Two weeks passed since the black origin flame started to establish the fortified soul conjunction with him and it used up around 6,000 soul energy units to finish this project which caused almost unbearable pain.
Jason's body was burning from the insides every single day….at least it felt like that to him, even if he knew that it was phantom pain transmitted from the burned soul energy and the construction of the fortified soul conjunction.
He never heard of a beast or sentient being that burned soul energy to do something like that, which felt weird to Jason..
However, more astonishing was that establishing the fortified soul conjunction took the black origin flame only two weeks and 6,000 soul energy units which was the amount his three soulbonds required...together.
It was sad to see that his hard work was burned, but it had a use which was more important!
As such, Jason was still satisfied, even if his soul energy decreased to 13,500 units after the two weeks passed.
In his opinion was his effort definitely worth the benefits he would obtain through the fortified soul conjunction.
With that in mind, there was no way for him to feel disappointed or even frustrated with his decreased soul energy units.
Shortly before the fortified soul conjunction was established, Jason broke into the 3rd Expert rank, enlarging his vessel by a small margin.
At the same time, it decreased the negligible amount of pain his soulbonds' amplified strength caused.
During the last two weeks, he couldn't feel the pain of his vessel that was at its limits because the black origin flame made a mess with his soul world and mind.
However, it was still better to be careful about every possibility!
Only thanks to Artemis and Scorpio that transferred a majority of his pain, to themselves, could Jason get the hang of himself and focus on his other tasks which were absorbing mana, refining his body, forging, and concocting potions en masse.
Forging bars and concocting potions was fortunately not restricted due to the construction of the fortified soul conjunction which would have been quite bad because his shop was making huge profits.
There was not even a change after he increased the prices as they were still considered fair.
If a blacksmith forged a single pseudo-mana grade-1 weapon out of a perfectly purified Jade-Iron bar for 250,000 Credits, one could make a profit of more than 250,000 Credits.
This included only blacksmiths that could barely forge pseudo-mana weapons and not veteran blacksmiths.
Veteran blacksmiths were able to rake a huge profit from his cheap goods.
Purchasing a perfectly purified komatite bar in addition to the Jade-Iron bar, one was able to make Jadetite, which could be used to forge a mana weapon.
A mana weapon that was forged by a proper blacksmith could be sold with a 10-fold profit compared to the price the Golden-Soul shop demanded for purified bars.
Blacksmiths wouldn't have to bother about perfectly purifying ores which was the most difficult to do, perfectly.
It was not much of a problem to purify ores up to 80%, but above that, it became more difficult and time-consuming.
The latter was also the reason for most blacksmiths to pick more expensive ores that didn't have to be purified to forge a mana weapon.
As such, many blacksmiths demanded his goods, while the same applied for Hunters, influential families, clans, and merchants who wanted to purchase not only his perfectly purified bars but also potions to use them for themselves or sell them to other cities.
Once Jason found this out, he made an announcement limiting the purchasable number of goods for a single person to a certain number to prevent this.
This caused a small commotion but after he said that he might as well increase the prices, everything quieted down.
He had already issues providing enough grade-1 potions and bars for his shop and he still had to improve every single day.
During the last two weeks, he started to purify his first few grade-2 ores and it worked better than estimated.
That was until he reached a purity of 90%.
After that, it was much more difficult to draw out the small pieces of impurity from the ore because they were in a complex situation or sometimes even enveloped by the ore's mana veins.
When that happened, he had to be even more careful and in most cases, he failed miserably.
However, this motivated Jason rather than disappointing him!
Working hard, it was one day, when Jason began to ask himself how foreign races ranked their weapons.
There was no information provided about this inside the two Terra-grade manuals that were in his possession, and he couldn't really figure it out without asking someone.
But who could he ask such a thing? Someone from a foreign race? That would be suicidal!
As such, Jason just told himself that the cultivation ranking was also used to grade weapons.
After his fortified soul conjunction was finally completed, Jason was hopeful that his black origin flame would finally evolve.
However, that didn't seem to be the case and the only thing that changed was that he and the black origin flame were closely tied to each other.
Jason could use his black fire affinity much better than before and his accuracy in determining heat increased by a large margin.
Thanks to that, he was able to start mass-producing potions much better because he had to use between 9 to 15 flames at the same temperature and time to accomplish this.
To mass-produce potions, one could either use a large cauldron or an oversized, rectangular beaker.
He chose to use the latter which required more flames to be used at once because everything had to be heated equally and not a minuscule fluctuation in its temperature was allowed.
Otherwise, the ingredients might deteriorate!
One flame could have been enough for that, but the center, where the flame would be situated, would be more heated up than the outer areas.
As such, Jason decided to go all-in as he wanted to receive the best results.
With a huge beaker that was 40cm in length, more than 20cm in width, and almost 20cm in height, he was confident in concocting more than a hundred potions at once as long as he didn't do a single mistake.
This was also the biggest issue he had at hand!
One mistake and everything would be for naught!
However, Dalia told him to practice mass concoction of grade-1 potions at least once before he would start concocting more complex grade-2 potions because the latter was only slightly more difficult but the ingredients price was different, by a lot.
If Jason had to estimate it, he could mass concoct grade-1 potions one time to have the same costs as concocting 10 more complex low-grade-2 potions.
The ratio was 1:10 under normal circumstances and Jason began to ask himself why he shouldn't directly concoct grade-2 potions.
He could concoct 10 times a grade-2 potion or mass concocting one time when Dalia explained to him that he not only had to refill his stockpile of grade-1 potions but that he could also vary the difficulty of mass-concocting by purifying it more or less.
If that was not motivating enough, Dalia also revealed that he could earn much more from mass-producing high-quality grade-1 potions than a few grade-2 potions
Grade-2 potions were more sensible and she wanted Jason to learn everything one step after another.
In the end, he couldn't complain about it because he wanted to mass-concoct grade-1 potions either way.
As such he only nodded his head when Dalia said this.
With his fortified soul conjunction, Jason was confident in mass-concocting without many issues as he summoned 12 small black flames that had the exact same temperature.
However, before he could even start with anything, his body ignited in black flames without warning while his black origin flame was doing nothing at all to initiate such a phenomenon.
It was not painful, but Jason was still shocked to see this as he received a transmitted thought from the origin flame
'Soul energy!'
"It still wants MORE soul energy? Do you want to suck me dry???" Was the only thing Shane could mumble visibly uncomfortable that he couldn't increase his soul energy for other purposes.