Four days passed and Jason was excessively exhausted.
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 the trip began and it was necessary in his opinion.
It was taxing on his body to practice the Heaven's Hell manual three times a day for 30 minutes, practicing his knife-throwing skills and trying to learn the passive mana gathering technique without anyone's help.
He also wrote some messages to Greg and Malia, who added him, with questions and sometimes only to chat a little bit, which released his tension by a large margin.
Because solely learning how to passively replenish his mana was boring but also taxing on his mind, Jason was also out, hunting wild beast cores for Artemis.
His whole day was scheduled like a machine without many breaks except four hours of sleep and in total twenty minutes to eat.
But today, changed Jason′s whole worldview, 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 infinitely close.
Unknown to Jason and most other youth′s inside the one-star wild zone, a small number of a few hundred awakened beasts, from the two-star wild zone around the corner, tried to migrate between the borders of their two-star wild zone and this one-star wild zone at the beginning of the week and nobody knew, why that was the case.
However more importantly 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 forgot something even more precious.
The awakened beasts that tried to migrate into the one-star wild zones were lesser elemental foxes and there was something special about this race that made out a huge difference compared to normal fox′s
For other fox races their mating season is at the beginning of the year while their offsprings are born two months later, but for lesser elemental foxes it's different.
Their mating season is situated between May and June which means that right now somewhere in this one-star wild zone could be a fox burrow with many lesser elemental fox cubs and an Idea formed in Jason′s mind
It was common knowledge that foxes give birth to 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 began to grow inside him and it began to enlarge as he was in 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 searching for half a day for them.
He could only find the burrow with the help of his Mana eyes and more importantly was, that a greater horned wolf was trying to break into it, probably because he sensed a large amount of mana, which these cubs already radiated.
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 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 looked at the greater-horned wolf, that looked like he was possessed. Previously he wondered why Artemis was able to break through her racial limits but he thought it was because of her mutation, but maybe it was really because she was able to absorb abnormal amounts of mana that helped her to improve her strength faster than normal beasts would do and the possibility to construct a mana core?!
Jason had never seen a beast with a higher rank than it should have 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 many difficulties? Were his 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 marginal 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 met their possible limit.
Each magical beast had the chance to reach the peak-magical beast rank but reaching the following 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 exceptional large burrow and absorbed all of their mana and digested their more developed incomplete awakened 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 dagger unsheated.
While one three-hit their target, one of them injured the wolf greatly.
But nonetheless, the five-star wolf was way too deep inside the burrow ravaging the entrance and at the same time deep in thoughts about the prey in front of it and it only noticed the pain, when it was already too late.
A shadow covered the sunlight and a clean cut through the neck killed the obsessive greater-horned wolf.
Only a moment later Artemis dived onto its body to take out its five-star wild beast core, before Jason could do anything
While Artemis 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 danced out of line with her unique mutation.
`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??`
Standing still, while thinking, Jason was extremely lucky that no beasts could be seen nearby and a shocked expression appeared on his mind as thoughts ran wild.
`Maybe these limits of beasts appear because their mana cores are full of impurities hindering them in 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 in Jason′s face was even more apparent...
`What happens when one would give their soulbond items to purify their mana core??`
Wild thoughts ran through Jason′s mind and most of them were total garbage, while some other thoughts could be described as useful.
`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.