The advantage of resources!
The advantage of resources!
He wasn't sure if he would be able to break through until the next day, but Jason wanted to give it a try.
The only thing he wanted to do in between was practicing the Heaven's Hell technique.
Jason retrieved a bunch of grade-1 mana stones, and Scorpio jumped around happily on his shoulder before he leaped on his lap.
Without any further delay, Scorpio curled up and began absorbing the released mana.
Looking at this, Jason smiled joyously and began to loosen countless threads from the mana stones around him at the same time.
As he led the mana within the stones towards him in addition to the mana in his surroundings, a huge mass of foreign mana invaded his mana channels.
Circulating the mana within his cleansed channels was much easier after undergoing the baptism but the sheer amount of mana that invaded him was also higher. Thus, he was forced to focus completely on circulating the mana within him before he injected it into his mana core to annex it.
The feeling of circulating mana and annexing it into his mana core made Jason ecstatic and it was even better compared to the day.
Being surrounded by trees within nature, and absorbing nature's mana besides the compressed mana within mana stones was refreshing and Jason immediately felt much more vigorous than before.
Jason didn't even know how much time had passed and he only subconsciously noticed the sunset.
His initial plan had been to practice the heaven's hell technique, but that was unimportant for Jason right now, as he felt his body being slowly filled up with the mana in his surroundings. The addictive feeling enveloped him, filling his eyes with desire.
Instead of channelizing the entire mana into his mana core, Jason also decided to fill up his mana eyes more, which he had previously neglected.
But that would change now.
With thousands of mana stones inside his spatial store, he had more than enough mana to fill his mana core along with his eyes to a certain extent.
Furthermore, it had only been a week since he had entered the Adept rank and with his cleansed mana channels, his passive mana gathering technique helped him quickly replenish his mana core.
It only took him a week to reach the barrier between the 1st and the 2nd Adept rank, which was extremely fast.
Normally one would need roughly a few months to reach each of the first three Adept ranks, considering that one possessed an average mana aptitude.
There were always differences between each individual's aptitude and strength that corresponded to the difference in the duration required to cross a threshold.
In addition to the mana aptitude, the amplification received from beasts was also an important factor as one had to fill a much larger mana core caused by the soul world´s amplification that led to an increase in its size.
An average youth needed slightly more than three to four years to advance from the novice to the adept rank. The initial phase was the most difficult with exploring the meaning of mana, how it worked, and how to circulate it without damaging the mana channels, while the average age for children to sense mana was 10.
Most children couldn't understand the importance of mana, as such, they were rather callous with their mana absorption until they realized its importance and regretted their foolish behavior someday.
After one had entered the Adept rank, someone with an average mana aptitude would need roughly five years to enter the Expert rank.
Going forward, their range of an average mana aptitude changed over time and it was unknown how long one would need to ascend to further ranks.
It was nearly impossible to research and quantify the exact amplification of soulbonds, but it amazed Jason, that he'd only needed a week to almost completely fill his mana core at the 1st Adept rank that had a size of a 4th Adept rank.
Maybe it was only due to baptism, but Jason estimated that his next breakthrough would take much longer, considering that not only would his mana core increase in size thanks to him entering the 2nd Adept rank soon, but Artemis' evolution would also play a big role.
Artemis' evolution was still a mystery for Jason, but he was already excitedly waiting for her to come back to him.
Jason was still carefully circulating the mana within his mana channels and injecting it into his mana core while he didn't even realize that it had already grown dark.
Only when the mana he absorbed from the outside lessened, Jason opened his eyes once again.
The mana stones around him turned gray and couldn´t be differentiated from normal stones anymore.
Messaging the Flers, he notified them that he wouldn't return home tonight, because he believed that he would be able to break through into the 2nd Adept rank if he worked hard enough for the next few hours.
Taking a glance at Scorpio, Jason saw with astonishment, that Scorpio´s exoskeleton gleamed faintly. He immediately activated his mana eyes and was taken aback to see an almost invisible small affinity seed being constructed.
'This small fella is working hard, let´s also work hard!!' Jason thought while he looked affectionately at Scorpio.
Taking out double the amount of grade-1 mana stones than before, Jason once again loosened up mana threads, leading them right into him.
Groaning due to the sudden surge of mana, he immediately began to sweat, but with the help of his passive mana gathering and refining technique, actively absorbing the mana was much easier.
As such he adjusted to the overload of mana pretty quickly before Jason once again lost track of time.
He had even completely forgotten to practice the Heaven's Hell technique which was rather important.
The overflowing mana made his determination to absorb it increase even more, and Jason smoothly absorbed it into his mana core after he circulated it carefully through his mana veins.
It was almost an effortless movement, without much time wasted and the suction force utilized by Jason slowly accelerated.
The mana in his surroundings began to envelop him, separating him from the outside world.
It continued to compress around Jason, making it look like a mana cocoon upon closer inspection.
While the cocoon grew in size, Jason greedily absorbed the mana from within, without feeling even remotely tired.
Hours passed and the sun began to ascend, shining on a paper-thin cocoon, which enveloped Jason.
An even thinner membrane of impurities stuck to Jason's clothes and it was mostly the impurities his body generated after the baptism.
Opening his eyes slowly, Jason's golden eyes flicked vigorously and a tiny black flame shimmered far in the back, demanding to grow stronger as it sensed more and more soul energy within Jason´s soul world core.
Standing up, he noticed the thin film of impurities enveloping him.
He didn't take off his clothes but turned into a black burning torch in order to ignite the impurities sticking to him which immediately incinerated like his clothes.
With this, he wouldn't have to wash up immediately.
Looking at the quantum watch, he noticed a few messages and also the time.
It was 5 am and Jason nodded his head.
Inspecting his own body, he could only laugh out loud, while still being naked.
He had reached the 2nd Adept rank only one week after he had entered the 1st Adept rank which could only be described as fast.
Even though he noticed that his mana core wouldn't be able to keep up with this speed, he was still extremely proud of his achievement.
After inspecting the size of his mana core, Jason knew that he was infinitely close to the 5th Adept rank, while his physique was also extremely close to the 5th Adept rank.
Scorpio woke up from its affinity seed construction because Jason had mistakenly thrown him from his lap.
Seeing his master laugh while being naked was a funny sight and Scorpio transmitted what he saw to Jason.
As if struck by lightning, he immediately stopped moving.
Clothes appeared out of his spatial ring and he wore them, without caring about Scorpio´s weird sounds, who was trying to imitate a laughter in his mind.
Ignoring Scorpio, Jason entered the soul world as nonchalantly as possible.
There was only a thin sheet of mana and snowflakes around Artemis and Jason could faintly see Artemis´ outlines which didn't seem to have changed that much.
'Soon!' Jason thought happily, as he went closer to his soul world core, which had increased by one unit thanks to him breaking into the 2nd Adept rank.
With a soul energy of 18.2 units, Jason practiced the Heaven's Hell technique within 84 minutes, increasing it once again by 0.1 units.
It was already 6:30 am, and before Jason did anything else, he replied to the messages from the Flers group chat.
Everyone had the same question and had been worrying about him staying outside and only now did he reply that he had cultivated through the night which eased the others' worries a lot.
It was not as if Jason was related to them but he felt comfortable around the Flers, even though he knew almost nothing about them.
Jason knew that it might be foolish but it warmed his heart to think that they had been worried about him.
Even Mark had begun to care about Jason since Jason's last unannounced night out was imprinted in his mind.
After the incident, Mark had researched about the devilish valkyrie-shield fruit, and the extremely shallow information he could find was devastating. It made him feel sorry for Jason, who had to endure such a terrible thing.
Mark also felt that Jason´s ambition and determination were incomparable to anyone he knew, including his daughter. Malia was a genius, but even she wasn't as ambitious to grow stronger as Jason.
As such, each unannounced stay away from home would not only worry Mark but all the family members, even though they wouldn't know what was going on.
They tried to distract themselves by reading books, absorbing mana, and sparring with each other but it was only partially helpful.
Sensing the Flers' genuine love and care for him, he felt honored and warmth spread in his heart.
He swore to himself that he would share more details with them the next time he would have to stay away from home, even though he couldn't tell them everything as he would probably stay with Shane and Dalia sometimes.
As such, a slight feeling of guilt built up within Jason, before anything even happened.
Suddenly, Jason´s whole body cooled down and he shivered while his temperature decreased, visibly changing his appearance.
The surrounding temperature plummeted by a few degrees and a confused expression appeared on Jason´s face, as his soul world began to shake violently.
"Little Princess, are you already done?" Jason thought with a bright smile on his ice-cold face.
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