Waking up early in the morning like every day, Jason washed up and changed into a new set of clothes.
It was a set routine for him but somehow today felt different.
Jason′s eye itched and his muscles ached while his whole body shivered.
It was uncomfortable and slightly painful but Jason was still smiling as he felt something happening inside his soul world.
Artemis was waking up and Jason thought his body aching was the result of her sharing some of her strength, even if it wasn't much.
Jason's mana core grew almost one-third in size while his body went through a small change.
After a soulbond was formed, it took a certain amount of time to strengthen the connection.
This time was important as it allowed the master and the soulbond beast to get to know each other and after the connection was strengthened enough the beast would share some of its strength with the master.
The shared amount was determined by one's soul and this couldn't be changed even if the soulbond beast wanted to give its contractor more strength or mana.
While his body was in pain two things astonished Jason a lot.
Artemis woke up after almost two weeks and she was already completely grown up.
With a wingspan of 80 centimeters and a length of 30 centimeters, the snow-white Artemis looked almost like a normal snowflake owl except for her smaller stature and the fact that she previously digested pure mana.
But the most surprising fact was that his mana core grew so much in size.
According to normal standards, his mana core should only grow a little bit, at most 5% to 10% because one-star wild beasts don't possess much mana but Jason's mana core grew almost a third which was probably a shared amount of around 1/3.
Jason was still only at the 2nd Novice rank close to the 3rd rank and his mana core was previously only at the same rank but now it was larger than that and comparable to 3rd Novice rank mana cores.
Not only his mana core grew so much, but even Jason′s physique increased quite a lot.
When his body stopped itching and the pain subsided, he could feel that his physique also increased slightly less than 1/3.
The highest increase was however his body structure and Jason felt much lighter and more flexible.
Thinking about the increase he was once again reminded that Artemis was an agile beast type which was the cause for his priority enhancement on speed, flexibility, and so on.
Apparently, his soul would share around 1/3 of a beast's strength/mana/soul energy to the contractor which was more than three times the best average of 10%, which was seen as exceptional.
Seeing the shared amount was so big, Jason was happy that his soul was special even if his soul energy was weak.
Considering the fact that he could grow slowly with Artemis, once she evolved his power would soar.
Thinking about his soul he was reminded about the soul-awakening and it still felt that there was some space left and the previous feeling about his soul being incomplete confused him.
After waking up, Artemis left the soul world and she appeared in front of Jason inside a white magic circle.
She could already fly and flapped her wings to reach Jason's shoulder where she sat down.
After that, she rubbed her head at Jason's cheek showering him with her love.
While patting her Jason ate breakfast.
Artemis wasn't hungry and Jason felt that she was still full but to prepare himself for the worst case scenario Jason ordered another small mana stone for 50.000 Credits.
From his whole fortune, only 50.000 Credits were left.
It was 8 am when Jason went outside with Artemis on his shoulder.
He called a shuttle, like always, and went on his way to the one-star wild zone.
Before that Jason sold the carcasses of the seven beasts he killed, gaining him a huge fortune of 14 Credits.
Keeping the carcasses would probably be better than selling them but Jason had no use for them at the moment and their body would only rot in his spatial storage.
Without an integrated cooling system, meat and other food would only get bad inside the storage so it was better to sell it than wasting the beast's death.
Jason was really uncomfortable around crowds of people and he rushed out of the shop he sold the carcasses as soon as possible while avoiding eye contact with everyone.
Artemis was looking at the beast corpses when Jason took them out but there was only marginal interest in them and nothing much for her as she was saturated.
Continuing his journey Jason stepped through the dome once again 40 minutes later.
Jason pondered if he should set up a tent for the next few days as he had to waste a lot of time driving back and forth.
Adding the price for the shuttle each time, Jason decided to buy a tent and other necessities in the evening.
Today he was much more comfortable to fight than the day before and his confidence reached a new high as his combat prowess increased due to fixing some of his flaws.
He wanted to try fighting a two-star wild beast and looking around for two hours Jason found a solo two-star fanged coyote.
Sneaking up to the fanged coyote Jason was much calmer than the day before but he was still noticed around 20 meters away from his prey and Jason changed his position into a sprint without hesitation.
But he still didn't use his mana as he had learned that the amount of mana he possessed was too small and could only hold out for a short moment.
Wasting mana? Not with me!
Even if his mana core increased in size the stored amount was still marginal compared to his average pals.
Seeing Jason running up to it, the fanged coyote's eye turned bloodthirsty.
Charging at Jason with it full speed it was faster than the human.
Pouncing at him, Jason was slightly astonished to see that his eyesight was better than the day before.
But there was no time to think about that right now as the coyote's claws were only a short distance apart from Jason's chest.
Seeing the attack clearly, Jason used a little bit of his mana to reinforce his feet and ankles and stopped within a minuscule amount of time causing the claw to miss its target.
It wasn't healthy to stop abruptly out of a full sprint for the ankles and feet but the mana-enhancement protected him from suffering serious injuries as he pierced out with his dagger, aiming at the shoulder.
The dagger pierced easily into the coyote's shoulder, only to stop slightly at the obstacle, also called bones.
But with his grade-1 dagger, bones of a two-star wild beast were comparable to thin sticks, and the bones shattered without much resistance, killing the coyote.
Jason's hand was deep inside the dead coyote's shoulder and even if he had made up his mind about killing beasts…that was too much.
This situation was still disgusting and he had to use some force to pull out his hand with the dagger gripped firmly.
Until now Artemis was still on Jason's shoulder but after killing the coyote it jumped off and used its talons to open up its chest.
Pulling out a pebble-sized black core that radiated some mana, Artemis picked it up and gulped it down.
Magical beasts have mana cores while every beast below them has uncompleted cores.
Wild beasts don't even have a core and when they absorbed mana a black pebble would slowly form.
The black color came from the impurities inside the incomplete mana core and they had to be removed before a beast could enter the next rank or another beast could eat the incomplete core of its prey
Once a wild beast reached the awakened rank or evolved the core would slowly begin to begin form and it was called awakened core.
The evolved beast finished forming the core while unblemished beasts refined their core and finally when a Beast reached the magical beast rank a complete mana core was formed.
Humans were lucky as their mana core was formed since birth and they didn't have to struggle like beasts.