by William Hill
After he finished his purchase, Jason decided to look up some other information while laying on his bed.
His knowledge was vast compared to his peers, but considering the fact that he couldn't see previously, Jason lacked many things.
He knew many beasts by their names, characteristics, and habits but he couldn't classify them if he only saw a picture.
Furthermore, his combat prowess was awful as he remembered the Azure feisty Ape martial art but only a single sequence at that.
It was like Jason opened the book of a single page which he repeated one after another.
The page's content would provide him any information which he could apply straightforwardly.
However, the issue would be, not understanding what the content means would be like studying without being able to apply the learned formula with marginal changes.
Jason understood the Azure feisty Apes first sequence including the Mana flow inside his body but he had never fought with anyone before.
His body was also on the weaker side as he was still malnourished and only a 2nd Novice rank.
There were many things to overcome for Jason but he had to take one step at a time and the first thing he did was opening the holographic screen of his quantum watch to continue reading the beastarium.
Rather than randomly looking at beasts and their characteristics, Jason chose the section about a one-star wild zone next to the Artes city.
Wild zones range from one star to four stars while each rank represented one beast rank.
One-star wild zones are mostly infested by wild-ranked beasts and two-star wild zones have mostly awakened beats.
Above the wild zones were magic beast zones which don't really matter to Jason right now as it was far away from him.
One-star wild zones are also called training zones for most highschoolers as almost no human would be endangered while fighting against wild beasts.
The youths of Jason's age had on average the strength to defeat one-star awakened beasts because their rank was around the 8th Novice with a one-star awakened beast cub as soulbond on average which gave them some nice strength, increasing their combat prowess.
With a slightly decent comprehension ability and decently learned combat techniques through good instructions, wild beasts would be an easy pie for them.
But to learn about the characteristics of beasts and their bloodlust combined with their instincts one had to face their fear of dying.
Killing a living organism was completely different than ordering meat or something comparable and fighting a life and death battle couldn't be handled by every youth.
Some people had no problem killing wild beasts while others fainted or peed their pants even if they had a big advantage in combat prowess.
Jason however had a huge disadvantage against most wild beasts like his low rank, the non-existing amplification of his soulbond at the moment, and his lacking combat abilities.
He wasn't sure how high his amplification he would get from his soulbond in the future but even if his beautiful soul had an extraordinary high amplification it wouldn't be useful as the snowflake owl was a one-star wild beast.
Thinking about his shortcomings Jason frowned while he continued reading the beastarium.
Chapter 20: Hatching!
Jason tried to distract himself while reading some news about Astrix island as he wanted to research if he had a chance to enter a high-school with his score.
Thinking about his non-existent combat experience or knowledge, he opened the federation network.
Jason searched for martial arts instructors and their prices only to find out that it was extremely expensive.
Entering a high school would be cheaper than having a few lessons by these instructors but Jason's final exam wasn't good enough to enter a decent one.
He could apply for his blindness remark to get removed but that wouldn't solve his problem.
Looking at his exam results at his profile Jason was slightly embarrassed
'Theoretical Exam 100/100 Points
Practical Exam 34/100 Points
Blood test: Passed, Remark: Blind
Mana Core rank: 2nd Novice -40/100
Soul awakening: ★★ /★★★★★'
His soul-awakening rating was also a bad joke.
The old man was probably generous because nobody with his soul energy would get two stars as a rating.
Or maybe the old man was too astonished about his soul world which blurred his mind.
He had around 130.000 Credits left and he had to survive with this money for a certain amount of time until he could earn money himself.
Hunters are well paid and even hunting wild beasts gave some credits as they infested the areas around cities and endangered them even with their low rank.
Their population was way too large which is also the reason why one-star wild zones are used for middle-schools to train their students.
The only good thing about these beasts was that their hide, tendons, claws, meat, and so on could be used by poor people.
Average households would never buy clothes made out of wild-ranked beasts as the beast hide wasn't comfortable to wera and didn't look good enough, to begin with.
There were only a few rare beasts with comfortable fur, wealthier households would purchase, which would in return increase the price for such beasts.
Protection garments out of wild-ranked beasts were also useless as normal grade-1 weapons could slash through them like butter.
Nevertheless, a wild beast carcass could get up to 25 Credits if one was extremely lucky, which was already a decent bounty for such weak beasts if one assumes that normal workers earned 1500 Credits per month on average, considering that they didn´t do anything special.
Through Jason´s mind rattled many thoughts, while he researched Martial arts instructors.
In the end, he found an interesting website with many martial arts video clips online from Martial Heaven.
Martial Heaven is an online platform that was even approved by the federation.
The Website provided online instructions about all kinds of martial art techniques including martial arts about every kind of element.
After registering an account with his ID and inputting his rank and other information, a selection window popped up, where Jason could select the weapon he wanted to use.
If he wanted to, Jason could even include what type of elemental affinity the martial techniques should focus on.
Furthermore, Jason could also select his requirements and much more information.
Registering at Martial Heaven cost 100 Credits a month which was a fair price because Jason saw a few hundred free Videos included in his membership.
Looking through the Videos Jason found out that most of them were like tutorials leading to a playlist of pay to watch Videos.
After that, Jason wanted to throw a fit but he was reminded again that most martial arts were uploaded by normal common people trying to make some pocket money while sharing their tips and tricks.
Searching through some free videos Jason found a whole free playlist about a technique provided by the federation he was already familiar with.
[Azure feisty Ape]. Looking at the first sequence Jason found out that he had remembered everything correctly but there was a small problem.
Jason couldn´t clearly see the mana flow through the holographic screen.
It felt somewhat blurred and focusing his eyes on the mana flow, his eyes began to hurt slightly.
There wasn´t anything he could do about it so he just binge-watched the videos one after another without focusing his gaze at the mana flow.
Even then Jason made huge progress by only seeing the instructions made by the middle-aged Instructor in front of the camera.
`Seeing that is definitely better than solely surveying the mana flow" Jason thought and many hours passed unknown to him.
He was still lying on his bed re-rewatching the Instructions about the Azur
e feisty ape technique when he heard a cracking next to him.
The Mana stones that were previously thick dark blue color turned into brighter blue and looking at the amount of mana stored inside them Jason was astonished.
More than half of the stored mama was used up and the egg began to shake violently, while small cracks started to appear on the shell.
Jason´s mood heightened immediately, as the atmosphere turned delightful when the cracks deepened.
The shell burst open, only to reveal a small puffed up owl chick with small tipsy eyes, looking at Jason with its black button-like eyes.
After shacking of the remaining eggshells it looked at the mana stones before it toddled towards Jason as fast as it could, throwing itself into his embrace.
Jason felt the owl chick´s happiness inside himself as they shared each other's emotions, turning himself even more happy as he already was.
Holding the fist-sized chick, Jason remembered that he had to give it a name.
'Is it a boy or a girl??' Jason wasn't sure which gender the owl cub belonged to as an thought was transmitted into his mind, telling him that the owl chick was a female.
Thinking about a few female names, he told the little owl chick some of them, but Jason felt that she would reject each of them.
If he had to be honest, his naming sense was horrible, probably even worse than the worst name generator humanity had.
After a long time, Jason's head began to hurt slightly and he subconsciously entered the soul world inside his mind.
He saw a small feeble string struggling to stay strong between the snowflake owl's soul print as Jason saw an illusionary forest, moon, and a cloaked archer hunting something.
Connecting all together a single word appeared in his mind 'Artemis'.
Without knowing what's going on in his small soul world or how he could think of such a name the small owl chick chirped delighted and Jason felt that she liked this name.
"So it's Artemis." Jason thought smiling lovingly at his soulbond.
The color she radiated was not as feeble as before and much stronger which made Jason even happier but he was still unable to decipher the color somehow.
It felt as if each color was inside it but also somehow not.
Luckily Jason found out about the mana deficit and Professor Gray's theory was also valid so Jason had no reason to be sad.
It was only afternoon, but Jason felt extremely exhausted while his whole body ached when he fell asleep while holding Artemis in his hand.
Chapter 21: Practicing Martial arts
It was early in the morning and the first sunlight entered his new apartment when a black-haired youth holding a small owl chick woke up.
He rubbed his dreamy eyes with his empty hand when noticed something was in his other hand.
Remembering what happened the day before Jason knew that it was his soulbond Artemis.
Smiling happily, he looked at the sleeping owl.
Jason wasn't sure when she slept in but there was something particular in his room that changed overnight and this change surprised him a lot.
The mana stones that were still shining feeble yesterday were now indistinguishable from normal stones.
There was not a single trace of mana left inside them and Jason activated his eye, only to see that the radiating color of Artemis seemed to be stronger than the day before.
From the outer appearance, Jason didn't notice any difference, but its white plumage was shining brightly.
Comparing Artemis with a normal snowflake owl chick, Artemis' small size was the only noticeable thing that remained.
Jason wasn't sure how exactly evolutions or mutations worked but he trusted his eyes which told him that Artemis was a treasure.
The only thing he had to find out was how to grind the potential out of her.
He already came up with a theory in his mind.
Jason had even read some theories about evolutions from beast creators and the development of mutations so there were more than enough things to try out
But to test most theories, Jason needed more credits as they were either expensive and as if that was not enough, they seemed to be extremely dangerous, so Jason had to prepare himself.
Hunting beasts is considered as one of the top-paid jobs and becoming a Hunter would solve Jason's problems.
However, first, he had to prepare himself mentally and physically.
Considering his fighting strength right now, fighting a one-star wild beast after some martial arts practice shouldn't be that difficult, maybe even hunting two-star wild beasts might be possible.
The most important thing he had to do now was to train his body, solving his malnutrition by eating more, raising up Artemis, and practicing martial arts.
Two out of the four matters were relatively easy and could be solved without any problems.
Eating and training his body would be easy while he was still unsure about Artemis's mutation or what she would have to eat.
About martial arts practice, Jason decided to memorize the Azure feisty Ape technique and learn it, until he reached the techniques´ limit.
He wasn't sure if he could ask Greg to spar with him but after a second thought, he rejected this though as Greg was at the 2nd Adept ranked with a non-elemental soulbond that would most likely increase his physique tremendously.
Jason wouldn't be able to handle a single blow and it would be impossible to figure out the flaws in his technique while being K.Oed with a single hit.
Disregarding this thought, Jason looked at the video clips of the Azure feisty Ape technique while he waited for Artemis to wake up.
But even hours later she wouldn't wake up and Jason got worried so he shook her slightly.
Still being dreamy Artemis woke up with a bad temper and Jason was sorry for her.
Artemis understood Jason's feelings because of the connection between them but she was still tired.
Jason was confused as newborns would normally be more active and he got more worried thinking about the possible illness she could have.
Artemis transmitted one of her memories which displayed her absorbing the remaining mana inside the Mana stones and her falling asleep afterward.
Seeing this memory Jason was astonished.
It wasn't common for wild-ranked beasts to be so intelligent and to be even able to transmit memories between each other was an astonishing feat.
Sensing that everything was okay about Artemis, Jason calmed down slightly.
He could also sense that Artemis was satiated as if she ate a whole titan pig alone, reassuring him in his worries about her food.
Artemis was still sleepy but before she fell asleep a small white magic circle appeared below her, as she went inside Jason, appearing inside his soul world.
Within the soul world, Artemis fell asleep peacefully.
Jason stood up from his bed, walking around the apartment thinking about Artemis's weird behavior.
It was weird but everything was based on the mana stones and Jason had a bad premonition.
He hoped his assumption was false, otherwise, he had to face some financial problems.
'Please don't let her mutation be stimulated by mana or even worse a solely pure mana digestion...'
She wasn't even a one-star wild beast at the moment and consumed three mana stones with the stored amount of mana, three human experts could store inside them or in other words 150.000 credits.
And she hatched less than a day ago.
Jason wasn't sure how long she would sleep to digest these three small mana stones but there weren't many credits left in his bank account!
At most Jason would be able to purchase two mana stones.
He sincerely hoped that Artemis would be able to eat other things with smaller amounts of mana.
Jason would even buy higher-graded Beast meat to saturate Artemis but right now Jason was too frightened by the worst-case scenario.
Feeling depressed Jason had to think of a w
ay to earn more money, and the most efficient way for him would be hunting.
As such, Jason decided to diligently train the Azure feisty Ape technique, before he would continue doing anything else.
He moved away some furniture to make some space for him to train.
Looking at one video at a time and repeating the same moves done by the Instructor over and over again.
Repeating the few sequences the videos provided, Jason found out that he made some mistakes because it felt different than the first sequence, where he saw the instructor with his mana flow at school.
Trying to find his flaws Jason started to record his practice.
After each sequence, he looked at the recordings only to find out that his movements were completely misplaced.
Figuring out the flaws after rewatching everything multiple times, Jason tried to fix them slowly.
In the evening when the sun went down Jason laid on the ground full of sweat and not able to move with a satisfied expression blossomed on his face.
His stomach growled and he ordered something to get delivered over his phone after he noticed that he hadn't eaten anything over the whole day.
He had completely memorized how the Azure feisty Ape technique should look and comparing his moves with his memories it was easy to pick out the flaws.
But Jason didn't know that his excellent eyesight played a huge role in finding the flaws as some of them were only marginal and difficult to spot.
Even the marginal flaws played a big role in the whole picture.
In the end, Jason learned the technique better and more efficiently than others.
The only small problem he had with the second sequence was to reconstruct the perfect mana flow but his extraordinary senses, mana control and accuracy were actually very helpful here.
Three days passed without much change and Jason was within his apartment the whole time.
Artemis was still sleeping inside the soul world but the connections between both of them was still strong, lively and it felt like it grew more attached to each other every passing day
Jason felt that Artemis was fine so he didn't worry much about her.
