness around Malia and her fear.

They kept walking for some time until he saw a familiar youth sitting on a couch inside a huge living room.

The whole living room was probably a few times bigger than a basketball court and Jason wondered why someone needed so much space.

Seeing Jason, Greg jumped up in delight as he walked towards him with steady but brisk steps.

Jason noticed that Greg's muscles had become more toned and were more noticeable while he had also gained at least a few centimeters in height.

One could say that Greg was already a walking bodybuilder and his clothes did an abysmal job of hiding his well-built physique that made Jason feel a bit jealous as he still looked skinny compared to Greg..

The two greeted each other with a firm handshake. Jason also scanned Greg´s mana core,  only to get shocked by what he saw.

Not only had his rank increased from the 2nd Adept rank to the 3rd Adept rank within a few weeks, but his mana core size had increased noticeably.

Greg was still at the lower levels of the Adept rank and not an Intermediate Adept but with the amplification from his soulbond, he would probably be at par with an average 4th Adept rank.

That would be a great achievement and Jason felt happy for Greg.

He estimated that the bull calf would have grown up to be a low evolved beast by now and shared around 5%-10% of its strength, if not more.

As such, it was only natural that Greg´s mana core would also grow.

Evolved ranked beasts were comparable to human expert ranks and 5%-10% was already comparable to at least one or more likely two adept levels.

Taking another glance at Greg´s mana core, it was more likely that Greg had received a 10%+ share which caused Jason to nod approvingly, as Greg´s soul gave him a good quote.

But it was still not comparable to his own 33% shared amount, he received from his still incomplete soul world.

Greg saw Jason´s golden eyes shining under the soft lights of the mansion.

Jason said, "Congratulations," which made Greg smile lightly.

Loosening up their handshake, Greg looked directly into Jason's eyes. Malia, who saw this, tensed up subconsciously, thinking about the worst-case scenario which didn´t happen.

Suddenly, Greg noticed a white fluffy ball on Jason's shoulder that suddenly began to move.

Opening her eyes, Artemis´ black button-like eyes gazed at Greg who stepped back in surprise.