Destroyed Worldview

Four days later, Jason was excessively exhausted after pushing himself to keep learning on his own.

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 he left for Cyro city and it was necessary in his opinion.

It was taxing on his body to practice the Heaven's Hell technique thrice a day for 30 minutes, hone his knife-throwing skills while also trying to learn the passive mana gathering technique without anyone's guidance.

He also frequently exchanged some messages with Greg and Malia, who added him to their contacts, to ask doubts and sometimes only to chat a little bit, which released his tension by a large margin.

Jason figured out that solely mastering the skill to passively replenish his mana was not only boring but also taxing on his mind as well as body. Thus, he would also go out, hunting wild beast cores for Artemis occasionally.

His whole day was scheduled to work like a machine without many breaks except four hours of sleep and in total twenty minutes to eat.

But today, an incident changed Jason's whole perspective of looking at things, 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 just a hair's breadth away.

Unbeknownst to Jason and most other youths within the one-star wild zone, a small group of a few hundred awakened beasts, from the two-star wild zone around the corner, tried to migrate to this one-star wild zone. The horde had suddenly charged up to the borders separating the two zones at the beginning of the week and nobody knew why that was the case.

However, more important, 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 erroneously forgot something even more valuable.

The awakened beasts that had tried to migrate into the one-star wild zones were lesser elemental foxes and there was something special about this race that was a stark difference compared to normal foxes.

For other fox races, their mating season was at the beginning of the year while their offsprings were born two months later, but for lesser elemental foxes it was different.

Their mating season was somewhere between May and June which meant that right now there could be a fox burrow with many lesser elemental fox cubs somewhere in this one-star wild zone. He smiled as an idea formed in his mind.

It was common knowledge that foxes usually have a litter of 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 rooted itself inside him and it began to grow. He was in dire 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 nearly spending half a day searching for them.

He could only find the burrow with the help of his Mana eyes. However, when he peered at the burrow carefully, he was astonished to find that a greater horned wolf was trying to break into it, probably because it sensed a large amount of mana, radiated from the cubs.

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 one 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 observed the greater-horned wolf that looked like it was possessed. Previously, he had wondered why Artemis was able to break through her racial limits, but he believed that it had been because of her mutation. But maybe, it was really because she was able to absorb abnormal amounts of mana that helped her improve her strength at a faster rate than normal beasts would do and had the possibility to construct a mana core?!

Jason had never seen a beast with a higher rank than it should normally be at, 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 having to overcome many difficulties?' Are my 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 slim 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 reached their possible limit.

Each magical beast had the chance to reach the peak-magical beast rank, but reaching the subsequent 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 exceptionally large burrow and absorbed all of their mana and digested their higher developed, yet still incomplete awakened stage 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 unsheathed dagger.

While one set of knives hit their target perfectly, the other greatly injured the wolf.

But nonetheless, the five-star wolf had dug its way deep inside the burrow and was hastily clawing at the entrance desperate to get an easy meal. The wolf had been so engrossed in its efforts to hunt the prey in front of it that it only noticed the pain when it was already too late.

A shadow fell on its body that blocked the sunlight, and a second later, a clean cut through the neck killed the obsessive greater-horned wolf.

Only a moment later, Artemis dived down from the sky with lightning fast speed to claw at its five-star wild beast core, before Jason could even blink.

While Artemis ravenously 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' mutation was too unique to fit in a particular box.

`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??`

Jason was extremely lucky that no beasts could be seen nearby as he stood with a shell shocked expression as several thoughts ran rampant in his already clouded mind.

'Maybe these limits of beasts appear because their mana cores are filled with impurities, hindering them from 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 on Jason's face was even more apparent...

`What happens when one would give their soulbond items to purify their mana core??`

He couldn't break the chain of wild thoughts that ran through his mind and felt that most of them were utter garbage, while some other thoughts could be described as having some worth.

`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.